1923	----	None 
33466	----	THE SOCIAL GANGSTER THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON Copyright, 1916, by HARPER & BROTHERS Printed in the United States of America [Illustration: JUST BEFORE WE WERE OFF A TELEGRAM CAME TO HER, WHICH SHE READ AND HASTILY STUFFED INTO A POCKET OF HER RIDING HABIT] CONTENTS I. THE SOCIAL GANGSTER II. THE CABARET ROUGE III. THE FOX HUNT IV. THE TANGO THIEF V. THE "THÉ DANSANT" VI. THE SERUM DIAGNOSIS VII. THE DIAMOND QUEEN VIII. THE ANESTHETIC VAPORIZER IX. THE TWILIGHT SLEEP X. THE SIXTH SENSE XI. THE INFERNAL MACHINES XII. THE SUBMARINE BELL XIII. THE SUPER-TOXIN XIV. THE SECRET AGENTS XV. THE GERM OF ANTHRAX XVI. THE SLEEPMAKER XVII. THE INTER-URBAN HANDICAP XVIII. THE TOXIN OF FATIGUE XIX. THE X-RAY DETECTIVE XX. THE MECHANICAL CONNOISSEUR XXI. THE RADIOGRAPH WITNESS XXII. THE ABSOLUTE ZERO XXIII. THE VACUUM BOTTLE XXIV. THE SOLAR PLEXUS XXV. THE DEMON ENGINE XXVI. THE ELECTROLYSIS CLEW XXVII. THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE XXVIII. THE CANCER HOUSE XXIX. THE QUACK DOCTORS XXX. THE FILTERABLE VIRUS XXXI. THE VOODOO MYSTERY XXXII. THE FLUORISCINE TEST XXXIII. THE RESPIRATION CALORIMETER XXXIV. THE EVIL EYE XXXV. THE BURIED TREASURE XXXVI. THE WEED OF MADNESS THE SOCIAL GANGSTER CHAPTER I THE SOCIAL GANGSTER "I'm so worried over Gloria, Professor Kennedy, that I hardly know what I'm doing." Mrs. Bradford Brackett was one of those stunning women of baffling age of whom there seem to be so many nowadays. One would scarcely have believed that she could be old enough to have a daughter who would worry her very much. Her voice trembled and almost broke as she proceeded with her story, and, looking closer, I saw that, at least now, her face showed marks of anxiety that told on her more than would have been the case some years before. At the mention of the name of Gloria Brackett, I saw that Craig was extremely interested, though he did not betray it to Mrs. Brackett. Already, with my nose for news I had scented a much bigger story than any that had been printed. For the Bracketts had lately been more or less in the news of the day. Choking back a little suppressed sob in her throat, Mrs. Brackett took from a delicate gold mesh bag and laid on the desk before Kennedy a small clipping from the "Lost and Found" advertisements in the _Star_. It read: "REWARD of $10,000 and absolutely no questions asked for the return of a diamond necklace of seventy-one stones which disappeared from a house at Willys Hills, Long Island, last Saturday or Sunday. "LA RUE & CO., Jewelers, "---- Fifth Avenue." I recognized the advertisement as one that had occasioned a great deal of comment on the _Star_, due to its peculiar nature. It had been a great mystery, perhaps much more so than if the advertisement had been worded and signed in the usual way. I knew also that the advertisement had created a great furore of excitement and gossip at the fashionable North Shore Hunt Club of which Bradford Brackett was Master of Fox Hounds. "At first," explained Mrs. Brackett nervously, "La Rue & Co. were able to keep the secret. They even refused to let the police take up the case. But as public interest in the advertisement increased at last the secret leaked out--at least that part of it which connected our name with the loss. That, however, seemed only to whet curiosity. It left everybody wondering what was back of it all. That's what we've been trying to avoid--that sort of publicity." She paused a moment, but Kennedy said nothing, evidently thinking that the best safety valve for her overwrought feelings would be to let her tell her story in her own way. "Why, you know," she resumed rapidly, to hide her agitation, "the most ridiculous things have been said. Some people have even said that we lost nothing at all, that it was all a clever attempt at notoriety, to get our names in the papers. Some have said it was a plan to collect the burglary insurance. But we are wealthy. They didn't stop to think how inconceivable that was. We have nothing to lose, even if the necklace is never heard of again." For the moment her indignation had got the better of her worry. Most opinions, I recalled, had been finally that the disappearance was mixed up with some family affairs. At any rate, here was to be the real story at last. I dissembled my interest. Mrs. Brackett's indignation was quickly succeeded by the more poignant feelings that had brought her to Kennedy. "You see," she continued, now almost sobbing, "it is really all, I fear, my own fault. I didn't realize that Gloria was growing so fast and so far out of my life. I've let her be brought up by governesses and servants. I've sent her to the best schools I could find. I thought it was all right. But now, too late, I realize that it is all wrong. I haven't kept close enough to her." She was rattling on in this disjointed manner, getting more and more excited, but still Kennedy made no effort to lead the conversation. "I didn't think Gloria was more than a child. But--why, Mr. Kennedy, she's been going, I find, to these afternoon dances in the city and out at a place not far from Willys Hills." "What sort of places?" prompted Kennedy. "The Cabaret Rouge," answered Mrs. Brackett, flashing at us a look of defiance that really masked fear of public opinion. I knew of the place. It had an extremely unsavory reputation. In fact there were two places of the same name, one in the city and the other out on Long Island. Mrs. Brackett must have seen Kennedy and me exchange a look askance at the name. "Oh, it's not a question of morals, alone," she hastened. "After all, sometimes common sense and foolishness are fair equivalents for right and wrong." Kennedy looked up quickly, genuinely surprised at this bit of worldly wisdom. "When women do stupid, dangerous things, trouble follows," she persisted, adding, "if not at once, a bit later. This is a case of it." One could not help feeling sorry for the woman and what she had to face. "I had hoped, oh, so dearly," she went on a moment later, "that Gloria would marry a young man who, I know, is devoted to her, an Italian of fine family, Signor Franconi--you must have heard of him--the inventor of a new system of wireless transmission of pictures. But with such a scandal--how can we expect it? Do you know him?" "Not personally, though I have heard of him," returned Kennedy briefly. Both Craig and myself had been interested in reports of his invention, which he called the "Franconi Telephote," by which he claimed to be able to telegraph either over wires or by wireless light and dark points so rapidly and in such a manner as to deceive the eye and produce at the receiving end what amounted to a continuous reproduction of a picture at the transmitting end. At least, in spite of his society leanings, Franconi was no mere dilettante inventor. "But--the necklace," suggested Craig, after a moment, for the first time interrupting the rather rambling trend of Mrs. Brackett's story, "what has this all to do with the necklace?" She looked at him almost despairingly. "I don't really care for a thousand such necklaces," she cried. "It is my daughter--her good name--her--her safety!" Suddenly she had become almost hysterical as she thought of the real purpose of her visit, which she had not yet been able to bring herself to disclose even to Kennedy. Finally, with an effort, she managed to control herself and go on. "You see," she said in a low tone, almost as if she were confessing some fault of her own, "Gloria has been frequenting these--_recherché_ places, without my knowledge, and there she has become intimate with some of the fastest of the fast set. "You ask about the necklace. I don't know, I must admit. Has some one of her friends taken advantage of her to learn our habits and get into the house and get it? Or, have they put her up to getting it?" The last query was wrung from her as if by main force. She could not even breathe it without a shudder. "When the necklace was stolen," she added tremulously, "it must have been an inside job, as you detectives call it. Mr. Brackett and I were away at the time at a week-end party. We supposed Gloria was visiting some friends in the city. But since then we have learned that she motored out with some of her dance-crazed acquaintances to the Cabaret Rouge, not far from Willys Hills. It must have been taken then--by some of them." The recital to comparative strangers, even though they were to be trusted to right the wrong, was more than she could bear. Mrs. Brackett was now genuinely in tears, her shoulders trembling under the emotion, as she bowed her head. Her despair and self-accusation would really have moved anyone, much less were needed to enlist Kennedy. He said nothing, but his look of encouragement seemed to nerve her up again to go on. She forced back her feelings heroically. "We put the advertisement that way because--well, now you understand why," she resumed; then anticipating our question, added, "But there has been no response." I knew from her tone that even to herself she would not admit that Gloria might have been guilty. Yet subconsciously it must have been in her mind and she knew it was in ours. Her voice broke again. "Mr. Brackett has repeatedly ordered Gloria to give up her fast acquaintances. But she defies him. Even to my pleadings she has turned a deaf ear." It was most pathetic to watch the workings of the mother's face as she was forced to say this of her daughter. All thought of the necklace was lost, now. "I--I want my daughter back," she almost wailed. "Who are these rapid youngsters?" asked Craig gently. "I don't know all of them," she replied. "There is young Rittenhouse Smith; he is one. The Rittenhouse Smiths, you know, are a very fine family. But young 'Ritter,' as the younger set call him, is wild. They've had to cut his allowance two or three times, I believe. Another of them is Rhinelander Brown. I don't think the Browns have much money, but it is a good family. Oh," she added with a faint attempt at a smile, "I'm not the only mother who has heart-aches. But the worst of it is that there are some professionals with whom they go--a dancer, Rex Du Mond, and a woman named Bernice Bentley. I don't know any more of them, but I presume there is a regular organization of these social gangsters." "Did Signor Franconi--ever go with them?" asked Craig. "Oh, mercy, no," she hastened. "And they can't seem to break the gang up," ruminated Craig, evidently liking her characterization of the group. She sighed deeply and wiped away another tear. "I've done what I could with Gloria. I've cut her allowance--but it has done no good. I'm losing my hold on her altogether. You--you will help me--I mean, help Gloria?" she asked eagerly, leaning forward in an appeal which must have cost her a great deal, so common is the repression of such feelings in women of her type. "Gladly," returned Kennedy heartily. "I will do anything in my power." Proud though she was, Mrs. Brackett could scarcely murmur her thanks. "Where can I see Gloria?" asked Kennedy finally. She shook her head. "I can't say. If you want to, you may see her tomorrow, though, at the drag hunt of the club. My husband says he is not going to take Gloria's actions without a protest. So he has peremptorily ordered her to attend the meet of the Hunt Club. We thought it would get her away, at least for a time, from her associates, though I must say I can't be sure that she will obey." I thought I understood, partly at least. Bradford Brackett's election as M. F. H. had been a crowning distinction in his social career and he did not propose to have Gloria's escapades spoil the meet for him. Perhaps he thought this as good an occasion as any to use his power to force her back into the circle to which she rightfully belonged. Mrs. Brackett had risen. "How can I ever thank you?" she exclaimed, extending her hand impulsively. "I know nothing has been changed--yet. But already I feel better." "I shall do what I can; depend on me," reiterated Kennedy modestly. "If I can do nothing before, I shall be out at the Hunt Club tomorrow--perhaps I shall be there anyhow." "This is a most peculiar situation," I remarked a few minutes later, as Mrs. Brackett was whisked away from the laboratory door in her motor. "Indeed it is," returned Kennedy, pacing up and down, his face wrinkled with thought. "I don't know whether I feel more like a detective or a spiritual adviser." He pulled out his watch. "Half-past four," he considered. "I'd like to have a look at that Cabaret Rouge here in town." CHAPTER II THE CABARET ROUGE It was a perfect autumn afternoon, one of those days when one who is normal feels the call to get out of doors and enjoy what is left of the fine weather before the onset of winter. We strode along in the bracing air until at last we turned into Broadway at the upper end of what might be called "Automobile Row." Motor cars and taxicabs were buzzing along in an endless stream, most of them filled with women, gowned and bonneted in the latest mode. Before the garish entrance of the Cabaret Rouge they seemed to pile up and discharge their feminine cargoes. We entered and were quickly engulfed in the tide of eager pleasure seekers. A handsome and judicious tip to the head waiter secured us a table at the far end of a sort of mezzanine gallery, from which we could look down over a railing at the various groups at the little white tables below. There we sat, careful to spend the necessary money to entitle us to stay, for to the average New Yorker the test seems to be not so much what one is getting for it as how much money is spent when out for a "good time." Smooth and glittering on the surface, like its little polished dancing floor in the middle of the squares of tables downstairs, the Cabaret Rouge, one could see, had treacherous undercurrents unsuspected until an insight such as we had just had revealed them. The very atmosphere seemed vibrant with laughter and music. A string band played sharp, staccato, highly accentuated music, a band of negroes as in many of the showy and high-priced places where a keen sense of rhythm was wanted. All around us women were smoking cigarettes. Everywhere they were sipping expensive drinks. Instinctively one felt the undertow in the very atmosphere. I wondered who they were and where they all came from, these expensively dressed, apparently refined though perhaps only veneered girls, whirling about with the pleasantest looking young men who expertly guided them through the mazes of the fox-trot and the canter waltz and a dozen other steps I knew not of. This was one of New York's latest and most approved devices to beguile the languid afternoons of ladies of leisure. "There she is," pointed out Kennedy finally. "I recognize her from the pictures I've seen." I followed the direction of his eyes. The music had started and out on the floor twisting in and out among the crowded couples was one pair that seemed to attract more attention than the rest. They had come from a gay party seated in a little leather cozy corner like several about the room, evidently reserved for them, for the cozy corners seemed to be much in demand. Gloria was well named. She was a striking girl, not much over nineteen surely, tall, lissome, precisely the figure that the modern dances must have been especially designed to set off. I watched her attentively. In fact I could scarcely believe the impression I was gaining of her. Already one could actually see on her marks of dissipation. One does not readily think of a girl as sowing her wild oats. Yet they often do. This is one of the strange anomalies of the new freedom of woman. A few years ago such a place would have been neither so decent nor attractive. Now it was superficially both. To it went those who never would have dared overstep the strictly conventional in the evil days when the reformer was not abroad in the land. I watched Gloria narrowly. Clearly here was an example of a girl attracted by the glamor of the life and flattery of its satellites. What the end of it all might be I preferred not to guess. Craig was looking about at the variegated crowd. Suddenly he jogged my elbow. There, just around the turn of the railing of the gallery, sat a young man, dark of hair and eyes, of a rather distinguished foreign appearance, his face set in a scowl as he looked down on the heads of the dancers. One could have followed the tortuous course of Gloria and her partner by his eyes, which the man never took off her, even following her back to the table in the corner when the encore of the dance was finished. The young man's face at least was familiar to me, though I had not met him. It was Signor Franconi, quietly watching Gloria and her gay party. After a few moments, Craig rose, paid his check, and moved over to the table where Franconi was sitting alone. He introduced himself and Franconi, with easy politeness, invited us to join him. I studied the man's face attentively. Signor Franconi was still young, in spite of the honors that had been showered on him for his many inventions. I had wondered before why such a man would be interested in a girl of Gloria's evident type. But as I studied him I fancied I understood. To his serious mind it was just the butterfly type that offered the greatest relief. An intellectual woman would have been merely carrying into another sphere the problems with which he was more than capable of wrestling. But there was no line of approval in his fine face of the butterfly and candle-singeing process that was going on here. I must say I heartily liked him. "What are you working on now?" asked Kennedy as a preliminary step to drawing him out against the time when we might become better acquainted and put the conversation on a firmer basis. "A system of wireless transmission of pictures," he returned mechanically. "I think I have vastly improved the system of Dr. Korn. You are familiar with it, I presume?" Kennedy nodded. "I have seen it work," he said simply. That telephotograph apparatus, I remembered, depended on the ability of the element selenium to vary the strength of an electric current passing through it in proportion to the brightness with which the selenium is illuminated. "That system," he resumed, speaking as though his mind was not on the subject particularly just now, "produces positive pictures at one end of the apparatus by the successive transmission of many small parts separately. I have harnessed the alternating current in a brand-new way, I think. Instead of prolonging the operation, I do it all at once, projecting the image on a sheet of tiny selenium cells. My work is done. Now the thing to do is to convince the world of that." "Then you have the telephote in actual operation?" asked Kennedy. "Yes," he replied. "I have a little station down on the shore of the south side of the island." He handed us a card on which he wrote the address at South Side Beach. "That will admit you there at any time, if I should not be about. I am testing it out there--have several instruments on transatlantic liners. We think it may be of use in war--sending plans, photographs of spies--and such things." He stopped suddenly. The music had started again and Gloria was again out on the dancing floor. It was evident that at this very important time in his career Franconi's mind was on other things. "Everyone seems to become easily acquainted with everyone else here," remarked Craig, bending over the rail. "I suppose one cannot dance without partners," returned Franconi absently. We continued to watch the dancers. I knew enough of these young fellows, merely by their looks, to see that most of them were essential replicas of one type. Certainly most of them could have qualified as social gangsters, without scruples, without visible means of support, without character or credit, but not without a certain vicious kind of ambition. They seemed to have an unlimited capacity for dancing, freak foods, joy rides, and clothes. Clothes were to them what a jimmy is to a burglar. Their English coats were so tight that one wondered how they bent and swayed without bursting. Smart clothes and smart manners such as they affected were very fascinating to some women. "Who are they all, do you suppose?" I queried. "All sorts and conditions," returned Kennedy. "Wall Street fellows whose pocketbooks have been thinned by dull times on the Exchange; actors out of engagements, law clerks, some of them even college students. They seem to be a new class. I don't think of any other way they could pick up a living more easily than by this polite parasitism. None of them have any money. They don't get anything from the owner of the cabaret, of course, except perhaps the right to sign checks for a limited amount in the hope that they may attract new business. It's grafting, pure and simple. The women are their dupes; they pay the bills--and even now and then something for 'private lessons' in dancing in a 'studio.'" Franconi was dividing his attention between what Kennedy was saying and watching Gloria and her partner, who seemed to be a leader of the type I have just described, tall and spare as must be the successful dancing men of today. "There's a fellow named Du Mond," he put in. "Who is he?" asked Craig, as though we had never heard of him. "To borrow one of your Americanisms," returned Franconi, "I think he's the man who puts the 'tang' in tango. From what I hear, though, I think he borrows the 'fox' from fox-trot and plucks the feathers from the 'lame duck.'" Kennedy smiled, but immediately became interested in a tall blonde girl who had been talking to Du Mond just before the dancing began. I noticed that she was not dancing, but stood in the background most of the time giving a subtle look of appraisal to the men who sat at tables and the girls who also sat alone. Now and then she would move from one table to another with that easy, graceful glide which showed she had been a dancer from girlhood. Always after such an excursion we saw other couples who had been watching in lonely wistfulness, now made happy by a chance to join the throng. "Who is that woman?" I asked. "I believe her name is Bernice Bentley," replied Franconi. "She's the--well, they call her the official hostess--a sort of introducer. That's the reason why, as you observed, there is no lack of friendliness and partners. She just arranges introductions, very tactfully, of course, for she's experienced." I regarded her with astonishment. I had never dreamed that such a thing was possible, even in cosmopolitan New York. What could these women be thinking of? Some of them looked more than capable of taking care of themselves, but there must be many, like Gloria, who were not. What did they know of the men, except their clothes and steps? "Soft shoe workers, tango touts," muttered Kennedy under his breath. As we watched we saw a slender, rather refined-looking girl come in and sit quietly at a table in the rear. I wondered what the official introducer would do about her and waited. Sure enough, it was not long before Miss Bentley appeared with one of the dancing men in tow. To my surprise the "hostess" was coldly turned down. What it was that happened I did not know, but it was evident that a change had taken place. Unobtrusively Bernice Bentley seemed to catch the roving eye of Du Mond while he was dancing and direct it toward the little table. I saw his face flush suddenly and a moment later he managed to work Gloria about to the opposite side of the dancing floor and, though the music had not stopped, on some pretext or other to join the party in the corner again. Gloria did not want to stop dancing, but it seemed as if Du Mond exercised some sort of influence over her, for she did just as he wished. Was she really afraid of him? Who was the little woman who had been like a skeleton at a feast? Almost before we knew it, it seemed that the little party had tired of the Cabaret Rouge. Of course we could hear nothing, but it seemed as if Du Mond were proposing something and had carried his point. At any rate the waiter was sent on a mysterious excursion and the party made as though they were preparing to leave. Little had been said by either Franconi or ourselves, but it was by a sort of instinct that we, too, paid our check and moved down to the coat room ahead of them. In an angle we waited, until Gloria and her party appeared. Du Mond was not with them. We looked out of the door. Before the cabaret stood a smart hired limousine which was evidently Gloria's. She would not have dared use her own motor on such an excursion. They drove off without seeing us and a moment later Du Mond and Bernice Bentley appeared. "Thank you for the tip," I heard him whisper. "I thought the best thing was to get them away without me. I'll catch them in a taxi later. You're off at seven? Ritter will call for you? Then we'll wait and all go out together. It's safer out there." Just what it all meant I could not say, but it interested me to know that young Ritter Smith and Bernice Bentley seemed on such good terms. Evidently the gay party were transferring the scene of their gayety to the country place of the Cabaret Rouge. But why? We parted at the door with Franconi, who repeated his invitation to visit his shop down at the beach. I started to follow Franconi out, but Kennedy drew me back. "Why did you suppose I let them go?" he explained under his breath, as we retreated to the angle again. "I wanted to watch that little woman who came in alone." We had not long to wait. Scarcely had Du Mond disappeared when she came out and stood in the entrance while a boy summoned a taxicab for her. Kennedy improved the opportunity by calling another for us and by the time she was ready to drive off we were able to follow her. She drove to the Prince Henry Hotel, where she dismissed the machine and entered. We did the same. "By the way," asked Kennedy casually, sauntering up to the desk after she had stopped to get her keys and a letter, "can you tell me who that woman was?" The clerk ran his finger down the names on the register. At last he paused and turned the book around to us. His finger indicated: "Mrs. Katherine Du Mond, Chicago." Kennedy and I looked at each other in amazement. Du Mond was married and his wife was in town. She had not made a scene. She had merely watched. What could have been more evident than that she was seeking evidence and such evidence could only have been for a court of law in a divorce suit? The possibilities which the situation opened up for Gloria seemed frightful. We left the hotel and Kennedy hurried down Broadway, turning off at the office of a young detective, Chase, whom he used often on matters of pure routine for which he had no time. "Chase," he instructed, when we were seated in the office, "you recall that advertisement of the lost necklace in the _Star_ by La Rue & Co.?" The young man nodded. Everyone knew it. "Well," resumed Kennedy, "I want you to search the pawnshops, particularly those of the Tenderloin, for any trace you can find of it. Let me know, if it is only a rumor." There was nothing more that we could do that night, though Kennedy found out over the telephone, by a ruse, that, as he suspected, the country place of the Cabaret Rouge was the objective of the gay party which we had seen. CHAPTER III THE FOX HUNT The next day was that of the hunt and we motored out to the North Shore Hunt Club. It was a splendid day and the ride was just enough to put an edge on the meet that was to follow. We pulled up at last before the rambling colonial building which the Hunt Club boasted as its home. Mrs. Brackett was waiting for us already with horses from the Brackett stables. "I'm so glad you came," she greeted us aside. "Gloria is here--under protest. That young man over there, talking to her, is Ritter Smith. 'Rhine' Brown, as they call him, was about a moment ago--oh, yes, there he is, coming over on that chestnut mare to talk to them. I wanted you to see them here. After the hunt, if you care to, I think you might go over to the Cabaret Rouge out here. You might find out something." She was evidently quite proud of her handsome daughter and that anything should come up to smirch her name cut her deeply. The Hunt Club was a swagger organization, even in these degenerate days when farmers will not tolerate broken fences and trampled crops, and when democratic ideas interfere sadly with the follies of the rich. In a cap with a big peak, a scarlet hunting coat and white breeches with top boots, Brackett himself made a striking figure of M. F. H. There were thirty or forty in the field, the men in silk hats. For the most part one could not see that the men treated Gloria much differently. But it was evident that the women did. In fact the coldness even extended to her mother, who would literally have been frozen out if it had not been for her quasi-official position. I could see now that it was also a fight for Mrs. Brackett's social life. As we watched Gloria, we could see that Franconi was hovering around, unsuccessfully trying to get an opportunity to say a word to her alone. Just before we were off a telegram came to her, which she read and hastily stuffed into a pocket of her riding habit. But that was all that happened and I fell to studying the various types of human nature, from the beginner who rode very hard and very badly and made himself generally odious to the M. F. H., to the old seasoned hunter who talked of the old days of real foxes and how he used to know all the short cuts to the coverts. It was a keen, crisp day. Already a man had been over the field pulling along the ground a little bag of aniseed, and now the hunt was about to start. Noses down, sterns feathering zigzag over the ground, sniffing earth and leaves and grass, the hounds were brought up. One seemed to get a good whiff of the trail and lifted his head with a half yelp, half whine, high pitched, frenzied, never-to-be-forgotten. Others joined in the music. "Gone away!" sounded a huntsman as if there were a real fox. We were off after them. Drag hounds, however, for the most part run mute and very fast, so that that picturesque feature was missing. But the light soil and rail fences of Long Island were ideal for drag hunting. Nor was it so easy as it seemed to follow. Also there was the spice of danger, risk to the hunters, the horses and the dogs. We went for four or five miles. Then there was a check for the stragglers to come up. Some had fresh mounts, and all of us were glad of the breathing space while the M. F. H. "held" the hounds. While we waited we saw that Mrs. Brackett was riding about quickly, as if something were on her mind. A moment she stopped to speak to her husband, then galloped over to us. Her face was almost white. "Gloria hasn't come up with the rest!" she exclaimed breathlessly. Already Brackett had told those about him and all was confusion. It was only a moment when the members of the hunt were scouring the country over which we had passed, with something really definite to find. Kennedy did not pause. "Come on, Walter," he shouted, striking out down the road, with me hard after him. We pulled up before a road-house of remarkable quaintness and luxury of appointment, one of the hundreds about New York which the automobile has recreated. Before it swung the weathered sign: Cabaret Rouge. To our hurried inquiries the manager admitted that Du Mond had been there, but alone, and had left, also alone. Gloria had not come there. A moment later sounds of hoofs on the hard road interrupted us and Ritter Smith dashed up. "Just overtook a farmer down the road," he panted. "Says he saw an automobile waiting at the stone bridge and later it passed him with a girl and a man in it. He couldn't recognize them. The top was up and they went so fast." Together we retraced the way to the stone bridge. Sure enough, there on the side of the road were marks where a car had pulled up. The grass about was trampled and as we searched Kennedy reached down and picked up something white. At least it had been white. But now it was spotted with fresh blood, as though someone had tried to stop a nose-bleed. He looked at it more closely. In the corner was embroidered a little "G." Evidently there had been a struggle and a car had whizzed off. Gloria was gone. But with whom? Had the message which we had seen her read at the start been from Du Mond? Was the plan to elope and so avoid his wife? Then why the struggle? Absolutely nothing more developed from the search. An alarm was at once sent out and the police all over the country notified. There was nothing to do now but wait. Mrs. Brackett was frantic. But it was not now the scandal that worried her. It was Gloria's safety. That night, in the laboratory, Kennedy took the handkerchief and with the blood on it made a most peculiar test before a strange-looking little instrument. It seemed to consist of a little cylinder of glass immersed in water kept at the temperature of the body. Between two minute wire pincers or serres, in the cylinder, was a very small piece of some tissue. To the lower serre was attached a thread. The upper one was attached to a sort of lever ending in a pen that moved over a ruled card. "Every emotion," remarked Kennedy as he watched the movement of the pen in fine zigzag lines over the card, "produces its physiological effect. Fear, rage, pain, hunger are primitive experiences, the most powerful that determine the actions of man. I suppose you have heard of the recent studies of Dr. Walter Cannon of Harvard of the group of remarkable alterations in bodily economy under emotion?" I nodded and Kennedy resumed. "On the surface one may see the effect of blood vessels contracting, in pallor; one may see cold sweat, or the saliva stop when the tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth, or one may see the pupils dilate, hairs raise, respiration become quick, or the beating of the heart, or trembling of the muscles, notably the lips. But one cannot see such evidences of emotion if he is not present at the time. How can we reconstruct them?" He paused a moment, then resumed. "There are organs hidden deep in the body which do not reveal so easily the emotions. But the effect often outlasts the actual emotion. There are special methods by which one can study the feelings. That is what I have been doing here." "But how can you?" I queried. "There is what is called the sympathetic nervous system," he explained. "Above the kidney there are also glands called the suprarenal which excrete a substance known as adrenin. In extraordinarily small amounts adrenin affects this sympathetic system. In emotions of various kinds a reflex action is sent to the suprarenal glands which causes a pouring into the blood of adrenin. "On the handkerchief of Gloria Brackett I obtained plenty of comparatively fresh blood. Here in this machine I have between these two pincers a minute segment of rabbit intestine." He withdrew the solution from the cylinder with a pipette, then introduced some more of the dissolved blood from the handkerchief. The first effect was a strong contraction of the rabbit intestine, then in a minute or so the contractions became fairly even with the base line on the card. "Such tissue," he remarked, "is noticeably affected by even one part in over a million of adrenin. See. Here, by the writing lever, the rhythmical contractions are recorded. Such a strip of tissue will live for hours, will contract and relax beautifully with a regular rhythm which, as you see, can be graphically recorded. This is my adrenin test." Carefully he withdrew the ruled paper with its tracings. "It's a very simple test after all," he said, laying beside this tracing another which he had made previously. "There you see the difference between what I may call 'quiet blood' and 'excited blood.'" I looked at the two sets of tracings. Though they were markedly different, I did not, of course, understand what they meant. "What do they show to an expert?" I asked, perplexed. "Fear," he answered laconically. "Gloria Brackett did not go voluntarily. She did not elope. She was forced to go!" "Attacked and carried off?" I queried. "I did not say that," he replied. "Perhaps our original theory that her nose was bleeding may be correct. It might have started in the excitement, the anger and fear at what happened, whatever it was. Certainly the amount of adrenin in her blood shows that she was laboring under strong enough emotion." Our telephone rang insistently and Kennedy answered it. As he talked, although I could hear only one side of the conversation, I knew that the message was from Chase and that he had found something important about the missing necklace. "What was it?" I asked eagerly as he hung up the receiver. "Chase has traced the necklace," he reported; "that is, he has discovered the separate stones, unset, pawned in several shops. The tickets were issued to a girl whose description exactly fits Gloria Brackett." I could only stare at him. What we had all feared had actually taken place. Gloria must have taken the necklace herself. Though we had feared it and tried to discount it, nevertheless the certainty came as a shock. "Why should she have taken it?" I considered. "For many possible reasons," returned Kennedy. "You saw the life she was leading. Her own income probably went to keeping those harpies going. Besides, her mother had cut her allowance. She may have needed money very badly." "Perhaps they had run her into debt," I agreed, though the thought was disagreeable. "How about that other little woman we saw?" suggested Kennedy. "You remember how Gloria seemed to stand in fear of Du Mond? Who knows but that he made her get it to save her reputation? A girl in Gloria's position might do many foolish things. But to be named as co-respondent, that would be fatal." There was not much comfort to be had by either alternative, and we sat for a moment regarding each other in silence. Suddenly the door opened. Mrs. Brackett entered. Never have I seen a greater contrast in so short a time than that between the striking society matron who first called on us and the broken woman now before us. She was a pathetic figure as Kennedy placed an easy chair for her. "Why, what's the matter?" asked Kennedy. "Have you heard anything new?" She did not answer directly, but silently handed him a yellow slip of paper. On a telegraph blank were written simply the words, "Don't try to follow me. I've gone to be a war nurse. When I make good I will let you know. Gloria." We looked at each other in blank amazement. That was hardly an easy way to trace her. How could one ever find out now where she was, in the present state of affairs abroad, even supposing it were not a ruse to cover up something? Somehow I felt that the message did not tell the story. Where was Du Mond? Had he fled, too,--perhaps forced her to go with him when Mrs. Du Mond appeared? The message did not explain the struggle and the fear. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Mrs. Brackett, all thought of her former pride gone, as she actually held out her hands imploringly and almost fell on her knees, "can't you find her--can't you _do_ something?" "Have you a photograph of Gloria?" he asked hurriedly. "Yes," she cried eagerly, reaching into her mesh bag and drawing one out. "I carry it with me always. Why?" "Come," exclaimed Kennedy, seizing it. "It occurs to me that it is now or never that this device of Franconi's must prove that it is some good. If she really went, she wasted no time. There's just a bare chance that the telephote has been placed on some of these vessels that are carrying munitions abroad. Franconi says that he has developed it for its war value." As fast as Mrs. Brackett's chauffeur could drive us, we motored down to South Side Beach and sought out the little workshop directly on the ocean where Franconi had told us that we should always be welcome. He was not there, but an assistant was. Kennedy showed him the card that Franconi had given us. "Show me how the machine works," he asked, while Mrs. Brackett and I waited aside, scarcely able to curb our impatience. "Well," began the assistant, "this is a screen of very minute and sensitive selenium cells. I don't know how to describe the process better than to say that the tones of sound, the human voice, have hundreds of gradations which are transmitted, as you know, by wireless, now. Gradations of light, which are all that are necessary to produce the illusion of a picture, are far simpler than those of sound. Here, in this projector--" "That is the transmitting part of the apparatus?" interrupted Kennedy brusquely. "That holder?" "Yes. You see there are hundreds of alternating conductors and insulators, all synchronized with hundreds of similar receivers at the--" "Let me see you try this photograph," interrupted Kennedy again, handing over the picture of Gloria which Mrs. Brackett had given him. "Signor Franconi told me he had the telephote on several outgoing liners. Let me see if you can transmit it. Is there any way of sending a wireless message from this place?" The assistant had shoved the photograph into the holder from which each section was projected on the selenium cell screen. "I have a fairly powerful plant here," he replied. Quickly Kennedy wrote out a message, briefly describing the reason why the picture was transmitted and asking that any station on shipboard that received it would have a careful search made of the passengers for any young woman, no matter what name was assumed, who might resemble the photograph. Though nothing could be expected immediately at best, it was at least some satisfaction to know that through the invisible air waves, wirelessly, the only means now of identifying Gloria was being flashed far and wide to all the big ships within a day's distance or less on which Franconi had established his system as a test. The telephote had finished its work. Now there was nothing to do but wait. It was a slender thread on which hung the hope of success. While we waited, Mrs. Brackett was eating her heart out with anxiety. Kennedy took the occasion to call up the New York police on long distance. They had no clew to Gloria. Nor had they been able to find a trace of Du Mond. Mrs. Du Mond also had disappeared. At the Cabaret Rouge, Bernice Bentley had been held and put through a third degree, without disclosing a thing, if indeed she knew anything. I wondered whether, at such a crisis, Du Mond, too, might not have taken the opportunity to flee the country. We had almost given up hope, when suddenly a little buzzer on the telephote warned the operator that something was coming over it. "The _Monfalcone_," he remarked, interpreting the source of the impulses. "We gathered breathlessly about the complicated instrument as, on a receiving screen composed of innumerable pencils of light polarized and acting on a set of mirrors, each corresponding to the cells of the selenium screen and tuned to them, as it were, a thin film or veil seemed gradually to clear up, as the telephote slowly got itself into equilibrium at both ends of the air line. Gradually the face of a girl appeared. "Gloria!" gasped Mrs. Brackett in a tone that sounded as if ten years had been added to her life. "Wait," cautioned the operator. "There is a written message to follow." On the same screen now came in letters that Mrs. Brackett in her joy recognized the message: "I couldn't help it. I was blackmailed into taking the necklace. Even at the hunt I received another demand. I did not mean to go, but I was carried off by force before I could pay the second demand. Now I'm glad of it. Forgive us. Gloria." "Us?" repeated Mrs. Brackett, not comprehending. "Look--another picture," pointed Kennedy. We bent over as the face of a man seemed to dissolve more clearly in place of the writing. "Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Brackett fervently, reading the face by a sort of intuition before it cleared enough for us to recognize. "He has saved her from herself!" It was Franconi! Slowly it faded and in its place appeared another written message. "Recalled to Italy for war service. I took her with me by force. It was the only way. Civil ceremony in New York yesterday. Religious will follow at Rome." CHAPTER IV THE TANGO THIEF "My husband has such a jealous disposition. He will never believe the truth--never!" Agatha Seabury moved nervously in the deep easy chair beside Kennedy's desk, leaning forward, uncomfortably, the tense lines marring the beauty of her fine features. Kennedy tilted his desk chair back in order to study her face. "You say you have never written a line to the fellow nor he to you?" he asked. "Not a line, not a scrap,--until I received that typewritten letter about which I just told you," she repeated vehemently, meeting his penetrating gaze without flinching. "Why, Professor Kennedy, as heaven is my witness, I have never done a wrong thing--except to meet him now and then at afternoon dances." I felt that the nerve-racked society woman before us must be either telling the truth or else that she was one of the cleverest actresses I had ever seen. "Have you the letter here?" asked Craig quickly. Mrs. Seabury reached into her neat leather party case and pulled out a carefully folded sheet of note paper. It was all typewritten, down to the very signature itself. Evidently the blackmailer had taken every precaution to protect himself, for even if the typewriting could be studied and identified, it would be next to impossible to get at the writer through it and locate the machine on which it was written among the thousands in the city. Kennedy studied the letter carefully, then, with a low exclamation, handed it over to me, nodding to Mrs. Seabury that it was all right for me to see it. "No ordinary fellow, I'm afraid," he commented musingly, adding, "this thief of reputations." I read, beginning with the insolent familiarity of "Dear Agatha." "I hope you will pardon me for writing to you," the letter continued, "but I find that I am in a rather difficult position financially. As you know, in the present disorganized state of the stock market, investments which in normal times are good are now almost valueless. Still, I must protect those I already have without sacrificing them. "It is therefore necessary that I raise fifty thousand dollars before the end of the week, and I know of no one to appeal to but you--who have shared so many pleasant stolen hours with me. "Of course, I understand all that you have told me about Mr. Seabury and his violent nature. Still, I feel sure that one of your wealth and standing in the community can find a way to avoid all trouble from that quarter. Naturally, I should prefer to take every precaution to prevent the fact of our intimacy from coming to Mr. Seabury's knowledge. But I am really desperate and feel that you alone can help me. "Hoping to hear from you soon, I am, "Your old tango friend, "H. MORGAN SHERBURNE." I fairly gasped at the thinly veiled threat of exposure at the end of the note from this artistic blackmailer. She was watching our faces anxiously as we read. "Oh," she cried wildly, glancing from one to the other of us, strangers to whom in her despair she had been forced to bare the secrets of her proud heart, "he's so clever about it, too. I--I didn't know what to do. I had only my jewels. I thought of all the schemes I had ever read, of pawning them, of having paste replicas made, of trying to collect the burglary insurance, of--" "But you didn't do anything like that, did you?" interrupted Craig hastily. "No, no," she cried. "I thought if I did, then it wouldn't be long before this Sherburne would be back again for more. Oh," she almost wailed, dabbing at the genuine tears with her dainty lace handkerchief while her shoulders trembled with a repressed convulsive sob, "I--I am utterly wretched--crushed." "The scoundrel!" I muttered. Kennedy shook his head at me slowly. "Calling names won't help matters now," he remarked tersely. Then in an encouraging tone he added, "You have done just the right thing, Mrs. Seabury, in not starting to pay the blackmail. The secret of the success of these fellows is that their victims prefer losing jewelry and money to going to the police and having a lot of unpleasant notoriety." "Yes, I know that," she agreed hastily, "but--my husband! If he hears, he will believe the worst, and--I--I really love and respect Judson--though," she added, "he might have seen that I liked dancing and--innocent amusements of the sort still. I am not an old woman." I could not help wondering if the whole truth were told in her rather plaintive remark, or whether she was overplaying what was really a minor complaint. Judson Seabury, I knew from hearsay, was a man of middle age to whom, as to so many, business and the making of money had loomed as large as life itself. Competitors had even accused him of being ruthless when he was convinced that he was right, and I could well imagine that Mrs. Seabury was right in her judgment of the nature of the man if he became convinced for any reason that someone had crossed his path in his relations with his wife. "Where did you usually--er--meet Sherburne?" asked Craig, casually guiding the conversation. "Why--at the Vanderveer--always," she replied. "Would you mind meeting him there again this afternoon so that I could see him?" asked Kennedy. "Perhaps it would be best, anyhow, to let him think that you are going to do as he demands, so that we can gain a little time." She looked up, startled. "Yes--I can do that--but don't you think it is risky? Do you think there is any way I can get free from him? Suppose he makes a new demand. What shall I do? Oh, Professor Kennedy, you do not, you cannot know what I am going through--how I hate and fear him." "Mrs. Seabury," reassured Craig earnestly, "I'll take up your case. Clever as the man is, there must be some way to get at him." Sherburne must have exercised a sort of fascination over her, for the look of relief that crossed her face as Kennedy promised to aid her was almost painful. As often before, I could scarcely envy Kennedy in his ready assumption of another's problems that seemed so baffling. It meant little, perhaps, to us whether we succeeded. But to her it meant happiness, perhaps honor itself. It was as though she were catching at a life line in the swirling current of events that had engulfed her. She hesitated no longer. "I'll be there--I'll meet him--at four," she murmured, as she rose and made a hurried departure. For some time after she had gone, Kennedy sat considering what she had told us. As for myself, I cannot say that I was thoroughly satisfied that she had told all. It was not to be expected. "How do you figure that woman out?" I queried at length. Kennedy looked at me keenly from under knitted brows. "You mean, do I believe her story--of her relations with this fellow, Sherbourne?" he returned, thoughtfully. "Exactly," I assented, "and what she said about her regard for her husband, too." Kennedy did not reply for a few minutes. Evidently the same question had been in his own mind and he had not reasoned out the answer. Before he could reply the door buzzer sounded and the colored boy from the lower hall handed a card to Craig, with an apology about the house telephone switchboard being out of order. As Kennedy laid the card on the table before us, with a curt "Show the gentleman in," to the boy, I looked at it in blank amazement. It read, "Judson Seabury." Before I could utter a word of comment on the strange coincidence, the husband was sitting in the same chair in which his wife had sat less than half an hour before. Judson Seabury was a rather distinguished looking man of the solid, business type. Merely to meet his steel gray eye was enough to tell one that this man would brook no rivalry in anything he undertook. I foresaw trouble, even though I could not define its nature. Craig twirled the card in his fingers, as if to refresh his mind on a name otherwise unfamiliar. I was wondering whether Seabury might not have trailed his wife to our office and have come to demand an explanation. It was with some relief that I found he had not. "Professor Kennedy," he began nervously, hitching his chair closer, without further introduction, in the manner of a man who was accustomed to having his own way in any matter he undertook, "I am in a most peculiar situation." Seabury paused a moment, Kennedy nodded acquiescence, and the man suddenly blurted out, "I--I don't know whether I'm being slowly poisoned or not!" The revelation was startling enough in itself, but doubly so after the interview that had just preceded. I covered my own surprise by a quick glance at Craig. His face was impassive as he narrowly searched Seabury's. I knew, though, that back of his assumed calm, Craig was doing some rapid thinking about the ethics of listening to both parties in the case. However, he said nothing. Indeed, Seabury, once started, hurried on, scarcely giving him a chance to interrupt. "I may as well tell you," he proceeded, with the air of a man who for the first time is relieving his mind of something that has been weighing heavily on him, "that for some time I have not been exactly--er--easy in my mind about the actions of my wife." Evidently he had arrived at the conclusion to tell what worried him, and must say it, for he continued immediately: "It's not that I actually know anything about any indiscretions on Agatha's part, but,--well, there have been little things--hints that she was going frequently to _thés dansants_, and that sort of thing, you know. Lately, too, I have seen a change in her manner toward me, I fancy. Sometimes I think she seems to avoid me, especially during the last few days. Then again, as this morning, she seems to be--er--too solicitous." He passed his hand over his forehead, as if to clear it. For once he did not seem to be the self-confident man who had at first entered our apartment. I noticed that he had a peculiar look, a feeble state of the body which he was at times at pains to conceal, a look which the doctors call, I believe, cachectic. "I mean," he added hastily, as if it might as well be said first as last, "that she seems to be much concerned about my health, my food--" "Just what is it that you actually know, not what you fear?" interrupted Kennedy, perhaps a little brusquely, at last having seen a chance to insert a word edgewise into the flow of Seabury's troubles, real or imaginary. Seabury paused a moment, then resumed with a description of his health, which, to tell the truth, was by no means reassuring. "Well," he answered slowly, "I suffer a good deal from such terrible dyspepsia, Professor Kennedy. My stomach and digestion are all upset--bad health and growing weakness--pain, discomfort--vomiting after meals, even bleeding. I've tried all sorts of cures, but still I can feel that I am still losing health and strength, and, so far, at least, the doctors don't seem to be doing me much good. I have begun to wonder whether it is a case for the doctors, after all. Why, the whole thing is getting on my nerves so that I'm almost afraid to eat," he concluded. "You have eaten nothing today, then, I am to understand?" asked Craig when Seabury had finished with his minute and puzzling account of his troubles. "Not even breakfast this morning," he replied. "Mrs. Seabury urged me to eat, but--I--I couldn't." "Good!" exclaimed Kennedy, much to our surprise. "That will make it just so much easier to use a test I have in mind to determine whether there is anything in your suspicions." He had risen and gone over to a cabinet. "Would you mind baring your arm a moment?" he asked Seabury. With a sharp little instrument, carefully sterilized, Craig pricked a vein in the man's arm. Slowly a few drops of darkened venous blood welled out. A moment later Kennedy caught them in a sterile test tube and sealed the tube. Before our second visitor could start again in retailing his suspicions which now seemed definitely, in his own mind at least, directed in some way against Mrs. Seabury, Kennedy skillfully closed the interview. "I feel sure that the test I shall make will tell me positively, soon, whether your fears are well grounded or not, Mr. Seabury," he concluded briefly, as he accompanied the man out into the hall to shake hands farewell with him at the elevator door. "I'll let you know as soon as anything develops, but until we have something tangible there is no use wasting our energies." CHAPTER V THE "THE DANSANT" I felt, however, that Seabury accepted this conclusion reluctantly, in fact with a sort of mental reservation not to cease activity himself. The remainder of the forenoon, and for some time during the early afternoon, Craig plunged into one of his periods of intense work and abstraction at the laboratory. It was, indeed, a most unusual and delicate test which he was making. For one thing, I noticed that he had, in a sterilizer, some peculiar granular tissue that had been sent to him from a hospital. This tissue he was very careful to cleanse of blood and then by repeated boilings prepare for whatever use he had in mind. As for myself, I could only stand aside and watch his preparations in silence. Among the many peculiar pieces of apparatus which he had, I recall one that consisted of a glass cylinder with a siphon tube running into it halfway up the outside. Inside was another, smaller cylinder. All about him as he proceeded were glass containers, capillary pipettes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, and dialyzers of porous parchment paper whose wrappers described them as "permeable for peptones, but not for albumins." Carefully set aside was the blood which he had drawn from Seabury's veins, allowed to stand till the serum separated out from the clot. Next he pipetted it into a centrifuge tube and centrifuged it at high speed, some sixteen thousand revolutions, until the serum was perfectly clear, with no trace of a reddish tint, nor even cloudy. After that he drew off the serum into a little tube, covered it with a layer of a substance called toluol from another sterile pipette, and finally placed it in an incubator at a temperature of about ninety-eight. It was well along toward four o'clock when he paused as if some mental alarm clock had awakened him to another part of the plan of action he had laid out. "Walter," he remarked, hastily doffing his stained old laboratory coat, "I think we'd better drop around to the Vanderveer." Curious as I had been at the preparations he was making in the laboratory, I was still glad at even the suggestion of something that my less learned mind could understand and it was not many seconds before we were on our way. Through the lobby of the famous new hostelry we slowly lounged along, then down a passage into the tea room, where, in the center of a circle of quaint little wicker chairs and tables, was a glossy dancing floor. Kennedy selected a table not in the circle, but around an "L," inconspicuously located so that we could watch the dancing without ourselves being watched. At one end of the room an excellent orchestra was playing. I gazed about, fascinated. At the dancing tea was represented, apparently, much wealth--women whose throats and fingers glittered with gold and gems, men whose very air exuded prosperity--or at least its veneer. About it all was the glamor of the _risqué_. One felt a sort of compromising familiarity in this breaking down of old social restraints through the insidious influence of the tea room, with its accompaniments of music and dancing. "I suppose," remarked Craig after we had for some time settled ourselves and watched the brilliant scene, "that, like many others, Walter, you have often wondered whether these modern dances are actually as stimulating as they seem." I shrugged my shoulders non-committally. "Well, there is what psychologists might call a real dance neurosis," he went on, contemplatively, toying with a glass. "In fact few persons can withstand the physical effect of the peculiar rhythm, the close contact, and the sinuous movements--at least where, so to speak, the surroundings are suggestive and the dance becomes less restrained and more sensuous, as it does often in circumstances like these, often among strangers." The music had started again and one after another couples seemed to float past in unhesitating hesitation--dowager and débutante, dandy and doddering octogenarian. "Why," he exclaimed, looking out at the whirling kaleidoscope, "here in the most advanced epoch, people of culture and intelligence frankly say they are 'wild' for something primitive." "Still," I objected, "dancing even in the wild, stimulating emotional manner you see here need not be merely an incitement to love, need it? May it not be a normal gratification of the love instinct--eroticism translated into rhythm? Perhaps it may represent sex, but not necessarily badly." Kennedy nodded. "Undoubtedly the effect of the dances is in direct ratio to the sexual temperament of the dancer," he admitted. He paused and again watched the whirl. "Does Mrs. Seabury herself understand it?" he mused, only half speaking to me. "I'm sure that this Sherburne is clever enough to do so, at any rate." A hearty round of applause came from the dancers as the music ceased. None left the floor, however, but remained waiting for the encore eagerly, scarcely changing the positions in which they had stopped. "To my mind," Kennedy resumed, with the music, "several things seem significant. Many people have noticed that after marriage women generally lose much of their ardor for dancing. I feel that it is an unsafe matter on which to generalize, but--well--Mrs. Seabury seems not to have lost it." "Then," I inquired quickly, "you imply that--she is not really as much in love with her husband as she would have us think--or, perhaps, herself believes?" "Not quite that," he replied doubtfully. "But I am wondering whether there is such a factor that must be considered." Before I could answer Kennedy touched my arm. Instinctively I followed the direction of his eye and saw Mrs. Seabury step out on the floor across from us. Without a word from Craig, I realized that the man with her must be Sherburne, our "tango thief." Fashionably dressed, affable, seemingly superficially, at least, well educated, tall, graceful, with easy manners, I could not help seeing at a glance that he was one of the most erotic dancers on the little floor. As they passed near us, Mrs. Seabury caught Kennedy's eye in momentary recognition. Her face, flushed with the dance, colored perhaps a shade deeper, but not noticeably to her partner, who was devoting himself wholly and skillfully to leading her in a manner that one could see called forth frequent comment from others, less favored. As they sat down after this dance and the encore, Craig motioned to the waiter at our table and whispered to him. A few moments later, a man whom I had seen around the hotel on my infrequent visits, but did not know, slipped quietly into a seat beside Kennedy, even deeper in the shadow of the recess in which we were sitting. "Walter, I'd like to have you meet Mr. Dunn, the house detective," whispered Kennedy under his breath. The usual interchange of remarks followed, during which Dunn was evidently waiting for Kennedy to reveal the real purpose of our visit. "By the way, Dunn," remarked Craig at length, "who is that fellow--over there with the woman in blue--the fellow with the heavy braided coat?" Dunn craned his neck cautiously, then shrugged his shoulders. "I've seen him here with her before," he remarked. "I don't know him, though. Why?" Briefly Kennedy sketched such facts of a supposedly hypothetical case as would be likely to secure an opinion from the house man. Dunn narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "That's rather a ticklish situation, Kennedy," Dunn remarked when Craig had stated the case, omitting all reference to Seabury's name as well as his suspicions. "Of course," he went on, "I know we've got to protect the name of the hotel. And I know we can't have men meeting our women patrons, doing a gavotte or two--and then fox-trotting them into blackmail." Dunn stroked his chin thoughtfully. "You see, we can do a great deal to suppress card sharps, agents for fake mining stocks, passers of worthless checks, and confidence men of that sort. But it is not so simple to thwart the vultures who prey on the gullibility and passions of the so-called idle rich." "There must be something you can do to get it on this fellow, though," persisted Craig. "Well," considered the house man, "we have what might be called our hotel secret service--several men and women operating entirely apart from the hotel force of detectives who, like myself, are too well known to clever crooks. Nobody knows them, except myself. There's one--that girl over there dancing with that middle-aged man who has mail sent here but doesn't live here. Could they be of use?" "Just the thing," exclaimed Craig enthusiastically. "Can't you have her get acquainted--just as a precaution--with that man? His name, by the way, I understand is Sherburne." "I'll do it," agreed Dunn, rising unostentatiously. Just then I happened to glance across the floor and over the heads of those seated at the tables at a door opposite us. It was my turn hastily to seize Kennedy's elbow. "Good God!" I exclaimed involuntarily. There, in the further doorway of the tea room, stood Judson Seabury himself! Without a word, Craig rose and quickly crossed the dancing floor, stopping before Mrs. Seabury's table. Instead of waiting to be introduced, he sat down deliberately, as though he had been there all the time and had just gone out of the room and come back. He did it all so quickly that he was able in a perfectly natural way to turn and see that Seabury himself had been watching and now was advancing slowly, picking his way among the crowded tables. From around my corner I saw Craig whisper a word or two to Mrs. Seabury, then rise and meet Seabury less than halfway from the door by which he had been standing. The tension of the situation was too much for Mrs. Seabury. Confounded and bewildered, she fled precipitately, passing within a few feet of my table. Her face was positively ghastly. As for Sherburne, he merely sat a moment and surveyed the irate husband with calm and studied insolence at a safe distance. Then he, too, rose and turned deliberately on his heel. Curious to know how Craig would meet the dilemma, I watched eagerly and was surprised to see Seabury, after a moment's whispered talk, turn and leave the tea room by the same door through which he had entered. "What did you do?" I asked, as Craig rejoined me a few moments later. "What did you say? My hat's off to you," I added in admiration. "Told him I had trailed her here with one of my operatives, but was convinced there was nothing wrong, after all," he returned. "You mean," I asked as the result of Craig's quick thinking dawned on me, "that you told him Sherburne was _your_ operative?" Kennedy nodded. "I want to see him, now, if I can," he said simply. CHAPTER VI THE SERUM DIAGNOSIS We paid our check and Kennedy and I sauntered in the direction Sherburne had taken, finding him ultimately in the cafe, alone. Without further introduction Kennedy approached him. "So--you are a detective?" sneered Sherburne superciliously, elevating his eyebrows just the fraction of an inch. "Not exactly," parried Kennedy, seating himself beside Sherburne. Then in a tone as if he were willing to get down, without further preliminary, to business, seemingly negotiating, he asked: "Mr. Sherburne, may I ask just what it is on which you base your claim on Mrs. Seabury? Is it merely meeting her here? If that is so you must know that it amounts to nothing--now." The two men faced each other, each taking the other's measure. "Nothing?" coolly retorted Sherburne. "Perhaps not--in itself. But--suppose--I--had--" He said the words slowly, as he fumbled in his fob pocket, then cut them short as he found what he was looking for. Safely, in the palm of his hand, he displayed a latch-key, momentarily, then with a taunting smile dropped it back again into the fob pocket. "Perhaps she gave it to me--perhaps I was a welcome visitor in her apartment," he insinuated. "How would she relish having that told to Mr. Seabury--backed up by the possession of the key?" I could not help feeling that for the moment Kennedy was checkmated. Sherburne was playing a desperate game and apparently held the key, however he got it, as a trump card. "Thank you," was all that Kennedy said, as he rose. "I wanted to know how far you could go. Perhaps we can meet you halfway." Sherburne smiled cynically. "All the way," he said quietly, as we left the cafe. In silence Kennedy left the hotel and jumped into a cab, directing the driver to the laboratory, where he had asked Mrs. Seabury to wait for him. We found her there, still much agitated. Hastily Craig explained to her how he had saved the situation, but her mind was too occupied over something else to pay much attention. "I--I can't blame you, Professor Kennedy," she cried, choking down a sob in her voice, "but I have just discovered--he has told me that it is even worse than I had anticipated." We were both following her closely, the incident of the latch-key still fresh in mind. "Some time ago," she hurried on, "I missed my latch-key. I thought nothing of it at the time--thought perhaps I had mislaid it. But today he told me--just after the dance, even while I was making him think I would pay him the money, because--because I liked him--he told me he had it. The brute! He must have picked my handbag!" Her eyes were blazing now with indignation. Yet as she looked at us both, evidently the recollection of what had just happened came flooding over her mind, and she dropped her head in her hands in helpless dismay at the new development. Craig pulled out his watch hastily. "It is about six, Mrs. Seabury," he reassured. "Can you be here at, say, eight?" "I will be here," she murmured pliantly, realizing her own helplessness. She had scarcely closed the door when Craig seized the telephone, and hurriedly tried to locate Seabury himself. "Apparently no trace of him yet," he fumed, as he hung up the receiver. "The first problem is how to get that key." Instantly I thought of Dunn's secret service girl. Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "I'm afraid there is no time for that," he answered. "But will you attend to that end of the affair for me, Walter? I have just a little more work here at the laboratory before I am ready. I don't care how you do it, but I want you to convey to Sherburne the welcome news that Mrs. Seabury is prepared to give in, in any way he may see fit, if he will call her up here at eight o'clock." Kennedy had already plunged back among his beakers and test tubes, and with these slender instructions I sallied forth in my quest of Sherburne. I had little difficulty in locating him and delivering my message, which he received with a satisfaction that invited assault and battery and mayhem. However, I managed to restrain myself and rejoin Craig in the laboratory, shortly after seven o'clock. I had scarcely had time to assure Kennedy of the success of my mission, when we were surprised to see the door open and Seabury himself appear. His face was actually haggard. Whether or not he had believed the hastily concocted story of Kennedy at the Vanderveer, his mind had not ceased to work on the other fears that had prompted his coming to us in the first place. "I've been trying to locate you all over," greeted Craig. Seabury heaved a sigh and passed his hand, with its familiar motion, over his forehead. "I thought perhaps you might be able to find out something from this stuff," he answered, unwrapping a package which he was carrying. "Some samples of the food I've been getting. If you don't find anything in this, I've others I want tested." As I looked at the man's drawn face, I wondered whether in fact there might be something in his fears. On the surface, the thing did indeed seem to place Agatha Seabury in a bad light. At the sight of the key in Sherburne's possession I had grasped at the straw that he might have conceived some diabolical plan to get rid of Seabury for purposes of his own. But then, I reasoned, would he have been so free in showing the key if he had realized that it might cast suspicion on himself? I was forced to ask myself again whether she might, in her hysterical fear of exposure by the adroit blackmailer, have really attempted to poison her husband. It was a desperate situation. But Kennedy was apparently ready to meet it, though he seemed to take no great interest in the food samples Seabury had just brought. Instead he seemed to rely wholly on the tests he had already begun with the peculiar tissue I had seen him boiling and the blood serum derived from Seabury himself. Without a word he took three tubes from the incubator, in which I had seen him place them some time before, and, as they stood in a rack, indicated them lightly with his finger. "I think I can clear part of this mystery up immediately," he began, speaking more to himself than to Seabury and myself. "Here I have a tested dialyzer in which has been placed a half cubic centimeter of pure clear serum. Here is another dialyzer with the same amount of serum, but no tissue, such as Mr. Jameson has seen me place in this first one. Here is still another with the tissue in distilled water, but no blood serum. I have placed all the dialyzers in tubes of distilled water and all are covered with a substance known as toluol and corked to keep them from contamination." Kennedy held up before us the three tubes and Seabury gazed on them with a sort of fascination, scarcely believing that in them in some way might be contained the verdict on the momentous problem that troubled his mind and might perhaps mean life or death to him. Carefully Kennedy took from each tube a few cubic centimeters of the dialyzate and into each he poured a little liquid from a tiny vial which I noticed was labelled "Ninhydrin." "This," he explained as he set down the vial, "is a substance which gives a colorless solution with water, but when mixed with albumins, peptones, or amino-acids becomes violet on boiling. Tube number three must remain colorless. Number two may be violet. Number one may approximate number two or be more deeply colored. If one and two are about the same I call my test negative. But if one is more deeply colored than two, then it is positive. The other tube is the control." Impatiently we waited as the three tubes simmered over the heat. What would they show? Seabury's eyes were glued on them, his hand trembling in the presence of some unknown danger. Slowly the liquid in the second tube turned to violet. But more rapidly and more deeply appeared the violet in number one. The test was positive. "What is it?" gasped Seabury hoarsely, leaning over close. "This," exclaimed Kennedy, "is the famous Abderhalden test--serum-diagnosis--discovered by Professor Emile Abderhalden of Halle. It rests on the fact that when a foreign substance comes into the blood, the blood reacts, with the formation of a protective ferment produced as a result of physiologic and pathologic conditions. "For instance," he went on, "a certain albumin always produces a certain ferment. Presence in the blood stream of blood-foreign substances calls forth a ferment that will digest them and split them into molecules. The forces of nature form and mobilize directly in the blood serum. "Let me get this clearly. Albumin cannot pass through the pores of an animal membrane, since the individual molecules are too large. If, however, the albumin is broken up by a ferment-action, then the molecules become small enough to pass through." Seabury was listening like a man on whom a stunning blow was about to descend. "Thus we can tell," proceeded Kennedy, "whether there is such a ferment in blood serum as would be produced by a certain condition, for when the ferment is there blood from the individual possessing it will digest a similar proteid in a dialyzing thimble kept at body temperature. "Why," cried Kennedy, swept along by the wonder of the thing, "this test opens up a vista of alluring and extensive possibilities. The human organism actually diagnoses its own illnesses automatically. It is infinitely more exact, more rapid, and more certain than all that human art can attain. Each organ contains special ferments in its cells in the most subtle way attuned to the molecular condition of the particular cell substance and with complete indifference to other cells. "Don't you see? It diagnoses at the very first stage. You take a small quantity of blood, derive the serum, then introduce a piece of tissue such as you wish to find out whether it is diseased or not. The thing is of overwhelming importance. One can discover a condition even before the organ itself shows it outwardly. It means a new epoch in medicine. As for me, I call it the new 'police service' of the organism--working with perfect, scientific accuracy." "Wh-what do you find?" reiterated Seabury. "I have made tests for about everything I can suspect," returned Kennedy, taking the tubes and pouring the liquid from number two into number one until they were equalized in color, thus testing them, while we watched every action closely. "You see," he digressed, "to get the two the same shade I have to dilute the first by the second. Now, the dialyzers are not permeable to albumin. Therefore the violet color indicates that the blood serum in this case contains ferments which the body is making to split up some foreign substance in the blood, such as I suspected and obtained from the hospital. The test is positive. Mr. Seabury, how long have you felt as you say that you do?" "Several weeks," the man returned weakly. "That is fortunate," cried Kennedy, "fortunate that it has not been several months." He paused, then added the startling statement, "Mr. Seabury, I can find no evidence here of poison. As a matter of fact, the wonderful Abderhalden test shows me that you have one of the most common forms of internal disease that occur for the most part in persons at or after middle life, about the age of fifty, more common in men than in women--a disease which taken in time, as it has been revealed by this wonderful test, may be cured and you may be saved--an incipient cancer of the stomach." Kennedy paused a moment and listened. I fancied I heard someone in the hall. But he went on, "The person whom you suspect of poisoning you--" There came a suppressed scream from the door, as it was flung open and Agatha Seabury stood there, staring with fixed, set eyes at Kennedy, then at her husband. Mechanically I looked at my watch. It was precisely eight. Kennedy had evidently prolonged the test for a purpose. "The person whom you suspected," he repeated firmly, "is innocent!" A moment Agatha stood there, then as the thing dawned on her, she uttered one cry, "Judson!" She reeled as Kennedy with a quick step or two caught her. Seabury himself seemed dazed. "And I have--" he ejaculated, then stopped. Kennedy raised his hand. "Just a moment, please," he interrupted, as he placed Mrs. Seabury in a chair, then glanced hastily at his watch. She saw the motion and seemed suddenly to realize that it was nearing the time for Sherburne to call up. With a mighty effort she seemed to grip herself. She had just been shocked to know that she was charged unjustly. But had she been cleared from one peril only to fall a victim to another--the one she already feared? Was Sherburne to escape, after all, and ruin her? The telephone tinkled insistently. Kennedy seized the receiver. "Who is it?" we heard him ask. "Mr. Sherburne--oh yes." Mrs. Seabury paled at the name. I saw her shoot a covert glance at her husband, and was relieved to see that his face betrayed as yet no recognition of the name. She turned and listened to Kennedy, straining her ears to catch every syllable and interpret every scrap of the one-sided conversation. Quickly Craig had jammed the receiver down on a little metal base which we had not noticed near the instrument. Three prongs reaching upward from the base engaged the receiver tightly, fitting closely about it. Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through, in place of the regular receiver. "Sherburne, you say?" he repeated. "H. Morgan Sherburne?" Apparently the voice at the other end of the wire replied rather peevishly, for Kennedy endeavored to smooth over the delay. We waited impatiently as he reiterated the name. Why was he so careful about it? The moments were speeding fast and Mrs. Seabury found the suspense terrific. "Must pay--we'll never get anything on you?" Craig repeated after a few moments further parley. "Very well. I am commissioned to meet you there in ten minutes and settle the thing up on those terms," he concluded as he clapped the regular receiver back on its hook with a hasty good-by and faced us triumphantly. "The deuce I won't get anything. I've got it!" he exclaimed. Judson Seabury was too stunned by the revelation that he had a cancer to follow clearly the maze of events. "That," cried Kennedy, rising quickly, "is what is known as the telescribe--a new invention of Edison that records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said--both ways--over a telephone wire. Come!" Ten minutes later, in a cab that had been waiting at the door, we pulled up at the Vanderveer. Without a word, leaving Judson Seabury and his wife in the waiting cab, Craig sprang out, followed by me, as he signaled. There was Sherburne, brazen and insolent, in the cafe as we entered, from a rear door, and came upon him before he knew it, our friend, Dunn, whom we had met in the lobby, hovering concealed outside, ready to come to our assistance. In a moment Kennedy was at Sherburne's elbow, pinching it in the manner familiar to international crooks. "Will you tell me what your precise business is in this hotel?" shot out Craig before Sherburne could recover from his surprise. Sherburne flushed and flared--then became pale with rage. "None of your damned insolence!" he ground out, then paused, cutting the next remark short as he gritted, "What do you mean? Shall I send a wax impression of that key--" Kennedy had quickly flashed the cylinder of the telescribe before his eyes and instinctively Sherburne seemed to realize that with all his care in using typewriters and telephones, some kind of record of his extortion had been obtained. For a moment he crumpled up. Then Kennedy seized him by the elbow, dragging him toward a side door opposite that at which our cab was standing. "I mean," he muttered, "that I have the goods on you at last and you'll get the limit for blackmail through this little wax cylinder if you so much as show your face in New York again. I don't care where you go, but it must be by the first train. Understand?" A moment later we returned to the cab, where it had pulled up in the shadow, away from the carriage entrance. "You--you'll forgive me--for my--unjust suspicions--Agatha?" we heard a voice from the depths of the cab say. Kennedy pulled me back in time not to interrupt a muffled "Yes." Craig coughed. As he reached a hand in through the cab door to bid good-night to the reunited couple, I saw Mrs. Seabury start, then turn and drop into her handbag the key which Kennedy had extracted from Sherburne's pocket in the _mêlée_ and now conveyed back to her in the handshake. CHAPTER VII THE DIAMOND QUEEN "Meet _Sylvania_ Quarantine midnight. Strange death Rawaruska. Retain you in interest steamship company. Thompson, Purser." Kennedy had torn open the envelope of a wireless message that had come from somewhere out in the Atlantic and had just been delivered to him at dinner one evening. He read it quickly and tossed it over to me. "Rawaruska," I repeated. "Do you suppose that means the clever little Russian dancer who was in the 'Revue' last year?" "There could hardly be two of that unusual name who would be referred to so familiarly," returned Craig. "Curious that we've had nothing in the wireless news about it." "Perhaps it has been delayed," I suggested. "Let me ring up the _Star_. They may have something now." A few minutes later I rejoined Craig at the table. A report had just been received that Rawaruska had been discovered, late the night before, unconscious in her room on the _Sylvania_. The ship's surgeon had been summoned, but before he was able to do anything for her she died. That was all the report said. It was meager, but it served to excite our interest. Renée Rawaruska, I knew, was a popular little Russian dancer abroad who had come to America the season previous and had made a big hit on Broadway. Beautiful, strange, fiery, she incarnated the mysterious Slav. I knew her to be one of those Russian dancers before whose performances Parisian audiences had gone wild with admiration, one who had carried her art beyond anything known in other countries, fascinating, subtle. Hastily over the telephone Kennedy made arrangements to go down to Quarantine on a revenue tug that was leaving to meet the _Sylvania_. It was a weird trip through the choppy winter seas of the upper bay and the Narrows, in the dark, with the wind cold and bleak. The tug had scarcely cast off from the Battery, where we met it, when a man, who had been watching us from a crevice of his turned-up ulster collar, quietly edged over. "You are Professor Kennedy, the detective?" he began, more as if asserting it than asking the question. Craig eyed him a moment, but said nothing. "I understand," he went on, not waiting for a reply, "that you are interested in the case of that little Russian actress, Rawaruska?" Still Kennedy said nothing. "My name is Wade--of the Customs Service," pursued the man, nothing abashed. Sticking his head forward between the corners of his high collar he added, in a lowered voice, "You have heard, I suppose, of the great amber diamond, 'The Invincible'?" Kennedy nodded and I thought hurriedly of all the big stones I had ever heard--the Pitt, the Orloff, the Koh-i-noor, the Star of the South, the Cullinan, and others. "The Invincible, you know," he added, "is the largest amber diamond in the world, almost the size of the famous Cullinan, over three hundred carats. It was found in the dry diggings of the Vaal River, a few miles from Kimberley. The dry diggings are independent of the De Beers combine, of course. Well, its owner has always been in the position of Mark Twain's man with the million-dollar bank-note who found it too large to cash. No one knows just what an amber diamond of that size is really worth. This one is almost perfect, resembles the huge top of a decanter stopper. It's a beautiful orange color and has been estimated at--well, as high as close to a quarter of a million, though, as I said, that is all guesswork." "Yes?" remarked Kennedy, more for politeness than anything else. Wade leaned over closer. "The Invincible," he whispered, shielding his lips from the keen, biting gale, "was last known to belong to the De Guerres, of Antwerp. One of my special agents abroad has cabled me to look out for it. He thinks there is reason to believe it will be smuggled into America for safe keeping during the troubles in Belgium." It seemed to make no difference to the customs man that Kennedy did not exactly welcome him with open arms. "The De Guerres are well-known dealers in diamonds, one of the leading houses in the 'city of diamonds,' as Antwerp has been called. One of the De Guerres is on the _Sylvania_, the junior partner--" he paused, then added,--"the husband, I believe, of Rawaruska. I thought perhaps you might be willing to try to help me." "I should be glad to," replied Kennedy tersely, pondering what the officer had told us. Nothing more was said on the trip and at last we came to the _Sylvania_, lying grim and dark of hull off the little cluster of Quarantine buildings, with myriads of twinkling lights on her, far above but scarcely relieving the blackness of the leviathan form. Thompson, the purser, a quiet, unexcitable Englishman, met us as we came over the side, and for the moment we lost sight of our new-found friend, Wade. "Perhaps you didn't know it," informed Thompson as we made our way through the ship, "but Rawaruska was married--had been for some time." "Who was her husband?" queried Kennedy, seeking confirmation of what we had already heard. "Armand De Guerre, a Belgian, of Antwerp," was the reply, "one of the partners in a famous old diamond-cutting firm of that city." Kennedy looked at the purser keenly for a moment, then asked, "Were they traveling together?" "Oh, yes,--that is, he had engaged a room, but you know how crowded the boats are with refugees fleeing to America from the war. He gave up his room, or rather his share of it, to a woman, a professional saleswoman, well known, I believe, in Antwerp as well as the Rue de la Paix in Paris and Maiden Lane and Fifth Avenue of your city, a Miss Hoffman--Elsa Hoffman. She shared the room with Rawaruska, while De Guerre took his chances in the steerage." As we walked down one of the main corridors we noticed ahead of us a seemingly very nervous and excited gentleman engaged apparently in a heated conversation with another. "Monsieur De Guerre," whispered Thompson as we approached. The two seemed to be just on the point of parting, as we neared them, and, I think, our approach hastened them. I could not hear what one of them said, but I heard De Guerre almost hiss, as he turned on his heel, "Well, sir, you were the last one seen with her alive." A moment later the purser introduced us to De Guerre. There was something about him which I can hardly express on paper, a sort of hypnotic fascination. I felt instinctively that such a man would wield a powerful influence over some women. Was it in his eyes, or was it merely his ardent foreign grace? "You _must_ find out the truth," he cried eagerly. "Already they are saying that it was suicide. But I cannot believe it. It cannot be. No,--she was murdered!" Kennedy ventured no opinion, but now, more than ever, hastened to signify to the purser that he wanted to look over the ground as quickly as possible before the ship docked. Rawaruska, we found, had occupied Room 186, on the port side of one of the lower decks. Kennedy seemed to be keenly interested, as we approached the room in which the body still lay, awaiting arrival at the pier a few hours later. The stateroom, apparently, ran to the very skin of the vessel and the ports opened directly on the water, not upon an outside deck, as with the rooms above it. It was an outside room at the end of a sort of cross alleyway, and it was impossible that anyone could have reached it except through the corridors. Attached to it was a little bath and directly across from the bath, on the other side, was another small room which was occupied by her maid, Cecilie, a French girl. In the main bedroom was a double bed, a couch, a wardrobe, and a small, thin-legged writing or dressing table. On the white bed lay the now cold and marble figure of the once vivacious little dancer who had enchanted thousands in life--petite, brunette, voluptuous. Rawaruska was beautiful, even in death. Her finely chiseled features, lacking that heaviness which often characterizes European women, were, however, terribly drawn and her perfect complexion on which she had prided herself was now all mottled and bluish. As Kennedy examined the body, I could not help observing that there seemed to be every evidence that the girl had been asphyxiated in some strange manner. Had it been by a deft touch on a nerve of her beautiful, soft neck that had constricted the throat and cut off her breath? I had heard of such things. Or had it been asphyxiation due to a poison that had paralyzed the chest muscles? The purser, as soon as we came aboard, had summoned the ship's surgeon, and we had scarcely arrived at Rawaruska's room when he joined us. He was one of those solid, reliable doctors, not brilliant, but one in whom you might place great confidence, a Dr. Sanderson, educated in Edinburgh, and long a follower of the sea. "Was there any evidence of a struggle?" asked Kennedy. "No, none whatever," replied the doctor. "No peculiar odor, no receptacle of any kind near her that might have held poison?" "No, nothing that could have been used to hold poison or a drug." Kennedy was regarding the face of the little dancer attentively. "Most extraordinary," he remarked slowly, "that congested look she has." "Yes," agreed Dr. Sanderson, "her face was flushed and blue when I got to her--cyanotic, I should say. There seemed to be a great dryness of her throat and the muscles of her throat were paretic. Her pupils were dilated, too, and her pulse was rapid, as if from a greatly increased blood pressure." "Was she conscious?" asked Kennedy, almost reverently turning over her rigid body and looking at the back of her neck and the upper spine. "Did she recognize anything, say anything?" "She seemed to be in a state of amnesia," replied Sanderson slowly. "Evidently if she had seen anything she had forgotten or wouldn't tell," he added cautiously. "Who found her?" asked Craig. "How was she discovered?" "Why, Miss Hoffman found her," replied the purser quickly. "She called one of the stewards. She had been sitting in the library reading until quite late and Rawaruska had retired early, for she was not a good sailor, they tell me. It must have been nearly midnight when De Guerre and a friend, pausing at the library door on their way from the smoking room, saw Miss Hoffman, and all three stopped in the Ritz restaurant for a bite to eat. "De Guerre walked down the corridor with Miss Hoffman afterwards," he continued, "and left her as she went into the room with his wife. Perhaps a minute later--long enough anyway so that he had reached the other end of the corridor--she screamed. She had turned on the light and had found Rawaruska lying half across the bed, unconscious. Miss Hoffman called to the steward to summon Dr. Preston, but he came to me first, instead." "Dr. Preston?" repeated Kennedy. "Yes, a young American physician, the friend who had been with De Guerre in the smoking room part of the evening, and later made up the party in the restaurant," vouchsafed Sanderson. "The man De Guerre was talking to as we came down the hall," put in Thompson. "H'm," mused Kennedy, evidently thinking of the remark we had overheard. "I've talked with him now and then myself," admitted Sanderson; "a bright fellow who has been studying abroad and after many adventures succeeded in getting across the border into Holland and thence to England. He managed to squeeze into the steerage of the _Sylvania_, though, of course, like De Guerre, he was classed as a first-cabin passenger. He had become very friendly with Rawaruska and her party while they were waiting for bookings in London." Thompson leaned over. "The steward in the corridor tells me," he said in a low tone, "that early in the evening Dr. Preston and Rawaruska were on the promenade deck together." I tried vaguely to piece together the scraps of information which we had gleaned. Kennedy, however, said nothing, but was now leaning over the body of the little dancer, looking at the upper region of her spine attentively. Quietly, from a group of three or four little red marks on her back he squeezed out several drops of liquid, absorbing them on a piece of sterile gauze. A moment later, De Guerre, who had quietly slipped away during the examination, as if unable to bear the sight of the tragedy, returned, and with him was a young woman. "Miss Elsa Hoffman," he introduced. Elsa Hoffman was of a fascinating type, tall, finely gowned, of superb poise, physically perfect. One could not help admiring her deep blue eyes and blonde radiance. Indeed, I felt that one must rely much on her attractions in pursuit of her business of selling gems to wealthy men and women. Still, in spite of her evident poise, the tragedy seemed to have oppressed and unnerved her. She did not seem to be able to add much to the scanty stock of facts we had, even after repeating the story of her discovery of Rawaruska, which was substantially as the purser had already told it. "I--I think perhaps Mr. Kennedy ought to question Cecilie," she suggested finally, turning toward De Guerre, who nodded his assent. A sudden movement in the passageway followed, and the door opened quietly. A man entered, a youngish fellow of fine physique and attractive face. I recognized him immediately as Dr. Preston. His apparently usually debonair manner was visibly subdued by the presence of death. Evidently he had just heard that someone was investigating the tragedy and had hastened to be present. Both De Guerre and Elsa nodded to him, a trifle coldly. Only a moment did he pause to look at the drawn face on the pillow, then stood apart, ill at ease until Kennedy had finished his minute examination. As Kennedy moved away from the bed, Dr. Preston contrived to place himself near him and apart from the rest. "Mr. Kennedy," he began in a husky undertone, "they tell me you have been engaged to investigate this--this awful affair." Kennedy assented. "If there is anything I can do to help you," Preston added anxiously, "I hope you will command me. In fact," he added as Kennedy nodded while Preston glanced covertly at De Guerre and Miss Hoffman, "I hope you'll get at the truth." "Thank you," responded Kennedy, meeting his eye squarely this time; "I shall be glad to call on you if occasion arises." I watched Preston closely, not quite making out just what he was driving at, nor the reason for the strained relations that now seemed to exist among the former friends. Still following Kennedy's every motion, Preston retired to the position of a more than interested spectator. CHAPTER VIII THE ANESTHETIC VAPORIZER Craig had completed a hasty search of the room, with its little dressing table, two trunks, and a cabinet. Everything seemed to have been kept in a most neat and orderly manner by the attentive Cecilie, who was apparently a model servant. The little white bathroom was equally immaculate, and Kennedy passed next to an examination of the little room of the French maid. Cecilie was a pretty, dark little being, with snapping black eyes, the type of winsome French maid that one would naturally have expected Rawaruska, with her artist's love of the beautiful, to have picked out to serve her dainty self. As I ran my eye over the group that was now intently watching Kennedy at work, I fancied I caught Elsa Hoffman eyeing Cecilie sharply, and I am sure that once at least those black eyes snapped back a wireless message of defiance at the penetrating eyes of blue. I could feel instinctively the atmosphere of hostility between the two women. "The door was not locked, you say?" repeated Craig, following up one of the first of his own questions to Cecilie, which had resulted in unearthing this new fact. "Non, monsieur," replied Cecilie in accented English which was charming. "Mam'selle--we all called her that, her stage name,--used to leave it open in case of fire or accident. She had a terrible fear of drowning. You know there have been some awful wrecks lately, and she was, oh, so nervous." "But her valuables?" prompted Craig quickly, watching the effect of his question. "All in the ship's safe, in care of the purser," replied Cecilie. "So were Miss Hoffman's." "Yes," corroborated Thompson, "and, besides, the corridors and passageways are well patrolled by stewards at all times." The search of Cecilie's room, which was smaller and more scantily furnished, took only a few minutes. A suppressed exclamation from Craig served to divert my attention from the study of those around me to the study of Kennedy himself, and what he had discovered. Hidden away in the back of a drawer in a small chiffonier, he had come across several articles that aroused interest if they did not whet the blade of suspicion. "_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed the maid as Kennedy suppressed a smile of gratification at the outcome of the search. "But that is not mine!" Kennedy drew out from the back of the drawer, where it had been tucked, a little silken bag. He opened it. On the surface it seemed that the bag was empty. But as he brought it cautiously closer to his face to peer in, I could see that just a whiff of its contents was enough. "What have you there?" I asked Kennedy, careful that no one else could overhear us. "Cayenne pepper, snuff, and some other chemical," sneezed Craig. "Very effective to throw into the face of anyone," he commented, closing quickly the bag by its loose drawing strings, "that is, if you merely want to blind him and put him out temporarily." I did not pay much attention to the protests of the maid, nor the look of triumph that crossed the face of Elsa Hoffman and surprise exhibited by Dr. Preston. For Kennedy had picked up from the same drawer a little toilet vaporizer, too, and was examining it minutely. As he held it up, I could see, or rather I fancied that it was empty. He pressed the bulb lightly, then seemed to start back quickly. "What's that?" I queried, mystified at his actions. "Something the French secret service spies call the 'bad perfume,'" he returned frankly, "an anesthetic so incredibly rapid and violent that the spies, usually women, who use it wear a filter veil over their own mouths and noses to protect themselves." The whole thing was so queer that I could only wonder what might be the explanation. Cecilie was protesting volubly, now in fair English, now in liquid French, that she knew absolutely nothing of the articles. I wondered whether Rawaruska herself might not have placed them there. Might she not have been a spy, one of those clever little dancers who had wormed themselves by their graceful agility into the good graces of some of the world's leading men and made Russia a recognized diplomatic power? Something like the same idea must have been suggested to Dr. Sanderson, who was standing next me, for he bent over and remarked to me in an undertone, with a significant glance at what Kennedy had discovered, "I suppose you realize that the position of the Russian government has undergone a marked change since the Russian dancers have won international popularity?" I had not thought much about it before, but now that he mentioned it, I could not help a nod of assent. "Why, I have heard," he continued with the air of a man who is imparting a big piece of information, "that the beautiful young women of the imperial ballet mingle in the society of the capitals of the world, make friends with politicians, social leaders, high officials, and exert a great influence in favor of their own country wherever they go. No doubt," he added, "they sometimes convey valuable information to the Foreign Office which could not be obtained in any other way." I was not paying much attention to him, but still the doctor rattled on in an undertone, "Some of these dancers are past masters in the art of intrigue. Do you suppose Rawaruska and the rest have had the task set for them to win back the public opinion of your country, which departed from its traditional policy of friendliness during the Japanese war?" I made no answer. I was engrossed in considering the primary question. Could it have been a suicide, after all? Surely she had removed the evidences of it much better than in any other case I had ever seen. Or, had there been a "triangle," perhaps a quadrangle here? I could not persuade myself that De Guerre cared greatly for his wife, except perhaps to be jealous of anyone else having her. He was too attentive to Elsa Hoffman, and she, in turn, was not of the type to care much for anyone. As for Dr. Preston, although he seemed to have had a friendship for Rawaruska, I could not exactly fit him into the scheme of things. We proceeded up the bay on the _Sylvania_, but were able to discover nothing further that night. As we left the ship at the dock in the morning we ran across Wade, who was quietly directing a dozen or so of his men. "Any trace yet of the Invincible?" asked Craig, stopping in an unostentatious corner. The customs man shook his head gravely. "Not yet," he replied. "But I'm not discouraged. If we miss it here in the customs inspection it will be sure to turn up later. There's a shady jeweler on Fifth Avenue, Margot, who knows these Antwerp people pretty well. I have a man working there, a diamond cutter, and other agents in the trade. Oh, I'll hear about it soon enough, if it is here. Only I'd like to have done something spectacular, something that would count for me at Washington. Have you found out anything?" Briefly Kennedy told him some of the scattered facts we had discovered, just enough to satisfy him without taking him into our confidence. "I'm going to be busy in the laboratory, Walter," remarked Kennedy as our taxicab extricated itself from the ruck of the river-front streets. "I don't know that there is anything that you can do--except--well, yes. I wish you'd try to keep an eye on some of these people--that maid, Cecilie, especially." We had learned that De Guerre was to stop at the Vanderveer and, later in the morning, I dropped into the hotel and glanced over the register. De Guerre was registered there and Cecilie had a little room, also, pending the disposal he would make of her. Miss Hoffman had rooms of her own, which she had evidently re-engaged, with a family in a residential street not far from the hotel. The clerk told me that De Guerre was out, but that the maid had returned after having been out alone, for a short time, also. The lobby of the Vanderveer was fairly crowded with people by this time, and I found no difficulty in keeping in the background and still seeing pretty much everything that went on. It was rather tame, however, and I was still debating whether I should not do something active, when I happened to glance up and catch sight of a familiar face. It was Dr. Preston making inquiries for someone of the room clerk. I dodged back of a pillar and waited, covering myself with an early morning war extra that repeated the news of the night before. A few moments later, Preston, who had received an answer from whomever he was calling, edged his way toward one of the deserted little reception rooms near a side carriage entrance. Carefully, I trailed him. It was some minutes before I could make up my mind to risk passing the door of the little parlor and being discovered, but I was growing impatient. As I glanced in I was astonished to see him talking earnestly to Cecilie. I did not dare stop, for fear one or the other might look up, but I could see that Preston was eagerly questioning her. Her face was averted from me and I could not read even her expression. The passageway was deserted, and if I paused I would inevitably attract attention. So I kept on, turning instinctively in the labyrinth and coming back to the lobby, where I found a position near the telephone booths which gave me a concealed view at least of the door of the parlor around an angle. I waited. Perhaps five minutes passed. Then Cecilie and Dr. Preston suddenly emerged from the reception room. Evidently the maid was anxious to get away, perhaps afraid to be seen with him. With a word, she almost ran down the corridor in the direction of the rear elevators, and Preston, with a queer look on his face, came slowly toward me. Instinctively I drew back into a telephone booth; then it occurred to me that if I emerged just as he passed he would not be likely to suspect anything, and I might have a chance to study him. I did so, and was quite amused at the look of surprise on his face as I greeted him. Still, I do not think he thought I was shadowing him. We paused for a moment on the street, after a conventional exchange of remarks about the tragedy to poor little Rawaruska. "That Miss Hoffman seems to be a very capable woman," I remarked, by way of dragging the conversation into channels into which it seemed unlikely to drift naturally. "Y-yes," he agreed, as I caught a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye. "I believe she has had a rather checkered career. I understand that she was a nurse, a trained nurse, once." There was something about the remark that impressed me. It was made deliberately, I fancied. What his purpose was, I could not fathom, but I felt that in the instant while he had hesitated he had debated and made up his mind to say it. My face betraying nothing to his searching glance, he pulled hastily at his watch. "I'm going downtown on the subway--to clear up some of the muss that this European business has got me in with my bankers," he said quickly. "I'd be glad to have you call on me at any time at the Charlton, just up the avenue a bit. Good-day, sir. I'm glad to have met you. Drop in on me." He was gone, scarcely waiting for me to reply, leaving me to wonder what was the cause of his strange actions. Mechanically I looked at my own watch and decided that I had left Craig undisturbed long enough. CHAPTER IX THE TWILIGHT SLEEP As I entered the laboratory I saw before him a peculiar, telescope-like instrument, at one end of which, in a jar of oxygen, something was burning with a brilliant, penetrating flame. He paused in his work and I hastened to tell him of the peculiar experience I had had in the forenoon. But he said nothing, even at the significant actions of Dr. Preston. "How about those things you found in the maid's room?" I asked at length. "Do they explain Rawaruska's death?" "The trouble with them," he replied, thoughtfully shaking his head, "is that the effects of such things last only for a short time. They might have been used at first--but there was something used afterward." "Something afterward?" I repeated, keenly interested, and fingering the telescope-like arrangement curiously. "What's this?" "One of the new quartz lens spectroscopes used by Dr. Dobbie of the English Government laboratories," he answered briefly. "I think chemists, police officials, coroners and physicians are going to find it most valuable. You see, by throwing the ultra-violet part of the spectrum from a source of light as I obtain from the sparking of iron in oxygen through the lenses of a quartz spectroscope, the lines of many dangerous drugs, especially of the alkaloids, can be distinctly and quickly located in the spectrum. Each drug produces a characteristic kind of line. We use a quartz lens because glass cuts off the ultra-violet rays. Why, even the most minute particle of poison can be detected in this revolutionary fashion." He had resumed squinting through the spectroscope. "Well," I asked, "do you find anything there?" He had evidently been using the piece of gauze on which he had preserved the liquid from the peculiar little marks on Rawaruska's spine. "Narcophin," he muttered, still squinting. "Narcophin?" I repeated. "What is that?" "A derivative of opium--morphine. There's another poison here, too," he added. "What is it?" "Scopolamine," he answered tersely, "scopolamine hydrobromide." "Why," I exclaimed, "that is the drug they use in this new 'twilight sleep,' as they call it." "Exactly," he replied, "the _dämmerschlaf_. I suspected something of the kind when I saw those little punctures on her back. Some people show a marked susceptibility to it; others just the reverse. Evidently she was one of those who go under it quietly and quickly." I looked at Kennedy in amazement. "You can see," he went on, catching the expression on my face, "if it could be used for medical science, it could also be used for crime. That's the way I reasoned, the way someone else must have reasoned." He paused, then went on. "Someone thought out this plan of using narcophin and scopolamine to cause the twilight sleep, to keep Rawaruska just on the borderland of unconsciousness, destroying her memory and producing forgetfulness. That is the _dämmerschlaf_; perception is retained but memory lost. You are acquainted with the test? They show an object to a patient and ask her if she sees it. Say, half an hour later, it is shown again. If she remembers it, it is a sign that a new injection is necessary. "Only in this case the criminal went too far, disregarded the danger of the thing. Scopolamine in too great a quantity causes death by paralysis of respiration--a paralysis, by the way, against which artificial respiration and all means of stimulating are ineffective because of the rigidity of the muscles. And so, you see, in this case Rawaruska died." I could not help thinking of Preston, the young doctor who had been studying in Germany. More than likely he had heard of and had investigated the Frieberg "twilight sleep" treatment. We had made some progress, even though we did not know why or by whom the drugs had been administered. Wade, of the Customs Service, had, as I have said, told us that he had several secret agents about in the trade, constantly picking up bits of information that might interest the Treasury Department. It did not surprise Kennedy, therefore, late in the forenoon, to have Wade call up and tell him that among the early callers at Margot's, the jeweler, was the maid Cecilie. "That was where she must have been before I reached the Vanderveer," I exclaimed. Kennedy nodded. "But why did she go there?" he asked. "And why was she talking with Preston?" Inasmuch as I couldn't answer the questions I didn't try, but waited while Craig reasoned out some method of attack on them. "Since it's known that we're working on the case of Rawaruska," he ruminated half an hour later over an untasted lunch, "we might just as well take the risk of seeing Margot himself. Let's go down and look his shop over." So in the middle of the afternoon, when Fifth Avenue was crowded with shoppers, we paused before Margot's window, looking over the entrancing display of precious stones gleaming out from the rich black velvet background, and then sauntered in, like any other customers. Kennedy engaged the salesman in talk about necklaces and lavallieres, always leading the conversation around to the largest stones that he saw, and dwelling particularly on those that were colored. As I listened, trying to throw in a word now and then that would not sound absolutely foolish, I was impressed by a feeling that Margot's, even though it was such a fashionable place, was what might be called only a high-class shyster's. In fact, I recalled having heard that Margot had engineered several rather questionable transactions in gems. "I'm much interested in orange stones," remarked Kennedy, casually turning up a flawless white diamond and discarding it as if it did not interest him. "Once when I was abroad I saw the famous Invincible, and a handsomer gem than it is I never hope to see." The clerk, ever obliging, replaced the tray before us in the safe and retired toward the back of the shop. "He suspects nothing, at least," whispered Kennedy. A moment later he returned. "I'm sorry," he reported, "but we haven't any such stones in the house. But I believe we expect some in a few days. If you could--" "I shall remember it; thank you," interrupted Kennedy brusquely, as I caught a momentary gleam of satisfaction in his eye. "That's most fortunate. I'll be in again. Thank you." We turned toward the door. In an instant it flashed over me that perhaps they were recutting the big Invincible. "Just a moment, please, gentlemen," interrupted a voice behind us. A short, stocky man had come up behind us. "I thought you did not look like purchasers, nor yet like crooks," he said defiantly. "Did I hear you refer to the Invincible?" It was Margot himself, who had been hovering about behind us. Kennedy said nothing. "Yes," he went on, "I am cutting a large diamond, but it is not like the Invincible. It is much handsomer--one that was discovered right here in this country in the new diamond fields of Arkansas. The diamond itself is already sold. And you would nevair guess the buyer, oh, nevair!" "No?" queried Kennedy. "Nevair!" reiterated Margot. "It could not be delivered to a woman who was once the maid of Rawaruska, the Russian dancer?" Craig asked abruptly. Margot shot a quick and suspicious glance at us. "Then you are, as I suspected, a detectif?" he cried. Kennedy eyed him sharply without admitting the heinous charge. Margot returned his look and I felt that of all sayings that about a dishonest man not being able to look you in the eye was itself the least credible. He laughed daringly. "Well, perhaps you are right," he said. "But whoever it is, he is lucky to have bought a stone like it so cheaply!" The man was baffling. I could not figure it out. Had Margot been simply a high-class "fence" for the disposal and convenient reappearance of stolen goods? We returned uptown to our apartment to find that in the meantime Wade had called up again. Kennedy got him on the wire. It seemed that shortly after we left Margot's Cecilie had called again and had gone off with a small, carefully wrapped package. "A strange case," pondered Kennedy, as he hung up the receiver. "First there is a murder that looks like a suicide, then the sale of a diamond that looks like a fake." He paused a moment. "They have worked quickly to cover it up; we must work with equal quickness if we are to uncover them." With almost lightning rapidity he had seized the telephone again and had our old friend First Deputy O'Connor on the wire. Briefly he explained the case, and arranged for the necessary arrests that would bring the principal actors in the little drama to the laboratory that night. Then he fell to work on a little delicate electrical instrument consisting, outwardly at least, of a dial with a pointer and several little carbon handles attached to wires, as well as a switchboard. I know that Kennedy did not relish having his hand forced in this manner, but nevertheless he was equal to the emergency and when, after dinner, those whom O'Connor had rounded up began to appear at the laboratory, no one would ever have imagined that he had not the entire case on the very tip of his tongue, almost bursting forth an accusation. De Guerre had complied with the police order by sending Cecilie alone in a cab, and later he drove up with Miss Hoffman. Dr. Preston came in shortly afterward, shooting a keen glance at Cecilie, and avoiding more than a nod to De Guerre. Margot himself was the last to arrive, protesting volubly. Wade, of course, was already there. "I really must beg your pardon," began Kennedy, as he ignored the querulousness of Margot, the late arrival, adding significantly, "that is, of all of you except one, for monopolizing the evening." Whatever might have been in their minds to say, no one ventured a word. Kennedy's tone when he said, "Of all of you except one," was too tense and serious. It demanded attention, and he got it. "I am going to put to you first a hypothetical case," he continued quietly. "Let us say that the De Guerres of Antwerp decided to smuggle a great jewel into America for safe keeping, perhaps for sale, during the troublous times in their own country. "Now, any man would know," he went on, "that he had a pretty slim chance when it came to smuggling in a diamond. Besides, everyone knew that the De Guerres owned this particular stone, of which I shall speak later. But a woman? Smuggling is second nature to some women." Quickly he ran over the strange facts that had been unearthed regarding the death of the dainty Russian dancer. "You were right, Monsieur De Guerre," he concluded, turning to the diamond merchant; "it was no suicide. Your wife was killed--unintentionally, it is true,--but killed in an attempt to steal a great diamond from her while she was smuggling it." De Guerre made no answer, save a hasty glance at Wade that did not carry with it an admission of smuggling. "You mean to say, then, Mr. Kennedy," Margot demanded, "that while Rawaruska was smuggling in the big diamond of which you speak someone heard of it and deliberately _murdered_ her?" "Not too fast," cautioned Craig. "Think again before you use those words, 'deliberately murdered.' If it had been murder that was intended, how much more surely it might have been accomplished by more brutal methods--or by more scientific. No, murder was never deliberately intended." He stopped, as if to emphasize the point, then slowly began to distribute to each of us one of the carbon handles I had seen him adjusting to the peculiar little electrical instrument. "Let me reconstruct the case," he hurried on, giving a final twist or two to the instrument itself, now placed before him on a table, with its dial face away from us. "Rawaruska had retired for the night. Where had she placed the diamond? It would probably take a long search to find it. Well, the twilight sleep was chosen because it was supposed to be a safe and sure means to the end. Even if she retained some degree of consciousness, she would forget what happened. That is partly the reason for the treatment, anyhow,--the loss of memory. "Someone believed this was a safe and sure anesthetic. First perhaps a whiff of the secret service 'bad perfume' to insure that she would not cry out--then an injection of narcophin and scopolamine--another--and the twilight sleep. A few minutes, and Rawaruska was unconscious. "Then came the search. Perhaps she was restless. Another injection settled that. At last the great diamond was found. But the twilight sleep meant not forgetfulness but death to Rawaruska!" Craig paused. It was almost as if one could see the word picture of the scene as he painted it. "What was to be done? The diamond must be recut--anything to hide its identity, at once, and at any cost. And Margot? The story of the Arkansas diamond and the sale is a blind. The case is perfect!" Kennedy raised his eyes for the first time from the study of the little electrical machine before him, and caught the eye of Cecilie, holding it, unwilling. "Did you ever hear of the great diamond, the Invincible?" Kennedy smashed out. I felt that it might not have been exactly chivalrous, but it was necessary. Cecilie's breast, which had showed a wildly beating heart as Kennedy told of how her mistress had died, was calmer now. Her air of surprise at the mention of the diamond was perfect. Elsa Hoffman was gazing at her, too, in tense interest. De Guerre was outwardly cool, Margot openly cynical, Preston leaning forward in ill-suppressed excitement. For a moment Kennedy paused again, as if allowing all to collect themselves before he took them by assault. "I have lately been studying," he remarked casually, "the experiments of Dr. Von Pfungen of Vienna showing the protective resistance of the human skin against an electric current. Normally, this resistance averages from seventy to eighty thousand ohms. In the morning, owing to the accumulation of waste products, the resistance may mount to almost double. In persons suffering from nervous anxiety, it decreases to five thousand and even down to a thousand ohms in cases of hysteria. Von Pfungen has also measured a human being's emotional feelings by the electric current. I have a copy of his instrument here. There is one person who sits gripping the carbon electric handle connected with this galvanometer who, to begin with, had a resistance of over sixty thousand. But when I began to tell of how Rawaruska met her death, of the hypothetical case I have built up by my observations and experiments here in this very laboratory, the needle of the galvanometer started to oscillate downward. It went down until it reached thirty-eight thousand at the mention of murder. When I said the case was perfect, it had got as low as under twenty thousand, swinging lower and lower as the person saw hope depart!" Kennedy was no longer paying any attention to the little instrument. As I followed him, I became more and more impatient. What was it he had discovered? Who was it? "Preston," cried Kennedy, suddenly wheeling on the young doctor, "through your regard--honorable, I am sure--for Rawaruska you have let yourself be drawn into doing a little amateur detective work. Let me warn you. Instead of clearing up the case, you merely laid yourself open to suspicion. Fortunately the galvanometer absolves you. You should have known that Cecilie was only a tool. De Guerre, your black wallet, that all diamond dealers carry--thank you, Wade--that's it." Kennedy had turned from Preston to Cecilie, then to De Guerre so suddenly that no one was prepared for the signal he gave to the customs officer. Wade had covered the surprised dealer and was now emptying out the contents of the wallet. There, on the table, gleaming in the light of the laboratory, lay a wonderful brilliant, some three hundred carats--perfect in its blazing crystalline orange beauty. There it lay, a jewel which might charm and arouse the cupidity of two hemispheres. It shone like a thing of life. Yet back of its orange fire lay a black tragedy. Margot was on his feet instantly. "That is not the--" "Just a moment, Mr. Margot," interrupted Kennedy. "I think Mr. Wade will be able to show that it is the Invincible when he matches up the parts that have been hurriedly cut from--from the wonderful Arkansas diamond," Craig added sarcastically. "Miss Hoffman, Dr. Preston tells us that before you were a diamond saleswoman you had been a trained nurse!" The look Elsa Hoffman flashed, as her calm exterior refused to conceal her emotions longer, was venomous. Kennedy was the calmest one of us all as he tapped the little galvanometer significantly with his index finger. "De Guerre," he exclaimed, leaning forward slightly, "you and your lover, Elsa Hoffman, planned cunningly to rob your own brothers. But, instead of robbers merely," he ground out, "you are murderers!" CHAPTER X THE SIXTH SENSE "I suppose you have read in the papers of the mysterious burning of our country house at Oceanhurst, on the south shore of Long Island?" It had been about the middle of the afternoon that a huge automobile of the latest design drew up at Kennedy's laboratory and a stylishly dressed woman, accompanied by a very attentive young man, alighted. They had entered and the man, with a deep bow, presented two cards bearing the names of the Count and Countess Alessandro Rovigno. Julia Rovigno, I knew, was the daughter of Roger Gaskell, the retired banker. She had recently married Count Rovigno, a young foreigner whose family had large shipping interests in America and at Trieste in the Adriatic. "Yes, indeed, I have read about it," nodded Craig. "You see," she hurried on a little nervously, "it was a wedding present to us from my father." "Giulia," put in the young man quickly, giving her name an accent that was not, however, quite Italian, "thinks the fire was started by an incendiary." Rovigno was a tall, rather boyish-looking man of thirty-two or thirty-three, with light brown hair, light brown beard and mustache. His eyes and forehead spoke of intelligence, but I had never heard that he cared much about practical business affairs. In fact, to American society Rovigno was known chiefly as one of the most daring of motor-boat enthusiasts. "It may have been the work of an incendiary," he continued thoughtfully, "or it may not. I don't know. But there has been an epidemic of fires among the large houses out on Long Island lately." I nodded to Kennedy, for I had myself compiled a list for the _Star_, which showed that considerably over a million dollars' worth of show places had been destroyed. "At any rate," added the Countess, "we are burned out, and are staying in town now--at my father's house. I wish you would come around there. Perhaps father can help you. He knows all about the country out that way, for his own place isn't a quarter of a mile away." "I shall be glad to drop around, if I can be of any assistance," agreed Kennedy as the young couple left us. The Rovignos had scarcely gone when a woman appeared at the laboratory door. She was well dressed, pretty, but looked pale and haggard. "My name is Mrs. Bettina Petzka," she began, singling out Kennedy. "You do not know me, but my husband, Nikola, was one of the first students you taught, Professor." "Yes, yes, I recall him very well," replied Craig. "He was a brilliant student, too--very promising. What can I do for you?" "Why, Professor Kennedy," she cried, no longer able to control her feelings, "he has suddenly disappeared." "What line of work had he taken up?" asked Craig, interested. "He was a wireless operator--had been employed on a liner that runs to the Adriatic from New York. But he was out of work. Someone has told me that he thought he saw Nikola in Hoboken around the docks where a number of the liners that go to blockaded ports are laid up waiting the end of the war." She paused. "I see," remarked Kennedy, pursing up his lips thoughtfully. "Your husband was not a reservist of any of the countries at war, was he?" "No--he was first of all a scientist. I don't think he had any interest in the war--at least he never talked much about it." "I know," persisted Craig, "but had he taken out his naturalization papers here?" "He had applied for them." "When did he disappear?" "I haven't seen him for two nights," she sobbed. It flashed over me that it was now two nights since the fire that had burned Rovigno's house, although there was no reason for connecting the events, at least yet. The young woman was plainly wild with anxiety. "Oh, can't you help me find Nikola?" she pleaded. "I'll try my best," reassured Kennedy, taking down on a card her address and bowing her out. It was late in the afternoon before we had an opportunity to call at the Gaskell town house where the Rovignos were staying. The Count was not at home, but the Countess welcomed us and led us directly into a large library. "I'd like to have you meet my father," she introduced. "Father, this is Professor Kennedy, whom Alex and I have engaged to look into the burning of our house." Old Roger Gaskell received us, I thought, with a curious mixture of restraint and eagerness. "I hope you'll excuse me?" asked the Countess a moment later. "I really must dress for dinner. But I think I've told you all I can. I wanted you to talk to my father." "I've heard of the epidemic of fires from my friend Mr. Jameson here, on the _Star_," remarked Kennedy when we were alone. "Some, I understand, have attributed the fires to incendiaries, others have said they were the work of disgruntled servants, others of an architect or contractor who hasn't shared in the work and thinks he may later. I've even heard it said that an insurance man may be responsible--hoping to get new business, you know." Gaskell looked at us keenly. Then he rose and approached us, raising his finger as though cautioning silence. "Do you know," he whispered so faintly that it was almost lost, "sometimes I think there is a plot against me?" "Against _you_?" whispered back Kennedy. "Why, what do you mean?" "I can't tell you--here," he replied. "But, I believe there are detectaphones hidden about this house!" "Have you searched?" asked Kennedy keenly. "Yes, but I've found nothing. I've gone over all the furniture and such things. Still, they might be inside the walls, mightn't they?" Kennedy nodded. "Could you discover them if they were?" asked Gaskell. "I think I could," replied Craig confidently. "Then there's another peculiar thing," resumed Gaskell, a little more freely, yet still whispering. "I suppose you know that I have a country estate not far from my daughter?" He paused. "Of course I know," he went on, watching Kennedy's face, "that sparks are sometimes struck by horses' shoes when they hit stones. But the shoes of my horses, for instance, out there lately have been giving forth sparks even in the stable. My groom called my attention to it, and I saw it myself." He continued looking searchingly at Kennedy. "You are a scientist," he said at length. "Can you tell me why?" Kennedy was thinking deeply. "I can't, offhand," he replied frankly. "But I should like to have a chance to investigate." "There may be some connection with the fire," hinted Gaskell anxiously as he accompanied us to the door. At our own apartment, when we returned, we found our friend, Burke, of the Secret Service, waiting for us. "Just had a hurry call to come to New York," he explained, "and thought I'd like to drop in on you first." "What's the trouble?" asked Kennedy. "Why, there's been a mysterious yacht lurking about the mouth of the harbor for several days and they want to look into it." "Whose yacht do they think it is?" "They don't know, but it is said to resemble one that belongs to a man named Gaskell." "Gaskell?" repeated Craig, turning suddenly. "Yes,--the _Furious_--a fast, floating palace--one of these new power yachts, run by a gas engine--built for speed. Why, do you know anything about it?" Kennedy said nothing. "The revenue cutter _Uncas_ has been assigned to me," went on Burke. "If you have nothing better to do, I'd like to have you give me a hand in the case. You might find it a little different from the ordinary run." "I shall be glad to go with you," replied Craig cordially. "Only, just now I've got a particular case of my own. I'll see you tomorrow at the Customs House, though, if I can." "Good!" exclaimed Burke. "I don't think either of you, particularly Jameson, will regret it. It promises to be a good story." Burke had scarcely left us when Kennedy decided on his next move. We went directly over to the Long Island Railroad station and caught the next train out to Oceanhurst, not a long run from the city. Thus, early in the evening, Kennedy was able to begin, under cover, his investigation of the neighborhood of the Rovigno and Gaskell houses. We entered the Gaskell estate and looked it over as we made our way toward the stable to find the groom. Out on the bay we could see the _Furious_ at anchor. Nearer in shore were a couple of Count Rovigno's speedy racing motor-boats. Along the shore, we saw a basin for yachts, capable even of holding the _Furious_. The groom proved to be a rather dull-witted fellow, and left us pretty much to our own devices. "Ya-as--sparks--I saw 'em," he drawled in answer to Kennedy's question. "So did Mr. Gaskell. Naw--I don't know nawthin' about 'em." He had lumbered out into another part of the stable when I heard a low exclamation from Craig, of "Look, Walter!" I did look in amazement. There were indeed little sparks, in fact a small burst of them in all directions, where there were metal surfaces in close proximity to one another. Kennedy had brought along with him a strange instrument and he was now looking attentively at it. "What is that?" I asked. "The bolometer," he replied, "invented by Professor Langley." "And what does it do?" "Detects waves," he replied, "rays that are invisible to the eye. For instance, just now it tells me that shooting through the darkness are invisible waves, perhaps infra-red rays." He paused, and I looked at him inquiringly. "You know," he explained, "the infra-red rays are closer to the heat rays than those of the upper end of the spectrum and beyond, the ultra-violet rays, with which we have already had some experience." Kennedy continued to look at his bolometer. "Yes," he remarked thoughtfully, half to himself, "somewhere around here there is a generator of infra-red rays and a projector of those rays. It reminds me of those so-called F-rays of Ulivi--or at least of a very powerful wireless." I was startled at the speculations that his words conjured up in my mind. Was the "evil eye" of superstition a scientific fact? Was there a baneful beam that could be directed at will--one that could not be seen or felt until it worked its havoc? Was there a power that steel walls could not hold, which, in fact, was the more surely transmitted by them? Somehow, the fact of the strange disappearance of Petzka, the wireless operator, kept bobbing up in my mind. I could not help wondering whether, perhaps, he had found this strange power and was using it for some nefarious purpose. Could it have been Petzka who was responsible for the fires? But, why? I could not figure it out. Early the next morning we called at the Gaskell town house again. Kennedy had brought with him a small piece of apparatus which seemed to consist of two sets of coils placed on ends of a magnet bar. To them was attached a long flexible wire which he screwed into an electric light bulb socket. Then he placed a peculiar telephone-like apparatus, attached to the other end, to his ears. He adjusted the magnets and carried the thing carefully about the room. At one point he stopped and moved the thing vertically up along the wall, from floor to ceiling. "That's a gas pipe," he said simply. "What's the instrument?" I asked. "A new apparatus for finding pipes electrically, which I think can be just as well applied to finding other things concealed in walls under plaster and paper." He paused to adjust the thing. "The electrical method," he went on, "is a special application of well-known induction balance principles. You see one set of coils receives an alternating or vibrating current. The other is connected with this telephone. First I established a balance so that there was no sound in the telephone." He moved the thing about. "Now, when the device comes near metal-piping, for example, or a wire, the balance is disturbed and I hear a sound. That was the gas pipe. It is easy to find its exact location. Hulloa--" He paused again in a corner, back of Gaskell's desk and appeared to be listening intently. A moment later he was ruthlessly breaking through the plaster of the beautifully decorated wall. Sure enough, in there was a detectaphone, concealed only a fraction of an inch beneath the paper, with wires leading down inside the partition in the direction of the cellar. CHAPTER XI THE INFERNAL MACHINES He ripped the little mechanical eavesdropper out, wires and all, but he did not disconnect the wires, yet. We traced it out, and down into the cellar the wires led, directly, and then across, through a small opening in the foundations into the next cellar of an apartment house, ending in a bin or storeroom. In itself the thing, so far, gave no clew as to who was using it or the purpose for which it had been installed. But it was strange. "Someone _was_ evidently trying to get something from you, Mr. Gaskell," remarked Craig pointedly, after we returned to the Gaskell library. "Why do you suppose he went to all that trouble?" Gaskell shrugged his shoulders and averted his eyes. "I've heard of a yacht outside New York harbor," added Craig casually. "A yacht?" "Yes," he said nonchalantly, "the _Furious_." Gaskell met Kennedy's eye and looked at him as though Craig had some occult power of divination. Then he moved over closer to us. "Is that detectaphone thing out of business now?" he asked, hoarsely. "Yes." "Absolutely?" "Absolutely." Gaskell leaned over. "Then I don't mind telling you, Professor Kennedy," he said in a low tone, "that I am letting a friend of mine from London use that yacht to supply some allied warships on the Atlantic with news, supplies and ammunition, such as can be carried." Kennedy looked at him keenly, but for some moments did not answer. I knew he was debating on how he might properly dove-tail this with Burke's case, ethically. "Someone is trying to find out from eavesdropping just what your plans are, then," remarked Craig thoughtfully, with a significant tap on the detectaphone. A moment later he turned his back to us and knelt down. He seemed to be wrapping the detectaphone up in a small package which he put in his pocket and closing the hole in the wall as best he could where he had ripped the paper. "All I ask of you," concluded Gaskell, as we left a few minutes later, "is to keep your hands off that phase of things. Find the incendiary--yes; but this other matter that you have forced out of me--well--hands off!" On our way downtown to keep the appointment Kennedy had made with Burke the night before, he stopped at the laboratory to get a heavy parcel which he carried along. We found Burke waiting for us, impatiently, at the Customs House. "We've just discovered that the liners over at Hoboken have had steam up for a couple of days," he said excitedly. "Evidently they are waiting to make a break for the ocean--perhaps in concert with a sortie of the fleets over in Europe." "H-m," mused Kennedy, looking fixedly at Burke, "that complicates matters, doesn't it? We must preserve American neutrality." He thought a moment. "I should like to go aboard the revenue cutter. May I?" "Surely," agreed Burke. A few moments later we were on the _Uncas_, Kennedy and Burke in earnest conversation in low tones which I did not overhear. Evidently Craig was telling him just enough of what he had himself discovered so as to enlist Burke's services. The captain in charge of the _Uncas_ joined the conversation a few moments later, and then Kennedy took the heavy package down below. For some time he was at work in one of the forward tanks that was full of water, attaching the thing, whatever it was, in such a way that it seemed to form part of the skin of the ship. Another brief talk with Burke and the captain followed, and then the three returned to the deck. "Oh, by the way," remarked Burke, as he and Kennedy came back to me, "I forgot to tell you that I have had some of my men working on the case and one of them has just learned that a fellow named Petzka, one of the best wireless operators,--a Hungarian or something--has been engaged to go on that yacht." "Petzka?" I repeated involuntarily. "Yes," said Burke, in surprise, "do you know anything about him?" I turned to Kennedy. "Not much," replied Craig. "But you can find out about him, I think, through his wife. He used to be one of my students. Here's her address. She's very anxious to hear from him. I'm sure that if you have any news she will be only too glad to receive it." Burke took the address and a little while later we went ashore. I was not surprised when Kennedy proposed, as the next move, to revisit the cellar in the apartment next to Gaskell's house. But I was surprised at what he said, after we had reached the place. All along I had supposed that he was planning to wait there in hope of catching the person who had installed the detectaphone. That, of course, was a possibility, still. But in reality he had another purpose, also. We had scarcely secreted ourselves in the cellar storeroom, which was in a dark corner where one might remain unobserved even if the janitor entered the cellar, provided he did not search that part, when Kennedy took the receiving headpiece of the detectaphone and placed it over his head, quite as if nothing had happened. "What's the use of that?" I queried. "You ripped the transmitter out up above." He smiled quietly. "While my back was turned toward you, so that you couldn't see," he said, "I slipped the thing back again, only down further where Gaskell wouldn't be likely to find it, even if he looked. I don't know whether he was frank with us, so I thought I'd try the eavesdropping game myself, in place of the man who put this thing in in the first place, whoever he was." We took turns listening, but could hear not a sound. Nor did anyone come into the cellar. So a good part of the afternoon passed, apparently fruitless. My patience was thoroughly exhausted when, suddenly, a motion from Craig revived my flagging interest. I waited impatiently for him to tell me what it was that he heard. "What was it?" I asked finally as he pulled the receivers off his head and stood for a moment, considering. "At first I heard the sound of voices," he answered quickly. "One was the voice of a woman, which I recognized. It was the Countess. The other was the Count. "'Giulia,' I heard him say, as they entered the room, 'I don't see why you should want to go. It's dangerous. And besides, it's none of our business if your father lets his yacht be used for such a purpose.' "'But I want to go, Alex,' she said. 'I will go. I'm a good sailor. It's father's yacht. He won't care.' "'But what's the use?' he expostulated. 'Besides--think of the danger. If it was our business, it might be different.' "'I should think you'd want to go.' "'Not I. I can get all the excitement I want in a motor-boat race without risking my precious neck pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for someone else.' "'Well, I want the adventure,' she persisted, petulantly. "'But, Giulia, if you go tonight, think of the risk--' "That was the last I heard as they left the room, still arguing. Evidently, someone is going to pull off something tonight." It did not take Kennedy long to make up his mind what to do next. He left the cellar hurriedly and in the laboratory hastily fixed up a second heavy and bulky package similar to that which he had taken down to the revenue cutter earlier in the day, making it into two parcels so as to distribute the burden between us. That night we journeyed out to Oceanhurst again. Avoiding the regular road, we made our way from the station to the Gaskell place by a roundabout path and it was quite dark by the time we got there. As we approached the basin we saw that there were several men about. They appeared to be on guard, but since Oceanhurst at that season of the year was pretty deserted and the Gaskell estate was out of the town, they were not especially vigilant. Dark and grim, with only one light showing weakly, lay the yacht, having been run into the basin, now. A hawser had been stretched across the mouth of the basin. Outside was a little tender, while a searchlight was playing over the water all the time. Evidently whatever interference was feared was expected from the water rather than from the land. We slunk into the shadow of a row of bath-houses, in order to get our bearings. On the opposite side from the road that led down from the house, it was not so likely that anyone would suspect that interlopers were hiding there. Still, they were not neglecting that side of the basin, at least in a perfunctory sort of way. Kennedy drew me back into the shadow, deeper, at the sound of footsteps on the boardwalk leading in front of the bath-houses. From our hiding place we could now hear two voices, apparently of sailors. "Do you know the new wireless operator who goes with us tonight?" asked one. "No. They've been very careful of him. I guess they were afraid that someone might get wise. But there couldn't very well be any leak, there. One of those Englishmen has been with him every minute since he was engaged." "They say he's pretty good. Who is he?" "A Servian, he says, and his name sounds as if it might be so." The voices trailed off. It was only a scrap of conversation, but Kennedy had not missed a word of it. "That means Petzka," he nodded to me. "What is he--a Hungarian or a Servian?" I asked quickly. Kennedy had craned his neck out beyond the corner of the bath-houses and was looking at the _Furious_ in the basin. "Come on, Walter," he whispered, not taking time to answer my question. "Those fellows have gone. There's no one at all on this side of the basin and I just saw the men on deck go up the gangplank to the boat-house. They can't do any more than put us off, anyhow." He had watched his chance well. As quickly as we could, burdened down by our two heavy packages, we managed to slip across the boardwalk to the piling that formed that side of the basin. The _Furious_ had swung over with the tide nearer our side than the other. It was a daring leap, but he made it as lightly as a cat, landing on the deck. I passed over the packages to him and followed. Kennedy scarcely paused to glance about. He had chosen a moment when no one was looking, and, bending down under the weight of the packages we dodged back of a cabin. A dim light shining into the hold told us that no one was there and we dived down. It was the work of a moment to secrete ourselves in the blank darkness behind a pile of boxes, aft. A noise startled us. Someone was coming down the steep, ladder-like stairs. A moment later we heard another noise. There were two of them, moving about among the boxes. From our hiding place we could overhear them talking in hoarse whispers, but could not see them. "Where did you put them?" asked a voice. "In every package of explosives and in as many of the boxes of canned goods as I had time. There wasn't much opportunity except while the stuff was in the boat-house." I looked at Kennedy, wild-eyed. Was there treachery in the crew? He was leaning forward as much as our cramped quarters would permit, so as not to miss a word. "All right," said the other voice. "No one suspects?" "No. But the Secret Service has been pretty busy. They suspect something--but not this." "Good. You are sure that you can detonate them when the time comes?" "Positive. Everything is working fine. I've done my part of it. Changing wireless operators gave me just the chance I wanted." "All right. I guess I'll go now." "Remember the signal. As soon as the things are detonated I will get off, some way, by wireless the S O S--as if it came from the fleet, you understand?" "Yes--that will be the signal for the dash. Good luck--I'm going ashore now." As they passed up the ladder, I could no longer restrain myself. "Craig," I cried, "this is devilish!" I thought I saw it all now. In the cases of goods on the _Furious_ were some terrible infernal machines which had been hidden, to be detonated by these deadly rays of wireless. Kennedy was busy, working quickly putting together the parts he had taken from the two packages we had carried. As I watched him, I realized that the burning of the Rovigno house was not the action of an incendiary, after all. It had been done by these deadly rays, probably by mere accident. As nearly as I could make it out, there was a counterplot against the _Furious_. Somewhere was an infernal workshop, possibly hedged about by doors of steel which ordinary force would find hard to penetrate, but from which, any moment, this super-criminal might send out his deadly power. The more I considered it, while Kennedy worked, the more uncanny it seemed. This man had rendered the mere possession of explosives more dangerous to the possessor than to the enemy. Archimedes had been outdone! The problem before us now was not only the preservation of American neutrality, but the actual safety of life. Through the open hatch I could now hear voices on the deck. One was that of a woman, which I recognized quickly. It was Julia Rovigno. "I'll be just as quiet as a mouse," she was saying. "I'll stay in the cabin--I won't be in the way." I could not hear the man's voice in reply, but it did not sound like Rovigno's. It was rather like Gaskell's. Still, we had heard enough to know that Julia Rovigno was on the yacht, had insisted on going on the expedition for the excitement of the thing, just as we had heard over the detectaphone. "Hadn't we better warn her?" I asked Craig, who had paused in his work at the sound of voices. Before he could answer we were plunged in sudden darkness. Someone had switched out the light that had been shining down through the hatchway. Before we knew it the opening to the hatchway had been closed. CHAPTER XII THE SUBMARINE BELL Kennedy groped about for a light, stumbling over boxes and bags. "For heaven's sake, Craig," I entreated. "Be careful. Those packages are full of the devilish things!" He said nothing. At least we had a little more freedom to move and I managed to find my way over to a little round porthole and open it. As I looked out, I almost fainted at the realization. The _Furious_ was under way! We were locked in the hold--virtual prisoners--our only company those dastardly infernal machines, whose very nature we did not know! Helplessly I gazed around me. There seemed to be only this one porthole, open, looking out over the dark and turbulent water, which slipped ominously past as we gained speed. Why had Kennedy not foreseen this risk? I glanced at him. He had found an electric light, connected with the yacht's dynamo, and, before turning it on, closed and covered the port so that it threw no reflection out. Far from being disconcerted, on the contrary, he seemed rather pleased than otherwise at the unexpected turn of events. As I looked at our scant and cramped quarters I could see absolutely no way of getting word to anyone off the _Furious_ who might help us. What he was working on I did not know, but if it was some sort of wireless, even if we were able to send a message, what hope was there that it would get past the delicate wireless detector which this criminal must have somewhere near for tapping messages that were being flashed through the air? Had we not heard him say that the signal was to be an S O S sent, as it were, from the fleet far out on the ocean? I could well have believed that Kennedy could rig up some means of communication. But, if the possessor of this terrible infra-red ray, or wireless wave, secret should learn that we, too, knew it, the only result that he would accomplish would be to insure our destruction immediately. It was a foggy night and a drizzle had set in. The _Furious_ could not under such circumstances make such good speed as she was accustomed to make. Fortunately, also, the waves were not running high. Craig had taken a desperate chance. How would he meet it? I watched him at work, fascinated by our peril. Finishing as quickly as he could, he put out our sole electric light, unscrewed the bulb and attached to the socket a wire which he had connected with the instrument over which he had spent so many precious moments. Through the little porthole he cast a peculiar disk, heavy, such as I had seen him place so carefully aboard the _Uncas_. It sank in the water with a splash and trailed along beside the yacht, held by a wire, submerged, perhaps, ten or twelve feet. He made a final inspection of the thing as well as he could by the light of a match, then pressed a key which seemed to close a circuit. I could feel a dull, metallic vibration, as it were. "What are you doing?" I asked, looking curiously also at an arrangement, like a microphone, which he had placed over his ears. "It works!" he cried excitedly. "What works?" I reiterated. "This Fessenden oscillator," he explained. "It's a system for the employment of sound for submarine signals. I don't know whether you realize it, but great advance has been made recently since it was suggested to use water instead of air as the medium for transmitting signals. I can't stop to explain this apparatus just now, but it is composed of a ring magnet, a copper tube which lies in an air gap of a magnetic field, and a stationary central armature. The magnetic field is much stronger than that in the ordinary dynamo. "The copper tube, which has an alternating current induced in it, is attached to solid disks of steel which in turn are attached to a steel diaphragm an inch thick. In the _Uncas_ I had a chance to make that diaphragm practically a part of the side of the ship. Here I have had to hang it overboard, with a large water-tight diaphragm attached to the oscillator." I listened eagerly, even if I were not an electrical engineer. "The same oscillator," he went on, "is used for sending and receiving, for, like the ordinary electric motor it is also capable of acting as a generator, and a very efficient one, too. All I have to do is to throw a switch in one direction when I want to telegraph or telephone under water, and in the other direction when I want to listen in." I could scarcely credit what I heard. Craig had circumvented even the spectacular wireless. He was actually talking through water. Craig had virtually endowed himself with a sixth sense! I watched him spellbound. Would he succeed in whatever it was that he was planning? I waited anxiously. "There's the answer!" he exclaimed in sudden exultation. "Burke is on the _Uncas_. He tells me that he went to see Mrs. Petzka and she is with him--insisted on going, when she heard that her husband had been engaged by the _Furious_." He waited a moment. "You see, Walter," he resumed, "what I am doing is to send out signals by which the _Uncas_ can locate and follow us. She is fast, but, thank heaven, this yacht has to go slow tonight. Sound travels in water at a velocity of about four thousand feet a second. For instance, I find that I get an echo in about one-twentieth of a second. That is the reflected sound wave from the bottom, and indicates that we are in water of about one hundred feet depth. Then I get another echo in something over two seconds. That is the waves reflected from the _Uncas_, which has been hovering about, waiting for something to happen. They can't be much more than a mile and a half away, now. I had expected to signal them from the shore, a dock or something of the sort, using this oscillator to get around that fellow's wireless. But we're much better off on the boat." I looked at him in amazement. "Surrounded by all this junk that may blow us to kingdom come any second?" I demanded. "Burke says steam is still up on all the ships tied up in the harbor so that they can make a dash for it. They are evidently waiting for that S O S signal." "That's all right," I said in desperation, "But suppose they blow us up, first?" "Blow us up first?" he repeated. "Why, don't you understand? It is not the _Furious_ that they are after. The whole war fleet that is hanging around in this part of the Atlantic is to be blown up in mid-ocean, as part of the plan to aid the escape of the interned ships in New York." "Oh," I breathed, with a sigh of relief, "that's it, is it?" "Yes. We'll get in bad all around if we can't stop it--Burke with the Secret Service and ourselves with Gaskell, who doesn't dream that his yacht is being used for the exact opposite of the purpose for which he thinks he has lent it--to say nothing of the mess that our government will have to face for letting these precious schemers play ducks and drakes with our neutrality." We waited eagerly, Kennedy sending out and receiving the submarine signals, and I peering out anxiously into the almost impenetrable fog. Suddenly, apparently from nowhere in the shifting mist, lights seemed to loom up. Instead of stopping, however, the _Furious_ put on a sudden burst of reckless speed. The _Uncas_ was no match for her at that game. Would she escape finally, after all? A sharp report rang out. The _Uncas_ had sent a shot across our bows, so dangerously close that it snapped one of the cables that held the mast. The vibration of our engine slowed, and ceased, and we lay, idly wallowing in the waves as the revenue cutter, bearing our friend Burke and help, came up. A couple of boats put out from the cutter and in almost no time we could hear the tread of feet and the exchange of harsh words as the government officers swarmed up the ladder to our deck. It was only a moment later that the hatch was broken open and we heard the welcome brogue of Burke, calling, "Kennedy--are you and Jameson all right?" "Right here," sang out Craig, detaching the oscillator and replacing the electric bulb, which he lighted. The commotion on deck was too great for anyone to make much of finding us, two stowaways. The Countess was surprised, however, and, I felt, rather glad to see us at a time when we might, possibly exert some influence in her favor if matters came to a more serious pass. There was scarcely time for a word. Burke's men were working quickly. They had entered the hold, after a word from Kennedy, and far out into the ocean they were casting the boxes and bags overboard, one at a time, as fast as they could. They worked feverishly, as Burke spurred them on, and I must say that it was with the utmost relief that I saw the things thrown over. The boxes sank, but rose again and floated, bobbing up and down, at least some of them, perhaps a third above water and two-thirds below. It was not for several minutes that I noticed that with those who had come aboard the _Furious_ from the cutter stood Bettina Petzka. A moment later she caught sight of Kennedy. "Where is my husband?" she demanded, running to him. Kennedy had no chance to reply. Suddenly a series of flashes shattered the darkness. A terrific roar seemed to rise from the very ocean, while a rain of sparks lighted up great spurts of water and then fell back, to perish in the dark waves. The _Furious_ trembled from end to end. We looked, startled, at each other. But we were all safe. The things had been detonated in the water. "Only the fact that he would have blown himself up prevented him from blowing up the yacht and all the evidence against him, now that we have discovered his plot," cried Burke, excitedly, dashing down the deck. Recovered scarcely from our surprise at the explosion and the queer actions of the Secret Service man, we rushed after him as best we could, Craig leading. He led the way to the little wireless room. The door was bolted on the inside, but we managed soon to burst it open. I shall never forget the surprise which greeted us. In a chair, bound and gagged, as though he had been overcome only after a struggle, sat Petzka. Mrs. Petzka threw herself frantically on him, tearing at the stout cords that held him. "Nikola--what is the matter?" she cried. "What has happened?" Through his gag, which she had loosened a bit, he made a peculiar, gurgling noise. As nearly as I could make out, he was struggling to say, "He came in--surprised me--seized me--locked the door." Julia Rovigno stood rooted to the spot--utterly speechless. There, surrounded by electric batteries, condensers, projectors, regulators, resonators, reflectors, voltmeters, and ammeters, queer apparatus which he had smuggled secretly on the _Furious_, before a strange sort of device, with a wireless headgear still over his ears, stood the owner of at least two of the liners of the belligerents which were to have made the dash for the ocean after he had succeeded by his new wireless ray device in removing the hostile fleet--Count Rovigno himself. CHAPTER XIII THE SUPER-TOXIN "I've got to make good in this Delaney case, Kennedy," appealed our old friend, Dr. Leslie, the coroner, one evening when he had dropped unexpectedly into the laboratory, looking particularly fagged and discouraged. "You know," he added, "they've been investigating my office--and now, here comes a case which, I must confess, completely baffles us again." "Delaney," mused Craig. "Let me see. That's the rich Texas rancher who has been blazing a trail through the white lights of Broadway--with that Baroness Von Dorf and----" "And other war brokers," interrupted Leslie. "War brokers?" queried Craig. "Yes. That's what they call them. They're a new class--people with something to sell to or with commissions to buy for belligerent governments. In Delaney's case it was fifty thousand or so head of cattle and horses, controlled by a syndicate of which he was the promoter. That's why he came to New York, you know,--to sell them at a high price to any European power. The syndicate stands to make a small fortune." "I understand," nodded Kennedy, interested. "Just as though there wasn't mystery enough about Delaney's sudden death," Leslie hurried on, "here's a letter that came to him today--too late." Kennedy took the note Leslie handed him. It was postmarked "Washington," and read: DEAR DALEY: I intended writing to you sooner but haven't felt well enough since I came here. The strangest thing about it is that the doctors I have consulted seem to be unable to tell me definitely what is the matter. I can tell you I have been badly frightened. I seemed to have a lot of little boils on my face and new ones kept coming. I felt weak and chilly and had headaches that almost drove me crazy. Perhaps the thing, whatever it is, has made me insane, but I cannot help wondering whether there may not be something back of it all. Do you suppose someone could have poisoned me, hoping to ruin my beauty, on which, to a great measure, depends my success in my mission to America during the war? Since I came here I have been wondering, too, how you are. If there should be anything in my suspicions, perhaps it would be safest for you to leave New York. There is nothing more I can say, but if you feel the least bit unwell, do not disregard this warning. If you will meet me here, we can arrange the deal with those I represent at almost any price you name. Try hard to get here. As ever, LOUISE. Craig looked up quickly. "Have you communicated with the Baroness?" he asked. Dr. Leslie leaned forward in his chair. "The fact is," he replied slowly, "the woman who calls herself the Baroness Von Dorf has suddenly disappeared, even in Washington. We can find no trace of her whatever. Indeed, the embassy down there does not even admit that she is a war buyer. Oh, the newspapers haven't got the whole Delaney story--yet. But when they do get it"--he paused and glanced significantly at me--"there's going to be _some_ sensation." I recalled now that there had been an air of mystery surrounding the sudden death of Daley Delaney the day before. At least one of the papers had called it "the purple death"--whatever that might mean. I had thought it due to the wild career of the ranchman, perhaps a plain case of apoplexy, around which the bright young reporters had woven a slender thread of romance. Kennedy, however, thought otherwise. "The purple death," he ruminated, turning the case over in his mind. "Have you any idea what the papers mean by that?" "Why, it's one of the most grewsome things you ever heard of," went on Leslie eagerly, encouraged. "In some incomprehensible way the hand of fate seems to have suddenly descended on the whole Delaney entourage. First his Japanese servant fell a victim to this 'purple death,' as they call it. "He had scarcely been removed to a hospital where, after fighting a brave fight, he succumbed to the unknown peril, when the butler was stricken. Delaney himself packed up, to leave, in panic, when suddenly, apparently without warning, the purple death carried him off. In three days three of them have died suddenly. Then came this letter from the Baroness. It set me thinking. Perhaps it _was_ poison--I don't know." Craig read the letter of the Baroness again. "Most interesting," he exclaimed energetically as Dr. Leslie finished. "I shall be only too glad to help you if I can. Could you take us up to Delaney's rooms? Is the body still there?" "No, it has been removed to a private undertaking establishment and the apartment is guarded by police. We can stop at the undertaker's on the way over to the apartment." There could be no doubt that Leslie was considerably relieved to think that Craig would consent to take the case. As for Kennedy, I could see that the affair aroused his interest to the keenest point. "Was anyone associated with Delaney in the syndicate here?" inquired Craig as we settled ourselves in Dr. Leslie's car. "Yes," answered the coroner, hurrying us along, "another member of the syndicate was his friend, Dr. Harris Haynes." "Who is he?" asked Kennedy. "Haynes has been a veterinary, but found that there was more money in the cattle business than in practicing his profession. The needs of European war seemed to offer just the opportunity they needed to reap a quick fortune." "I've heard," nodded Craig, "that conditions abroad have led to a great influx of adventurers with other people's money." "Yes. According to all accounts, Delaney and Haynes have been leading a rather rapid existence since they came to New York. It's quite right. The city is full of queer and mysterious characters, both men and women, who profess to be agents for various foreign governments, often unnamed. Delaney and Haynes have met about all of this curious army, I suppose." "I see," prompted Craig. "Among them, I take it, was this stunning woman who calls herself the Baroness Louise Von Dorf. How friendly were they?" "Well, she spent a great deal of time, when she was in the city, up at the apartment Delaney had rented." Leslie and Kennedy exchanged a significant glance. "Who is she?" asked Craig. "Do you know?" "No one seems to know. Yet she is always plentifully supplied with money and they tell me she talks glibly of those whose 'influence' she can command in Washington." "But she has disappeared," mused Kennedy. "Were there any others?" "Haynes hasn't been proof against their wiles," answered the coroner. "I have found out that he was introduced by one of the 'war brokers' to a Madame Daphne Dupres." "And she?" Leslie shook his head. "I don't know anything about her, except that she lives at the Hotel St. Quentin--the same place, by the way, where Haynes makes his headquarters." Our car pulled up at the private morgue of the burial company to which Delaney's body had been taken. We entered, and Kennedy wasted no time in making a careful examination of the remains of the unfortunate victim. "I couldn't make anything out of it, even after an autopsy," confessed Dr. Leslie. "It seemed as though it were something that had been conveyed by the blood all over the body, something that blocked the capillaries and caused innumerable hemorrhages into organs and tissues, and especially nerve centers." The body seemed to be discolored and variegated in color, with here and there little marks of boils or vesicles. "It looks like something that has depleted the red corpuscles of oxygen," continued Leslie, noticing that Kennedy had drawn off a little of the body fluids, evidently for future study. "As nearly as I could make out there had been a cyanosis in a marked degree. He had all the appearance of having been asphyxiated." "Which seems to have been enough to suggest to some imaginative mind the 'purple death,'" remarked Kennedy dryly. Still, I could not help noticing that it was really no exaggeration to call it the purple death. One of the morgue attendants had called Dr. Leslie aside and a moment later he rejoined us. "They tell me Haynes has been here," he reported. "I left word that any visitors were to be carefully watched." "Strange," muttered Kennedy, absorbing Dr. Leslie's latest information and then looking back at the body, puzzled. "Very strange. Let us go up to the apartment right away." Kennedy stowed the little tube in which he had placed the body fluid safely in his pocket and led the way out again to our waiting car. Delaney had picked out a fashionable neighborhood in which to live. As we entered the bronze grilled door and rode up in the elevator, Kennedy handed each of us a cigar and lighted one himself. I lighted up, too, thinking that perhaps there might be some virtue in tobacco to ward off the unseen perils into which we were going. The wealthy ranchman, evidently, on his arrival in New York had rented an apartment, furnished, from a lawyer, Ashby Ames, who had gone south on account of his health. We entered and found that it was a very attractive place that Ames had fitted up. At one side of a library or drawing-room opened out a little glass sun-parlor or conservatory on a balcony. Into it a dining-room opened also. In fact, the living rooms of the whole suite could be thrown into one, with this sun-parlor as a center. Everything about the apartment was quite up-to-date, also. For instance, I noticed that the little conservatory was lighted brilliantly by a mercury vapor tube that ran around it in a huge rectangle of light. Dr. Leslie and the police had already ransacked the place and there did not seem to be much likelihood that anything could have escaped them. Still, Kennedy began a searching examination after his own methods, while we waited, gazing at him curiously. By the frown on his forehead I gathered that he was not meeting with much encouragement, when, suddenly, he withdrew the cigar from his mouth, looked at it critically, puffed again, then moved his lips and tongue as if trying to taste something. Mechanically I did the same. The cigar had a peculiar flavor. I should have flung it away if Kennedy himself had not given it to me. It was not mere imagination, either. Surely there had been none of that sweetishness about the fragrant Havana when I lighted it on the way up. "What is the matter?" I asked. "There's cyanogen in this room," Craig remarked keenly, still tasting, as he stood near the sun-parlor. "Cyanogen?" I repeated. "Yes, there are artificial aids to the senses that make them much keener than nature has done for us. For instance, if air contains the merest traces of the deadly cyanogen gas--prussic acid, you know--cigar smoke acquires a peculiar taste which furnishes an efficient alarm signal." Dr. Leslie's face brightened as Kennedy proceeded. "That is something like my idea," he exclaimed. "I have thought all along that it looked very much like a poisoning case. In fact, the very first impression I had was that it might have been due to a cyanide--or at least some gas like cyanogen." Kennedy said nothing, and the coroner proceeded. "And the body looked cyanotic, too, you recall. But the autopsy revealed nothing further. I have even examined the food, as far as I can, but I can't find anything wrong with it." There was a noise at the door, outside in the hall, and Dr. Leslie opened it. "Dr. Haynes," he introduced, a moment later. Haynes was a large man, good-looking, even striking, with a self-assertive manner. We shook hands, and taking our cue from Craig, waited for him to speak. "It's very strange what could have carried Delaney off so suddenly," ventured Haynes a moment later. "I've been trying to figure it out myself. But I must admit that so far it has completely stumped me." He was pacing up and down the room and I watched him more or less suspiciously. Somehow I could not get the idea out of my head that he had been listening to us outside. Now and then, I fancied, he shot a glance at us, as if he were watching us. "They tell me at the burial company that you were there today," put in Dr. Leslie, his eyes fixed on Haynes' face. Haynes met his gaze squarely, without flinching. "Yes. I got thinking over what the papers said about the 'purple death,' and I thought perhaps I might have overlooked something. But there wasn't--" The telephone rang. Haynes seized the receiver before any of the rest of us could get to it. "That must be for me," he said with a brusque apology. "Why--yes, I am here. Dr. Leslie and Professor Kennedy are up here. No--we haven't discovered anything new. Yes--I shall keep the appointment. Good-by." The conversation had been short, but, to me at least, it seemed that he had contrived to convey a warning without seeming to do so. CHAPTER XIV THE SECRET AGENTS Dr. Leslie looked at Haynes searchingly. "Who was it?" he asked. "Madame Dupres?" Haynes did not hesitate. "Yes," he nodded. "I had an appointment with her and told her that if I was late it would probably be that I had stopped here." The answer came so readily that I must confess that I was suspicious of it. "Did Madame Dupres know the Baroness Von Dorf?" asked Craig quickly. "Yes, indeed," returned Haynes, then stopped suddenly. "But they didn't travel in the same circle, did they?" asked Dr. Leslie, with the air of the cross-examiner who wished to place on record a fact that might later prove damaging. "Not exactly," answered Haynes, with some hesitation. "You knew her, of course?" added Craig. Haynes nodded. "I wonder if you could locate the Baroness," pursued Kennedy. Haynes seemed to express no surprise at the obvious implication that she was missing. "I have no objection to trying," he answered simply; then, with a glance at his watch, he reached for his hat and stick and excused himself. "I'm afraid I must go. If I can be of any assistance," he added, "don't hesitate to call on me. Delaney and I were pretty closely associated in this deal and I feel that nothing is too much to ask of me if it is possible to clear up the mystery of his death, if there is any." He departed as quickly as he had come. "I wonder what he dropped in for?" I remarked. "Whatever it was, he didn't get it," returned Leslie. "I'm not so sure of that," I said, remembering the brief telephone conversation with Madame Dupres. Kennedy did not appear to be bothering much about the question one way or the other. He had let his cigar go out during Haynes' visit, but now that we were alone again he continued his minute search of the premises. He opened a closet which evidently contained nothing but household utensils and was about to shut the door when an idea occurred to him. A moment later he pulled from the mystic depths an electric vacuum cleaner and dragged it over to the sun-parlor. Without a word we watched him as he ran it over the floor and walls, even over the wicker stands on which the plants stood, and then over the floor coverings and furniture of the other rooms that opened into the conservatory. What he was after I could not imagine, but I knew it was useless to ask him until he had found it or had some reason for telling it. Carefully he removed the dust and dirt from the machine and wrapped it up tightly in a package. We parted from Dr. Leslie at the door of the apartment, promising to keep in touch with him and let him know the moment anything happened. At the first telegraph office Kennedy entered and sent off a long message to our friend Burke of the Secret Service in Washington, asking him to locate the Baroness, if possible, in that city, and to give any information he might have about either Haynes or Madame Dupres. "It's still early in the evening," remarked Kennedy as we left the telegraph office. "Suppose we drop around to the St. Quentin. Perhaps we may run into our friends there." The St. Quentin was a favorite resort of foreigners in New York, and I, at least, entered prepared to suspect everyone. "Not all these mysterious-looking men and women," laughed Kennedy, noticing me as we walked through the lobby, "are secret agents of foreign governments." "Still they look as if they might give you the 'high sign,'" I replied, "particularly if you flashed a bankroll." "I don't doubt it," he agreed, his eye roving over the throng. "I suspect that Scotland Yard and the Palais de Justice might be quite pleased to see some faces here rather than on the other side of the Atlantic." He drew me into an angle and for some moments we studied the passing crowd of diplomats and near-diplomats. A moment later I saw Kennedy bow and, following the direction of his eyes, looked up to a sort of mezzanine gallery. There were Haynes and a most attractive woman, talking earnestly. "Madame Dupres," Craig whispered to me, aside. She was tall, slender, gowned in the most modish manner, and had a foreign way about her that would have fascinated one even more cosmopolitan than a Texas veterinary. Now and then someone would stop and chat with them and it seemed that they were on very good terms, at least with a certain group at the St. Quentin. Kennedy moved out further into the lobby where he was more noticeable; then, with a sudden resolution, mounted the steps to the mezzanine floor and approached Haynes. "Let me introduce Professor Kennedy, Madame Dupres," presented Haynes. Kennedy bowed. Whatever one's opinion of madame, he was forced to admit that she was clever. It was evident, also, that she and Haynes were on very intimate terms, also. "I hope that you will be able to clear up the mystery that the newspapers have found in Mr. Delaney's death," she remarked. "Mr. Haynes has told me that he met you tonight with Dr. Leslie. By the way, has he told you his own theory?" she asked. "We shall do our best," replied Kennedy, meeting her eye in as impersonal a manner as it was possible, for it is always difficult to dissociate a beautiful woman from a case like this and judge her not as a beautiful woman but on the merits of the case. "No, Mr. Haynes has not told me his theory--yet." "I'm very glad to have met you," she added, extending her daintily gloved hand to Kennedy, "and you may be sure that if there is any way in which I can be of service I shall expect you to call on me. Just now I hope you will excuse me. I have some letters to get off--and I will leave you men to discuss Mr. Haynes' theory without being hampered by a mere woman. Never mind, Harris," she added as Haynes made as if to escort her to the ladies' writing room. As Madame Dupres passed down the steps there was no denying that she made a splendid impression. Haynes watched her with a glance that was almost ravenous. There could be no doubt of her influence over him. As she passed through the lobby she paused at the telegraph desk a moment, then went into the writing room. "Yes, I think I have an explanation," began Haynes, when she was out of sight. "I've been trying to figure out what could have killed Delaney. Of course I can only guess, but I don't think it is such a bad guess." "What is it?" asked Craig. "You remember the mercury vapor light?" Kennedy nodded. "Mercury vapor lights of that sort are a pretty good source of ultra-violet rays sometimes," went on Haynes. "Well, doubtless you know that various plants belonging to different families produce free prussic acid. They are really cyanogenetic plants. Light and the assimilation processes depending on light exert a favorable influence on cyanogenesis. For instance, a mixture of citric acid with a much smaller amount of potassium nitrite and a trace of bicarbonate of iron, if exposed to light, will generate hydrocyanic acid. That, I believe, is what actually happens in some plant tissues. Animals rarely touch such plants. I believe that such a process might be aided rather than retarded by ultra-violet rays. What do you think of it?" Craig was following Dr. Haynes keenly. As for me, I was astounded by his frankness. I recalled what Kennedy had already said up in Delaney's apartment, and watched his face covertly. "Your explanation is plausible," was all that Craig said. "By the way, have you found out anything about the Baroness?" "Not a word, yet," replied Haynes unhesitatingly. "She seems to be out of town." "And madame--has she any idea where she is?" Haynes shook his head. "You may rest assured," replied Haynes in a tone that was meant to carry conviction, "that if we can find out we shall be only too happy to do so--ourselves." There was nothing to be gained by further inquiry here, and I could imagine that Kennedy was burning with anxiety to get at work on his own line of inquiry at the laboratory. After a few minutes of conversation we excused ourselves and left the hotel. Craig's air of abstraction was not such as to invite further questioning, and I left him an hour or so later in the laboratory surrounded by his microscopes, slides, and innumerable test-tubes which he had prepared for some exceedingly minute investigation in which his exact soul delighted. How late he worked I do not know, for I did not hear him come into our apartment. But he was up very early, in fact woke me up stirring around the living room. I had scarcely completed dressing, while he scanned the morning papers in a vain hope that some stray news item might shed some light on the mystery in which we were now involved, when the whirr of our door buzzer announced that we had an unusually early caller. Kennedy opened the door and admitted a stranger. He was one of those well-groomed middle-aged men whose appearance denotes with what care they seek by every means to retain youth that is fast passing. I could imagine him calmly calculating even his vices. "My name is Ames--Ashby Ames," he introduced. "Dr. Leslie, the coroner, has suggested that I see you." Ames looked as if he had been traveling all night and had not had a chance to freshen himself up in his haste. "I've just heard about that trouble down at my apartment," he continued, "and, though I had planned a trip for my health to the southern resorts, I thought it best for me to come right back to New York. It's a beastly mess." He had thrown his hat vindictively on the table, though his manner to us was rather that of one seeking advice. "Why," he stormed, "this affair is the limit! I rent my apartment to an apparently reputable person. And what do I find? It is not even a mere scandal. It is worse. The place is closed and guarded--quarantined, as it were. I can't get back into my own rooms!" Kennedy smiled. "I can't blame you for feeling vexed, Mr. Ames," he soothed, "but I'm sure I don't know what I can do for you more than I am doing. We are making every effort to clear the thing up--and I have been on the case, you must remember, less than twelve hours." "Oh, I've no criticism of you," rejoined Ames, somewhat mollified. "I didn't come here to criticise. I came only because I thought you might like to know that I was back in town, and because Dr. Leslie mentioned your name. No, indeed--no criticism. Only," he added, "now that my vacation is spoiled and I am back in town, there is going to be some action--that's all." "It can't come too swiftly for me," encouraged Craig. "I'm going to jump right into this beastly row," pursued Ames aggressively. "This morning I'm going to look these people up. They tell me that Baroness has been spending a good deal of time at my place. Pine business--eh? She's disappeared. But I'll get after that Haynes and the Madame Dupres they tell me about--and I'll let you know if I find out anything." He had not given Kennedy a chance to say anything, and in fact Kennedy did not seem to want to say anything yet. "Just thought I'd drop in," concluded Ames, who hadn't taken a chair, but now extended his hand to us; "I think I'll drop into a Turkish bath and freshen up a bit. Keep in touch with me." We shook hands and Ames departed, bustling out as he had bustled in. Kennedy looked at me and laughed as the door closed. "If we have many more people co-operating with us," he exclaimed, "we may resign and let this case solve itself." "I don't think that is likely," I replied. "Not unless we hear from Burke," he agreed. "There is plenty for me to do in the laboratory--but I do wish Burke would wire." The morning passed, and still there was no word from Burke. "I think we might drop around to the St. Quentin for lunch," suggested Kennedy in the forenoon. "We might pick up some news there." We had scarcely entered when we met Haynes pacing up and down the lobby furiously. "What's the matter?" inquired Craig, eyeing him searchingly. "Why," he replied nervously, sticking his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and then plunging them into his trousers pockets as if it was with the utmost difficulty he controlled those unruly members from doing violence to somebody, "that fellow Ames from whom Delaney hired the apartment had just returned suddenly to town. I saw him talking to Madame Dupres in the hotel parlor. She seemed a bit nervous, so I went in to speak to her. But she said everything was all right and that she'd meet me out here in a few minutes. It's quarter of an hour now. I think he's threatening her with something." Haynes was evidently worried. I wondered whether he was afraid that Ames might worm from her some secret common to the two, for I did not doubt that Ames was a clever and subtle attorney and capable of obtaining a great deal of information by his kind of kid-glove third degree. "I should like to see both of them," decided Craig quickly. Before Haynes could say anything more, he strode into the hotel parlor. Haynes and I followed a short distance behind. There was an air of tense, suppressed excitement in the group, but of all of us, I felt that Madame Dupres was the coolest. "I see you've lost no time in getting busy," nodded Craig to Ames. "No," he replied easily. "This is certainly a very interesting situation which madame here has just outlined to me." Haynes came up just in time to catch the last words. "I say, Ames," he almost roared, "you may be a clever lawyer, but you must remember that you are also expected to be a gentleman. There are limits to questioning a woman when she has not the advantage of having a friend to advise her." For a moment I thought there was going to be a fight, but Kennedy moved unobtrusively between the two men. As for Madame Dupres, I felt that really she was a match for both of them. Instead of getting mad, however, Ames merely laughed. "Why, Haynes," he said quietly, "I don't think you ought to complain. I understand that you, now representing Delaney's Texas syndicate, have already signed the final contract for the deal with those whom Madame Dupres represents and have received a certified check from them as a first payment to bind the bargain." Haynes turned almost livid, then recovering himself, glanced at Madame Dupres. "Why, Harris, I didn't think there was any secrecy about it now," she said, seeing the change in him. "If there is, I'm sorry." "There isn't," replied Haynes, quickly recovering his composure. "Only I just didn't like to see a lawyer, an outsider, quizzing you, that's all." Jealousy was stamped in every line of Haynes' face. Ames said nothing, but it was impossible to escape the look of gratification which he shot at Kennedy as he brought out the startling new development. Madame Dupres was clever enough to see that no good could come of prolonging an interview for which now there was an excuse to break up. "Take me in to lunch, Harris," she said, slipping her arm familiarly into his. "Good-morning, gentlemen." Somehow I felt that she would have liked to add, "And if you see the Baroness, tell her I have beaten her to it." Ames watched them depart with an air of cynical satisfaction, paused a moment, then in turn excused himself from us. What did it mean? What was behind all this intrigue. Was it merely to get this cattle contract, big as that was? We lunched together at the St. Quentin, and it was evident that Madame Dupres was doing her best to smooth over the ruffled feelings of her lover. Luncheon over, Kennedy plunged with redoubled energy into his laboratory investigation. He said little, but I could tell from his manner that he had found something that was very fascinating to him. CHAPTER XV THE GERM OF ANTHRAX It was not until the middle of the afternoon that there came a sudden, brief message from the Secret Service in Washington: Mr. Craig Kennedy, New York. I have located the Baroness Von Dorf in a private sanitarium here and will have her in New York tonight by eight o'clock. BURKE. "In a private sanitarium--will have her in New York tonight," reread Craig, studying the message. "Then it wouldn't seem that there could be much the matter with her." For a few moments he paced the laboratory floor, alternately studying the boards and the yellow telegram. At last, his face seemed to light up as if he had reasoned something out to his satisfaction. Quickly he reached for the telephone and called Dr. Leslie. "I shall have the Baroness here tonight at eight, Leslie," I heard him say. "Don't tell a soul about it. But I'd like to have you make all the arrangements to secure the attendance of Haynes, Ames, and Madame Dupres here just a bit ahead of that time." There was nothing that I could do to aid Craig more in the hours that remained than to efface myself, and I did it in the most effectual way I could think of, compatible with my interest in the case. I rode down to Dr. Leslie's office and dined hurriedly with him. The only new information I gleaned was that Haynes had visited him during the afternoon and had outlined his theory of cyanogen, which certainly seemed to me to fit in quite readily with the facts. When we reached the laboratory, early, Kennedy was still absorbed in studying his microscope. He said nothing, but apparently had gained an air of confidence which he lacked the night before. The Baroness had not yet arrived, but a few minutes after us came Ashby Ames, still complaining about the closing of his apartment and the inconvenience the whole affair had put him to. Haynes arrived and Ames cut short his tirade, glancing resentfully at the veterinary as though in some way he were responsible for his troubles. Madame Dupres arrived shortly, and I could not help noticing that Haynes was patently jealous of even the nod of recognition she gave to Ames. "I don't think I need say that this is one of the most baffling cases that we have ever had," began Kennedy, with a glance at Dr. Leslie. "It certainly is," chimed in the coroner, as though he had been appealed to for corroboration. "In the first place," resumed Kennedy, "I discovered in the air up there in Delaney's room just a trace of cyanogen." Haynes nodded approvingly, glancing from one to the other of us. "But," added Craig, as if he had built up a house of cards merely to demolish it, "I don't think that cyanogen was the cause of Delaney's death--although it furnished the clew." "What could it have been, then?" demanded Haynes, his face clouding. Kennedy looked at him calmly. "You've heard of anthrax?" he asked simply. "Y-yes," replied Haynes, meeting his eye fixedly. "Murrain--the cattle disease." "That is so deadly to human beings sometimes," added Craig. "Well, I've found something very much like anthrax germs in the sweepings that I took up with the vacuum cleaner up there." Dr. Leslie was listening intently. "I can't see how it could have been anthrax," he put in, slowly shaking his head. "Why, Kennedy, the symptoms were entirely different." "No, this was a poisoning of some kind," added Dr. Haynes. "Dr. Leslie himself tells me that you found traces of cyanogen in the air--and you have just said so, too." Kennedy indicated the microscope. "Take a look at that slide under the lens," he said simply. I was nearest and as he evidently meant each of us to look, I did so. Under the high-power lens I could see some little roundish dots moving slowly through the field. Haynes looked next. "But, Professor Kennedy," he objected, almost as soon as he had time for a good look, "the bacilli of anthrax have normally the form of straight bars strung together in a row." "Yes, rod bacilli," added Dr. Leslie, also looking. "Like long rows of hyphens, slender cylindric, non-motile chains joined end to end." We looked at Craig inquiringly. "Like that," he indicated, substituting another slide. We looked again. The field had somewhat the appearance of an exaggerated war map with dark units of supposed troops. "That's it," nodded Haynes. Kennedy removed the slide. "Those are some anthrax germs I obtained here in the city from a pathologist," he said, turning a switch that threw on in a lamp a peculiar, purplish light. "This is a machine for the propagation of ultra-violet rays." He placed the second slide, with its germs of anthrax, in the light, allowing it to play over the slide. "Now look," he said. We did. Something had evidently happened. The chains were broken and smaller units were moving. "If anthrax germs are exposed for a few seconds, even, to ultra-violet light, they change more or less," Kennedy proceeded. "These new forms are not stable. They quickly change back again into their original form." For about ten minutes we sat in silence while the weird light played as if with ghostly fingers on the deadly invisible peril on the little glass microscope slide. "But if the action of the ultra-violet rays is continued," went on Craig, "the microbe changes into a coccus, and then into a filiform bacillus. This form is stable. And the germ is changed in other respects than mere shape. It has entirely new characteristics. It is a true mutation. It produces a disease entirely different from that of the anthrax bacillus from which it is derived. I have tried it on a guinea pig--and it has died in forty-eight hours." Startled as I was by this remarkable discovery, I yet had time to watch Haynes. He had not taken his eyes off Kennedy once since he began to speak. "In anthrax," continued Craig, "an autopsy reveals an enormous serous swelling, about the point of inoculation, with a large gathering of microbes which are formed in the blood and spleen. Death seems to be due to septic poisoning. But this new microbe--super-toxicus, I think it might well be named--produces no swelling and scarcely any microbes are to be found in the blood. "The lungs are inflamed, with innumerable small abscesses. That is the internal form of the disease from breathing in the spores of these microbes. It has an external form, also, but that is by no means so deadly. One would say that death from the internal form of the disease was due to poisoning. The toxin of this microbe produces a sort of asphyxiation, cutting off and eating up the supply of oxygen. "Such a condition is called cyanosis. That is why in Delaney it had the appearance of cyanogen poisoning. The effect was the same. But the trace of cyanogen in the air was merely a coincidence, Haynes. It wasn't cyanogen that killed. But it was something quite as deadly--and far harder to trace--a new germ!" We listened, fascinated. "A French scientist, a woman, Madame Victor Henri, a student at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, has shown that a new microbe can actually be created from anthrax germs by the use of ultra-violet rays. It is not like anthrax, but may be quite as deadly, perhaps more so. "This discovery," he added earnestly, "proves for the first time that a living organism can be changed suddenly and artificially into an organism of a new and entirely different species. One can scarcely appreciate the importance of it. If the germs of different diseases can be transformed, the germ of one being changed into the germ of another, it will be a first step toward finding a way to change deadly germs into others that will be quite innocuous." Kennedy paused impressively to let the horror of the thing impress itself on our minds. "But this criminal has been working for evil purposes in the wrong direction--creating a disease in order to cover up his tracks!" One could almost feel the net closing. "Delaney has fallen a victim to a new germ of which someone learned in Paris," Craig raced on, inexorably, "a germ that would never, in all probability, be discovered by American doctors, a germ that poisoned safely, surely, and swiftly by its deadly super-toxin." A few moments before there had been a noise of a car outside the laboratory window, but in the excitement of Craig's startling revelation we had paid no attention. A hasty tap at the door interrupted him. Before he could open it a very beautiful woman burst in, followed by a thick-set Irishman. It was the Baroness Von Dorf and our friend Burke. For a moment the two women fairly glared at each other. "I've heard what Professor Kennedy just said," cried the Baroness, her eyes snapping fire. "Fortunately, I had to go to Washington and was able to protect myself by seeming to disappear. If I had stayed in New York another day, there is no telling what might have happened to me. Probably I should have got this disease internally instead of externally. As it was, I thought it would come near ruining my beauty." Burke tossed a yellow slip of paper on the table near Kennedy. "That is something one of our special agents found and brought me today," he exclaimed. Kennedy picked it up and read it, while Burke faced us. The Secret Service man fixed his eyes on Madame Dupres. "As for you, my dear lady," he challenged, "how do you happen to be in New York with one of the greatest international crooks that ever troubled the police of five continents?" "I--in New York?" she shrugged coolly. "Monte Carlo, Paris, Vienna, London--all were dead. I had to come here to make a living." The Baroness drew herself up as if to speak. "You scoundrel--you will give my apartment a bad name with your dirty cattle plague--will you!" ground out a voice harshly at my side. I turned quickly. Ames had clutched Haynes by the throat. We were all on our feet in a moment, but there was no need of separating them. The veterinary was more than a match for the hot-headed little lawyer. "Someone," shot out Kennedy, wheeling quickly, "figured that the cattle deal could be brought about quite naturally if Delaney were dead and the Baroness out of the way. Later he could reap the profit and carry off Madame Dupres into the bargain. And if anything were ever discovered, what more natural than to throw the suspicion on a veterinary who was supposed to know all about anthrax?" Just then a half circle of nickled steel gleamed momentarily in Kennedy's hands. I recognized it as a pair of the new handcuffs that uncoiled automatically, gripping at a mere touch. I saw it all in a flash, as I picked up the paper that Burke had tossed to Kennedy. It was a telegram, and read: A. A., The New Stratfield, Washington. Return immediately. Coroner has Craig Kennedy on case. D. D. "It was a devilish scheme," snapped Kennedy, as the handcuffs circled the fake lawyer's wrists, "but it didn't work, Ames." CHAPTER XVI THE SLEEPMAKER "Perhaps race-horses may be a little out of your line, Mr. Kennedy, but I think you will find the case sufficiently interesting to warrant you in taking it up." Our visitor was a young man, one of the most carefully groomed and correctly dressed I have ever met. His card told us that we were honored by a visit from Montague Broadhurst, a noted society whip, who had lavished many thousands of dollars on his racing-stable out on Long Island. "You see," he went on hurriedly, "there have been a good many strange things that have happened to my horses lately." He paused a moment, then continued: "They have been losing consistently. Take my favorite, Lady Lee, for instance." "Do you think they have been doped?" asked Kennedy quickly, eager to get down to the point at issue, for I had never known Craig to be interested in racing. "I don't know," replied the young millionaire, drawing his eyelids together reflectively. "I've had the best veterinary in the country to look my stable over, and even he can't seem to find a thing that's wrong." "Perhaps a visit out there might show us something," cut in Kennedy, as though he were rather favorably impressed, after all, by the novelty of the case. Broadhurst's face brightened. "Then you will take it up--you are interested?" he queried, adding, "My car is outside." "I'm interested in anything that promises a new experience," returned Craig, "and I think this affair may be of that sort." Broadhurst's stable was out on central Long Island, not far from the pretty and fashionable town of Northbury. As we passed down the main street, I could see that Broadhurst was easily the most popular of the wealthy residents of the neighborhood. In fact, the Broadhurst racing stables were a sort of local industry, one of the show-places of Northbury. As we swung out again into the country, we could see ahead of us some stable-boys working out several fine thoroughbreds on Broadhurst's private track, while a group of grooms and rubbers watched them. The stable itself was a circular affair of frame, painted dark red, which contrasted sharply with the green of the early summer trees. Broadhurst's car pulled up before a large office and lounging-room at one end, above which Murchie, his manager and trainer, had his suite of rooms. The office into which Broadhurst led us was decidedly "horsey." About the place were handsomely mounted saddles, bridles, and whips, more for exhibition than for use. In velvet-lined cases were scores of glittering bits. All the appointments were brass-mounted. Sporting prints, trophies, and Mission easy chairs made the room most attractive. Before a desk sat Murchie. As I looked at him, I thought that he had a cruel expression about his eyes, a predatory mouth and chin. He rose quickly at the sight of Broadhurst. "Murchie, I would like to have you meet my friends, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," introduced Broadhurst. "They are very much interested in horses, and I want you to show them about the place and let them see everything." We chatted a moment, and then went out to look at the horses. In the center of the circular group of stalls was a lawn. The stalls of the racers in training were large box stalls. "You have certainly trained a great horse in Lady Lee," remarked Kennedy casually, as we made our way around the ring of stalls. Murchie looked up at him quickly. "Until the last few races, I thought so," he replied, stopping before the stall of the famous racer and opening the door. Lady Lee was a splendid three-year-old bay, a quivering, sensitive, high-strung animal. Murchie looked at her a moment, then at us. "A horse, you know," he said reflectively, "is just as ambitious to win a race as you are to win success, but must have hard training. I keep horses in training eight or nine months out of the year. I get them into shape in the early spring and am very careful what they eat. If they get a vacation, they may eat green foods, carrots, and grass in open field; but when we prepare them for the ring or a race, they must have grain, bran, and soft foods. They must have careful grooming to put the coats in first-class condition, must be kept exquisitely clean, with the best ventilation." "How about exercise?" asked Kennedy. "Well," replied Murchie, "I work out horses according to age, with the distance for fast work gradually increased." Our trip through the wonderful stable over, we returned to the office, Murchie walking ahead with Broadhurst. As we reached the door, Broadhurst turned to us. "I hope you will pardon me," he said, "but there is some business up at the house that I must attend to." "Oh, Mr. Broadhurst," interjected Murchie, "before you go back to town, I want to talk over with you some of the changes that ought to be made about the boys here, as well as their food and quarters." "All right," returned Broadhurst; "jump into the car and ride with me. We can talk on the way, and you can come right back. I'll pick you gentlemen up later." Kennedy nodded, quick to perceive the cue that Broadhurst had given him to watch the stables without Murchie watching us. We sat down in the office, and I looked about at the superb fittings. "Do you think it is possible for an owner to make a financial success of racing without betting?" I asked Kennedy. "Possible, but highly improbable," returned Craig. "I believe they consider that they have an excellent year whenever they clear expenses. I don't know about Broadhurst, but I believe that a good many owners don't bet on their horses. They have seen the glaring crookedness of the thing, especially if they have happened to be officers of jockey clubs or stewards of various race-meets. Personally, I should think a man of Broadhurst's stamp would not permit himself to be made a victim of the leeches of the turf--although he may wager a bit, just to give zest to the race. American racing has often been called a purely gambling affair, and I think, before we get through, that we shall see the reason for much of the public opposition to it." Just then a small man entered the office, and, seeing us, asked for Mr. Murchie. His face was pinched and thin. He wore the latest cut of clothes, but was so very slight that his garments hung loosely on him. One could well imagine that he had tried all sorts of schemes to keep himself down toward the hundred-and-ten-or-twelve-pound mark. He was the very type of jockey. He introduced himself to us as Danny McGee, and I recognized at once the famous twenty-five-thousand-dollar-a-year rider, who had so often successfully defended the Broadhurst colors. "Mr. Murchie has gone up to the house," replied Kennedy to his inquiry. McGee looked us over a minute. "Friends of his?" he asked, in a confidential tone. Kennedy smiled. "Of Mr. Broadhurst's," he said quietly. There was a noticeable change in McGee's manner. "Just out here to look the stable over," went on Kennedy; "a wonderful place." "Yes; we think so," assented McGee. "It seems strange," ventured Kennedy, "that, with all this care, Lady Lee should not be keeping up to her record." McGee glanced at us keenly. "I don't understand it myself," he said. "I suppose lots of people must think it is the fault of the jockey, but I have certainly earned my salary lately with that filly. I don't know what's the matter. I've done the best I can, but in spite of it there's something wrong." He spoke with an air of genuine worry, and, although I tried hard, I must confess that I found it impossible to fathom him. "The filly," he added, "has her regular work-out and the regular feed, and yet she seems to be all tired out most of the time. Even the veterinaries can't seem to find out what's the matter." An awkward silence followed, during which both Kennedy and myself endeavored to conceal our ignorance of horses by saying nothing about them. Finally McGee rose and excused himself, saying that he would be back soon. There were still a few minutes before Murchie would be likely to return. Without saying a word, Kennedy rose and opened the door which led into the stable. Across the lawn in the center we could see a man's figure rapidly retreating through the main entrance, and, somehow or other, I felt that at the sound of the opening of our door he hastened his pace. Kennedy walked quickly around the circle of box stalls until he came again to Lady Lee. He entered the stall and looked the famous racer over carefully. I was wondering what, if anything, he expected to find, when, almost before I knew it, I saw him jab a little hypodermic needle into her neck and withdraw a few drops of blood. Lady Lee reared and snorted, but Kennedy managed to quiet her. He returned the hypodermic, with these few drops of blood, carefully into its case again, and we made our way back to the office. A few minutes later, the drone of Broadhurst's car told us that Murchie had returned. We resumed the talk about horses, upstairs in Murchie's own apartment, which consisted of living-rooms, a library, and bath. It was a luxuriously appointed place, in keeping with the tastes of its occupant. We sat down in the library. I was quite interested in looking about me. For one thing, Murchie's idea of art seemed to be a curious blending of horse and woman. There were pictures of all the string of Broadhurst winners, interspersed with Venuses and actresses. On a little table I noticed, at length, a colored photograph in an oval gilt frame. It was of a very beautiful girl. She was something over medium height, with a fine figure, golden hair, and deep-blue eyes. Somehow, I recalled that I had seen that face before, and when I caught Kennedy looking at it from time to time, I was certain of it. Suddenly it flashed over me that the picture had been published in the _Star_. It was Cecilie Safford. I remembered having read of Murchie's escapades, one of which was his elopement with a pretty young stenographer whom he had met at the horse show a couple of years before. The talk ran along about horses still, but I noticed that Kennedy was even more interested in Murchie's pictures, now, than in his conversation. In the place of honor, over the mantel, hung a portrait, in an artistic panel, of a slender girl with dark hair and hazel eyes, with a soft, swanlike throat and neck, and a somewhat imperious manner of carrying her head. I followed Craig's glance across the room. There, in a frame upon the wall in a corner, hung an enlargement of a group photograph. It was of a middle-aged woman, a little boy, and a little girl. Then I remembered the whole story. At the time of his elopement, Murchie had a wife living. Since then he had been divorced. Although he had promised to marry Cecilie when the divorce was obtained, he was now engaged to marry a wealthy girl, Amélie Guernsey. Broadhurst returned shortly for us, and we made another tour of the stable, on the outside, including the quarters of the innumerable employees. Finally, at a hint from Kennedy that we had seen enough for the present, Broadhurst motored back to the city with us. CHAPTER XVII THE INTER-URBAN HANDICAP That night, instead of going to the laboratory, we walked down Broadway until we came to a hotel much frequented by the sporting fraternity. We entered the restaurant, which was one of the most brilliant in the white-light region, took a seat at a table, and Kennedy proceeded to ingratiate himself with the waiter, and, finally, with the head waiter. At last, I saw why Kennedy was apparently wasting so much time over dinner. "Do you happen to know that girl, Cecilie Safford, that Broadhurst's trainer, Murchie, eloped with?" he asked. The head waiter nodded. "I used to know her," he replied. "She used to come in here a good deal, but you won't find her in the Broadway places any more these days. She's more likely to be over on Eighth Avenue." He mentioned the name of a cabaret saloon. Kennedy paid the check and again we started out. We finally entered a place, down in a basement, and once more Kennedy began to quiz the waiter. This time he had no trouble. Across the room, the waiter pointed to a girl, seated with a young fellow at a round table. I could scarcely believe what I saw. The face had the same features as that of the photograph in the oval gilt frame in Murchie's apartment, but it was not the same face. As I studied her, I could imagine her story without even hearing it. The months of waiting for Murchie to marry her and his callous refusal had been her ruin. Cecilie had learned to drink, and from that had gone to drugs. Her mirror must have told her that she was not the same girl who had eloped with Murchie. Her figure had lost its slim, beautiful lines. Her features were bloated. Her eyes were smaller, and her lips were heavy. Her fresh color had disappeared. She had a gray, pasty look. All she had--her beauty--had vanished. Murchie had been divorced, and was about to marry--but not Cecilie. It was to a young and lovely girl, with such a face of innocence as Cecilie had when Murchie had first dictated a letter to her in the office at the horse show, and had fascinated her with his glittering talk of wealth and ease. The news of his engagement had driven her frantic. Curiously enough, the young fellow with her did not seem to be dissipated in the least. There was, on the contrary, an earnestness about him that one was rather sorry to see in such a place. In fact, he was a clean-cut young man, evidently more of a student than a sport. He reminded me of some one I had seen before. I was getting rather interested in an underworld cabaret when, suddenly, Kennedy grasped my arm. At the same moment, a shot was fired. We jumped to our feet in time to see a young tough, with a slouch like that of the rubbers and grooms at Broadhurst's. The fellow who had been seated with Cecilie was struggling with him for the possession of a pistol, which had been discharged harmlessly. Evidently the tough had been threatening him with it. The waiters crowded around them, and the general _mêlée_ about Cecilie's table was at its height when a policeman came dashing in on the run. The arrest of the gunman and his opponent, as well as of Cecilie as a witness, seemed imminent. Kennedy moved forward slowly, working his way through the crowd, nearer to the table. Instead of interfering, however, he stooped down and picked up something from the floor. "Let's get out of this as quickly as possible, Walter," he whispered, turning to me. When we reached the street, he stopped under an arc-light, and I saw him dive down into his pocket and pull out a little glass vial. He looked at it curiously. "I saw her take it out of her pocketbook and throw it into a corner as soon as the policeman came in," he explained. "What do you think it is?" I asked. "Dope? That's what they all do if they get a chance when they are pinched--throw it away." "Perhaps," answered Kennedy. "But it's worth studying to see what drug she is really using." Late as it was, Craig insisted on going directly to the laboratory to plunge into work. First, he took the little hypodermic needle with which he had drawn several drops of blood from the race-horse, and emptied the contents into a test tube. Finding that I was probably of more use at home in our apartment asleep than bothering Kennedy in the laboratory, I said good-night. But when I awoke in the morning, I found that Kennedy had not been in bed at all. It was as I expected. He had worked all night, and, as I entered the laboratory, I saw him engaged in checking up two series of tests which he had been making. "Have you found anything yet?" I asked. He pointed to a corner where he kept a couple of guinea-pigs. They were sound asleep, rolled up in little fluffy balls of down. Ordinarily, in the morning, I found the little fellows very frisky. "Yes," he said; "I think I have found something. I have injected just a drop of blood from Lady Lee into one of them, and I think he's good for a long sleep." "But how about the other one?" I asked. "That's what puzzles me," ruminated Kennedy. "Do you remember that bottle I picked up last night? I haven't finished the analysis of the blood or of the contents of the bottle, but they seem to contain at least some of the same substances. Among the things I find are monopotassium phosphate and sarcolactic acid, with just a trace of carbon dioxide. I injected some of the liquid from the bottle into the other fellow, and you see what the effect is--the same in both cases." The telephone bell rang excitedly. "Is there a Mr. Kennedy there?" asked Long Distance, adding, without waiting for an answer, "Hold the wire, please." I handed the receiver to Kennedy. The conversation was short, and as he hung up the receiver, Craig turned to me. "It was Broadhurst at the Idlewild Hotel," he said quickly. "Today is the day of the great Interurban Handicap at Belmore Park with stakes of twenty-five thousand dollars. Usually they take the horse over to the track at least a week or two before the race, but as Broadhurst's stable is so near, he didn't do it--hoping he might keep a better watch over Lady Lee. But she's no better. If the horse is being tampered with, he wants to know who is doing it and how." Kennedy paused a moment, then went over to a cabinet and took from it a bottle and a very large-sized hypodermic. We must have been among the first on the field at Belmore Park that day. Lady Lee had been sent over there after we left Northbury the day before, under the care of Murchie and McGee, and had been stabled in the quarters on the track which had been assigned to Broadhurst. With Broadhurst, who was waiting for us, we lounged across the field in the direction of the stables. There was no doubt about it, Lady Lee was not in prime condition. It was not that there was anything markedly wrong, but to the trained observer the famous race-horse seemed to lack just a trifle of the _élan_ which meant a win. While Murchie and the jockey were talking outside to Broadhurst, Kennedy slipped into the stall to look at the racer. "Stand over by that side of the door, Walter," he muttered. "I'll be through in just a minute. I want you to act as a cover." Quickly he jabbed the hypodermic into the horse and pressed down the plunger. Lady Lee reared and snorted as she had done before when he extracted the blood, and instantly Murchie and McGee were crowding past me. But the instant had been long enough for Kennedy. He had dropped the hypodermic into his pocket and was endeavoring to soothe the horse. "I guess she's not very much used to strangers," he remarked coolly. No one thought any more of it, apparently. A few minutes later, Broadhurst rejoined Kennedy and myself. I could see that his face showed plainly he was greatly worried. "I don't understand it," he kept repeating. "And what is worse, the news seems to have leaked out that Lady Lee isn't fit. The odds are going up." Kennedy looked at him fixedly a moment. "If you want to win this race, Mr. Broadhurst," he remarked in a low tone, "I should advise you to watch Lady Lee every minute from now until the start." "What do you mean?" whispered Broadhurst hoarsely. "I can't say yet--only watch." While Broadhurst and Kennedy hovered about the stall on one pretext or another, watching both Murchie and McGee as they directed the rubbers and others who were preparing for the race, I watched the trainer and the jockey minutely. They certainly did nothing, at least now, to excite suspicion. But might not the harm have already been done? Was it too late? When the bell sounded the paddock call, McGee led the racer out of the stall and to the paddock. Presently the field, Lady Lee at the fore, walked past the grandstand and cantered slowly down the course to the starting-post. Meanwhile, following Broadhurst, we had already made our way over to the club-house enclosure. It was not like the old days when there was money everywhere, thousands of dollars in plain sight, in the cash-boxes of the bookmakers, when men rushed wildly about with handfuls of bills of large denomination and bets were made with frequent rapidity. And yet there was still a certain maelstrom of the betting-ring left; but the bookmakers had to carry everything in their heads instead of setting it down on paper. I knew the system, and knew that, in spite of the apparent ease with which it seemed possible to beat it, welshing was almost unheard of. The grandstand was crowded, although it was quite a different crowd from that at race meets of former times and on other tracks. Belmore Park lay within motoring distance of the greatest aggregation of wealth and fashion in the country. It was a wonderful throng. The gay dresses of the women mingled kaleidoscopically with the more somber clothing of the men. Every eye in that sea of moving humanity seemed to be riveted on Lady Lee and her rider. It was a pretty good example of how swiftly inside news at the race-track may become public property. Ill news, on this occasion, seemed to have traveled apace. Field-glasses were leveled at the horse which should have been the favorite, and one could tell, by the buzz of conversation, that this race was the great event of the season. As the jockeys maneuvered for position, one could almost feel that some wonderful feats of memory were being performed by the bookmakers. The odds, during the morning, had gradually lengthened against Lady Lee. Like all thoroughbreds, Lady Lee had a most delicate organism, and the good rider, in such a case, was the one who understood his mount. McGee had, in the past at least, that reputation. He had reached pretty near the top of his profession by knowing how to deal with horses of all types. All this and more I had picked up from the gossip of the track. The barrier was sprung and the flag dropped. They were off! The grandstand rose in a body. For a moment, it seemed to me that McGee had lost his nerve. Alertness at the post is an important factor. He had not got away from the barrier ahead of the field. Another rider, too, had got the rail, and hence the shortest route. I wondered whether, after all, that had been the trouble all along, for nothing can win or lose a race quicker or better than those little failures of the jockey himself. Lady Lee, I had heard it said, was one of those horses that do not require urging, but go to the front naturally. Just now, it did not seem that she was beaten, but that she lacked just the power to lead the field. Did McGee figure that the horses ahead of him were setting such a fast clip that they would drop back to him before the race was over? Cleverly, however, he avoided being pocketed, as those ahead of and beside him tried to close in and make him pull up. Around they went until the horses looked to the naked eye like toys strung on wires. Only the tension of the crowd made one feel that this was no play; it was deadly serious sport. On they sped, watched in a lull of deathly stillness. Surely, I felt, this was indeed a great sight--this acid test of the nerves of men and animals pitted against one another. They were coming into the stretch now! Suddenly, it seemed that, by some telepathic connection, both the horse and the rider caught the electric tension which swayed us in the club-house enclosure. I myself was carried away by the frenzied spirit of the race. Broadhurst was leaning forward, oblivious of everything else in the world, straining his eyes through a field-glass. Murchie was watching the race with a supercilious air, which I knew was clearly assumed. On they came! I could not help wondering whether McGee had not really planned to throw the race. Would he, perhaps at the last moment, lose his nerve? Lady Lee suddenly shot through the field. A mighty shout rose from the entire grandstand. It was over in a matter of seconds. She had finished first by a half-length! She had won the classic and the rich stakes. Pandemonium seemed to reign in the club-house inclosure. Broadhurst slapped Murchie over the back with a blow of congratulation that almost felled him. As for McGee, they nearly carried him off the field on their shoulders. Only Kennedy seemed to be calm. The race had been won--but had the problem been solved? Broadhurst seemed to have forgotten all about his previous appeal to Kennedy in the unexpected joy of winning. We paused awhile to watch the frantic crowd, and once, I recall, I caught sight of a stunning, dark-haired woman grasping Murchie's both hands in an ecstasy of joy. Instantly I recognized Amélie Guernsey. As Kennedy and I motored back to the city alone, he was silent most of the way. Only once did he make a remark. "The Belmore Inn," he said, as we passed a rather cheap road-house some distance from the track. "That's where I heard one of the rubbers say the former Mrs. Murchie was living." That night, Craig plunged back again into work in the laboratory, and I, having nothing else to do, wrote a feature story of the great race for the _Star_. Kennedy made up for the rest he had lost and the strain of the day by a long sleep; but early in the morning the telephone bell rang insistently. Kennedy bounded out of bed to answer it. I could gather nothing from the monosyllables which he uttered, except that the matter under discussion was profoundly serious. Finally, he jammed down the receiver. "Good God, Walter," he exclaimed, "Murchie's been murdered!" CHAPTER XVIII THE TOXIN OF FATIGUE He gave me no time for questions, and I had no ability to reconstruct my own theory of the case as we hustled into our clothes to catch the early morning train. "Broadhurst is at the Idlewild Hotel," Kennedy said, as we left the apartment, "and I think we can make it quicker by railway than by motor." The turfman met us at the station. "Tell me just what happened," asked Kennedy. "No one seems to understand just what it was," Broadhurst explained, "but, as nearly as I remember, Murchie was the lion of the Idlewild grillroom all the evening. He had 'come back.' Once, I recall, he was paged, and the boy told him someone was waiting outside. He went out, and returned, considerably flushed and excited. "'By George,' he said, 'a man never raises his head above the crowd but that there's somebody there to take a crack at it! There must have been some crank outside, for before I could get a look in the dark, I was seized. I managed to get away. I got a little scratch with a knife or a pin, though,' he said, dabbing at a cut on his neck." "What then?" prompted Kennedy. "None of us paid much attention to it," resumed Broadhurst, "until just as another toast was proposed to Lady Lee and someone suggested that Murchie respond to it, we turned to find him huddled up in his chair, absolutely unconscious. The house physician could find nothing wrong apparently--in fact, said it was entirely a case of heart failure. I don't think any of us would question his opinion if it had not been for Murchie's peculiar actions when he came back to the room that time." Murchie's body had been removed to the local undertaking establishment. As Broadhurst drove up there and we entered, Kennedy seemed interested only in the little jab and a sort of swelling upon the neck of the dead man. Quickly he made a little incision beside it, and about ten or a dozen drops of what looked like blood-serum oozed out on a piece of gauze which Craig held. As we turned to leave the undertaker's, a striking, dark-haired girl, with the color gone from her cheeks, hurried past us and fell on her knees beside Murchie's body. It was the woman who had congratulated him the day before, the woman of the panel--Amélie Guernsey. I had not noticed, up to this point, another woman who was standing apart in the crowd, but now I happened to catch her eye. It was the woman whose picture with the two children hung in Murchie's apartment. Kennedy drew me back into the crowd, and there we watched the strange tragedy of the wife that was and the wife that was to have been. Craig hurried back to the city after that, and, as we pushed our way up the ramp from the station, he looked hastily at his watch. "Walter," he said, "I want you to locate Cecilie Safford and let me know at the laboratory the moment you find her. And perhaps it would be well to start at the police station." It seemed to me as though the girl whom we had found so easily the evening before had now utterly disappeared. At the police station she had not been held, but had given an address which had proved fictitious. At the cabaret saloon no one had seen her since the incident of the fight. As I left the place, I ran into Donovan, of the Tenderloin squad, and put the case to him. He merely laughed. "Of course I could find her any time I wanted to," he said. "I knew that was a fake address." He gave me the real address, and I hurried to the nearest telephone to call up Craig. "Have Donovan bring her over here as soon as he can find her," he called back. When I arrived at the laboratory, I found Kennedy engrossed in his tests. "Have you found anything definite?" I asked anxiously. He nodded, but would say nothing. "I've telephoned Broadhurst," he remarked, a moment later. "You remember that the former Mrs. Murchie was at Belmore Inn. I have asked him to stop and get her on the way down here in the car with McGee, and to get Amélie Guernsey at the Idlewild, too." He continued to work. "And, oh yes," he added: "I have asked Inspector O'Connor to take up another line, too." It was a strange gathering that assembled that forenoon. Donovan arrived soon after I did, and with him, sure enough, was Cecilie Safford. A few moments later Broadhurst's car swung up to the door, and Broadhurst entered, accompanied by Amélie Guernsey. McGee followed, with the former Mrs. Murchie. "I don't want another job like that," whispered Broadhurst to Kennedy. "I'm nearly frozen. Neither of those women has spoken a word since we started." "You can hardly blame them," returned Kennedy. Mrs. Murchie was still a handsome woman. She now carried herself with an air of assumed dignity. Amélie Guernsey had regained her color in the excitement of the ride and was, if anything, more beautiful than ever. But, as Broadhurst intimated, one could almost feel the frigidity of the atmosphere as the three women who had played such dramatic parts in Murchie's life sat there, trying to watch and, at the same time, avoid each other's gaze. The suspense was relieved when O'Connor came in in a department car. With him were the young man who had been seated with Cecilie at the table the night of the fight and also the gunman. "The magistrate in the night court settled the case that night," informed O'Connor, under his breath, laying down two slips of paper before Kennedy, "but I have their pedigrees. That fellow's name is Ronald Mawson," he said, pointing to Cecilie's companion, then indicating the gunman, "That's Frank Giani--Frank the Wop." I watched Mawson and Cecilie closely, but could discover nothing. They scarcely looked at each other. McGee, however, glared at both Mawson and the gunman, though none of them said a word. "They used to be out there as stable-boys at Broadhurst's," I heard O'Connor continue, in a whisper. "I think they had a run-in and were fired. Each says the other got him in wrong." A moment later Kennedy began: "When you came to my laboratory the other day, Mr. Broadhurst," he said, "you remarked that perhaps this case might be a little out of my line, but that I might find it sufficiently interesting. I can assure you that I have not only found it interesting, but astounding. I have seldom had the privilege of unraveling a mystery which was so cleverly rigged and in which there are so many cross-currents of human passion." "Then you think Lady Lee was doped?" asked Broadhurst. "Doped?" interjected McGee quickly. "Why, Mr. Broadhurst, you remember what the veterinary said. He couldn't find any signs of heroin or any other dope they use." "That's the devilish ingenuity of it all," shot out Kennedy suddenly, holding up a little beaker in which there was some colorless fluid. "I am merely going to show you now what can be done by the use of one of the latest discoveries of physiological chemistry." He took a syringe and, drawing back the plunger, filled it with the liquid. With a slight jab of cocaine to make the little operation absolutely painless, he injected the fluid into the livelier of our two guinea-pigs. "While you and Murchie were absent the first day that I went out to your stable, I succeeded in drawing off some of the blood of Lady Lee," Craig resumed, talking to Broadhurst. "Here, in my laboratory, I have studied it. Lady Lee, that day, had had no more than the ordinary amount of exercise, yet she was completely fagged." By this time the little guinea-pig had become more and more listless and was now curled up in a corner sound asleep. "I have had to work very hurriedly this morning," Craig continued, "but it has only been covering ground over which I have already gone. I was already studying a peculiar toxin. And from the fluid I obtained from Murchie's body, I have been able to calculate that a deadly dose of that same powerful poison killed him." Kennedy plunged directly from this startling revelation into his proof. "Perhaps you have heard of the famous German scientist, Weichardt, of Berlin," he resumed, "and his remarkable investigations into the toxin of fatigue. Scientists define fatigue as the more or less complete loss of the power of muscles to respond to stimulation due to their normal activity. An interval of rest is usually enough to bring about their return to some degree of power. But for complete return to normal condition, a long interval may be necessary. "As the result of chemical changes which occur in a muscle from contraction, certain substances are formed which depress or inhibit the power of contraction. Extracts made from the fatigued muscles of one frog, for instance, when injected into the circulation of another frog bring on an appearance of fatigue in the latter. Extracts from unfatigued muscles give no such results. More than that, the production of this toxin of fatigue by the exercise of one set of muscles, such as those of the legs in walking, greatly diminishes the amount of work obtainable from other unused muscles, such as those of the arms." Kennedy went on, looking at the sleeping guinea-pig rather than at us: "Weichardt has isolated from fatigued muscles a true toxin of a chemical and physical nature, like the bacterial toxins, which, when introduced into the blood, gives rise to the phenomena of fatigue. This is the toxin of fatigue--kenotoxin. Those who have studied the subject have found at least three fatigue substances--free sarcolactic acid, carbon dioxide, and monopotassium phosphate, which is so powerful that, after the injection of one-fifteenth of a gram, the poisoned muscle shows signs of fatigue and is scarcely able to lift a weight easily lifted in normal conditions. Other fatigue products may be discovered; but, if present in large quantity or in small quantity for a long time, each of the substances I have named will cause depression or fatigue of muscles. "Further than that," continued Kennedy, "the depressing influence of these substances on what is known as striated muscle--heart muscle--is well known. The physician at the Idlewild might very well have mistaken the cause of the relaxation of Murchie's heart. For German investigators have also found that the toxin of fatigue, when injected into the circulation of a fresh animal, may not only bring on fatigue but may even cause death--as it did finally here." Kennedy paused. "Lady Lee," he said, looking from one to the other of his audience keenly, "Lady Lee was the first victim of the fiendish cunning of this--" A shrill voice interrupted. "But Lady Lee won the race!" It was McGee, the jockey. Kennedy looked at him a moment, then tapped another beaker on the table before him. "Weichardt has also obtained, by the usual methods," he replied, "an antitoxin with the power of neutralizing the fatigue properties of the toxin. You thought Lady Lee was not friendly with strangers that morning at the track. She was not, when the stranger jabbed a needle into her neck and pumped an extra large dose of the antitoxin of fatigue into her just in time to neutralize, before the race, the long series of injections of fatigue toxin." Kennedy was now traveling rapidly toward the point which he had in view. He drew from his pocket the little bottle which he had picked up that night in the cabaret saloon. "One word more," he said, as he held up the bottle and faced Cecilie Safford, who was now trembling like a leaf ready to fall: "If one with shattered nerves were unable to sleep, can you imagine what would be a most ideal sedative--especially if to take almost any other drug would be merely to substitute that habit for another?" He waited a moment, then answered his own question. "Naturally," he proceeded, "it might be, theoretically at least, a small dose of those products of fatigue by which nature herself brings on sleep. I am not going into the theory of the thing. The fact that you had such a thing is all that interests me." I watched the girl's eyes as they were riveted on Kennedy. She seemed to be fascinated, horrified. "This bottle contains a weak solution of the toxin of fatigue," persisted Kennedy. I thought she would break down, but, by a mighty effort, she kept her composure and said nothing. "Someone was trying to discredit and ruin Murchie by making the horses he trained lose races--somebody whose life and happiness Murchie himself had already ruined. "That person," pursued Kennedy relentlessly, "was defeated in the attempt to discredit Murchie when, by my injection of the antitoxin, Lady Lee finally did win. In that person's mind, Murchie, not the horse, had won. "The wild excitement over Murchie's vindication drove that person to desperation. There was only one more road to revenge. It was to wait until Murchie himself could be easily overpowered, when an overwhelming dose of this fatigue toxin could be shot into him--the weapon that had failed on the horses turned on himself. Besides, no one--not even the most expert physician or chemist--would ever suspect that Murchie's death was not natural." "That--that bottle is mine--mine!" shouted a wild voice interrupting. "I took it--I used it--I--" "Just a moment, Miss Safford," entreated Kennedy. "That person," he rapped out sharply, picking up the pedigrees O'Connor had handed him, "that person gave the toxin to a poor dope fiend as a sleeping-potion in one strength, gave it to Lady Lee in still another strength, and to Murchie in its most fatal strength. It was the poor and unknown pharmacist described in this pedigree whose dream of happiness Murchie shattered when he captivated Cecilie Safford--her deserted lover, Ronald Mawson." CHAPTER XIX THE X-RAY DETECTIVE "I want to consult you, Professor Kennedy, about a most baffling case of sudden death under suspicious circumstances. Blythe is my name--Dr. Blythe." Our visitor spoke deliberately, without the least perturbation of manner, yet one could see that he was a physician who only as a last resort would appeal to outside aid. "What is the case, Doctor?" queried Craig. The Doctor cleared his throat. "It is of a very pretty young art student, Rhoda Fleming, who returned to New York from France shortly after the outbreak of the war and opened a studio in the New Studio Apartments on Park Avenue, not far from my office," began Dr. Blythe, pausing as if to set down accurately every feature of the "case history" of a patient. "Yes," prompted Craig. "About a week ago," the Doctor resumed, "I was called to attend Miss Fleming. I think the call came from her maid, Leila, but I am not sure. She had suddenly been taken ill about an hour after dinner. She was cyanotic, had a rapid pulse, and nausea. By means of stimulants I succeeded in bringing her around, however, and she recovered. It looked like acute gastritis. "But last night, at about the same time, I was called again to see the same girl. She was in an even more serious condition, with all the former symptoms magnified, unconscious, and suffering severe pains in the abdominal region. Her temperature was 103. Apparently there had been too great a delay, for she died in spite of everything I could do without regaining consciousness." Kennedy regarded the Doctor's face pointedly. "Did the necropsy show that she was--er--" "No," interrupted the Doctor, catching his glance. "She was not about to become a mother. And I doubt the suicide theory, too." He paused and then after a moment's consideration, added deliberately, "When she recovered from the first attack she seemed to have a horror of death and could offer no explanation of her sudden illness." "But what other reason could there have been for her condition?" persisted Kennedy, determined to glean all he could of the Doctor's personal impressions. Dr. Blythe hesitated again, as if considering a point in medical ethics, then suddenly seemed to allow himself to grow confidential. "I'm very much interested in art myself, Professor," he explained. "I suppose you have heard of the famous 'Fête du Printemps,' by Watteau?" Kennedy nodded vaguely. "The original, you know," Dr. Blythe went on hurriedly, "hung in the château of the Comtesse de la Fontaine in the Forest of Compiegne, and was immensely valuable--oh--worth probably a hundred thousand dollars or more." A moment later Dr. Blythe leaned over with ill-suppressed excitement. "After I brought her around the first time she confided to me that it had been entrusted to her by the Comtesse for safe-keeping during the war, that she had taken it first to London, but fearing it would not be safe even there, had brought it to New York." "H'm," mused Kennedy, "that is indeed strange. What's your theory, then,--foul play?" Dr. Blythe looked from Kennedy to me, then said slowly, "Yes--but we can't find a trace of poison. Dr. Leslie--the Coroner--I believe you know him--and I can find nothing, in fact. It is most incomprehensible." I noticed that Kennedy was watching Dr. Blythe rather keenly and, somehow, I fell to trying to fathom both his story and himself, without, I confess, any result. "I should like to look her apartment over," remarked Craig with alacrity, needing no second invitation to take up a mystery that already promised many surprises. The New Studio Apartments were in a huge twelve-story ornate Renaissance affair on upper Park Avenue, an example of the rapidly increasing co-operative idea which the impractical artistic temperament has proved soundly practical. It was really a studio building, too, designed for those artists who preferred luxury and convenience to the more romantic atmosphere of the "Alley"--which is the way the initiated refer to the mews back of Washington Square, known as Macdougal's Alley, famous in fact and fiction. Rhoda Fleming's was a most attractively arranged suite, with a large studio commanding the north light and having a ceiling twice as high as the ordinary room, which allowed of the other rooms being, as it were, on two floors, since their ceilings were of ordinary height. On every side, as we entered, we could see works of art in tasteful profusion. Since the removal of the body of the beautiful but unfortunate young art student, no one had been left there, except the maid, Leila. Leila was herself a very pretty girl, one of those who need neither fine clothes nor expensive jewels to attract attention. In fact she had neither. I noticed that she was neatly and tastefully dressed, however, and wore a plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand. She seemed to be heartbroken over the death of her mistress, but how much of it was genuine, I could not say, though I am frank to admit that even before I saw her I had determined that she was worth watching. "Show me just how you discovered Miss Fleming," asked Kennedy of Dr. Blythe, getting down to work immediately. "Why," he replied, "when I got here she was lying half across that divan, as if she had fallen there, fainting. Each time a little table had been set for a light dinner and the dinner had been eaten. The remains were on the table. And," Blythe added significantly, "each time there was a place set for another person. That person was gone." Kennedy had turned inquiringly to Leila. "I was engaged only for the day," she answered modestly. "Evenings when Mademoiselle had a little party she would often pay me extra to come back again and clean up. She liked to prepare little chafing-dish dinners--but disliked the cleaning." Dr. Blythe nodded significantly, as though that accounted for the reason why it had seemed to be Leila who had called him in both times. Kennedy and I had found the little pantry closet in the kitchenette where the maid kept the few housekeeping utensils. He took a hasty inventory of the slender stock, among which, for some reason, I noted a bottle of a well-known brand of meat sauce, one of those dark-colored appetizers, with a heavy, burnt-grain odor. Craig's next move was to ransack the little escritoire in the corner of the studio room itself. That was the work of but a few moments and resulted in his finding a packet of letters in the single drawer. He glanced over them hastily. Several of an intimately personal nature were signed, "Arnold Faber." Faber, I knew, was a young art collector, very wealthy and something more than a mere dilettante. Other letters were of business dealings with well-known Fifth Avenue art galleries of Pierre Jacot & Cie., quite natural in view of Miss Fleming's long residence in France. The letters had scarcely been replaced when the door of the studio opened and I caught sight of a tastefully gowned young woman, quite apparently a foreigner acclimated to New York. "Oh, I beg pardon," she apologized. "I heard voices and thought perhaps it was some of Rhoda's relatives from the West and that I could do something." "Good-evening, Miss Tourville," greeted Dr. Blythe, who was evidently well-known to this colony of artists. A moment later he introduced us, "This, by the way, is Miss Rita Tourville, an intimate friend of Miss Fleming, who has the studio above." We bowed, exchanged the conventional remarks that such a tragedy made necessary, and Rita Tourville excused herself. Somehow or other, however, I could not resist the impression that she had come in purposely to see what was going on. On our way out, after promising Dr. Blythe to meet him later in the night at the office of the Coroner, Kennedy, instead of going directly to the street, descended to the basement of the apartment and sought the janitor, who lived there. "I'd like very much to see the rubbish that has come down from Miss Fleming's apartment," he asked, slipping into the janitor's hand a large silver coin. "It's all mixed up with rubbish from all the apartments on that side of the house," replied the janitor, indicating a bulging burlap bag. "Miss Tourville's, also?" queries Craig. The janitor nodded assent. Kennedy surely obtained his money's worth of junk as the janitor spread the contents of the bag on the cellar floor. With his walking stick he pawed over it minutely, now and then stooping to examine something more or less carefully. He had gone through somewhat more than half of the rubbish that had come from the apartments when he came upon what looked like the broken remains of a little one-ounce dark-colored, labelless bottle. Kennedy picked it up and sniffed at it. He said nothing, but I saw his brow knit with thought. A moment later he wrapped it in a piece of tissue paper, thanked the janitor, and we mounted the cellar steps to the street. "I think I'll try to see Faber tonight," he remarked as we walked down the avenue. "It will do no harm at any rate." Fortunately, we found the young millionaire art connoisseur at home, in a big house which he had inherited from his father, on Madison Avenue, in the Murray Hill section. "The death of Miss Fleming has completely upset me," he confessed after we had introduced ourselves without telling too much. "You see, I was quite well acquainted with her." Kennedy said nothing, but I could feel that he was longing to ask questions leading up to whether Faber had been the mysterious diner in the Fleming Studio the night before. "I suppose you are acquainted with Watteau's 'Fête du Printemps'?" shot out Craig, after a few inconsequential questions, watching Faber's face furtively. "Indeed I am," replied the young man, apparently not disconcerted in the least. The fact was that he seemed quite willing, even eager to discuss the painting. I could not make it out, unless it might be that any subject was less painful than the sudden death of Miss Fleming. "Yes," he continued voluntarily, "I suppose you know it represents a group of dancers. The central figure of the group, as everyone believes, is reputed to be the passionate and jealous Madame de Montespan, whom the beautiful Madame de Maintenon replaced in the affections of Louis XIV. "Why, no one thinks of Watteau, with his delightful daintiness and many graceful figures on such masterfully disposed backgrounds as a portrait painter. But the Fête shows, I have always contended, that he drew on many real faces for his characters. Yes, he could paint portraits, too, wonderfully minute and exact little miniatures." Faber had risen as he discoursed. "I have a copy of it," he added, leading the way into his own private gallery, while Craig and I followed him without comment. We gazed long and intently at the face of the central figure. Small though it was, it was a study in itself, a puzzle, distracting, enigmatical. There was a hard, cruel sensuousness about the beautiful mouth which the painter seemed to have captured and fixed beneath the very oils. Masked cleverly in the painted penetrating dark eyes was a sort of cunning which, combined with the ravishing curves of the cheeks and chin, transfixed the observer. Something in the face reminded me of a face I had once seen. It was not exactly Rita's face, but it had a certain quality that recalled it. I fancied that there was in both the living and the painted face a jealousy that would brook no rivalry, that would dare all for the object of its love. Faber saw that we had caught the spirit of the portrait, and seemed highly gratified. "What crimes a man might commit under the spell of a woman like that!" exclaimed Craig, noticing his gratification. "By the way, do you know that Miss Fleming was said to have had the original--and that it is gone?" Faber looked from one to the other of us without moving a muscle of his face. "Why, yes," he replied steadily. I could not make out whether he had expected and been prepared for the question or not. At any rate he added, half serious, half smiling, "Even for her portrait someone was ready to risk even life and honor to kidnap her!" Evidently in his ardor he personified the picture, felt that the thief must have been moved by what the psychologists call "an imperative idea" for the mere possession of such a treasure. "Still," Craig remarked dryly, "the wanderings of the lost Duchess by Gainsborough for a quarter of a century stuffed into a tin tube, to say nothing of the final sordid ending of the capture of Mona Lisa, might argue a devotion among art thieves a bit short of infatuation. I think we'll find this lady, too, to be held for ransom, not for love." Faber said nothing. He was evidently waiting for Kennedy to proceed. "I may photograph your copy of the Fête?" queried Craig finally, "so as to use it in identifying the real one?" "Surely," replied the collector. "I have no objection. If I should happen to be out when you came, I'll leave word with my man to let you go ahead." Just then the telephone rang and Faber reached for it before we could thank him and say good-night. "Hello--oh, Miss Tourville, how do you do? Why--er--yes--yes, I'm listening." They chatted for several minutes, Faber answering mostly in monosyllables. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought the conversation, at least at his end of the line, constrained. As he hung up the receiver, I fancied, too, that Faber seemed to look on us with a sort of suspicion. What was his connection with Rita, I wondered? What had Rita told him? A moment later we had said good-by and had gained the street, Kennedy still making no comment on the case. "There's nothing more that we can do tonight," remarked Craig, looking at his watch finally as we walked along. "Let us go over to the City Laboratory and see Dr. Leslie, as I promised Blythe." CHAPTER XX THE MECHANICAL CONNOISSEUR Dr. Leslie, the Coroner, was an old friend of ours with whom we had co-operated in several cases. When we reached his office we found Dr. Blythe there already, waiting for us. "Have you found anything yet?" asked Dr. Blythe with what I felt was just a trace of professional pique at the fact that neither physician had been able to shed any light on the case so far. "I can't say--yet," responded Craig, not noticing Blythe's manner, as from the piece of tissue paper in which he had wrapped them he produced the broken bits of bottle. Carefully he washed off the jagged pieces, as though perhaps some of the liquid the bottle had contained might have adhered to the glass. "I suppose you have animals here for experiment?" he asked of Leslie. The Coroner nodded. "Chickens?" asked Craig with a broad smile at the double meaning. "A Leghorn rooster," returned Dr. Leslie with a laugh. "Good--bring him on," replied Craig briskly. Quickly Kennedy shot a small quantity of the liquid he had obtained by washing the bits of glass into the veins of the white Leghorn. Then he released the rooster, flapping about. In a corner chanticleer stood, preening his feathers and restoring his ruffled dignity, while we compared opinions. "Look!" exclaimed Kennedy a few minutes later, when we had almost forgotten the rooster. His bright red comb was now whitish. As we watched, a moment later it turned dark blue. Otherwise, however, he seemed unaffected. "What is it?" I asked in amazement, turning to Craig. "Ergot, I think," he replied tersely. "At least that is one test for its presence." "Ergot!" repeated Dr. Leslie, reaching for a book on a shelf above him. Turning the pages hurriedly, he read, "There has been no experience in the separation of the constituents of ergot from the organs of the body. An attempt might be made by the Dragendorff process, but success is doubtful." "Dragendorff found it so, at any rate," put in Dr. Blythe positively. Running his fingers over the backs of the other books, Dr. Leslie selected another. "It is practically impossible," he read, "to separate ergot from the tissues so as to identify it." "Absolutely," asserted Dr. Blythe quickly. I looked from one physician to the other. Was this the "safe" poison at last? Kennedy said nothing and I fell to wondering why, too, Dr. Blythe was so positive. Was it merely to vindicate his professional pride at the failure he and the Coroner had had so far with the case? "I suppose you have no objection to my taking some of this sample of the contents of the organs of her body, have you?" asked Craig at length of Dr. Leslie. "None in the world," replied the Coroner. Kennedy poured out some of the liquid into a bottle, corked it carefully, and we stood for a few moments longer chatting over the developments, or rather lack of developments of the case. It was late when we returned to our apartment, but the following morning Kennedy was up long before I was. I knew enough of him, however, to know that I would find him at his laboratory breakfastless, and my deduction was correct. It was not until the forenoon that Craig had completed the work he had set himself to do as he puzzled over something in the interminable litter of tubes and jars, bottles and beakers, reagents, solutions, and precipitates. "I'm going to drop in at Jacot's," he announced finally, laying off his threadbare and acid-stained coat and pulling on the clothes more fitted for civilization. Having no objection, but quite the contrary, I hastened to accompany him. Jacot's was a well-known shop. It opened on Fifth Avenue, just a few feet below the sidewalk, and Jacot himself was a slim Frenchman, well preserved, faultlessly dressed. "I am the agent of Mr. Morehouse, the Western mine-owner and connoisseur," introduced Kennedy, as we entered the shop. "May I look around?" "Certainement,--avec plaisir, M'sieur," welcomed the suave dealer, with both hands interlocked. "In what is Mr. Morehouse most interested? In pictures? In furniture? In--" "In almost anything that is rare and beautiful," confided Craig, looking Jacot squarely in the eye and adding, "and not particular about the price if he wants a thing, either. But I--I am particular--about one thing." Jacot looked up inquiringly. "A rebate," Kennedy went on insinuatingly, "a commission on the bill--you understand? The price is immaterial, but not my--er--commission. Comprenez-vous?" "Parfaitement," smiled the little Frenchman. "I can arrange all that. Trust me." We spent an hour, perhaps, wandering up and down the long aisles of the store, admiring, half purchasing, absorbing facts about this, that and the other thing that might captivate the fictitious Mr. Morehouse. Not satisfied with what was displayed so temptingly in the front of the store, Kennedy wandered back of a partition apparently in search of some more choice treasures, before Jacot could stop him. He turned over a painting that had been placed with its face toward the wall, as if for protection. I recognized the subject with a start. It was Watteau's Fête! "Wonderful!" exclaimed Kennedy in well-feigned ecstasy, just as Jacot came up. "Ah, but, M'sieur," interposed the art dealer, "that is only a copy--and not for sale." "I believe my friend, Mr. Faber, has a copy," ventured Craig. "By a Miss Fleming?" asked Jacot quickly, apparently all interest now. Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. Was Jacot hinting at something known in the trade? "Might I photograph some of the things here to show Mr. Morehouse?" asked Craig a moment later. "I see several things in which I think he might be interested." "Surely," answered Jacot, then, after consideration, in which his beady eye seemed to size up Kennedy, he added, sotto voce, craftily, "Would Mr. Morehouse be--er--interested in Watteau's Fête?" My heart almost stopped beating. Were we really on the right track at last? Jacot leaned over confidentially to Kennedy and added, "Why not sell as an original, not this, but another copy--a--a--what you call it?--a fake?" I understood. Kennedy, having invited crooked dealing by his remark about the rake-off, was being approached about another crooked deal. "A fake Watteau?" he asked, appearing to meet Jacot halfway. Jacot nodded. "Why not? You know the same Botticelli belongs to collectors in Philadelphia and Boston; that is, each has a picture and if one is genuine the other must be a fake. Possibly the artist painted the same picture twice. Why, M'sieur, there are Rubens, Hals, Van Dycks, Rembrandts galore in this country that hang also at the same time abroad." Jacot smiled. "Did you never hear of a picture with a dual personality?" Kennedy seemed to consider the idea. "I'll think it over," he remarked finally, as we prepared to leave, "and let you know when I come back to snap some of the things for my principal." "Well--of all brazen crooks!" I sputtered when we had gained Fifth Avenue. Kennedy shook his head. "We can't be sure of anything in this game. Does it occur to you that he might perhaps think he was playing us for suckers, after all?" My mind worked rapidly. "And that that picture of Faber's is the real original, after all?" I asked. "You mean that somehow a copy by Miss Fleming has come really to Jacot with instructions to palm it off on some gullible buyer?" "Frankly, Walter," he said, as we walked along, "I don't know what to think. You know even the greatest experts sometimes disagree over questions like this. Well, Walter, art is long and time is fleeting. If we are ever to settle where that real Watteau is, we shall have to resort to science, I think." That afternoon after a trip up to the laboratory, where Craig secured a peculiar and cumbersome photographic outfit, we at last found ourselves around at Faber's private gallery. Faber was out, but, true to his promise, he had left word with his man, who admitted us. Kennedy set to work immediately, before the painting, placing an instrument which certainly was not like a regular camera. I was further astonished, moreover, when Craig set up something back of the canvas, which he moved away from the wall. As nearly as I could make it out it consisted of a glass bulb of curious shape. A moment later he attached the bulb to a wire that connected with a little rheostat or resistance coil and thence, in turn, to an electric-light socket. He switched on the electric current and the apparatus behind the picture began to sputter. I could not see very well what it was, but it looked as if the bulb was suffused with a peculiar, yellowish-green light, divided into two hemispheres of different shades. The pungent odor of ozone from the electric discharge filled the room. While Kennedy was working, I had noticed a little leather party box lying on a table, as though it had been forgotten. It was not just the thing one would expect in Faber's rooms and I looked at it more closely. On it were the initials "R. T." Had Rita Tourville visited him? Craig had scarcely finished and was packing up his apparatus when we heard a noise outside. A second later, Faber himself entered, with Rita, evidently looking for something. "Oh, yes, Rita,--here it is. Why, Kennedy--how are you? Did you get your photograph?" Kennedy replied that he had, and thanked him. It was easy to see Rita's pleasure at being with the young connoisseur, but at the sight of Craig I fancied for a moment that I saw a flash of that passionate resentment which had caused me to find a resemblance between the expression of her face and that of De Montespan in the painting, a hint at what she would do or dare to protect the object of her affections. We departed shortly, leaving Rita and Faber deep in the discussion of some art topic. It was not until late in the afternoon that we were able to revisit Jacot's. He received us cordially, but Craig, by a whispered word or two, was able to postpone the answer to the clever proposal which might have been a trap prepared for us. Craig, with a regular camera which he had brought also, set to work snapping pictures and objects of art with reckless profusion, moving them about to get a better light and otherwise consuming time. At last came the opportunity he had been awaiting, when Jacot had a customer in the front of the store. Quickly he set up the peculiar apparatus which he had used at Faber's before the copy of the Watteau in the rear of the shop, switched on the electricity, and amid the suppressed sputtering duplicated the work I had seen him do before. As he was packing the apparatus up, I happened to glance toward the front of the store. There were Leila and Jacot in earnest conversation. I whispered to Kennedy, and, a moment later, she caught sight of me, appeared not to recognize me, and left. Jacot sauntered back to us, I thought, concealing his haste. Before he could speak, Kennedy asked, "Who was that woman?" He had finished packing up the apparatus and even if Jacot had heard something that caused him to change his mind, it was now too late to stop Kennedy. "Why," hastened Jacot, apparently frank, "that is the maid of the Miss Fleming, the artist who has just died. She has come to me to see whether I can get her a position with another artist." "I thought I recognized her," remarked Kennedy. "I remember when I saw her once before that she had on a wedding ring. Doesn't her husband support her?" Jacot shrugged his shoulders. "She is looking for another position--that is all I know," he said simply. Kennedy picked up his apparatus. "You will think over my proposition?" asked Jacot, as we left. "And let you know in a day or two," nodded Kennedy. As we walked up Fifth Avenue, I confess to have felt all at sea. Who had the real masterpiece? Was it Faber, or Jacot, or was it someone else? If Rita had warned Faber against us, and Leila had warned Jacot, which had copy and which original? Or were they both copies and had the original been hidden? Had it been stolen for money or had some fiend with a knowledge of this mysterious ergot stolen it simply for love of art, stopping not even at murder to get it? CHAPTER XXI THE RADIOGRAPH WITNESS It was apparent that quick action was necessary if the mystery was ever to be solved. Kennedy evidently thought so, too, for he did not wait even until he returned to his laboratory to set in motion, through our old friend, Commissioner O'Connor, the machinery that would result in warrants to compel the attendance at the laboratory of all those interested in the case. Then he called up Dr. Leslie and finally Dr. Blythe himself. Back again in the laboratory, Kennedy employed the time in developing some plates of the pictures he had taken, and by early evening, after a brief study of them, his manner indicated that he was ready. Dr. Leslie, whom he had asked to come a little before the rest, arrived early, and a few moments later Dr. Blythe, very much excited by the message he had received. "Have you found anything?" he asked eagerly. "I've been trying all sorts of tests myself, and I can't prove the presence of a thing--not a thing." "Not ergot?" asked Kennedy quietly. "No," he cried, "you can't prove anything--you can't prove that she was poisoned by ergot." Dr. Leslie looked helplessly at Kennedy, but said nothing. "Not until recently, perhaps, could I have proved anything," returned Kennedy calmly. "Evidently you didn't know, Dr. Blythe, that the first successful isolation of an alkaloid of ergot from the organs in a case of acute ergotism had been made by two Pittsburgh scientists. True, up to the present toxicologists had to rely on the physical properties of this fungus of rye for its identification. That may have made it seem like a safe poison to someone. But I have succeeded in isolating ergotinin from the sample of the contents of the organs of the poor girl." Without pausing, he picked up a beaker. "Here I have the residue left from an acid solution of an extract of the organs, treated with chloroform. It is, as you see, crystalline." In his other hand he held up another beaker. "Next I got the residue obtained by extraction of the acid aqueous liquid with ether. That, too, is crystalline." Kennedy displayed something in the shape of long needles, the sides of which were not quite parallel and the ends replaced by a pair of faces. Quickly he dissolved some of the crystals in sulphuric acid. Then he added another chemical from a bottle labeled ferro chlorid. The liquid, as we bent over it, changed quickly to a brilliant orange, then a crimson, next a green, and finally became a deep blue. "What he has derived from the body responds to all the chemical tests for ergotinin itself," remarked Dr. Leslie, looking quickly across at Dr. Blythe. Dr. Blythe said nothing. I smelt of the stuff. Odors with me, as, I suppose, with other people, have a psychological effect, calling up scenes associated with them. This odor recalled something. I strove to recollect what it was. At last it came with a rush. "The meat sauce!" I exclaimed involuntarily. "Exactly," replied Kennedy. "I have obtained that bottle. There was ergot in it, cleverly concealed by the natural smell and taste of the sauce. But who put it there? Who had the knowledge that would suggest using such a poison? Who had the motive? Who had been dining with her that fatal evening?" Kennedy had no chance to answer his questions, even if he had intended to do so. The door of the laboratory opened and Rita Tourville, in charge of one of O'Connor's men, who looked as if he might have enjoyed it better if the lady had not been so angry, entered. Evidently O'Connor had timed the arrival closely to what Craig had asked, for scarcely a moment later Faber came whirling up in one of his own cars. Not a word passed between him and Rita, yet I felt sure that they had some understanding of each other. Leila arrived shortly, and it was noticeable that Rita avoided her, though for what reason I could not guess. Finally came Jacot, blustering, but, having made the officer the safety-valve of his mercurial feelings, quickly subsiding before us. Dr. Blythe appeared amazed at the quickness with which Kennedy moved now. "In ordinary times," began Kennedy, noting as he spoke the outward attitude of our guests toward each other, "the world would have stood aghast at the disappearance of such a masterpiece as the Fête by Watteau. It would have ranked with the theft of Gainesborough's Duchess of Devonshire, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the brown-skinned Madonna of the Mexican convent, Millet's Goose-girl, and the Shepherd and Flock, the portrait of Saskia by Rembrandt, and other stolen masterpieces. "But today the vicissitudes of works of art in war time pass almost unnoticed. Still there is a fascination exercised over the human mind by works of art and other objects of historic interest, the more so because the taking of art treasures seems to have become epidemic in northern Europe." He laid down what looked more like two rough sketches than photographs, yet they were photographs, though the relative brightness of color in photographs was quite different. Outlines were displaced, also. Ugly spots and bands marred the general effect. They were peculiar. "They are X-ray images or radiographs of two oil paintings, both claimed to be copies of Watteau's famous Fête," explained Kennedy, picking up one of them. "In a radiograph of the body," he continued, "the difference of brightness that distinguishes the heart from the lungs, bones from flesh, is due to the different densities of tissues. In these pictures the same effect is produced by the different densities of the pigments, especially of their principal and heaviest elements." He paused and laid down a chart. "For anyone who doubts what I am about to prove, I have made a scale of oil colors arranged in accordance to their transparency to Roentgen rays by applying standard pigments to canvas in patches of equal thickness. "I think you can see what I am driving at. For instance, a design drawn in a heavy pigment will show through a layer of a less dense pigment, under the influence of the X-ray--just as bones show through flesh. In other words, an ordinary photograph reproduces only the surface of a painting. A radiograph represents all the pigments underneath, also producing effects in proportion to their densities. "Let me show you the practical result of all this in studying such radiographs, as worked out by a German student. I have made several very interesting and conclusive discoveries which these radiographs I have taken illustrate." He paused a moment, for the sake of emphasis. "You will notice," he resumed carefully, "the lace frill above the bodice on the figure of Madame de Montespan, in this radiograph. In the painting the frill is sharply defined and can be clearly distinguished from the bodice. But look at this radiograph. It appears tattered. It overflows the bodice. "That led me to suspect that the bodice was widened as an afterthought--perhaps to diminish the area of white. That is the reason why the white shows through the bodice in the radiograph. But in this other one the bodice and the frill are substantially as they must be in the original." Again he paused, as if taking up a new point. "This radiograph,--number one, I may call it--shows a broad light band on the right hand of the figure, of which not a trace is to be found either in the other radiograph or the painting itself. It represents the first rough sketch of an arm and hand. "Again, in this first radiograph the ring and little fingers are close together and a sixth finger appears between the index and middle fingers. From that I infer that the hand hung limp with the fingers nearly in contact in the first sketch and that the fingers were afterward separated. But in this second radiograph the arm, hand and fingers are perfect." It was fascinating to listen to Kennedy as he delved down into the invisible beneath the very oils and dug out their hidden mystery. "Take the head and shoulder," he continued. "Radiograph number one clearly shows flaking of the painting which has been painted over to conceal it. Ordinary light reveals no trace, either, of a long crack on the shoulder which evidently was filled with a thick mass of pigment containing too little white lead to obliterate the crack in the radiograph. White spots above the ear, in the radiograph, probably indicate an excess of white lead used in retouching. At any rate, radiograph number two contains no such defects." Kennedy paused before drawing the conclusion. "The radiograph of an original picture reveals changes made by the artist in the course of his work. The counterfeiter, like other copyists, reproduces as accurately as possible the final result. That is all he can see. He makes errors and corrections, but of a different kind. There are no serious changes. "So, a radiograph of even a part of a picture shows the layers of pigment that are hidden from the eye and the changes made during the composition of the work. One can easily distinguish the genuine from the spurious copies, for it is absolutely impossible for an imitator to make a copy that will stand the X-ray test. "You see," he went on enthusiastically, "the most striking feature of these radiographs is their revelation of details of the first sketch, which have been altered in the finished picture. We actually obtain an insight into the methods of an artist--" he paused, adding--"who has been dead for centuries." It was wonderful what Kennedy was getting out of those, to us, blurred and indistinct skiagraphs. I studied the faces before me. None seemed to indicate any disposition to break down. Kennedy saw it, too, and evidently determined to go to the bitter end in hammering out the truth of the mystery. "One moment more, please," he resumed. "The radiograph shows even more than that. It shows the possibility of detecting a signature that has been painted over, in order to disarm suspicion. The detection is easier in proportion to the density of the pigment used for the signature and the lack of density of the superposed coat." He had laid the radiographs on the table before him, with a finger on the corner of each, as he faced us. "At the bottom of each of the paintings in question," he shot out, leaning forward, "you will find nothing in the way of a signature. But here, in radiograph number two, for instance, barely discernible, are the words, "R. Fleming," quite invisible to the eye, but visible to the X-ray. These words have been painted over. Why? Was it to prevent anyone from thinking that the owner had ever had any connection with Rhoda Fleming?" I was following Kennedy, but not so closely that I missed a fearful glance of Rita from Faber to Jacot. What it meant, I did not know. The others were too intent on Kennedy's exposure to notice. I wondered whether someone had sought to conceal the fact that he had a copy of the famous Watteau, made by Miss Fleming? "Look at the bottom of the other radiograph, number one, further toward the left," pursued Kennedy resistlessly. "There you will discover traces of an 'A' and a 'W,' which do not appear on the painting. Between these two are marks which can also be deciphered by the X-ray--'Antoine Watteau.' Perhaps it was painted over lightly so that an original could be smuggled in as a copy. More likely it was done so that a thief and murderer could not be traced." As Kennedy's voice rang out, more and more accusatory, Rita Tourville became more and more uncontrollably nervous. "It was suggested," modulated Kennedy, playing with his little audience as a cat might with a mouse, "that someone murdered Rhoda Fleming with the little-understood poison, ergot, because of an infatuation for the picture itself. But the modern crook has an eye for pictures, just as for other valuables. The spread of the taste for art has taught these fellows that such things as old masters are worth money, and they will even murder now to get them. No, that radiograph which I have labeled number one is not a copy. It is of the genuine old master--the real Watteau. "Someone, closely associated with Miss Fleming, had found out that she had the original. That person, in order to get it, went even so far as to--" Rita Tourville jumped up, wildly, facing Craig and crying out, "No, no--his _is_ the copy--the copy by Miss Fleming. It was I who told him to paint over the signature. It was I who called him away--both nights--on a pretext--when he was dining with her--alone--called him because--I--I loved him and I knew--" Faber was on his feet beside her in a moment, his face plainly showing his feelings toward her. As he laid his hand on her arm to restrain her, she turned and caught a penetrating glance from Jacot's hypnotic eye. Slowly she collapsed into her chair, covering her face with her hands, sobbing. For a moment a look of intense scorn and hatred blazed in Leila's face, then was checked. Craig waved the radiograph of the real Watteau as he emphasized his last words. "In spite of Rita Tourville's unexpected love for Faber, winning him from your victim, and with the aid of your wife, Leila, in the rôle of maid, the third member of your unique gang of art thieves, you are convicted infallibly by my X-ray detective," thundered Craig as he pointed his finger at the now cowering Jacot. CHAPTER XXII THE ABSOLUTE ZERO "Isn't there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? You _must_ come out to Briar Lake." When a handsome woman like Mrs. Fraser Ferris pleads, she is irresistible. Not only that, but the story which she had not trusted either to a message or a messenger was deeply interesting, for, already, it had set agog the fashionable country house colony. Mrs. Ferris had come to us not as the social leader now, but as a mother. Only the night before her son, young Fraser, had been arrested by the local authorities at Briar Lake on the charge of homicide. I had read the meager dispatch in the morning papers and had wondered what the whole story might be. "You see, Professor Kennedy," she began in an agitated voice as soon as she arrived at the laboratory and introduced herself to us, "day before yesterday, Fraser was boxing at the Country Club with another young man, Irving Evans." Kennedy nodded. Both of them were well known. Ferris had been the All-America tackle on the University football team a couple of years previous and Evans was a crack pitcher several years before. "Irving," she continued, adding, "of course I call him Irving, for his mother and I were schoolgirls together--Irving, I believe, fell unconscious during the bout. I'm telling you just what Fraser told me. "The other men in the Club gymnasium at the time carried him into the locker-room and there they all did what they could to revive him. They succeeded finally, but when he regained consciousness he complained of a burning sensation in his stomach, or, rather, as Fraser says, just below the point where his ribs come together. They say, too, that there was a red spot on his skin, about the size of a half-dollar. "Finally," she continued with a sigh, "the other men took Irving home--but he lapsed into a half-comatose condition. He never got better. He--he died the next day--yesterday." It was evidently a great effort for Mrs. Ferris to talk of the affair which had involved her son, but she had made up her mind to face the necessity and was going through it bravely. "Of course," she resumed a moment later, "the death of Irving Evans caused a great deal of talking. It was natural in a community like Briar Lake. But I don't think anything would have been thought about it, out of the way, if the afternoon after his death--yesterday--the body of one of the Club's stewards, Benson, had not been found jammed into a trunk. Apparently, it had been dumped off an automobile in one of the most lonely sections of the country. "In fact," she went on, "it was the sort of thing that might have taken place, one would say, in the dark alleys of a big city. But in a country resort like Briar Lake, the very uncommonness of such a case called added attention to it." "I understand," agreed Craig, "but why did they suspect your son?" "That's the ridiculous part of it, at least to me," hastened the mother to her son's defense. "Both Irving and my son, as you know, were former University athletic stars, and, as in all country clubs, I suppose, that meant popularity. Irving was engaged to Anita Allison. Anita is one of the most beautiful and popular girls in the younger set, a splendid golfer, charming and clever, the life of the Club at the dances and teas." Mrs. Ferris paused as though she would convey to us just the social status of everyone concerned. "Of course," she threw in parenthetically, "you know the Allisons are reputed to be quite well off. When old Mr. Allison died, Anita's brother, Dean, several years older than herself, inherited the brokerage business of his father and, according to the will, assumed the guardianship of his younger sister." She seemed to be considering something, then suddenly to make up her mind to tell it. "I suppose everyone knows it," she resumed, "and you ought to know it, too. Fraser was--er--one of Anita's unsuccessful suitors. In fact, Anita had been sought by nearly all of the most eligible young fellows of the Club. I don't think there were many who had not at some time or other offered her his whole heart as well as his fortune. "I didn't encourage Fraser--or try to discourage him. But I could see that it lay between Fraser and Irving." "And the rather strange circumstances of the death of Evans, as well as of the steward, occasioned a good deal of gossip, I suppose," chimed in Kennedy. "Yes. Somehow, people began to whisper that it was revenge or hate or jealousy that had prompted the blow,--that perhaps the steward, Benson, who was very popular with the young men, knew or had seen something that made him dangerous. "Anyhow, gossip grew until it seemed that, in some way which no one has ever said definitely, a deliberate attempt was made on Irving Evans's life, and finally the local authorities, rather glad to take up a scandal in the Club set, took action and arrested my Fraser--under a charge of homicide." She blurted the words out fiercely and defiantly, but it was all assumed. Underneath, one could see the woman fighting loyally with every weapon for her son, keenly alive to the disgrace that even the breath of scandal unrefuted might bring to his name. "How about the other admirers?" asked Craig quickly. "That's another queer thing," she replied eagerly. "You see, they have all suddenly become very busy and have made perfect alibis. But there was Allan Wyndham--he's a friend of the Allisons,--why shouldn't they suspect him? In fact, there was quite a group of young fellows closely associated with Dean Allison in speculation. Irving Evans was one. But," she added, with a glance at Kennedy as if she realized that it was like catching at a straw, "with Fraser, of course,--there is that blow. We can't deny that." "What does Miss Allison think?" queried Craig. "Oh, I believe Anita is all broken up by the tragedy to her fiancé. She was at the Club at the time--in the tea room. No one dared to tell her until Irving had been taken home. Then her brother, who was in the gymnasium when the thing happened and had been one of those to carry Irving into the locker-room, was naturally chosen by the rest, after they had done all they could to revive Irving, to break the news as gently as he could to his sister. She took it calmly. But I think it would have been better if she had given way to her real feelings. They say she has secluded herself in the Allison house and won't see a soul." Kennedy's brow puckered in thought. "You can't imagine what a terrible shock this thing has been to me," pleaded Mrs. Ferris. "Oh, the horror of it all! You _must_ come out to Briar Lake with me!" There was, naturally, no doubt of the poignancy of her feelings as she looked from Kennedy to myself, imploringly. As for Craig, he did not need to betray the sympathy he felt not only for the young man who had been arrested and his mother, but for the poor girl whose life might be blasted by the tragedy and the unhappy victim who had been snatched away so suddenly almost on the very eve of happiness. It was not half an hour later, that, with a very grateful mother, we were on our way out to Briar Lake in Mrs. Ferris's touring car. As we whirled along past the city limits, Kennedy leaned back on the cushions and for some minutes seemed absorbed in thought. "Of course it is possible," he remarked at length, noticing that both Mrs. Ferris and I were watching him nervously, "that Miss Allison may know something that will throw some light on the affair. But it may be of an entirely private nature. I don't know how we'll get her to talk, but we must--if she knows anything. I'd like to stop at the Allison house, first." "Very well," agreed Mrs. Ferris, leaning forward and directing the chauffeur to turn off before we reached Briar Lake on the main road. We sped along and I could not help feeling that the young man who was driving the car was quite as eager as anyone else to bring help to his young master. The Allison house proved to be a roomy, old-fashioned place on a rise of ground just this side of Briar Lake, for the Allisons had been among the first to acquire estates at the exclusive colony. Mrs. Ferris remained in the car, while Kennedy and I went in to introduce ourselves. We found the young society girl evidently now in full possession of her nerves. She was slender, fair, with deep blue eyes, not merely pretty, but with a face that showed character. Anita Allison had been seated in the library, and, as we entered, I could see that she had hastily shoved some papers, at which she had been looking, into a drawer of the desk. "Miss Allison," began Kennedy, "this is a most unfortunate affair and I must beg your pardon--" "Yes," she interrupted, "I understand. As if I didn't feel badly enough--oh--they have to make it all so much harder to bear by arresting Fraser--and then all this notoriety,--it is awful." I confess that I had not expected that we would see her so easily. Yet I felt that there was some constraint in her manner, in spite of that. "I want to speak frankly with you, Miss Allison," went on Craig gently. "Is there anything about the matter--of a personal nature--that you haven't told? I want to appeal to you. Remember, there is another life at stake, now." She looked at us searchingly. Did she suspect that we knew something or was she herself seeking information? "No, no," she cried. "There isn't a thing--not a thing that I know that I haven't told--nothing." Kennedy said nothing himself, but watched her, apparently assuming that she would go on. "Oh," she cried, "if I could only _do_ something--anything. It might get my mind off it all. But I--I can't even cry!" Plainly there was little except a sort of mental vivisection of her grief to be gained from her yet--even if she suspected something, of which I was not entirely sure. We excused ourselves and left her, sunk deeply into a leather chair, her face buried in her hands, but not weeping. "Is Mr. Allison at home?" inquired Craig as we passed out through the hall, meeting the butler at the door. "No, sir," he replied. "He went to New York this morning, sir, and said he'd be at the Club later this afternoon." We climbed into the car and Kennedy looked at his watch. "It's getting well along in the afternoon," he remarked. "I think I'll go over to the Club. We may find Allison there now." As we turned out into the main road our driver had to swerve for a car which turned off, coming from the city, as we had come a few minutes before. He looked around at it blackly, as it went up the road to the Allison house, for he had had to stall his own engine to avoid a collision. There was no one in the other car but a driver with a visored hat. "Whose car was that?" asked Craig quickly. "Allan Wyndham's," answered our driver, starting his engine. "H'm," mused Craig. "Wyndham must have sent her a message from town. Too bad we hurried so to get up here." At last, as we turned a bend in the main road, the broad chimneys, white columns and wide balustrades of the Briar Lake Country Club loomed in sight. The Country Club was a most pretentious building, yet, unlike many such clubs, had a very hospitable air in spite of its aristocratic and handsome appearance. There was something very inviting about its wide sweep of roof and ample piazzas, some enclosed in glass, as we approached by the broad graveled driveway that swung in from the highway between the gentle curves of green lawns whose expanse was broken by the tall pines through which we caught a glimpse of the hills. It was indeed a beautiful country. We entered a wide hall and came to the reception room crowded with luxurious armchairs and cozy corners. In a glass case stood the usual trophies. Grouped about a huge deep fire was a knot of people, and here and there others were talking earnestly. One could feel that this was one of those social institutions not to be in which argued that one was decidedly out of things. I could almost visualize the close scrutiny that new applicants would undergo, not so much as men among men, but through the eyes of the women folk, dissecting the wives and daughters of the family. Founded originally because of the interest of the older members in horses and the hunt, the Club had now extended its activities to polo and motors, golf, tennis, squash, with a fine old English bowling green and ample shooting traps. I could not blame Mrs. Ferris for not wishing to enter the Club just yet. She had left us at the door, promising to send the car back for our disposal. CHAPTER XXIII THE VACUUM BOTTLE Fortunately, Dean Allison was at the Club, as we hoped, having just arrived by the train that left New York at the close of the banking day. Someone told us, however, that Wyndham had probably decided to remain in town over night. Allison was perhaps a little older than I had imagined, rather a grave young man who seemed to take his club responsibilities on the Council very seriously. "I'd like to talk to you about this Evans case," began Craig when we had been introduced. "Glad to tell you all I know," he responded cordially. "It isn't much, I'm afraid. It's terrible--terrible. We don't know what to think. My sister is all broken up by it, poor girl." He led the way over to a corner, in a sort of bow window, and we sat down on the hard leather cushions. "No, there isn't much I can say," he resumed. "You see, one of the recreations of the younger set at the Club is boxing--that's about all there was to it--not the amateurish thing one usually sees, but real scientific boxing. "Fraser had adopted the so-called Fitzsimmons shift--you know, the right foot forward, while the left hand shoots out from somewhere near the hip, plunging at close range into the pit of the stomach." Allison rose to illustrate it. "Irving, on the other hand, had been advocating the Jeffries crouch as the only safeguard to meet it,--like that." He threw himself into position and went on, "The bout had been arranged, accordingly, and it was _some_ bout, too. Most of us here are fond of boxing to keep fit. "Well, at last Fraser got under his guard, I suppose you'd call it. He landed. For an instant, Irving stood up straight, his hands helplessly extended. Most of us thought he was fooling and Fraser jumped back, laughing at the way his contention had worked out. Then, slowly, struggling as if against the inevitable, Irving bent forward and toppled over on his face. "That's where we woke up. We rushed forward and picked him up, apparently unconscious, and carried him to the locker-room. There was a good deal of excitement. Someone telephoned for a doctor, but couldn't seem to find one at home." "Did you see anything peculiar take place in the locker-room?" asked Kennedy, following keenly. "Anything peculiar?" "Yes--anyone near him, perhaps--another blow--while he was unconscious." "No--and I think I would have seen anything that was out of the way. I was there almost all the time--until someone told me my sister was upstairs and suggested that I was the best one to break the news to her." "I'd like to look over the gymnasium and locker-room," suggested Craig. Dean Allison led the way downstairs quickly. Craig did not spend more than a minute in the gymnasium, but the locker-room he examined carefully. It was a long room. Each locker bore the name of its owner and he hastily ran his eye over them, getting their location. I don't know that even he had, yet, any idea that he would find anything, but it was just his habit to go over the ground of a tragedy, in hope of picking up some clew. He looked over the floor very carefully, now and then bending down as if to discover spots. Once he paused a moment, then continued his measured tread down the long row of lockers until he came to a door at the other end of the room. We went out and Kennedy looked about closely. "Oh,--about Benson, the steward," he said, looking up quickly and stroking his chin as if an idea had occurred to him. "Is there anyone here who might know something about him--his habits, associates,--that sort of thing?" "Why--yes," considered Allison slowly, "the chef might know. Wait, I'll call him." As Allison disappeared in the direction of what was evidently the kitchen, we stood outside by the door, waiting. Kennedy's eye traveled back and forth about us and finally fell on a row of rubbish barrels a few feet away. He moved over to them. He had half turned away, retracing his steps back to me thoughtfully, when his eye must have been attracted by something gleaming. He turned back and poked at it with his stick. Peeping from the rubbish was a dented thermos bottle, the lining of which was cracked and broken. He was about to turn away again when his eye fell on something else. It was the top of the bottle, the little metal cap that screws over it, or rather it was what was left of the cap. "That's strange," he muttered to himself, picking it up. The cap, which might have been used as a cup, was broken in the most peculiar manner, in spite of the fact that it was metal. If it had been of glass I should have said that someone had dropped it. Kennedy frowned and dropped the pieces into his pocket, turning to wait for Allison to return with the chef. "I can't seem to find him," reported Allison a moment later. "But he'll be here soon. He'll have to be--or lose his job. How would after dinner do? I'll have him and all the other employés, then." "Good!" agreed Kennedy. "That will give me time to go into the town first and get back." "I'd be glad to have you dine with me," invited Allison. "Thank you," smiled Kennedy. "I'm afraid I won't have time for dining tonight. I'll be back after dinner, though." Mrs. Ferris's car had returned and Craig's next step was to go on into the town of Briar Lake. On the way he decided first to stop at the Evans house, which took us only a little bit out of our way. There he made a minute examination of the body of the young man. Irving Evans had been a handsome fellow and the tragedy of his death had been a sad blow to his family. However, I shall not dwell on that, as it is no part of my story. Kennedy was eager to see the red spot in the pit of the stomach of the dead man of which everyone had spoken. He looked at it closely, as I did also, although I could make nothing of it. Evans had complained of a burning, stinging sensation, during his moments of consciousness and the mark had had a flushed, angry look. It seemed as though a sort of crust had formed over it, which now was ashen white. Craig did not spend as long as I had anticipated at the Evans house, but, although he said nothing, I could tell by the expression of his face that he was satisfied with the conclusions which he drew from the examination. Yet I could not see that the combination of circumstances looked much better for Fraser Ferris. We went on now to the town and there we had no trouble in meeting the authorities and getting them to talk. In fact, they seemed quite eager to justify themselves. As we passed down the main street, Mrs. Ferris's chauffeur mentioned the fact that a local physician, Dr. Welch, was also the Coroner of the county. Kennedy asked him to stop at the doctor's office, and we entered. "A most unfortunate occurrence," prefaced the doctor as we seated ourselves. "You assume, then, that it was the blow that killed Evans?" asked Kennedy pointedly. The doctor looked at him a moment. "Of course--why not?" he demanded argumentatively, as though we had come all the way from the city for the sole purpose of impugning his medical integrity. "I suppose you know the classical case of the young man who was coming out of the theater, when some of the party began indulging in rather boisterous horse play? One bent another quietly over his arm and tapped him a sharp blow with the disengaged hand on the stretched abdomen. The blow fell right over the solar plexus and, to the surprise of everyone, the young man died." The Coroner had risen and was pacing the room slowly. "I could cite innumerable cases. Everyone understands that a blow may be fatal because of shock to the solar plexus. In such a case no post-mortem trace might be found and the blow could even be a light one. "For instance, in a fight a blow might be struck and the recipient fall dead. If the medical examiner should find nothing on holding the autopsy which would have caused sudden death, he can testify that a shock to the solar plexus will cause death and that the post-mortem examination will give no evidence to support or disprove the statement. The absolute absence, however, of any reason or of injury to the other organs will add weight to his testimony, evidence of the blow being present." "And you think this was such a case?" asked Kennedy, with just a trace of a challenge in his tone. "Certainly," replied the Coroner. "Certainly. We know that a blow was struck--in all probability hard enough to affect the solar plexus." It was evident, in his mind at least, that young Ferris was guilty and Kennedy rose to go, refraining from antagonizing him by further questions. We next visited the county court house, which was not far from the doctor's office. There, the sheriff, a young man, met us and seemed willing to talk over the evidence which so far had been unearthed in the case. In his office was a trunk, a cheap brown affair, in which the body of the unfortunate steward, Benson, had been found. "Quite likely the trunk had been carried to the spot in a car and thrown off," the sheriff explained. "A couple of boys happened to find it. They told of their find and one of the constables opened the trunk, then called us up here. In the trunk was the body of a man, crouched, the head forced back between the knees." "I'd like to see Benson's body," remarked Kennedy. "Very well, I'll go with you," returned the sheriff. "It's at the undertaker's--our only local morgue." As we walked slowly up the street, the sheriff went on, just to show that country as well as city detectives knew a thing or two. "There are just two things in which this differs from the ordinary barrel or trunk murder you read about." "What are they?" encouraged Craig. "Well, we know the victim. There wasn't any difficulty about identifying him. We know it wasn't really a Black Hand crime, although everything seems to have been done to make it look like one, and the body was left in the most lonely part of the country. "And then the trunk. We have traced it easily to the Club House. It was Benson's own trunk--had been up in his own room, which was locked." "His own trunk?" repeated Craig, suddenly becoming interested. "How could anyone take it out, without being seen? Didn't anyone hear anything?" "No. Apparently not. None of the other servants seem to have heard a thing. I don't know how it could have been got out, especially as his door was locked and we found the keys on him. But--well, it was. That's all." We had reached the undertaker's. The body of Benson was horribly mangled about the head and chest, particularly the mouth. It seemed as if a great hole had been torn in him, and he must have died instantly. Kennedy examined the grewsome remains most carefully. What had done it, I wondered? Could the man have been drugged, perhaps, and then shot? "Maybe it was a dum-dum bullet," I suggested, "one of those that mushrooms out and produces such frightful wounds." "But assuming it entered the front, there is no exit in the back," the sheriff put in quickly, "and no bullet has been found." "Well, if he wasn't shot," I persisted, "it must have been a blow, and it seems impossible that a blow could have produced such an effect." The sheriff said nothing, evidently preferring to gain with silence a reputation for superior wisdom. Kennedy had nothing better than silence to offer, either, though he continued for a long time examining the wounds on the body. Our last visit in town was to Fraser Ferris himself, to whom the sheriff agreed to conduct us. Ferris was confined in the grim, dark, stone, vine-clad county jail. We had scarcely entered the forbidding door of the place when we heard a step behind us. We turned to see Mrs. Ferris again. She seemed very much excited, and together we four, with a keeper, mounted the steps. As she caught sight of her son, behind the bars, she seemed to gasp, then nerve herself up to face the ordeal of seeing a Ferris in such a place. "Fraser," she cried, running forward. He was tall, sunburned, and looked like a good sportsman, a clean-cut fellow. It was hard to think of him as a murderer, especially after the affecting meeting of the mother and son. "Do you know what I've just heard?" she asked at length, then scarcely pausing for a word of encouragement from him, she went on. "Why, they say that Benson was in town early that evening, drinking heavily and that that might account--" "There--there you are," he cried earnestly. "I don't know what happened. But why should I do anything to him? Perhaps someone waylaid him. That's plausible." "Of course," warned Kennedy a few minutes later, "you know that anything you say may be used against you. But--" "I _will_ talk," interrupted the young man passionately, "although my lawyer tells me not to. Why, it's all so silly. As for Irving Evans, I can't see how I could have hit him hard enough, while, as for poor Benson,--well, that's even sillier yet. How should I know anything of that? Besides, they were all at the Club late that night, all except me, talking over the--the accident. Why don't they suspect Wyndham? He was there. Why don't they suspect--some of the others?" Mrs. Ferris was trying to keep a brave face and her son was more eager to encourage her than to do anything else. "Keep up a good heart, Mother," he called, as we finally left, after his thanking Kennedy most heartily. "They haven't indicted me yet, and the grand jury won't meet for a couple of weeks. Lots of things may turn up before then." It was evident that, next to the disgrace of the arrest, his mother feared even more the shame of an indictment and trial, even though it might end in an acquittal. Yet so far we had found no one, as far as I knew, who had been able to give us a fact that contradicted the deductions of the authorities in the case. CHAPTER XXIV THE SOLAR PLEXUS It was after the dinner hour that we found ourselves at the Country Club again. Wyndham had not come back from the city, but Allison was there and had gathered together all the Club help so that Kennedy might question them. He did question them down in the locker-room, I thought perhaps for the moral effect. The chef, whom I had suspected of knowing something, was there, but proved to be unenlightening. In fact, no one seemed to have anything to contribute. Quite the contrary. They could not even suggest a way in which the trunk might have been taken from the steward's room. "That's not very difficult," smiled Kennedy, as one after another the servants asserted that it would be impossible to get it around the turns in the stairs without making a noise. "Where was Benson's room?" The chef led the way to the door, that by which we had gone out before when we had seen the rubbish barrels. "Up there," he pointed, "on the third floor." There was no fire escape, nor were there any outside balconies, and I wondered how Craig would account for it. "Someone might have lowered the trunk from the window by a rope, might they not?" he asked simply. "Yes," returned the chef, unconvinced. "But his door was locked and he had his keys in his pocket. How about that?" "It doesn't follow that he was killed in his room, does it?" asked Craig. "In fact it is altogether impossible that he could have been. Suppose he was killed outside. Might not someone have taken the keys from his pocket, gone up to the room without making any noise and let the trunk down here by a rope? Then if he had dropped the rope, locked the door, and returned the keys to Benson's pockets--how about that?" It was so simple and feasible that no one could deny it. Yet I could not see that it furthered us in solving the greater mystery. We went up to the steward's room and searched his belongings, without finding anything that merited even that expenditure of time. However, Craig was confident now, although he did not say much, and by a late train we returned to the city in preference to using Mrs. Ferris's car. All the next day, Kennedy was engaged, either in his laboratory or on an errand that took him downtown during most of the middle of the day. When he returned, I could tell by the look on his face that his quest, whatever it had been, had been successful. "I found Wyndham--had a long talk with him," was all he would say in answer to my questions, before he went back to whatever he was studying at the laboratory. I had made some inquiries myself in the meantime, especially about Wyndham. As nearly as I could make out, the young men at Briar Lake were afflicted with a disease which is very prevalent--the desire to get rich quick. In that respect Fraser Ferris was no better than the rest. Nor was Irving Evans. Allan Wyndham had been a plunger almost from boyhood, and only the tight rein that his conservative father held over him had checked him. Sometimes the young men succeeded, and that had served only to whet their appetites for more easy money. But more often they had failed. In most cases, it seemed, Dean Allison's firm had been the brokers through whom they dealt, particularly Wyndham. In fact, with more time on my hands during the day than I knew what to do with, in the absence of Kennedy I had evolved several very pretty little theories of the case which involved the recouping of dissipated fortunes by marriage with the popular young heiress. It was late in the afternoon that the telephone rang, and, as Craig was busy, I answered it. "Oh, Mr. Jameson," I heard Mrs. Ferris's voice calling over long distance from Briar Lake anxiously, "is Mr. Kennedy there? Please let me speak to him." I hastened to hand over the receiver to Kennedy and waited impatiently until he finished. "A special grand jury has been empanelled for ten o'clock tomorrow morning," he said as he turned from the wire and faced me, "and unless we can do something immediately, they are sure to find an indictment." Kennedy scowled and shook his head. "It looks to me as if someone were mighty anxious to railroad young Ferris along," he remarked, hurrying across to the laboratory table, where he had been at work, and flinging off his stained smock. "Well, are you ready for them?" I asked. "Yes," he replied quickly. "Call up and find out about the trains to Briar Lake, Walter." I found that we could easily get a train that would have us at the Country Club not later than eight o'clock, and as I turned to tell Kennedy, I saw him carefully packing into a case a peculiar shaped flask which he had been using in some of his experiments. Outside it had a felt jacket, and as we hurried over to the station Kennedy carried it carefully in the case by a handle. The ride out to Briar Lake seemed interminable, but it was better than going up in a car at night, and Mrs. Ferris met us anxiously at the station. Thus, early in the evening, in the little reception room of the Country Club, there gathered a large party, not the largest it had seen, but certainly the most interested. In fact no one, except young Ferris, had any legitimate reason for staying away. "Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced us, having whispered to me that he wanted me to take a position near the door and stay there, no matter what happened. "But," he added, "science opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in the world. "Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But today the assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to face damning, dispassionate scientific facts. "And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal zeal, brings facts to clear an innocent man protesting his innocence, but condemned by circumstantial evidence." For a moment he paused, and when he began again it was evident that he was going straight to the point at issue in the case. "Various theories have been confidently proposed in this unfortunate affair which resulted in the death of Irving Evans," he proceeded. "One thing I want clear at the start. The fact is, and I am not running counter to it, that we have what might very well be called two brains. One is in the head, does the thinking. The other is a sort of abdominal brain, controls nutrition and a host of other functions, automatically. It is the solar plexus--the epigastric, sympathetic nervous system. "It is true that the knot of life is situated at the base of the cranial brain. One jab of a needle and it might be quickly extinguished. Yet derangement of the so-called abdominal brain destroys life as effectually, though perhaps not so quickly. A shock to the abdominal brain of young Evans has been administered--in a most remarkable manner." I could see Mrs. Ferris watching him with staring eyes, for Kennedy was doing just what many a lawyer does--stating first the bad side of one's case, and seeming to establish the contention of the opposite side. "It was an unfortunate blow," he admitted, "perhaps even dangerous. But it was not deadly. What happened downstairs in the gymnasium must be taken into account with what happened afterwards in the locker and both considered in the light of the death of the steward, Benson, later. "The mark on the stomach of Irving Evans was due to something else than the blow. Everyone has noticed that. It was a peculiar mark and no mere blow could have produced it. "Weird in conception, horribly cunning in its execution was this attempt at murder," he added, taking from the case the peculiar flask which I had seen him pack up. He held it up so that we could see. It was evidently composed of two flasks, one inside the other, the outer encased in felt, as I had seen, the inner coated with quicksilver and a space between the two. Inside was a peculiar liquid which had a bluish tinge, but was odorless. From the surface a thin vapor seemed to rise. It was not corked, but from the neck he pulled out a light cotton stopper. As he agitated the liquid slightly, it had the appearance of boiling. He turned over the bottle and spilled some of it on the floor. It evaporated instantly, like water on a hot stove. Then he took from his pocket a small tin cup and poured out into it some of the liquid, letting it stand a few moments, smoking. He poured back the liquid into the flask and dropped the cup on the hardwood floor. It shattered as if it had been composed of glass. One of the men in the front row moved forward to pick up the pieces. "Just a minute," interfered Kennedy. "If you think anything of your fingers, let that be. In the rubbish, just outside the locker-room, yesterday, I discovered the remains of a thermos bottle and of a metal cup like this which I have dropped on the floor. I have examined the cup, or rather the pieces. "These two murders were committed by one of the least known agencies--freezing, by liquid air." I could hear a gasp from the auditors and I knew that someone's heart must be icy at the discovery of the portentous secret. "I have some liquid air in this Dewar flask," continued Kennedy. "That is what liquid air is usually kept in. But it may be kept in an ordinary thermos bottle quite well, also. "If I should drop just a minute bit on my hand, it would probably boil away without hurting me, for it evaporates so quickly that it forms a layer or film of air which prevents contact of the terribly cold liquid air and the skin. I might thrust my finger in it for a few seconds and it would not hurt me. But if I kept it there my finger would become brittle and actually break off, so terrible is the cold of one hundred and ninety degrees below zero, Centigrade. It produces an instantaneous frost bite, numbing so quickly that it often is hardly felt. Placed on the surface of flesh this way, it changes it to a pearly-white, solid surface. The thawing, however, is intensely painful, giving first a burning sensation, then a stinging, flushed feeling, exactly as Irving Evans described what he felt. The part affected swells and a crust forms which it takes weeks to heal, supposing the part affected is small. "Someone, in that locker-room," continued Craig, "placed a piece of cotton soaked in liquid air on the stomach of the unconscious boy. Instantly, before anyone noticed it, it froze through to the solar plexus. Ultimately that was bound to kill him. And who would bear the blame? Why, Fraser Ferris, of course. The accident in the bout afforded an opportunity to use the stuff which the criminal in his wildest dreams could not have bettered." "How about Benson, the steward?" spoke up a voice. We turned. It was the Coroner, loath even yet to give up the official theory. "That was a pure accident," returned Kennedy. "The club, as you know, is a temperance club. But the members, or at least some of them, keep drinks in their lockers. The steward, Benson, knew this. It has been shown that Benson had been in town that evening, had imbibed considerably. "He had observed one of the members of the club take from his locker something which he thought was to revive young Evans. What more natural, then, than for him to visit that locker when he returned from town, open it? "He found a thermos bottle. Instead of the regular cork, it had a light cotton stopper. In his muddled state, the steward did not stop to think--even if he had, he would have seen no reason for carefully corking something that was not designed to keep in a thermos bottle. "But instead of whiskey, the bottle contained what had not yet evaporated of the liquid air. You may not know it, but liquid air can be easily preserved in open vessels with a stopper which allows the passage of the evaporated air. However paradoxical it may seem, it cannot be kept in closed vessels, for enormous pressures are at once brought into play. "Benson opened the bottle and poured out some of the contents in the metal cup-cap of the bottle. He raised it to his lips--swallowed it--or that much of it that did not paralyze him. It expanded, boiled, exploded--producing the ghastly wound by almost literally blowing him up. "The owner of the liquid air, who must have had it there waiting a chance to use it, was probably waiting up in the club rooms now, for a chance to get rid of it as evidence. He must have heard a noise down in the locker-room. What if he had been observed and someone were down there investigating? "He hurried down there. To his horror, in the darkness, he found Benson, already dead, the locker open, the thermos bottle broken and the cup smashed. "It was a terrible clew. He must get that body away from the locker-room. He could throw the bottle out; no one could suspect anything when the air had evaporated, as it soon would, now. But the body--that was different. The method he employed in getting rid of the body, I think you all must already know." I had been watching Wyndham's face keenly. As Craig proceeded, I fancied that I saw in it a look of startled surprise. "_Was_ it one of Anita Allison's many admirers who did this thing?" Craig asked suddenly. I turned from Wyndham to Craig, wondering. What did he mean? Everyone had accepted that theory of the case so far. No one had questioned it. But, with his words, it suddenly dawned on me that it was by no means the only theory. Before Craig could go on, there came a startled cry from one of the ladies. "Oh--he did it--he did it!" Anita Allison had fainted. Dean Allison was at his sister's side in a moment. "Here--let me get her out into the fresh air," he cried. Wyndham had started up at the words and the two men were facing each other over the girl who had already discovered the secret, but had kept it locked in her breast. "Walter--lock that door," rang out Craig's voice mercilessly. I backed up, my whole weight against it, and turned the key. "I know the gossip of Wall Street now," shot out Kennedy hurriedly, facing the crowd who were all on their feet. "Today I have visited a number of speculative young gentlemen of Briar Lake, including Mr. Wyndham. "The truth is that Miss Allison's fortune was gone--dissipated in an unsuccessful bear raid on the market in which others have shared--and lost. "If she had married, it meant an accounting and surrendering of her full control of her fortune. You have done this dastardly crime, Dean Allison, to keep your sister in ignorance of the loss and to save your own miserable reputation!" CHAPTER XXV THE DEMON ENGINE "Perpetual motion sounds foolish, I'll admit. But, Professor Kennedy, this Creighton self-acting motor does things I can't explain." Craig looked perplexed as he gazed from Adele Laidlaw, his young and very pretty client, to me. We had heard a great deal about the young lady, one of the wealthiest heiresses of the country. She paused a moment and looked at us, evidently thinking of the many schemes which people had devised to get her money away from her. "Really," she went on, "I haven't a friend to whom I can go, except Mr. Tresham--no one on whom I can rely for advice in a case of this kind." Several times, I recollected, there had been rumors that she was engaged to Leslie Tresham, who had been the lawyer for her father before his death. The rumors had always been denied, however, though I am sure it was not Tresham's fault. "You see," she continued, as Craig still said nothing, "father was of a mechanical turn of mind; in fact so was the whole family, and I suppose I have inherited it. I'm just crazy over cars and boats. Anyhow, I was introduced to Mr. Creighton and he seemed so earnest and his work was so interesting that I bought a little of his stock. Now he needs more money to perfect his motor. Perhaps the thing is all right, but,--well, what do I really know about it?" One could not help feeling a great deal of sympathy for her. She was not the type of woman who would be easily misled, yet I could imagine that she must constantly be on her guard against schemers of every sort lurking to take advantage of every whim. "H'm," mused Kennedy, with a smile, eyeing our visitor keenly. "I've been consulted on about everything from pickpockets to the fountain of youth. Now it's perpetual motion. I must say, Miss Laidlaw, your case has a decided scientific interest for me, anyhow, as well as personal. I'd like to look at this wonderful machine, if you can arrange it." "I can do that," she answered confidently with a glance of thanks to Kennedy for his help. "May I use your telephone?" She had to wait some time for an answer to her call, but finally she got Creighton on the wire. "He had just come in," she said, hanging up the receiver. "He'll be there if we come down right away." Adele Laidlaw drove us downtown in her own high-powered car, which, true to her mechanical instincts, she handled herself. She drove it very well, too. In fact, I felt safer than with Kennedy, who, like many drivers, was inclined to take chances when he was at the wheel himself and could see what he was up against, though he balked severely when anyone else did it. "How did you become interested in this perpetual motion machine, Miss Laidlaw?" he asked as we threaded our way through the dense traffic. "Well, I suppose everyone knows that I'm interested in engines," she replied, as we waited for the signal from a policeman at a cross-street. "I've spent a good deal on them in speed-boats and in racing cars, too. An acquaintance, a friend of Mr. Creighton's, a Mrs. Barry,--Mr. Tresham knows her,--thought perhaps I might use the motor somehow and told me of it. I went down to see it and--I must confess that it fascinated me." I had not yet quite got myself accustomed to a girl who was interested in such things, though, in these days, I must confess, saw no reason why she should not be. Kennedy was dividing his attention between the admirable manner in which she handled the car and her very expressive face. Was it really, I wondered, that Creighton, more than his motor, has fascinated her? She drew up before the Consolidated Bank Building, a modern steel and concrete structure in the uptown business section. "The laboratory is next door," she said, as she let the car slide ahead a few feet more. "Mr. Tresham's office is in the Bank Building. I've had to go there so often since father died that I stopped through force of habit, I suppose." Mindful of Kennedy's admiration for Freud, his theory of forgetting occurred to me. Was there any significance in the mistake? Had the unconscious blunder betrayed something which perhaps she herself consciously did not realize? Was it Tresham, after all, whom she really admired and wanted to see? Creighton's workshop was in an old two-story brick building, evidently awaiting only the development of the neighborhood before it was torn down. Meanwhile the two buildings were in marked contrast. Which of them typified Creighton? Was he hopelessly out of date, or really ahead of his time? I must confess to having had a lively curiosity to meet the inventor. The entrance to the laboratory from the street was through a large door into a room in which was a carpenter's bench. On one side were some powerful winches and a large assortment of tools. In the back of the room a big door led to another room on the ground floor to the rear. "Mr. Creighton's is upstairs," remarked Miss Laidlaw, turning past the locked door and going up a worn flight of steps. "Whose shop is that?" asked Kennedy, indicating the door. "I don't know who rents these rooms down here," she replied. Up the stairway we went to the second floor. On the top landing stood some old machinery. In a little room on one side was a big desk, as well as books, instruments, and drawings of all sorts. Opposite this room was another little room, with many bits of expensive machinery on shelves and tables. Back of these two, and up a step, was a large room, the full width of the building, the workshop of the inventor, into which she led us. "I've brought a couple of friends of mine who may be interested in the vibrodyne motor," Miss Laidlaw introduced us. "Very pleased to meet you, gentlemen," Creighton returned. "Before we get through, I think you'll agree with me that you never dreamed of anything more wonderful than this motor of mine." He was a large, powerfully built man, with a huge head, square jaw with heavy side whiskers, and eyes that moved restlessly under a shock of iron-gray hair. Whether it was the actual size of his head or his bushy hair, one got the impression that his cranium housed a superabundant supply of brains. Every action was nervous and quick. Even his speech was rapid, as though his ideas outstripped his tongue. He impressed one as absorbed in this thing which he said frankly had been his life study, every nerve strained to make it succeed and convince people. "Just what is this force you call vibrodyne?" asked Craig, gazing about at the curious litter of paraphernalia in the shop. "Of course, I'm willing to admit," began Creighton quickly, in the tone of a man who was used to showing his machine to skeptical strangers but must be allowed to explain it in his own way, "that never before by any mechanical, electrical, thermal, or other means has a self-moving motor been made." He paused apparently to let us grasp the significance of what he was about to say. "But, is it impossible, as some of the old scientists have proved to their own satisfaction it must be?" he went on, warming up to his subject. "May there not be molecular, atomic, even ionic forces of which we have not dreamed? You have only to go back a few years and study radioactivity, for instance, to see how ideas may change. "Today," he added emphatically, "the conservation of energy, in the old sense at least, has been overthrown. Gentlemen, all the old laws must be modified by my discovery of vibrodyne. I loose new new forces--I create energy!" I watched him narrowly as he proposed and rapidly answered his own questions. He was talking quite as much for Miss Laidlaw's benefit, I thought, as ours. In fact, it was evident that her interest in the machine and in himself pleased him greatly. I knew already that though the search after perpetual motion through centuries had brought failure, still it captivated a certain type of inventive mind. I knew also that, just as the exact squaring of the circle and the transmutation of metals brought out some great mathematical discoveries and much of modern chemistry, so perpetual motion had brought out the greatest of all generalizations of physics--the conservation of energy. Yet here was a man who questioned the infallibility of that generalization. Actually taking the ultra-modern view that matter is a form of energy, he was asserting that energy in some way might be created or destroyed, at least transformed in a manner that no one had ever understood before. To him, radioactivity which had overthrown or amplified many of the old ideas was only a beginning. "Here is the machine," he pointed out at last, still talking, leading us proudly across the littered floor of his laboratory. It seemed, at first glance, to consist of a circular iron frame, about a foot and a half in diameter, firmly bolted to the floor. "I have it fastened down because, as you will see, it develops such a tremendous power," explained the inventor, adding, as he pointed above it, "That is all the power is developed from, too." On a shelf was a Daniell battery of four cells. In the porous cup was bichromate of potash and in the outer vessel dilute sulphuric acid. "Let me show you how I get two and a half horsepower out of three ounces of zinc for nine hours," went on Creighton proudly. "As you doubtless know, the usual thing is one horsepower per pound of zinc per hour. Ultimately, I expect to perfect the process until I get a thousand horsepower from an ounce in this vibrodyne motor." He started the engine by attaching the wires from the comparatively weak Daniell cells. Slowly it began to move, gaining speed, until finally the very floor shook from the great power and the rapidity of the motion. It seemed incredible that the small current from the battery should develop such apparent power and I looked at Kennedy in amazement. "There's a carelessly--or purposely--ill-balanced flywheel, I suspect," whispered Craig to me surreptitiously. "Yes, but the power," I persisted. He shook his head. Evidently he was not convinced, but had no theory, yet. Adele Laidlaw looked at Craig questioningly, as though to read what he thought of it. Before her he betrayed nothing. Now and then she would look earnestly at Creighton. It was evident that she admired him very much, yet there seemed to be something about him that she did not quite understand. Just then the telephone rang. Creighton stopped his machine and left us for a moment to answer the call, while the engine slowed down and came to rest. Quickly Kennedy pulled out his watch and pried the crystal off the face. He walked over to a basin and filled the crystal with a few drops of water. Then he set it down on the table. I looked at it closely. As nearly as I could make out, there seemed to be a slight agitation on the surface of the thin film of water in the glass. Craig smiled quietly to himself and flicked the water into the sink, returning the crystal to his watch. I did not understand just what it was that Craig was after, but I felt sure that there was some kind of vibration that he had discovered. Meanwhile, we could hear Creighton telephoning and I noticed that Miss Laidlaw was alertly listening, too. "Why, no," I heard him answer monosyllabically but in a tone that was carefully modulated, "not alone. Let me call you up--soon." The conversation ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. Somehow, it seemed evident to me that Creighton had been talking to a woman. Though he apparently had not wanted to say anything before us, he could not disguise the fact. From his quick, nervous manner with us, I had concluded that no mere man could have commanded so deferential a tone from him. A moment later he rejoined us, resuming his praises of his motor. By this time I had come to recognize that he was a master in the manipulation of fantastic terms, which I, at least, did not understand. Therein, perhaps, lay their potency, though I doubt whether Kennedy himself knew what Creighton meant when he talked of "polar sympathy," "inter-atomic ether," "molecular disintegration," and "orbitic chaos." I saw that Adele Laidlaw was watching Creighton narrowly now. Was it on account of the telephone call? Who had it been? Perhaps, it occurred to me, it was Mrs. Barry. Was Creighton afraid of arousing the jealousy of Adele Laidlaw? There seemed to be nothing more of importance that Craig could learn at present and we soon bade Creighton good-by, leaving with Miss Laidlaw. I noticed that he locked the door after us as we went out. "I'd like to meet this Mrs. Barry," remarked Craig as we passed out of the building. He said it evidently to see just how Miss Laidlaw would take it. "I think I can arrange that," replied Adele Laidlaw colorlessly. "I'll ask her to visit me this afternoon. You can call casually." We accompanied her to her car, promising to report as soon as possible if we discovered anything new. "I'm going in to call on Tresham," remarked Craig, turning into the Bank Building. CHAPTER XXVI THE ELECTROLYSIS CLEW As Kennedy walked through the corridor of the building, he paused and bent down, as though examining the wall. I looked, too. There was a crack in the concrete, in the side wall toward the Creighton laboratory. "Do you suppose vibration caused it?" I asked, remembering his watch crystal test. Craig shook his head. "The vibrations in a building can be shown by a watch glass full of water. You saw the surface of the liquid with its minute waves. There's vibration, all right, but that is not the cause of such cracks as these." He stood for a moment regarding the crack attentively. On the floor on which we were was the Consolidated Bank itself. Beneath us were the Consolidated Safety Deposit vaults. "What did cause them, then?" I asked, mystified. "Apparently escaping currents of electricity are causing electrolysis of the Bank Building," he replied, his face wrinkled in thought. "Electrolysis?" I repeated mechanically. "Yes. I suppose you know how stray or vagrant currents affect steel and concrete?" I shook my head in the negative. "Well," he explained as we stood there, "I believe that in one government test at least it was shown that when an electric current of high voltage passes from steel to concrete, the latter is cracked and broken. Often a mechanical pressure as great as four or five thousand pounds a square inch is exerted and there is rapid destruction due to the heating effect of the current." I expressed my surprise at what he had discovered. "The danger is easily overestimated," he hastened to add. "But in this case I think it is real, though probably it is a special and extreme condition. Still it is special and extreme conditions which we are in the habit of encountering in our cases, Walter. That is what we must be looking out for. In this instance the destruction due to electrolysis is most likely caused by the oxidation of the iron anode. The oxides which are formed are twice as great in volume as the iron was originally and the resulting pressure is what causes the concrete to break. I think we shall find that this condition will bear strict watching." For a moment Kennedy stopped at the little office of the superintendent of the building, in the rear. "I was just wondering whether you had noticed those cracks in the walls down the corridor," remarked Kennedy after a brief introduction. The superintendent looked at him suspiciously. Evidently he feared we had some ulterior motive, perhaps represented some rival building and might try to scare away his tenants. "Oh, that's nothing," he said confidently. "Just the building settling a bit--easily fixed." "The safety vault company haven't complained?" persisted Kennedy, determined to get something out of the agent. "No indeed," he returned confidently. "I guess they've got troubles of their own--real ones." "How's that?" asked Craig, falling in with the man's evident desire to change the subject. "Why, I believe their alarm system's out of order," he replied. "Some of the fine wires in it burnt out, I think. Defective wiring, I guess. Oh, they've had it patched up, changed about a little,--it's all right now, they say. But they've had a deuce of a time with the alarm ringing at all sorts of hours, and not a trace of trouble." I looked quickly at Craig. Though the superintendent thought he had been very clever in changing the topic of conversation, he had unwittingly furnished us with another clew. I could not ask Craig before him and I forgot to do so later, but, to me at least, it seemed as if this might be due to induction from the stray currents. "No one here seems to have suspected the Creighton motor, anyhow," commented Craig to me, as we thanked the superintendent and walked across to the elevators. We rode up to Tresham's office, which was on the third floor, on the side of the building toward Creighton's laboratory. In fact one of the windows opened almost on the roof of the brick building next door. We found Tresham in his office and he received us affably, I thought. "Miss Laidlaw told me she was going to consult you," he remarked as we introduced ourselves. "I'm glad she did so." Tresham was a large, well-built fellow, apparently athletically inclined, clean shaven with dark hair that was getting very thin. He seemed quite at ease as he talked with us, yet I could tell that he was weighing us all the time, as lawyers will do. "What do you think of Creighton's motor?" opened Kennedy. "You've seen it, I suppose?" "Oh, yes," he replied quickly and jerkily. "Since Miss Laidlaw became interested he's been in here to have me look over his application for a patent. You know, I used to be a patent lawyer for a number of years until I decided to branch out into general practice. Legally Creighton seems to be sound enough. Of course, you know, the patent office won't grant a patent on a machine such as he claims without a rigid demonstration. He needs money, he says, for that. If his idea is sound, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't get a basic patent." Tresham paused. I was conscious that he was furtively watching the face of Kennedy as though he hoped to learn as much from him as Craig did on his part. "It's the mechanical end of it that I don't understand," continued Tresham, after a pause. "Creighton claims to have discovered a new force which he calls vibrodyne. I think it is just as well that Miss Laidlaw has decided to consult a scientist about it before she puts any more money into the thing. I can't say I approve of her interest in it--though, of course, I know next to nothing about it, except from the legal standpoint." "Who is that Mrs. Barry of whom Miss Laidlaw spoke?" asked Kennedy a moment later. "I believe she is a friend of Creighton's. Somehow she got acquainted with Miss Laidlaw and introduced her to him." "You know her?" queried Craig casually. "Oh, yes," came the frank reply. "She has been in to see me, too; first to interest me in the motor, and then to consult me about various legal points in connection with it." I felt sure that Tresham was more than just a bit jealous of his pretty client. Certainly his tone was intended to convey the impression that he wished she would leave her affairs in his hands entirely. "You don't know anything more about her--where she came from--her connections?" added Craig. "Hardly more than you do," asserted Tresham. "I've only seen the woman a few times. In fact I should be glad to know more about her--and about Creighton, too. I hope that if you find out anything you'll let me know so that I can protect Miss Laidlaw's interests." "I shall do so," promised Kennedy, rising. "I'll do the same," agreed Tresham, extending his hand. "I see no reason why we shouldn't work together for--my client." There was no mistaking the fact that Tresham would have liked to be able to say something more intimate than "client." Perhaps he might have been nearer to it if her interest in him had not been diverted by this wonderful motor. At any rate I fancied he had little love for Creighton. Yet, when I reflected afterward, it seemed like a wide gulf that must separate a comparatively impecunious lawyer from a wealthy girl like Adele Laidlaw. Kennedy was not through with his effort to learn something by a thorough investigation of the neighborhood yet. For some time after we left Tresham's office, he stood in the doorway of the Bank Building, looking about as though he hated to leave without establishing some vantage point from which to watch what was going on in Creighton's laboratory. "Of course I can't very well get into the safety vault under the bank," he mused. "I wish I could." He walked past Creighton's without seeing anything happen. The next building was a similar two-story brick affair. A sign on it read, "Studios and Offices For Rent." An idea seemed to be suggested to him by the sign. He wheeled and entered the place. Inquiry brought out a caretaker who showed us several rooms unoccupied, among them one vacant on the first floor. Kennedy looked it over carefully, as though considering whether it was just the place he wanted, but ended, as I knew he intended, in hiring it. "I can't move my stuff in for a couple of days," he told the caretaker. "Meanwhile, I may have the key, I suppose?" He had paid a good deposit and the key was readily forthcoming. The hiring of the ground floor room accomplished without exciting suspicion, Kennedy and I made a hasty trip up to his own laboratory, where he took a small box from a cabinet and hurried back to the taxicab which had brought us uptown. Back again in the bare room which he had acquired, Craig set to work immediately installing a peculiar instrument which he took from the package. It seemed to consist of two rods much like electric light carbons, fixed horizontally in a wooden support with a spindle-shaped bit of carbon between the two ends of the rods. Wires were connected with binding screws at the free ends of the carbon rods. First Craig made a connection with an electric light socket from which he removed the bulb, cutting in a rheostat. Then he attached the free wires from the carbons to a sort of telephone headgear and switched on the current. "What is it?" I asked curiously. "A geophone," he replied simply. "And what is a geophone?" I inquired. "Literally an earth-phone," he explained. "It is really the simplest form of telephone, applied to the earth. You saw what it was. Any high school student of physics can make one, even with two or three dry batteries in circuit." "But what does it do?" I asked. "It is really designed to detect earth vibrations. All that is necessary is to set the carbon stick arrangement, which is the transmitter of this telephone, on the floor, place myself at the other end and listen. A trained ear can readily detect rumblings. Really it is doing in a different and often better way what the seismograph does. This instrument is so sensitive that it will record the slamming of a cellar door across the street. No one can go up those stairs next door without letting me know it, no matter how cautious he is about it." Craig stood there some minutes holding the thing over his ears and listening intently. "The vibrodyne machine isn't running," he remarked finally after repeated adjustments of the geophone. "But someone is in that little room under Creighton's workshop. I suspected that something was down there after that watch crystal test of mine. Now I know it. I wonder what the man is doing?" There was no excuse yet, however, for breaking into the room on the other side of the wall and under Creighton's. Kennedy went out and watched. Though we waited some time nobody came out. He went back to our own room in the rear of the first floor. Though we both listened some time, neither of us could now hear a sound through the geophone except those made by passing trolleys and street vehicles. Inquiry about the neighborhood did not develop who was the tenant or what was his business. In fact the results were just the reverse. No one seemed to know even the business conducted there. The room back of the locked door which Miss Laidlaw had passed was shrouded in mystery. Nothing at all of any value was being recorded by the geophone when Kennedy glanced quickly at his watch. "If we are to see Miss Laidlaw and meet that Mrs. Barry, we had better be on our way," he remarked hurriedly. Miss Laidlaw was living in a handsome apartment on Central Park, West. We entered and gave our cards to the man at the door of her suite, who bowed us into a little reception room. We entered and waited. Suddenly we were aware that someone in the next room, a library, was talking. Whether we would or not we could not help overhearing what was said. Apparently two women were there, and they were not taking care how loud they spoke. "Then you object to my even knowing Mr. Creighton?" asked one of the voices, pausing evidently for a reply which the other did not choose to make. "I suppose if it was Mr. Tresham you'd object, too." There was something "catty" and taunting about the voice. It was a hard voice, the voice of a woman who had seen much, and felt fully capable of taking care of herself in more. "You can't make up your mind which one you care for most, then? Is that it?" pursued the same voice. "Well, I'll be a sport. I'll leave you Creighton--if you can keep him." "I want neither," broke in a voice which I recognized at once as Adele Laidlaw's. She spoke with a suppressed emotion which plainly indicated that she did want one of them. Just then the butler entered with our cards. We heard no more. A moment later we were ushered into the library. Mrs. Barry was a trim, well-groomed woman whose age was deceptive. I felt that no matter what one might think of Miss Laidlaw, here was a woman whose very looks seemed to warn one to be on his guard. She was a woman of the world, confident in her own ability to take care of herself. Adele was flushed and excited, as we entered, though she was making a desperate effort to act as though nothing had happened. "My friend, Professor Kennedy, and Mr. Jameson," she introduced us simply, making no pretense to conceal our identity. Mrs. Barry was, in addition to her other accomplishments, a good actress. "I've heard a great deal about you, Professor," she said, extending her hand, but not taking her eyes off Craig's face. Kennedy met her gaze directly. What did she mean? Had she accepted Miss Laidlaw's invitation to call in order to look us over, knowing that we had come to do the same? "Mr. Creighton tells me that you have been to see his new motor," she ventured, even before any of us could open the subject. She seemed to enjoy making the remark for the specific purpose of rousing Miss Laidlaw. It succeeded amply, also. The implication that Creighton took her into his confidence was sufficient to cause Adele Laidlaw to shoot an angry glance at her. Mrs. Barry had no objection to sticking a knife in and turning it around. "Of course I don't know as much about such things as Miss Laidlaw," she purred, "but Mr. Tresham tells me that there may be some trouble with the patent office about allowing the patent. From all I have heard there's a fortune in that motor for someone. Wonderful, isn't it?" Even the mention of Tresham's name in the studied familiarity of her tone seemed to increase the scarcely latent hostility between the two women. Kennedy, so far, had said nothing, content merely to observe. "It appears to be wonderful," was all he said, guardedly. Mrs. Barry eyed him sharply and Miss Laidlaw appeared to be ill at ease. Evidently she wanted to believe in Creighton and his motor, yet her natural caution forbade her. The entrance of Kennedy into the case seemed to have proved a disturbing factor between the two women, to have brought matters to a head. We chatted for a few minutes, Kennedy deftly refusing to commit himself on anything, Mrs. Barry seeking to lead him into expressing some opinion, and endeavoring to conceal her exasperation as he avoided doing so. At last Kennedy glanced at his watch, which reminded him of a mythical appointment, sufficient to terminate the visit. "I'm very glad to have met you," he bowed to Mrs. Barry, as she, too, rose to go, while he preserved the fiction of merely having dropped in to see Miss Laidlaw. He turned to her. "I should be delighted to have both you and Mr. Tresham drop in at my laboratory some time, Miss Laidlaw." Miss Laidlaw caught his eye and read in it that this was his way, under the circumstances, of asking her to keep in touch with him. "I shall do so," she promised. We parted from Mrs. Barry at the door of her taxicab. "A very baffling woman," I remarked a moment later. "Do you suppose she is as intimate with Creighton as she implies?" Kennedy shook his head. "It isn't that that interests me most, just now," he replied. "What I can't figure out is Adele Laidlaw's attitude toward both Creighton and Tresham. She seems to resent Mrs. Barry's intimacy with either." "Yes," I agreed. "Sometimes I have thought she really cared for both--at least, that she was unable to make up her mind which she cared for most. Offhand, I should have thought that she was the sort who wouldn't think a man worth caring much for." Kennedy shook his head. "Given a woman, Walter," he said thoughtfully, "whose own and ancestral training has been a course of suppression, where she has been taught and drilled that exhibitions of emotion and passion are disgraceful, as I suspect Miss Laidlaw's parents have believed, and you have a woman whose primitive instincts have been stored and strengthened. The instincts are there, nevertheless, far back in the subconscious mind. I don't think Adele Laidlaw knows it herself, but there is something about both those men which fascinates her and she can't make up her mind which fascinates her most. Perhaps they have the same qualities." "But Mrs. Barry," I interrupted. "Surely she must know." "I think she does," he returned. "I think she knows more than we suspect." I looked at him quickly, not quite making out the significance of the remark, but he said no more. For the present, at least, he left Adele Laidlaw quite as much an enigma as ever. "I wish that you would make inquiries about regarding Mrs. Barry," he said finally as we reached the subway. "I'm going down again to the little room we hired and watch. You'll find me at the laboratory later tonight." CHAPTER XXVII THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE I tried my best, but there was very little that I could find out about Mrs. Barry. No one seemed to know where she came from, and even "Mr. Barry" seemed shrouded in obscurity. I was convinced, however, that she was an adventuress. One thing, however, I did turn up. She had called on Tresham at his office a number of times, usually late in the afternoon, and he had taken her to dinner and to the theater. Apparently he knew her a great deal better than he had been willing to admit to us. I was not surprised, for, like a good many men of his class, Tresham was better known in the white light district than one might suspect. Mrs. Barry had all the marks of being good company on such an excursion. On the way uptown, I stopped off in the neighborhood of Longacre Square in the hope of picking up some more gossip at one or another of the clubs. Tresham was a member of several, though as near as I could find out, used them more for business than social reasons. On Broadway it was different, however. There he was known as a liberal spender and lover of night life. Like many others he now and then accumulated quite large bills. I wondered whether Mrs. Barry had not found out and taken advantage of his weakness. It was, as I have said, comparatively little that I had been able to discover, yet when I met Kennedy again, later in the evening, at his laboratory, he listened eagerly to what I had to report. "Did anything happen downtown?" I asked when I had finished. "Nothing much," he returned. "Of course, listening over the geophone, I couldn't watch the Bank Building, too. There's something very queer about Creighton. I could hear him at work in the room upstairs until quite late, making a lot of noise. If I don't find out anything more definite soon, I shall have to adopt some other measures." "You didn't do anything more about that electrolysis clew?" I queried. "Nothing," he replied briefly, "except that I inquired of the electric light company and found out that Creighton, or someone in his building, was using a good deal of power." "That looks bad," I ventured, remembering the claims made for the engine and the comparatively weak batteries that were said to run it. Kennedy nodded acquiescence, but said nothing more. We walked over in silence to our apartment on the Heights and far into the night Craig sat there, shading his eyes with his hand, apparently studying out the peculiar features of the case and planning some new angle of approach at it tomorrow. We were surprised the next day to receive an early visit from Miss Laidlaw at the laboratory. She drove up before the Chemistry Building, very much excited, as though her news would not bear repeating even over the telephone. "What do you think?" she exclaimed, bursting in on us. "Mr. Creighton has disappeared!" "Disappeared?" repeated Kennedy. "How did you find it out?" "Mr. Tresham just telephoned me from his office," she hurried on. "He was going into the Bank Building when he saw a wagon drive off from the place next door. He thought it was strange and instead of going on up to his own office he walked into Creighton's. When he tried to get in, the place was locked. There's a sign on it, too, 'For Rent,' he says." "That's strange," considered Kennedy. "I suppose he didn't notice what kind of wagon it was?" "Yes, he said it looked like a junk wagon--full of stuff." I looked from Miss Laidlaw to Kennedy. Plainly our entrance into the case had been the signal for the flitting of Creighton. Quickly he reached for the telephone. "You know Mrs. Barry's number?" he asked. "Yes, it's the Prince Edward Hotel." He called up, but the conversation was over in a moment. "She didn't return to the hotel last night," he announced as he hung up the receiver. "She's in this thing, too," exclaimed Adele Laidlaw. "Can you go down with me now and meet Mr. Tresham? I promised I would." Though she repressed her feelings, as usual, I could see that Adele Laidlaw was furious. Was it because Creighton had gone off with her money, or was it pique because Mrs. Barry had, perhaps, won him? At any rate, someone was going to feel the fury of her scorn. We motored down quickly in Miss Laidlaw's car and met Tresham, who was standing in front of the Bank Building waiting for us. "It just happened that I came down early this morning," he explained, "or I shouldn't have noticed anything out of the way. The junk wagon was just driving away as I came up. It seemed to be in such a hurry that it attracted my attention." It was the first time we had seen Tresham and Miss Laidlaw together and I was interested to see how they would act. There was no mistaking his attitude toward her and Adele was much more cordial to him than I had expected. "While I was waiting I got a key from the agent," he explained. "But I didn't want to go in until you came." Tresham opened the door and led the way upstairs, Miss Laidlaw following closely. As we entered Creighton's shop, everything seemed to be in the greatest disorder. Prints and books were scattered about, the tools were lying about wherever they happened to have been left, all the models were smashed or missing and a heap of papers in the fireplace showed where many plans, letters and other documents had been burned. We hurried into the big room. Sure enough, the demon motor itself was gone! Creighton had unbolted it from the floor and some holes in the boards had been plugged up. The room below was still locked and the windows were covered with opaque paper on the inside. "What do you suppose he has done with the motor?" asked Adele. "The only clew is a junk dealer whom we don't know," I replied, as Kennedy said nothing. We looked about the place thoroughly, but could find nothing else. Creighton seemed to have made a clean getaway in the early hours. "I wish I could stay and help you," remarked Tresham at length. "But I must be in court at ten. If there's anything I can do, though, call on me." "I'm going to find that engine if I have to visit every junk dealer in New York," declared Miss Laidlaw soon after Tresham left. "That's about all we can do, yet, I guess," remarked Kennedy, evidently not much worried about the disappearance of the inventor. Together we three closed up the workshop and started out with a list from a trade publication giving all those who dealt in scrap iron and old metal. In fact we spent most of the day going from one to another of the junk shops. I never knew that there were so many dealers in waste. They seemed to be all over the city and in nearly every section. It was a tremendous job, but we mapped it out so that we worked our way from one section to another. We had got as far as the Harlem River when we entered one place and looked about while we waited for someone in charge to appear. I heard a low exclamation from Kennedy, and turned to look in the direction he indicated. There, in a wagon from which the horse had been unhitched, was the heavy base of the engine into which so many dollars had been turned--sold as so much scrap! Kennedy examined it quickly, while I questioned a man who appeared from behind a shed in the rear. It was useless. He could give no clew that we already could not guess. He had just bought it from a man who seemed anxious to get rid of it. His description of the man tallied with Creighton. But that was all. It gave us no chance to trace him. "Look," exclaimed Kennedy eagerly, bending closer over the motor. "This is one of the neatest perpetual motion frauds I ever heard of." He had turned the heavy base of the motor upward. One glance left me with little wonder why Creighton had so carefully bolted the machine to the floor. In the base were two rectangular apertures to allow a belt to run over a concealed pulley on the main shaft of the machine in the case. Evidently, when the circuit from the Daniell cells was closed, the pulley, somehow, was thrown into gear. It was loose and the machine began to revolve slowly at first, then faster and with great show of power. The pounding, as Kennedy had surmised, was due to the flywheel not well balanced. "Well," I remarked, "now that we have found it, I don't see that it does us much good." "Only that we understand it," returned Craig. "I left that geophone down there in the room next door which I hired. I think, if Miss Laidlaw will take us down there, I'd like to get it." He spoke with a sort of easy confidence which I knew was hard to be assumed in the face of what looked like defeat. Had Craig deliberately let Creighton have a chance to get away, in order that he might convict himself? In silence, with Miss Laidlaw at the wheel, we went downtown again to the room which Craig had hired next to Creighton's workshop. As we approached it, he leaned over to Miss Laidlaw. "Stop around the corner," he asked. "Let's go in quietly." We entered our bare little room and Kennedy set to work as though to detach the geophone, while I explained it to our client. "What's the matter?" she interrupted in the middle of my explanation, indicating Kennedy. He had paused and had placed the receivers to his ears. By his expression I knew that the instrument was registering something. "Someone is in the lower room of the shop next door," he answered, facing us quickly. "If we hurry, we'll have him cornered." Miss Laidlaw and I went out and around in front, while Craig dashed through a back door to cut off retreat that way. "What's that? Hurry!" exclaimed Miss Laidlaw. Plainly there was a muffled scream of a woman as we entered the street door. I hurried forward. It was the work of only a few seconds to batter down the locked door in the room under Creighton's old workshop, and as the door gave way, I heard the sound of shattered glass from the rear which told that Kennedy had heard the scream, too, and had gained an entrance. Inside I could make out in the half-light a man and a woman. The woman was running toward me, as if for help. "Mrs. Barry!" gasped Adele Laidlaw. "He got me here--to kill me!" she cried hysterically. "I am the only one who knows the truth--it was the last day--tonight he would have had the money--and I would have been out of the way. But I'll expose him--I'll ruin him. See--he came in from the roof--" A blinding flash of light greeted us, followed by a scream from Adele Laidlaw, as she ran past us and dropped on her knees beside a body that had fallen with a thud in the flame before a yawning hole in the side wall. Mrs. Barry ran past me, back again, at almost the same moment. It was a strange sight--these two women glaring at each other over the prostrate figure of the man. "Here's the real demon engine," panted Craig, coming up from the back and pointing to an electric motor as well as other apparatus consisting of several series of coils. "The perpetual motion machine was just a fake. It was merely a cover to an attempt to break into the bank vaults by electrolysis of the steel and concrete. Creighton was a dummy, a fiction--to take the blame and disappear when the robbery was discovered." "Creighton," I repeated, looking at the man on the floor, "a dummy?" "Oh--he's dead!" wailed Adele Laidlaw. "He's dead!" "Electrocuted by his own machine rather than face disgrace and disbarment," cut in Craig. "No wonder she was in doubt which of the two men fascinated her most." I moved forward and bent over the contorted form of the lawyer, Tresham, who was wearing the whiskers and iron gray wig of his alter-ego, Creighton. CHAPTER XXVIII THE CANCER HOUSE "You've heard of such things as cancer houses, I suppose, Professor Kennedy?" It was early in the morning and Craig's client, Myra Moreton, as she introduced herself, had been waiting at the laboratory door in a state of great agitation as we came up. Just because her beautiful face was pale and haggard with worry, she was a pathetic figure, as she stood there, dressed in deep mourning, the tears standing in her eyes merely because we were a little later than usual. "Well," she hurried on as she dropped into a chair, "that is what they are calling that big house of ours at Norwood--a cancer house, if there is such a thing." Clearly, Myra Moreton was a victim of nervous prostration. She had asked the question with a hectic eagerness, yet had not waited for an answer. "Oh," she exclaimed, "you do not, you cannot know what it means to have something like this constantly hanging over you. Think of it--five of us have died in less than five years. It haunts me. Who next. That is all I can think about. Who next?" Her first agitation had been succeeded by a calmness of despair, almost of fatalism, which was worse for her than letting loose her pent-up emotions. I had heard of cases of people in whom there was no record of hereditary predisposition to cancer, people apparently in perfect health, who had moved into houses where cancer patients had lived and died and had themselves developed the disease. Though I had, of course, never even remotely experienced such a feeling as she described, I could well fancy what it must be to her. Kennedy watched her sympathetically. "But why do you come to me?" he asked gently. "Don't you think a cancer specialist would be more likely to help you?" "A specialist?" she repeated with a peculiar hopelessness. "Professor Kennedy, five years ago, when my Uncle Frank was attacked by cancer, father was so foolish as to persuade him to consult a specialist whose advertisement he saw in the papers, a Dr. Adam Loeb on Forty-second Street here in New York. Specialist! Oh, I'm worried sick every time I have a sore or anything like this on my neck or anywhere else." She had worked herself from her unnatural calm almost into a state of hysterics as she displayed a little sore on her delicate white throat. "That?" reassured Kennedy. "Oh, that may be nothing but a little boil. But this Dr. Loeb--he must be a quack. No doctor who advertises--" "Perhaps," she interrupted. "That is what Dr. Goode out at Norwood tells me. But father has faith in him, even has him at the house sometimes. I cannot bear the sight of him. Since I first saw him my uncle, his wife, another aunt, my cousin have died, and then, last week, my--my mother." Her voice broke, but with a great effort she managed to get herself together. "Now I--I fear that my father may go next. Perhaps it will strike me--or my brother, Lionel--who can tell? Think of it--the whole family wiped out by this terrible thing. Can it be natural, I ask myself? Is there not something back of it?" "Who is this Dr. Loeb?" asked Kennedy, more for the purpose of aiding her in giving vent to her feelings than anything else. "He is a New York doctor," she reiterated. "I believe he claims to have a sure cure for cancer, by the use of radium and such means. My father has absolute confidence in him--visits him at his office and, as I told you, even has him at Norwood. In fact they are quite friendly. So was Lionel until lately." "What happened to shake your brother's faith?" asked Craig. "Nothing, I imagine, except that Lionel began thinking it over after someone told him about cancer houses. You must admit yourself that it is--at least strange. I wish you could see Lionel. He knows more about it than I do. Or Dr. Goode. I think he has made some kind of test. He could tell you much better than I can all the strange history. But they don't agree--Lionel and Gail. Oh--it is more than I can stand. What shall I--" She had fainted. In an instant I was at her side, helping Kennedy bring her around. "There, there," soothed Kennedy several minutes later as her deep eyes looked at him appealingly. "Perhaps, after all, there may be something I can do. If I should go out to Norwood with you as soon as you feel better, wouldn't that be all right?" "Oh--will you?" she cried, overjoyed. "If you would--how could I ever thank you? I feel better. No--don't stop me. I've been living on nerve. I can do more. Please--let me telephone Lionel that we are coming." Kennedy humored her, although I knew he had several important investigations going on at the time. It was scarcely an hour before we were on the train and in the early forenoon we were met by her brother at the station in a light car. Through the beautiful streets of the quaint old Connecticut town we rode until at last we stopped before a great stone house which had been the Moreton mansion for several generations. It was a double house, a gloomy sort of place, surrounded by fir trees, damp and suggestive of decay. I could not help feeling that if ever there were a house about which I could associate the story which Myra had poured forth, this was it. Somehow, to me at least, it had all the mystery of being haunted. Darius Moreton, her father, happened to be at home to lunch when we arrived. He was a man past middle age. Like his father and grandfather, he was a manufacturer of optical goods and had increased the business very well. But, like many successful business men, he was one of those who are very positive, with whom one cannot argue. Myra introduced Kennedy as interested in cause and treatment of cancer, and especially in the tracing down of a definite case of a "cancer house." "No," he shook his head grimly, "I'm afraid it is heredity. My friend, Dr. Loeb, is the only one who understands it. I have the most absolute confidence in him." He said it in a way that seemed to discourage all argument. Kennedy did not antagonize him by disagreeing, but turned to Lionel, who was a rather interesting type of young man. Son of Darius Moreton by his first wife, Lionel had gone to the scientific school as had his father and, graduating, had taken up the business of the Moreton family as a matter of course. Myra seemed overcome by the journey to the city to see Kennedy and, after a light luncheon, Lionel undertook to talk to us and show us through the house. It was depressing, almost ghastly, to think of the slow succession of tragedies which these walls had witnessed. "This is a most unusual case," commented Craig thoughtfully as Lionel went over briefly the family history. "If it can be authenticated that this is a cancer house, I am sure the medical profession will be interested, for they seem to be divided into two camps on the question." "Authenticated?" hastened Lionel. "Well, take the record. First there was my Uncle Frank, who was father's partner in the factory. He died just about five years ago at the age of fifty-one. That same year his wife, my Aunt Julia, died. She was just forty-eight. Then my other aunt, Fanny, father's sister, died of cancer of the throat. She was rather older, fifty-four. Not quite two years afterward my cousin, George, son of Uncle Frank, died. He was several years younger than I, twenty-nine. Finally my step-mother died, last week. She was forty-nine. So, I suppose we may be pardoned if, somehow, in spite of the fact, as you say, that many believe that the disease is not contagious or infectious or whatever you call it, we believe that it lurks in the house. Myra and I would get out tomorrow, only father insists that there is nothing in it, says it is all heredity. I don't know but that that's worse. That means that there is no escape." We had come down the wide staircase into the library, where we joined Myra, who was resting on a chaise-longue. "I should like very much to have a talk with Dr. Goode," suggested Craig. "By all means," agreed Myra eagerly. "I'll go over to his office with you. It is only next door." "Then I'll wait here," said Lionel, rather curtly, I thought. I fancied that there was a coolness that amounted to a latent hostility between Lionel and Dr. Goode, and I wondered about it. Across the sparse lawn that struggled up under the deep shade of the trees stood a smaller, less pretentious house of a much more modern type. That was where Dr. Goode lived. We crossed with Myra through a break in the hedge between the two houses. As we were about to pass between the two grounds, Kennedy's foot kicked something that seemed to have rolled down from some rubbish on the boundary line of the two properties, piled up evidently waiting to be carted away. Craig stooped casually and picked the object up. It was a queer V-shaped little porcelain cone. He gave it a hasty look, then dropped it into his pocket. Dr. Goode, into whose office Myra led us, was a youngish man, smooth-shaven, the type of the new generation of doctors. He had come to Norwood several years before and had struggled up to a very fair practice. "Miss Moreton tells me," began Kennedy after we had been introduced, "that there is a theory that theirs is one of these so-called cancer houses." The doctor looked at us keenly. "Yes," he nodded, "I have heard that theory expressed--and others, too. Of course, I haven't had a chance to verify it. But I may say that, privately, I am hardly prepared to accept it, yet, as a case of cancer house." He was very guarded in his choice of words, but did not succeed in covering up the fact that he had a theory of his own. I was watching both the young doctor and Myra. She had entered his office in a way that suggested that she was something more than a patient. As I watched them, it did not take one of very keen perception to discover that they were on very intimate terms indeed and thought very highly of each other. A glance at the solitaire on Myra's finger convinced me. They were engaged. "You don't believe it, then?" asked Craig quickly. The young man hesitated and shrugged his shoulders. "You have a theory of your own?" persisted Craig, determined to get an answer. "I don't know whether I have or not," he replied non-committally. "Is it that you think it possible to produce cancer artificially and purposely?" shot out Craig. Dr. Goode considered. I wondered whether he had any suspicions of which he would not speak because of professional ethics. Kennedy had fixed his eyes on him sharply and the doctor seemed uneasy under the scrutiny. "I've heard of cases," he ventured finally, "where X-rays and radium have caused cancerous growths. You know several of the experimenters have lost their lives in that way--martyrs to science." I could not help, somehow or other, thinking of Dr. Loeb. Did Dr. Goode refer indirectly to him? Loeb certainly was no martyr to science. He might be a charlatan. But was he a scientific villain? "That may all be true," pursued Craig relentlessly, evidently bound to draw the young man out. "But it is, after all, a question of fact, not of opinion." Myra was looking at him eagerly now and the doctor saw that she expected him to speak. It was more pressure than he could resist. "I have long suspected something of the sort," he remarked in a low, forced tone. "I've had samples of the blood of the Moretons examined. In fact I have found that their blood affects the photographic plate through a layer of black paper. You know red blood cells and serum have a distinct power of reducing photo-silver on plates when exposed to certain radiations. In other words, I have found that their blood is, apparently, radioactive!" Myra looked at him aghast. It was evidently the first time he had said anything about this new suspicion, even to her. The very idea was shocking. Could it be that someone was using these new forces with devilish ingenuity? "If that's the case, who would be the most likely person to do such a thing?" shot out Craig. "I wouldn't like to say," he returned, dodging, though we were all thinking of Dr. Loeb. "But the motive?" demanded Craig. "What motive would there be?" "Darius Moreton is very intimate with a certain person," he returned enigmatically. "It is even reported in town that he has left that person a large sum of money in his will in payment for his services, if you call them so, to the family." He had evidently not intended to say so much and, although Craig tried in every way, he could not get the doctor to amplify what he had hinted at. We returned to the Moreton house, Kennedy apparently much impressed by what Dr. Goode had said. "If you will permit me," he asked, "I should like to have a few drops of blood from each of you." "Goode tried that," remarked old Mr. Moreton. "I don't know that anything came of it. Still, I am not going to refuse, if Myra and Lionel agree." Craig had already taken from his pocket a small case containing a hypodermic and some little glass tubes. There seemed to be no valid objection and from each of them he drew off a small quantity of blood. As he worked, I thought I saw what he had in mind. Could there be, I wondered, an X-ray outfit or perhaps radium concealed about the living rooms of the house? First of all, it was necessary to verify Dr. Goode's observations. We chatted a few moments, then took leave of Myra Moreton. "Keep up your courage," whispered Craig with a look that told her that he had seen the conflict between loyalty to her father and to her lover. Lionel drove us back to the station in the car alone. Nothing of importance was said by any of us until we had almost reached the station. "I can see," he said finally, "that you don't feel sure that it is a cancer house." Kennedy said nothing. "Well," he pursued, "I don't know anything about it, of course. But I do know this much--those doctors are making a good thing out of father and the rest of us." The car had pulled up. "I've got no use for Loeb," the young man went on. "Still, I'd rather not that we had trouble with him. I'll tell you," he added in a burst of confidence, "he has a little girl who works for him, his secretary, Miss Golder. She comes from Norwood. I should hate to have anything happen to queer her. People used to think Goode was engaged to her before he took that office next to us and got ambitious. Father placed her with Dr. Loeb. If it's necessary to do anything with him, I wish you'd think whether she couldn't be kept out of it in some way." "I'll try to do it," agreed Craig, as we shook hands and climbed on the early afternoon train back to the city. CHAPTER XXIX THE QUACK DOCTORS Kennedy's first move was to go downtown to the old building opposite the City Hall and visit the post-office inspectors. "I've heard of the government's campaign against the medical quacks who are using the mails," he introduced when we at last found the proper inspector. "I wonder whether you know a Dr. Adam Loeb?" "Loeb?" repeated the inspector, O'Hanlon, who was in charge of the investigation which was then in progress. "Of course we know Loeb--a very slippery customer, too, with just enough science at his command to make the case against him difficult. "I suppose," went on O'Hanlon, "you know that in Europe the popular furore about radium and its applications appeared earlier than it did here. But now we have great numbers of dishonest and fake radium cure establishments. Usually they have neither radium nor knowledge. They promise a cure, but they can't even palliate the trouble. Loeb has some radium, I guess, but that's about all." "I think I'd like to visit the 'doctor' and his 'medical museum,'" ventured Kennedy when O'Hanlon had finished describing the case to us. "Very well," agreed O'Hanlon. "Our cases against the quacks are just about completed. I've heard a great deal about you, Mr. Kennedy. I think I may trust you." The inspector paused. "Tomorrow," he added, looking at us significantly, "we have planned a simultaneous raid of all of them in the city. However, there's no objection to your seeing Dr. Loeb, if you'll be careful to give no hint that something is about to be pulled off. I'm sure any new evidence we may get against him will be quite welcome." "I'd like to see him in action before the raid," hastened Craig. "Well, I think the best way, then, for you to get at him," advised the inspector, "would be to adopt the method my investigators use with these fakers. I mean for one or the other of you to pose as a prospective patient. Only don't let him treat you too much with any of those electrical things of his." Craig glanced over at me whimsically. "Oh," I said good-humoredly, "I'll be the goat, if that's what you're going to ask me." Craig laughed. "Come in tomorrow," called the inspector as we left. "I'd like to hear what happens and I may be able to add something to what you find out." We found Dr. Loeb established in a palatial suite of offices in an ultra-modern office building. Outside was what he called his "medical museum." It was a grewsome collection of wax figures and colored charts well calculated to prepare one for the worst. At the end of the room was a huge sign bearing his name and the words, "Positive Cure for Cancer Without Cautery or the Knife." There were no cappers or steerers about the place, though I have no doubt he had them working for him outside to bring in business. Instead, we were met by a very pretty, fluffy-haired girl, evidently the doctor's secretary. She, I gathered, was the Miss Golder whom Lionel had mentioned. In fact, I felt that she was really much above the level of such a position. Loeb's office was elaborately equipped. There were static machines, electric coils, high frequency appliances, X-ray outfits, galvanic and faradic cabinets, electric light reflectors of high power, light bath cabinets, electric vibrators, high pressure nebulizers and ozonizers--everything, as Craig expressed it later, to impress the patient that Loeb could cure any disease the flesh was heir to. I know that it impressed me. The doctor himself was a pompous man of middle age, with a very formidable beard and a deep voice that forbade contradiction. "I've come to you on the recommendation of a patient of yours," began Craig, adding hastily, "not for myself, but for my friend here, whom I'm afraid isn't very well." The doctor eyed me through his gold-rimmed spectacles. Already I began to feel shaky. "Who recommended you?" he asked casually. "My friend, Mr. Darius Moreton of Norwood. I suppose you remember him?" "Oh, very well, very well. A most peculiar case, that of the Moretons. I have succeeded in prolonging their lives beyond what anyone else could have done. But I fear that they haven't all followed my treatment. You know, you must put yourself entirely in my hands, and there is a young doctor out there, I believe, whom they have also. That isn't fair to me. I wonder whether you are acquainted with my methods of treatment?" Kennedy shook his head negatively. "Miss Golder," the doctor called, as the fluffy-haired secretary responded quickly, "will you give these gentlemen some of my booklets on the Loeb Method." Miss Golder took from a cabinet several handsomely printed pamphlets extolling the skill and success of Dr. Loeb. Like everything else about him, no expense had been spared to impress the reader. As Miss Golder left the office, Dr. Loeb began a rapid examination of me, using an X-ray machine. I am sure that if I had not received a surreptitious encouraging nod from Craig now and then, I should have been ready to croak or cash in, according to whichever Dr. Loeb suggested--probably the latter, for I could not help thinking that a great deal of time was spent in mentally X-raying my pocketbook. When he finished, the doctor shook his head gravely. Of course I was threatened. But the thing was only incipient. Still, if it were not attended to immediately it was only a question of a short time when I might be as badly, as the wax figures and charts outside. I had fortunately come just in time to be saved. "I think that with the electrical treatment we can get rid of that malignant growth in a month," he promised, fixing a price for the treatment which I thought was pretty high, considering the brief time he had actually spent on me, and the slight cost of electric light and power. I paid him ten dollars on deposit, and after a final consultation we left the doctor's office. I was to return for a treatment in a couple of days. We turned out of the entrance of the office building just as scores of employés were hurrying home. As we reached the door, I felt Kennedy grasp my arm. I swung around. There, in an angle of the corridor, I caught sight of a familiar figure. Dr. Goode was standing, evidently waiting for someone to come out. There were several elevators and the crowd of discharging passengers was thick. He had been so intent on looking for someone he expected, apparently, that he had missed us. Kennedy drew me on into the doorway of the building next door, from which we could observe everyone who went in and out of the skyscraper in which Dr. Loeb had his offices. "I wonder what he's down here for," scowled Kennedy. "Perhaps he's doing some detective work of his own," I suggested. "Lionel Moreton said that Miss Golder and he used to be intimate," ruminated Kennedy. "I wonder if he's waiting for her?" We did not have long to wait. It was only a few minutes when Kennedy's surmise proved correct. Miss Golder and Dr. Goode came out, and turned in the direction of the railroad station for Norwood. He was eagerly questioning her about something, perhaps, I imagined, our visit to Dr. Loeb. What did it mean? There was no use and it was too risky to follow them. Kennedy turned and we made our way uptown to the laboratory, where he plunged at once into an examination of the blood specimens he had taken from the Moretons and of the peculiar porcelain cone which he had picked up in the rubbish pile between the two houses. Having emptied the specimens of blood in several little shallow glass receptacles which he covered with black paper and some very sensitive films, he turned his attention to the cone. I noted that he was very particular in his examination of it, apparently being very careful to separate whatever it was he was looking for on the inside and the outside surfaces. "That," he explained to me at length as he worked, "is what is known as a Berkefeld filter, a little porous cup, made of porcelain. The minute meshes of this filter catch and hold bacteria as if in the meshes of a microscopic sieve, just like an ordinary water filter. It is so fine that it holds back even the tiny bacillus fluorescens liquefaciens which are used to test it. These bacilli measure only from a half to one and one-and-a-half micromillimeters in diameter. In other words 130,000 germs of half a micromillimeter would be necessary to make an inch." "What has it been used for?" I ventured. "I can't say, yet," he returned, and I did not pursue the inquiry, knowing Kennedy's aversion to being questioned when he was not yet sure of his facts. It was the next day when the post-office inspectors, the police and others who had been co-operating had settled on the raid not only of Dr. Loeb's but of all the medical quacks who were fleecing the credulous of the city out of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by one of the most cruel swindles that have ever been devised. For the time, Kennedy dropped his investigations in the laboratory and we went down to O'Hanlon's office, where a thick batch of warrants, just signed, had been received. Quickly O'Hanlon disposed his forces so that in all parts of the town they might swoop down at once and gather in the medical harpies. Dr. Loeb's stood first on the list of those which O'Hanlon decided to handle himself. "By the way," mentioned O'Hanlon as we hurried uptown to be ready in time, "I had a letter from Darius Moreton this morning threatening me with all kinds of trouble unless we let up on Dr. Loeb. It's pretty hard to keep a big investigation like this secret, but I think we've planned a little surprise for this morning." With the post-office inspector we climbed into a patrol wagon with a detail of police who were to make a general round-up of the places on Forty-second Street. As the wagon backed up to the curb in front of the building in which Loeb's office was, the policemen hopped out and hurried into the building before a crowd could collect. Unceremoniously they rushed through the outer office, headed by O'Hanlon. Quickly though the raid was executed, it could not be done without some warning commotion. As we entered the front door of the office, we could just catch a glimpse of a man retreating through a back door. There was something familiar about his back, and Kennedy and I started after him. But we were too late. He had fled without even waiting for his hat, which lay on Miss Golder's desk, and had disappeared down a back stairway which had been left unguarded. "Confound it," muttered O'Hanlon, as we returned, "Loeb hasn't been here today. Who was that?" "I don't know," replied Craig, picking up the hat, underneath which lay a package. He opened the package. Inside were half a dozen Berkefeld filters, those peculiar porcelain cones such as we had found out at Norwood. Quickly Craig ran his eye over the mass of papers on Miss Golder's desk. He picked up an appointment book and turned the pages rapidly. There were several entries that seemed to interest him. I bent over. Among other names entered during the past few days I made out both "Moreton" and "Dr. Goode." I recalled the letter which O'Hanlon had received from Moreton. Had he or someone else got wind of the raids and tipped off Dr. Loeb? Above the hubbub of the raid I could hear O'Hanlon putting poor little Miss Golder through a third degree. "Who was it that went out?" he shouted into her face. "You might as well tell. If you don't it'll go hard with you." But, like all women who have been taken into these get-rich-quick swindles, she was loyal to a fault. "I don't know," she sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with a bit of a lace handkerchief. Nor could all of O'Hanlon's bulldozing get another admission out of her except that it was a "stranger." She protested and wept. But she even rode off in the patrol wagon with the rest of the employés unmoved. Whom was she shielding? All we had was the secretary, a couple of cappers, and half a dozen patients, regular and prospective, who had been waiting in the office. We had a wagon-load of evidence, including letters and circulars, apparatus of all kinds, medicines, and pills. But there was nothing more. Craig did not seem especially interested in the mass of stuff which the police had seized. In fact the only thing that seemed to interest him was the man who had disappeared. We had his hat and the package of filters. Craig picked up the hat and examined it. "It's a soft hat and consequently doesn't tell us very much about the shape of his head," he remarked. Then his face brightened. "But he couldn't have left anything much better," he remarked complacently, as he went over to one of the little wall cabinets which the towel service companies place over wash-basins in offices. He took from it a comb and brush and wrapped them up carefully. I looked at the hat also. There was no name in it, not even the usual initials. What did Craig mean? Other raids in various parts of the city proved far more successful than the one in which we had participated and O'Hanlon quickly forgot his chagrin in the reports that soon came piling in. As for ourselves we had no further interest except in the disposition of this case, and Craig decided shortly to go back to work again in the laboratory among his test-tubes, slides, and microscopes. "I will leave you to follow the cases against the quacks, particularly Dr. Loeb and Miss Golder, Walter," he said. "By the way, you saw me take that hair brush. I wish I had a collection of them. In some way you must get me a hair brush from Dr. Goode. You'll have to take a trip out to Norwood. And while you are there, get the brushes from Darius Moreton and Lionel. I don't know how you'll get Goode's, but Myra will help you with the others, I'm sure." He turned to his work and was soon absorbed in some microscopic studies, leaving me no chance to question him about his strange commission. CHAPTER XXX THE FILTERABLE VIRUS I was surprised to run into O'Hanlon himself in the train out to Norwood. The failure to get Dr. Loeb troubled him and he had reasoned that if Darius Moreton took the trouble to write a letter about his friend he might possibly know more of his whereabouts than he professed. We discussed the case nearly the whole journey, agreeing to separate just before we reached the station in order not to be seen together. It took me longer to carry out Kennedy's request than I had expected. I found Myra at home alone, very much excited. "Someone called me up from New York this morning," she said, "and asked whether father and Lionel were at home. I thought they were at the factory, but when I called there, the foreman told me they hadn't been there. And Dr. Goode is out, too--hasn't seen any of his patients today. Oh, Mr. Jameson, what does it all mean? Where have they gone?" I was a poor one to comfort her, for I had no idea myself. Still, I did my best, and incidentally secured the brushes, though I must confess I had to commit a little second-story work to get into Dr. Goode's. It seemed heartless to leave the poor girl all alone, but I knew that Kennedy was waiting anxiously for me. I promised to make inquiries all over about her father, Lionel, and Dr. Goode, and, I think, the mere fact that someone showed an interest in her cheered her up, especially when I told her Kennedy was working hard on the case. As I waited for the train that was to take me back to the city, the train from New York pulled in. Imagine my surprise when I saw Miss Golder step off nervously and hurry up the main street. I watched her, debating what to do, whether to let Kennedy wait and follow her, or not. "Someone, they don't know who, bailed her out," I heard a voice whisper in my ear. I turned quickly. It was O'Hanlon. "She put up cash bail," he added under his breath. "No one knows where she got it. I'm waiting until she turns that corner--then I'm going to shadow her. I can't seem to find anyone in this town just now. Perhaps she knows where Loeb is." "If you get on the trail, will you wire me?" I asked. "Here's my train now." O'Hanlon promised, and as I swung on the step I caught a last glimpse of him sauntering casually in the direction Miss Golder had taken. I handed Kennedy the brushes I had obtained, but he gave me no opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. Instead, he started me out again to keep in touch with the progress made in the cases of the quacks, particularly the search for Dr. Loeb, which seemed to interest him quite as much as the bailing out of Miss Golder. It was after dinner and I was preparing to follow the cases on into the night court, if necessary, when one of O'Hanlon's assistants hurried up to me. "We've just had a wire from Mr. O'Hanlon," he cried excitedly, handing me a telegram. I read: "Loeb captured Norwood. Darius Moreton hiding him in vacant house outside town. Advise Kennedy." I dashed for the nearest telephone and called up Craig. "Fine, Walter," he shouted back. "I am ready. Meet me at the station and wire O'Hanlon to wait there for us." We made the journey to Norwood as impatiently as any two passengers on the accommodation at that hour of night, Craig carrying his evidence in the case in a little leather hand satchel. Already, out at the old house, O'Hanlon had gathered the Moreton family, Dr. Goode, who had turned up with the rest, Dr. Loeb, and Miss Golder. Myra Moreton was even more agitated than she had been when I left her during the afternoon. In fact the secrecy maintained by both her family and Dr. Goode, to say nothing of the presence of Dr. Loeb in the house under arrest, had all but broken her down. She greeted Kennedy almost as though he had been a life-long friend. "I want you to look after Miss Moreton, Walter," he said in a low tone as we three stood in the hall. "And you, Miss Moreton, I want to trust me when I tell you I am going to bring you safely out of this thing. Be a brave girl," he encouraged, taking her hand. "Remember that Mr. Jameson and I are here solely in your interest." "I know it," she murmured, her lip trembling. "I will try." A moment later we entered the Moreton library. Dr. Loeb was glaring impartially at everybody. I am sure that if he had been able to get at any of his formidable electrical apparatus he would have made short work of us "without cautery or knife." Darius Moreton was indignant, Lionel supercilious, Dr. Goode silent. Kennedy lost no time in getting down to the business that had brought him out to Norwood, for this was not exactly a sociable gathering. "Of course," he began, laying his leather case on the table and unlocking, but not opening it, "references to cancer houses abound in medical literature, but I think I am safe in saying that nothing has been conclusively proved in favor either of the believers or the skeptics. At least, it may be said to be an open question, with the weight of opinion against it. Such physicians as Sir Thomas Oliver have said that the evidence in favor is too strong to be ignored. Others, equally brilliant, have shown why it should be ignored. "In the absence of better proof--or rather in the presence of other facts--perhaps, in this case, it would be better to see whether there is not some other theory that may fit the facts better." "Dr. Goode thought that the cancers might have been caused artificially by X-rays or radium," I ventured. Craig shook his head. "I have taken a piece of filter paper saturated with a solution of potassium iodide, starch paste, and ferrosulphate and laid it over a sample of blood, not four millimeters away. The whole I have kept in the dark. "Now, we know that blood gives off peroxide of hydrogen. Peroxide of hydrogen is capable of attacking photographic plates. The paper can be permeated by a gas. No, that was not a case of photo-activity observed by Dr. Goode. It was the emission of gas from the blood that affected the plates." "But suppose that is the case," objected Dr. Goode hastily. "There are the deaths from cancer. How do you explain them? It is not a cancer house, you say. Is it mere chance?" "Anyone may be pardoned for believing that cancer houses or even cancer districts exist," reiterated Craig. "Indeed some observations seem to show it, as I have said, though the opponents of the theory claim to have found other causes. Here, as you hint, five people, living in close association, have died in five years." He paused and drew from the satchel the little porcelain cone which he had picked up between the Moreton and Goode houses. "I have here," he resumed, "what is known as a Berkefeld filter. Its meshes let through none of the germs that we can see with a microscope. It is bacteria-proof. Only something smaller than these things can pass through it, something that we cannot see, a clear watery fluid. That something in this case is a filterable virus." Kennedy paused again, then went on, "Although the filterable viruses have only recently come to attention, it is known that they are of very diverse character. Here we have opened up the world of the infinitely little--the universe that lies beyond the range of the microscope. The study of these tiny particles is now one of the greatest objects in scientific medicine. "Are they living? It seems so, for a very little of the virus gives rise to growths from which many others start. It may, of course, be chemical, but it looks as if it were organic, since it resists cold, although not heat, and can be destroyed by phenol, toluol, and other antiseptics. Perhaps the virus may be visible, but not by any means yet known. Still, we do know that these things which no eye can see may cause some of the commonest diseases." Kennedy paused. As usual he had his little audience following him breathlessly. Even Dr. Loeb forgot to glower. "In recent experiments with cancer in chickens," continued Craig, "tumor material ground fine and treated in various ways has been filtered through these filters. Cancers have been caused by this agent which has passed through the filter. "On the inside of the filter which I picked up back of this very house, near the boundary of Dr. Goode's, I have found the giant cells of cancer. On the outside was something which I have been able to develop into a virus, these micro-organisms that belong to the ultra-invisible. I do not pretend to know just how this bacteriological dwarf has been used. But I know enough to say that someone has, without doubt, been using some sort of filterable virus to induce cancers, just as the experimenters at the Rockefeller Institute have done with animals. "Naturally, in the Moreton family, this person found a fertile soil. Perhaps he waited until he saw what looked like a favorable wound, or traumatism. It is well-known that cancer often can be traced to a wound. Perhaps he introduced this virus surreptitiously into a cut, now and then. For, experiments show that the virus is strikingly dependent for its action on the derangement of the tissues with which it is brought in contact. "This person must have had a high percentage of failures in his attempts to inoculate the virus successfully. But by persistence and taking advantage of every predisposition afforded by nature, he succeeded. At any rate, this person must have been intimately acquainted with the family, must have had some motive for seeking their deaths,--for instance the family fortune. "It makes no difference whether the victims might have had cancer sooner or later, anyway. Even if that were so, this cold-blooded villain was at least hastening the development, if not actually causing the frightful and fatal disease." Myra Moreton shuddered, and looked at Dr. Goode anxiously as Kennedy proceeded. He seemed about to interrupt, but managed to check himself. Craig reached over and picked out from the satchel the hat which we had found on a desk at the office of the cancer quack. "In the raid of Dr. Loeb's," he explained, changing tone, "a man disappeared. I have here a soft hat which he left behind in his hurry to escape, as well as some of the filters he was carrying." He turned the hat inside out. "You will see," Craig pointed out, "that on the felt of the inside there are numerous hairs, from the head of the wearer." I leaned forward, breathlessly. I began to see the part I had played in building up his case. "Human hair," he remarked, "differs greatly. Under the microscope one may study the oval-shaped medulla, the long pointed cortex, and the flat cuticle cells of an individual hair. The pigment in the cortex can be studied also. "I have taken some of the hairs from the inside of this hat, examined, photographed, and measured them. I have compared them with a color scale perfected by the late Alphonse Bertillon. In fact, in France quite a science has been built up about hair by the so-called 'pilologists.' The German scientific criminalists have written minute treaties on the hair and astounding results have been obtained by them in detection. "I have been able to secure samples of the hair of everyone in this case and I have studied them also. These hairs in the hat which was left over the package of filters have furnished me with a slender but no less damning clew to a veritable monster." One could have heard a pin drop, as if Kennedy were a judge pronouncing a death sentence. "Dr. Loeb is guilty of being one of the most heartless of quacks, it is true," Kennedy's voice rang out tensely, as he faced us. "But the slow murders, one by one, bringing the family estate nearer and nearer--they were done by one who hoped to throw the blame on Dr. Loeb, by the man whose hair I have here--Lionel Moreton." CHAPTER XXXI THE VOODOO MYSTERY "Everybody's crazy, Kennedy. The whole world is going mad!" Our old friend, Burke, of the Secret Service, scowled at the innocent objects in Craig's laboratory as he mopped his broad forehead. "And the Secret Service is as bad as the rest," he went on, still scowling and not waiting for any comment from us. "Why, what with these European spies and agitators, strikers and dynamiters, we're nearly dippy. Here, in less than a week I've been shifted off war cases to Mexico and now to Hayti. I don't mean that I've been away, of course,--oh, no. You don't have to go to them. They come to us. Confound it, New York is full of plots and counterplots. I tell you, Kennedy, the whole world is crazy." Craig listened with sympathy mixed with amusement. "Can I help you out?" he asked. "If you don't I'll be dippy, too," returned Burke with a whimsical grimace. "What's the trouble with Hayti, then?" encouraged Kennedy seriously. "Trouble enough," answered Burke. "Why, here's that Caribbean liner, _Haytien_, just in from Port au Prince. She's full of refugees--government supporters and revolutionists--you never saw such a menagerie since the ark." I watched Burke keenly as he cut loose with his often picturesque language. Somehow, it seemed rather fascinating to have the opera bouffe side of the Black Republic presented to us. At least it was different from anything we had had lately--and perhaps not at all opera bouffe, either. Kennedy, at least, did not seem to think so, for although he was very busy at the time, seemed prepared to lay aside his work to aid Burke. "You haven't heard about it yet," continued the Secret Service man, "but on the _Haytien_ was a man--black of course--Guillaume Leon. He was a friend of the United States--at least so he called himself, I believe--wanted a new revolution down there, more American marines landed to bolster up a new government that would clean things up, a new deal all around." Burke paused, then added by way of explanation of his own attitude in the matter, "That may be all right, perhaps,--may be just what they need down there, but we can't let people come here and plot revolutions like that right in New York. They're sore enough at us without our letting them think in Latin America that we're taking a hand in their troubles." "Quite right," agreed Kennedy. "About Leon." "Yes, Leon," resumed Burke, getting back to the subject. "Well, I was told by the Chief of the Service to look out for this fellow. And I did. I thought it would make a good beginning to go down the bay on a revenue tug to meet the _Haytien_ at Quarantine. But, by Jingo, no sooner was I over the side of the ship than what do you suppose I ran up against?" He did not pause long enough to give us a guess, but shot out dramatically, "Leon was dead--yes, dead!" Kennedy and I had been interested up to this point. Now we were eager to have him go on. "He died on the voyage up," continued Burke, "just after passing the Gulf Stream, suddenly and from no apparent cause. At least the ship's surgeon couldn't find any cause and neither could they down at Quarantine. So after some time they let the ship proceed up the bay and placed the whole thing in the hands of the Secret Service." "Is there anyone you suspect?" I asked. "Suspect?" repeated Burke. "I suspect them all. The _Haytien_ was full of niggers--as superstitious as they make 'em. The ship's surgeon tells me that after the body of Leon was discovered there was such a scene as he had never witnessed. It was more like bedlam than a group of human beings. Some were for putting the body over into the sea immediately. Others threatened murder if it was done. Most of them didn't know what it was they wanted. Then, there was a woman there. She seemed to be nearly crazy--" There came a knock at the laboratory door. "If you'll just go into the next room with Walter," said Craig to Burke, "I'll see you in a few minutes. Sit down, make yourself at home." I went in with him and Burke dropped into a chair beside my typewriter. The laboratory door opened. From where we were sitting we could see in a mirror on the opposite wall that it was a girl, dark of skin, perhaps a mulatto, but extremely beautiful, with great brown eyes and just a trace of kinkiness in her black hair. But it was the worried, almost haunted, look on her face that attracted one's attention most. I happened to glance at Burke to see whether he had noticed it. I thought his eyes would pop out of his head. Just then Kennedy walked across the laboratory and closed our door. "What's the matter?" I whispered. But before Burke could reply, a draught opened the door just a bit. He placed his finger on his lips. We could not close the door, and we sat there in our corner unintentional but no less interested eavesdroppers. "Mademoiselle Collette Aux Cayes is my name," she began, with a strangely French accent which we could just understand. "I've heard of you, Professor Kennedy, as a great detective." "I should be glad to do what I can for you," he returned. "But you mustn't expect too much. You seem to be in some great trouble." "Trouble--yes," she replied excitedly. "My name isn't really Aux Cayes. That is the name of my guardian, a friend of my father's. Both my father and mother are dead--killed by a mob during an uprising several years ago. I was in Paris at the time, being educated in a convent, or I suppose I should have been killed, too." She seemed to take it as a matter of course, from which I concluded that she had been sent to Paris when she was very young and did not remember her parents very well. "At last the time came for me to go back to Hayti," she resumed. "There is nothing that would interest you about that--except that after I got back, in Port au Prince, I met a young lawyer--Guillaume Leon." She hesitated and looked at Craig as though trying to read whether he had ever heard the name before, but Kennedy betrayed nothing. There was more than that in her tone, though. It was evident that Leon had been more than a friend to her. "Hayti has been so upset during the past months," she went on, "that my guardian decided to go to New York, and of course I was taken along with him. It happened that on the ship--the _Haytien_--Monsieur Leon went also. It was very nice until--" She came to a full stop. Kennedy encouraged her gently, knowing what she was going to tell. "One night, after we had been out some time," she resumed unexpectedly, "I could not sleep and I went out on the deck to walk and watch the moonlight. As I walked softly up and down, I heard voices, two men, in the shadow of one of the cabins. They were talking and now and then I could catch a word. It was about Guillaume. I heard them say that he was plotting another revolution, that that was the reason he was going to New York--not because he wanted to be on the boat with me. There was something about money, too, although I couldn't get it very clearly. It had to do with an American banking house, Forsythe & Co., I think,--money that was to be paid to Guillaume to start an uprising. I think they must have heard me, for I couldn't hear any more and they moved off down the deck, so that I couldn't recognize them. You see, I am not a revolutionist. My guardian belongs to the old order." She stopped again, as though in doubt just how to go on. "Anyhow," she continued finally, "I determined to tell Guillaume. It would have made it harder for us--but it was he, not his politics, I loved." She was almost crying as she blurted out, "But it was only the next day that he was found dead in his stateroom. I never saw him alive after I overheard that talk." It was some moments before she had calmed herself so that she could go on. "You know our people, Professor Kennedy," she resumed, choking back her sobs. "Some said his dead body was like Jonah, and ought to be thrown off to the sea. Then others didn't even want to have it touched, said that it ought to be embalmed. And others didn't want that, either." "What do you mean? Who were they?" "Oh, there was one man,--Castine," she replied, hesitating over the name, as though afraid even to mention it. "He wanted it thrown overboard?" prompted Craig. "N--no, he didn't want that, either," she replied. "He urged them not to touch it--just to leave it alone." She was very much frightened, evidently at her own temerity in coming to Craig and saying so much. Yet something seemed to impel her to go on. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she exclaimed in a sudden burst of renewed feeling, "don't you understand? I--I loved him--even after I found out about the money and what he intended to do with it. I could not see his dear body thrown in the ocean." She shivered all over at the thought, and it was some time before she said anything more. But Kennedy let her do as she pleased, as he often did when deep emotion was wringing the secrets from people's hearts. "He is dead!" she sobbed wildly. "Was he poisoned? Oh, can't you find out? Can't you help me?" Suddenly her voice in wild appeal sank almost to a hoarse whisper. "You must not let anybody know that I came to you," she implored. "Why not?" "Oh--I--I am just afraid--that's all." There was real fear in her tone and face now, fear for herself. "Where is the body?" asked Kennedy, to get her mind off whatever hung like an incubus over it. "Down on the _Haytien_, at the pier, over in Brooklyn, still," she replied. "They kept us all interned there. But my guardian had enough influence to get off for a time and while he is arranging for quarters for our stay after we are released, I slipped away to see you." "You must go back to the boat?" "Oh, yes. We agreed to go back." "Then I shall be down immediately," Craig promised. "If you will go ahead, I will see you there. Perhaps, at first you had better not recognize me. I will contrive some way to meet you. Then they will not know." "Thank you," she murmured, as she rose to go, now in doubt whether she had done the best thing to come to Craig, now glad that she had some outside assistance in which she could trust. He accompanied her to the door, bidding her keep up her courage, then closed it, waiting until her footsteps down the hall had died away. Then he opened our door and caught sight of Burke's face. "That's strange, Burke," he began, before he realized what the expression on his face meant. "There's a woman--what? You don't mean to tell me that you knew her?" "Why, yes," hastened Burke. "There was a rich old planter, Henri Aux Cayes, aboard, too. She's his ward, Mademoiselle Collette." "That's right," nodded Craig in surprise. "She's the woman I was telling you about. She may be a little dark, but she's a beauty, all right. I heard what she said. No wonder she was so frantic, then." "What do you know of the bankers, Forsythe & Co.?" asked Craig. "Forsythe & Co.?" considered Burke. "Well, not much, perhaps. But for a long time, I believe, they've been the bankers and promoters of defunct Caribbean islands, reaping a rich harvest out of the troubles of those decrepit governments, playing one against the other." "H-m," mused Kennedy. "Can you go over to Brooklyn with me now?" "Of course," agreed Burke, brightening up. "That was what I hoped you'd do." Kennedy and I were just about to leave the laboratory with Burke when an idea seemed to occur to Craig. He excused himself and went back to a cabinet where I saw him place a little vial and a hypodermic needle in his vest pocket. CHAPTER XXXII THE FLUORISCINE TEST Our trip over to the other borough was uneventful except for the toilsome time we had to get to the docks where South and Central American ships were moored. We boarded the _Haytien_ at last and Burke led us along the deck toward a cabin. I looked about curiously. There seemed to be the greatest air of suppressed excitement. Everyone was talking, in French, too, which seemed strange to me in people of their color. Yet everything seemed to be in whispers as if they were in fear. We entered the cabin after our guide. There in the dim light lay the body of Leon in a bunk. There were several people in the room, already, among them the beautiful Mademoiselle Collette. She pretended not to recognize Kennedy until we were introduced, but I fancied I saw her start at finding him in company with Burke. Yet she did not exhibit anything more than surprise, which was quite natural. Burke turned the sheet down from the face of the figure in the bunk. Leon had been a fine-looking specimen of his race, with good features, strong, and well groomed. Kennedy bent over and examined the body carefully. "A very strange case," remarked the ship's surgeon, whom Burke beckoned over a moment later. "Quite," agreed Craig absently, as he drew the vial and the hypodermic from his pocket, dipped the needle in and shot a dose of the stuff into the side of the body. "I can't find out that there is any definite cause of death," resumed the surgeon. Before Craig could reply someone else entered the darkened cabin. We turned and saw Collette run over to him and take his hand. "My guardian, Monsieur Aux Cayes," she introduced, then turned to him with a voluble explanation of something in French. Aux Cayes was a rather distinguished looking Haytian, darker than Collette, but evidently of the better class and one who commanded respect among the natives. "It is quite extraordinary," he said with a marked accent, taking up the surgeon's remark. "As for these people--" he threw out his hands in a deprecating gesture--"one cannot blame them for being perplexed when your doctors disagree." Kennedy had covered up Leon's face again and Collette was crying softly. "Don't, my dear child," soothed Aux Cayes, patting her shoulder gently. "Please, try to calm thyself." It was evident that he adored his beautiful ward and would have done anything to relieve her grief. Kennedy evidently thought it best to leave the two together, as Aux Cayes continued to talk to her in diminutives and familiar phrases from the French. "Were there any other people on the boat who might be worth watching?" he asked as we rejoined Burke, who was looking about at the gaping crowd. Burke indicated a group. "Well, there was an old man, Castine, and the woman he calls his wife," he replied. "They were the ones who really kept the rest from throwing the body overboard." "Oh, yes," assented Kennedy. "She told me about them. Are they here now?" Burke moved over to the group and beckoned someone aside toward us. Castine was an old man with gray hair, and a beard which gave him quite an appearance of wisdom, besides being a matter of distinction among those who were beardless. With him was Madame Castine, much younger and not unattractive for a negress. "You knew Monsieur Leon well?" asked Kennedy. "We knew him in Port au Prince, like everybody," replied Castine, without committing himself to undue familiarity. "Do you know of any enemies of his on the boat?" cut in Burke. "You were present when they were demanding that his body be thrown over, were you not? Who was foremost in that?" Castine shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory manner. "I do not speak English very well," he replied. "It was only those who fear the dead." There was evidently nothing to be gained by trying on him any of Burke's third degree methods. He had always that refuge that he did not understand very well. I turned and saw that Collette and Aux Cayes had come out of the cabin to the deck together, he holding her arm while she dabbed the tears away from her wonderful eyes. At the sight of us talking to Castine and the other woman, she seemed to catch her breath. She did not speak to us, but I saw the two women exchange a glance of appraisal, and I determined that "Madame" Castine was at least worth observing. By the attitude of the group from which we had drawn them, Castine, it seemed, exercised some kind of influence over all, rich and poor, revolutionist and government supporter. The appearance of Collette occasioned a buzz of conversation and glances, and it was only a moment before she retreated into the cabin again. Apparently she did not wish to lose anything, as long as Kennedy and Burke were about. Kennedy did not seem to be so much interested in quizzing Castine just yet, now that he had seen him, as he was in passing the time profitably for a few minutes. He looked at his watch, snapped it back into his pocket, and walked deliberately into the cabin again. There he drew back the cover over Leon's face, bent over it, raised the lids of the eyes, and gazed into them. Collette, who had been standing near him, watching every motion, drew back with an exclamation of horror and surprise. "The voodoo sign is on him!" she cried. "It must be that!" Almost in panic she fled, dragging her guardian with her. I, too, looked. The man's eyes were actually green, now. What did it mean? "Burke," remarked Kennedy decisively, "I shall take the responsibility of having the body transferred to my laboratory where I can observe it. I'll leave you to attend to the formalities with the coroner. Then I want you to get in touch with Forsythe & Co. Watch them without letting them know you are doing so--and watch their visitors, particularly." A private ambulance was called and, with much wagging of heads and tongues, the body of Leon was carried on a stretcher, covered by a sheet, down the gangplank and placed in it. We followed closely in a taxicab, across the bridge and uptown. For some days, I may say, Kennedy had been at work in his laboratory in a little anteroom, where he was installing some new apparatus for which he had received an appropriation from the trustees of the University. It was a very complicated affair, one part of which seemed to be a veritable room within the room. Into this chamber, as it were, he now directed the men to carry Leon's body and lay it on a sort of bed or pallet that was let down from the side wall of the compartment. I had been quite mystified by the apparatus which Kennedy had set up, but had had no opportunity to discuss it with him and he had been so busy installing it that he had not taken time, often, for meals. In fact, the only way I knew that he had finished was that when Burke had called he had seemed interested in the call. Outside the small chamber I have spoken of, in the room itself, were several large pieces of machinery, huge cylinders with wheels and belts, run by electric motors. No sooner had the body been placed in the little chamber and the door carefully closed than Kennedy threw a switch, setting the apparatus in motion. "How could Leon have been killed?" I asked, as he rejoined me in the outside laboratory. "What did Collette mean by her frightened cry of the 'voodoo sign'?" The incident had made a marked impression on me and I had been unable quite to arrive at any sensible explanation. "Of course, you know that voodoo means literally anything that inspires fear," remarked Kennedy after a moment's thought. "The god of voodoo is the snake. I cannot say now what it was that she feared. But to see the eyeballs turn green is uncanny, isn't it?" "I should say so," I agreed. "But is that all?" He shook his head. "No, I don't believe it is. Hayti is the hotbed of voodoo worship. The cult has inaugurated a sort of priesthood--often a priest and a priestess, called 'papaloi' and 'mammaloi'--papa and mamma, probably with a corruption of the French word, 'roi,' king. They are, as it were, heads of the community, father and mother, king and queen. Some of the leading men of the communities in the islands of the Caribbean are secret voodoists and leaders. Just what is going on under the surface in this case, I cannot even hazard a guess. But there is some deviltry afoot." Just then the telephone rang and Craig answered it. "It was from Burke," he said as he hung up the receiver. "Confidential agents of his have been about. No one from the ship seems to have been down to see Forsythe, but Forsythe has had people over at the ship. Burke says someone is sending off great bunches of messages to Hayti--he thinks the powerful wireless apparatus of the _Haytien_ is being used." For a moment Kennedy stood in the center of the laboratory, thinking. Then he appeared to make up his mind to something. "Has that taxicab gone?" he asked, opening a cabinet from which he took several packages. I looked out of the window. The ambulance had gone back, but the driver of the car had evidently waited to call up his office for instructions. I beckoned to him, and together Kennedy and I placed the packages in the car. Thus we were able quickly to get back again to the wharf where the _Haytien_ was berthed. Instead of going aboard again, however, Kennedy stopped just outside, where he was not observed and got out of the car, dismissing it. In the office of the steamship company, he sought one of the employés and handed him a card, explaining that we were aiding Burke in the case. The result of the parley was that Kennedy succeeded in getting to the roof of the covered pier on the opposite side from that where the ship lay. There he set to work on a strange apparatus, wires from which ran up to a flag pole on which he was constructing what looked like a hastily improvised wireless aerial. That part arranged, Kennedy followed his wires down again and took them in by a window to a sort of lumber-room back of the office. Outside everyone was too busy to watch what we were doing there and Craig could work uninterrupted. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Installing a wireless plant?" "Not quite," he smiled quietly. "This is a home-made wireless photo-recording set. Of course, wireless aerials of amateurs don't hum any more since war has caused the strict censorship of all wireless. But there is no reason why one can't receive messages, even if they can't be sent by everybody. "This is a fairly easy and inexpensive means by which automatic records can be taken. It involves no delicate instruments and the principal part of it can be made in a few hours from materials that I have in my laboratory. The basis is the capillary electrometer." "Sounds very simple," I volunteered, trying not to be sarcastic. "Well, here it is," he indicated, touching what looked like an ordinary soft glass tube of perhaps a quarter of an inch diameter, bent U-shaped, with one limb shorter than the other. "It is filled nearly to the top of the shorter limb with chemically pure mercury," he went on. "On the top of it, I have poured a little twenty per cent sulphuric acid. Dipping into the acid is a small piece of capillary tube drawn out to a very fine point at the lower end." He filled the little tube with mercury also. "The point of this," he observed, "is fine enough to prevent the mercury running through of its own weight--about as fine as a hair." He dipped the point and held it in the sulphuric acid and blew through the capillary tube. When the mercury bubbled through the point in minute drops, he stopped blowing. It drew back for a short distance by capillary attraction and the acid followed it up. "You can see that connections are made to the mercury in the arm and the tube by short pieces of platinum wire," he continued. "It isn't necessary to go into the theory of the instrument. But the most minute difference of potential between the two masses of mercury will cause the fine point at the junction of the liquids to move up and down. "Connected to the aerial and the earth, with a crystal detector in series, it is only a matter of applying an ordinary photo-recording drum, and the machine is made." He had been setting up a light-tight box, inside of which was a little electric lamp. Opposite was a drum covered with bromide paper. He started the clockwork going and after a few moments' careful observation, we went away, and left the thing, trusting that no one was the wiser. Nothing further occurred that day, except for frequent reports from Burke, who told us how his men were getting on in their shadowing of Forsythe & Co. Apparently, the death of Leon had put a stop to revolutionary plots, or at least had caused the plotters to change their methods radically. The time was shortening, too, during which Burke could keep the passengers of the _Haytien_ under such close surveillance, and it was finally decided that on the next morning they should be released, while all those suspected were to be shadowed separately by Secret Service agents, in the hope that once free they would commit some overt act that might lead to a clew. CHAPTER XXXIII THE RESPIRATION CALORIMETER It was early the next morning, about half an hour after the time set for the release of the passengers, that our laboratory door was flung open and Collette Aux Cayes rushed in, wildly excited. "What's the matter?" asked Kennedy anxiously. "Someone has been trying to keep me on the boat," she panted. "And all the way over here a man has been following me." Kennedy looked at her a minute calmly. We could understand why she might have been shadowed, though it must have been a bungling job of Burke's operative. But who could have wanted her kept on the boat? "I don't know," she replied, in answer to Kennedy's question. "But somehow I was the only one not told that we could go. And when I did go, one of the Secret Service men stopped me." "Are you sure it was a Secret Service man?" "He said he was." "Yes, but if he had been, he would not have done that, nor let you get away, if he had. Can't you imagine anyone who might want you detained longer?" She looked at us, half frightened. "N--not unless it is that man--or the woman with him," she replied, clasping her hands. "You mean Castine?" "Yes," she replied, avoiding the use of his name. "Ever since you had the body removed, he has been in great fear. I have heard him ask fifty times, 'Where have they taken him?' and 'Is he to be embalmed?'" "That's strange," remarked Kennedy. "Why that anxiety from him? I remember that it was he who wanted the body left alone. Is it for fear that we might discover something which might be covered up?" Kennedy disappeared into the anteroom and I heard him making a great fuss as he regulated the various pieces of machinery that surrounded the little chamber. Some minutes later, he emerged. "Meet us here in an hour," he directed Collette, "with your guardian." Quickly Craig telephoned for a tank of oxygen to be sent over to the laboratory, then got Burke on the wire and asked him to meet us down at the dock. We arrived first and Craig hurried into the lumber-room, where fortunately he found everything undisturbed. He tore off the strip of paper from the drum and held it up. On it was a series of marks, which looked like dots and dashes, of a peculiar kind, along a sort of base line. Carefully he ran his eye over the strip. Then he shoved it into his pocket in great excitement. "Hello," greeted Burke, as he came up puffing from the hurried trip over from the Customs House, where his office was. "What's doing now?" "A great deal, I think," returned Kennedy. "Can you locate Castine and that woman and come up to the laboratory--right away?" "I can put my finger on them in five minutes and be there in half an hour," he returned, not pausing to inquire further, for, like me, Burke had learned that Kennedy could not be hurried in any of his revelations. Together, Craig and I returned to the laboratory to find that Collette Aux Cayes was already there with her guardian, as solicitous as ever for her comfort and breathing fire and slaughter against the miscreants who had tried to detain her, without his knowledge. Some minutes later Castine and "Madame" Castine arrived. At sight of Collette she seemed both defiant and restless, as though sensing trouble, I thought. Few words were spoken now by anyone, as Burke and I completed the party. "Will you be so kind as to step into the little anteroom with me?" invited Craig, holding open the door for us. We entered and he followed; then, as he led the way, stopped before a little glass window in the compartment which I have described. Collette was next to me. I could feel the tenseness of her senses as she gazed through the window at the body on the shelf-like pallet inside. "What is this thing?" asked Aux Cayes, as Collette drew back, and he caught her by the arm. For the moment Kennedy said nothing, but opened a carefully sealed door and slid the pallet out, unhinging it, while I saw Castine trembling and actually turning ashen about the lips. "This," Kennedy replied at length, "is what is known as a respiration calorimeter, which I have had constructed after the ideas of Professors Atwater and Benedict of Wesleyan, with some improvements of my own. It is used, as you may know, in studying food values, both by the government and by other investigators. A man could live in that room for ten or twelve days. My idea, however, was to make use of it for other things than that for which it was intended." He took a few steps over to the complicated apparatus which had so mystified me, now at rest, as he turned a switch on opening the carefully sealed door. "It is what is known as a closed circuit calorimeter," he went on. "For instance, through this tube air leaves the chamber. Here is a blower. At this point, the water in the air is absorbed by sulphuric acid. Next the carbon dioxide is absorbed by soda lime. Here a little oxygen is introduced to keep the composition normal and at this point the air is returned to the chamber." He traced the circuit as he spoke, then paused and remarked, "Thus, you see, it is possible to measure the carbon dioxide and the other respiration products. As for heat, the walls are constructed so that the gain or loss of heat in the chamber is prevented. Heat cannot escape in any other way than that provided for carrying it off and measuring it. Any heat is collected by this stream of water which keeps the temperature constant and in that way we can measure any energy that is given off. The walls are of concentric shells of copper and zinc with two of wood, between which is 'dead air,' an effective heat insulator. In other words," he concluded, "it is like a huge thermos bottle." It was all very weird and fascinating. But what he could have been doing with a dead body, I could not imagine. Was there some subtle, unknown poison which had hitherto baffled science, but which now he was about to reveal to us? He seemed to be in no hurry to overcome the psychological effect his words had on his auditors, for as he picked up and glanced at a number of sheets of figures, he went on: "In the case of live persons, there is a food aperture here, a little window with air locks arranged for the passage of food and drink. That large window through which you looked admits light. There is also a telephone. Everything is arranged so that all that enters, no matter how minute, is weighed and measured. The same is true of all that leaves. Nothing is too small to take into account." He shook the sheaf of papers before us. "Here I have some records which have been made by myself, and, in my absence, by one of my students. In them the most surprising thing that I have discovered is that in the body of Leon metabolism seems still to be going on." I listened to him in utter amazement, wondering toward what his argument was tending. "I got my first clew from an injection of fluoriscine," he resumed. "You know there are many people who have a horror of being buried alive. It is a favorite theme of the creepy-creep writers. As you know, the heart may stop beating, but that does not necessarily mean that the person is dead. There are on record innumerable cases where the use of stimulants has started again the beating of a heart that has stopped. "Still, burial alive is hardly likely among civilized people, for the simple reason that the practice of embalming makes death practically certain. At once, when I heard that there had been objections to the embalming of this body, I began to wonder why they had been made. "Then it occurred to me that one certain proof of death was the absolute cessation of circulation. You may not know, but scientists have devised this fluoriscine test to take advantage of that. I injected about ten grains. If there is any circulation, there should be an emerald green discoloration of the cornea of the eye. If not, the eye should remain perfectly white. "I tried the test. The green eye-ball gave me a hint. Then I decided to make sure with a respiration calorimeter that would measure whatever heat, what breath, no matter how minute they were." Collette gave a start as she began to realize vaguely what Craig was driving at. "It was not the voodoo sign, Mademoiselle," he said, turning to her. "It was a sign, however, of something that suggested at once to me the connection of voodoo practices." There was something so uncanny about it that my own heart almost skipped beating, while Burke, by my other side, muttered something which was not meant to be profane. Collette was now trembling violently and I took her arm so that if she should faint she would not fall either on my side or on that of her guardian, who seemed himself on the verge of keeling over. Castine was mumbling. Only his wife seemed to retain her defiance. "The skill of the voodoo priests in the concoction of strange draughts from the native herbs of Hayti is well known," Kennedy began again. "There are among them fast and slow poisons, poisons that will kill almost instantly and others that are guaged in strength to accumulate and resemble wasting away and slow death. "I know that in all such communities today no one will admit that there is such a thing still as the human sacrifice, 'the lamb without horns.' But there is on record a case where a servant was supposed to have died. The master ordered the burial, and it took place. But the grave was robbed. Later the victim was resuscitated and sacrificed. "Most uncanny of the poisons is that which will cause the victim to pass into an unconscious condition so profound that it may easily be mistaken for death. It is almost cataleptic. Such is the case here. My respiration calorimeter shows that from that body there are still coming the products of respiration, that there is still heat in it. It must have been that peculiar poison of the voodoo priests that was used." Racing on now, not giving any of us a chance even to think of the weird thing, except to shudder instinctively, Kennedy drew from his pocket and slapped down on a table the photographic records that had been taken by his home-made wireless recording apparatus. "From Mr. Burke," he said, as he did so, "I received the hint that many messages were being transmitted by wireless, secretly perhaps, from the _Haytien_. I wanted to read those messages that were being flashed so quietly and secretly through the air. How could it be done? I managed to install down at the dock an apparatus known as the capillary electrometer. By the use of this almost unimaginably delicate instrument I was able to drag down literally out of the air the secrets that seemed so well hidden from all except those for whom they were intended. Listen." He took the roll of paper from the drum and ran his finger along it hastily, translating to himself the Morse code as he passed from one point to another. "Here," cried Craig excitedly. "'Leon out of way for time safely. Revolution suppressed before Forsythe can make other arrangements. Conspiracy frustrated.' Just a moment. Here's another. 'Have engaged bridal suite at Hotel La Coste. Communicate with me there after tomorrow.'" Still holding the wireless record, Kennedy swung about to Burke and myself. "Burke, stand over by the door," he shouted. "Walter--that tank of oxygen, please." I dragged over the heavy tank which he had ordered as he adjusted a sort of pulmotor breathing apparatus over Leon. Then I dropped back to my place beside Collette, as the oxygen hissed out. Castine was now on his knees, his aged arms outstretched. "Before God, Mr. Kennedy--I didn't do it. I didn't give Leon the poison!" Kennedy, however, engrossed in what he was doing, paid no attention to the appeal. Suddenly I saw what might have been a faint tremor of an eyelid on the pallid body before us. I felt Collette spring forward from my side. "He lives! He lives!" she cried, falling on her knees before the still cataleptic form. "Guillaume!" There was just a faint movement of the lips, as though as the man came back from another world he would have called, "Collette!" "Seize that man--it is his name signed to the wireless messages!" shouted Kennedy, extending his accusing forefinger at Aux Cayes, who had plotted so devilishly to use his voodoo knowledge both to suppress the revolution and at the same time to win his beautiful ward for himself from her real lover. CHAPTER XXXIV THE EVIL EYE "You don't know the woman who is causing the trouble. You haven't seen her eyes. But--Madre de Dios!--my father is a changed man. Sometimes I think he is--what you call--mad!" Our visitor spoke in a hurried, nervous tone, with a marked foreign accent which was not at all unpleasing. She was a young woman, unmistakably beautiful, of the dark Spanish type and apparently a South American. "I am Señorita Inez de Mendoza of Lima, Peru," she introduced herself, as she leaned forward in her chair in a high state of overwrought excitement. "We have been in this country only a short time--my father and I, with his partner in a mining venture, Mr. Lockwood. Since the hot weather came we have been staying at the Beach Inn at Atlantic Beach." She paused a moment and hesitated, as though in this strange land of the north she had no idea of which way to turn for help. "Perhaps I should have gone to see a doctor about him," she considered, doubtfully; then her emotions got the better of her and she went on passionately, "but, Mr. Kennedy it is not a case for a doctor. It is a case for a detective--for someone who is more than a detective." She spoke pleadingly now, in a soft musical voice that was far more pleasing to the ear than that of the usual Spanish-American. I had heard that the women of Lima were famed for their beauty and melodious voices. Señorita Mendoza surely upheld their reputation. There was an appealing look in her soft brown eyes and her thin, delicate lips trembled as she hurried on with her strange story. "I never saw my father in such a state before," she murmured. "All he talks about is the 'big fish'--whatever that may mean--and the curse of Mansiche. At times his eyes are staring wide open. Sometimes I think he has a violent fever. He is excited--and seems to be wasting away. He seems to see strange visions and hear voices. Yet I think he is worse when he is quiet in a dark room alone than when he is down in the lobby of the hotel in the midst of the crowd." A sudden flash of fire seemed to light up her dark eyes. "There is a woman at the hotel, too," she went on, "a woman from Truxillo, Señora de Moche. Ever since she has been there my father has been growing worse and worse." "Who is this Señora de Moche?" asked Kennedy, studying the Señorita as if she were under a lens. "A Peruvian of an old Indian family," she replied. "She has come to New York with her son, Alfonso, who is studying at the University here. I knew him in Peru," she added, as if by way of confession, "when he was a student at the University of Lima." There was something in both her tone and her manner that would lead one to believe that she bore no enmity toward the son--indeed quite the contrary--whatever might be her feelings toward the mother of de Moche. Kennedy reached for our university catalogue and found the name, Alfonso de Moche, a post-graduate student in the School of Engineering, and therefore not in any of Kennedy's own courses. I could see that Craig was growing more and more interested. "And you think," he queried, "that in some way this woman is connected with the strange change that has taken place in your father?" "I don't know," she temporized, but the tone of her answer was sufficient to convey the impression that in her heart she did suspect something, she knew not what. "It's not a long run to Atlantic Beach," considered Kennedy. "I have one or two things that I must finish up first, however." "Then you will come down tonight?" she asked, as Kennedy rose and took the little white silk gloved hand which she extended. "Tonight surely," answered Craig, holding the door for her to pass out. "Well," I said, when we were alone, "what is it--a romance or a crime?" "Both, I think," he replied abstractedly, taking up the experiment which the visit had interrupted. "I think," he remarked late in the afternoon, as he threw off his acid-stained smock, "that I will go over to the University library before it closes and refresh my mind on some of those old Peruvian antiquities and traditions. The big fish or _peje grande_, as I remember it, was the name given by the natives to one of the greatest buried treasures about the time of Pizarro's conquest. If I remember correctly, Mansiche was the great cacique, or something of that sort--the ruler in northern Peru at that time. He is said to have left a curse on any native who ever divulged the whereabouts of the treasure and the curse was also to fall on any Spaniard who might discover it." For more than an hour Kennedy delved into the archeological lore in the library. Then he rejoined me at the laboratory and after a hasty bite of dinner we hurried down to the station. That evening we stepped off the train at Atlantic Beach to make our way to the Beach Inn. The resort was just springing into night life, as the millions of incandescent lights flooded it with a radiance which we could see reflected in the sky long before our train arrived. There was something intoxicating about the combination of the bracing salt air and the gay throngs seeking pleasure. Instead of taking the hotel 'bus, Kennedy decided to stroll to the inn along the boardwalk. We were just about to turn into the miniature park which separated the inn from the walk when we noticed a wheel chair coming in our direction. In it were a young man and a woman of well-preserved middle age. They had evidently been enjoying the ocean breeze after dinner, and the sound of music had drawn them back to the hotel. We entered the lobby of the inn just as the first number of the evening concert by the orchestra was finishing. Kennedy stood at the desk for a moment while Señorita Mendoza was being paged, and ran his eye over the brilliant scene. In a minute the boy returned and led us through the maze of wicker chairs to an alcove just off the hall which later in the evening would be turned into a ballroom. On a wide settee, the Señorita was talking with animation to a tall, clean-cut young man in evening clothes, whose face bore the tan of a sun much stronger than that at Atlantic Beach. He was unmistakably of the type of American soldier of fortune. In a deep rocker before them sat a heavy-set man whose piercing black eyes beetled forth from under bushy eyebrows. He was rather distinguished looking, and his close-cropped hair and mustache set him off as a man of affairs and consequence in his own country. As we approached, Señorita Mendoza rose quickly. I wondered how she was going to get over the awkward situation of introducing us, for surely she did not intend to let her father know that she was employing a detective. She did it most cleverly, with a significant look at Kennedy which he understood. "Good-evening. I am delighted to see you," she greeted. Then, turning to her father, she introduced Craig. "This is Professor Kennedy," she explained, "whom I met at the reception of the Hispano-American Society. You remember I told you he was so much interested in our Peruvian ruins." Don Luis's eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement. They were prominent eyes, staring, and I could not help studying them. "Then, Señor Kennedy," he exclaimed, "you know of our ruins of Chan-Chan, of Chima--those wonderful places--and have heard the legend of the _peje grande_?" His eyes, by that time, were almost starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris. "We must sit down," he went on, "and talk about Peru." The soldier of fortune also had risen as we approached. In her soft musical voice, the Señorita now interrupted her father. "Professor Kennedy, let me introduce you to Mr. Lockwood, my father's partner in a mining project which brings us to New York." As Kennedy and I shook hands with the young mining engineer, I felt that Lockwood was something more to her than a mere partner in her father's mining venture. We drew up chairs and joined the circle. Kennedy said something about mining and the very word "mine" seemed to excite Señor Mendoza still further. "Your American financiers have lost millions in mining in Peru," he exclaimed excitedly, taking out a beautifully chased gold cigarette case, "but we are going to make more millions than they ever dreamed of, because we are simply going to mine for the products of centuries of labor already done, for the great treasure of Truxillo." He opened the cigarette case and handed it about. The cigarettes seemed to be his own special brand. We lighted up and puffed away for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about them, however, which I did not like. In fact, I think that the Latin-American cigarettes do not seem to appeal to an American very much, anyhow. As we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and after a puff or two I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort I drew out one of my own cigarettes as soon as I could do so politely. "We are not the only ones who have sought the _peje grande_," resumed Mendoza eagerly, "but we are the only ones who are seeking it in the right place, and," he added, leaning over with a whisper, "I am the only one who has the concession, the monopoly, from the government to seek in what we know to be the right place. Others have found the little fish. We shall find the big fish." He had raised his voice from the whisper and I caught the Señorita looking anxiously at Kennedy, as much as to say, "You see? His mind is full of only one subject." Señor Mendoza's eyes had wandered from us and he seemed all of a sudden to grow wild. "We shall find it," he cried, "no matter what obstacles man or devil put in our way. It is ours--for a simple piece of engineering--ours! The curse of Mansiche--pouf!" He snapped his fingers almost defiantly as he said it in a high-pitched voice. There was an air of bravado about it and I could not help feeling that perhaps in his heart he was not so sure of himself as he would have others think. It was as though some diabolical force had taken possession of his brain and he fought it off. Kennedy quickly followed the staring glance of Mendoza. Out on the broad veranda, by an open window a few yards from us, sat the woman of the wheel chair. The young man who accompanied her had his back toward us for the moment, but she was looking fixedly in our direction, paying no attention apparently to the music. She was a large woman, with dark hair, and contrasting full red lips. Her face, in marked contradiction to her Parisian costume and refined manners, had a slight copper swarthiness about it. But it was her eyes that arrested and held one's attention. Whether it was in the eyes themselves or in the way that she used them, there could be no mistake about the hypnotic power that their owner wielded. She saw us looking at her, but it made no difference. Not for an instant did she allow our gaze to distract her in the projection of their weird power straight at Don Luis himself. Don Luis, on his part, seemed fascinated. He rose, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his "Imp of the Perverse." Instead, in the midst of the number which the orchestra was playing, he turned and, as though by a superhuman effort, moved away among the guests out into the brighter lights and gayety of the lobby. I glanced up in time to see the anxious look on the Señorita's face change momentarily into a flash of hatred toward the woman in the window. The young man turned just about that time, and there was no mistaking the ardent glance he directed toward the fair Peruvian. I fancied that her face softened a bit, too. She resumed her normal composure as she said to Lockwood, "You will excuse me, I know. Father is tired of the music. I think I will take him for a turn down the boardwalk. If you can join us in our rooms in an hour or so, may we see you!" she asked, with another significant glance at Kennedy. Craig had barely time to reply that we should be delighted before she was gone. Evidently she did not dare let her father get very far out of her sight. We sat for a few moments smoking and chatting with Lockwood. "What is the curse of Mansiche?" asked Kennedy at length. "Oh, I don't know," returned Lockwood, impatiently flicking the ashes from his cigar, as though such stories had no interest for the practical mind of an engineer. "Some old superstition. I don't know much about the story; but I do know that there is treasure in that great old Chimu mound near Truxillo, and that Don Luis has got us the government concession to bore into it, if we can only raise the capital to carry it out." Kennedy showed no disposition to leave the academic and become interested in the thing from the financial standpoint, and the conversation dragged. "I beg pardon," apologized Lockwood at length, "but I have some very important letters that I must get off before the mail closes. I'll see you, I presume, when the Señorita and Don Luis come back?" Kennedy nodded. In fact, I think he was rather glad of the opportunity to look things over unhampered. CHAPTER XXXV THE BURIED TREASURE Señora de Moche--for I had no doubt now that this was the Peruvian Indian woman of whom Señorita Inez had spoken--seemed to lose interest in us and in the concert the moment Don Luis went out. Her son also seemed restive. He was a good-looking fellow, with high forehead, nose slightly aquiline, chin and mouth firm, in fact the whole face refined and intellectual, though tinged with melancholy. We strolled down the wide veranda, and as we passed the woman and her son I was conscious of that strange feeling (which psychologists tell us, however, has no foundation) of being stared at from behind. Kennedy turned suddenly and again we passed, just in time to catch in a low tone from the young man, "Yes, I have seen him at the University. Everyone knows that he--" The rest was lost. It was quite evident now that they thought we were interested in them. There was, then, no use in our watching them further. Indeed, when we turned again, we found that the Señora and Alfonso had risen, gone through the long, open window inside, and were making their way slowly to the elevator. The door of the elevator had scarcely closed when Kennedy turned on his heel and quickly made his way back to the alcove where we had been sitting. Lying about on the ash tray on a little wicker table were several of Mendoza's half-burned cigarettes. We sat down a moment and, after a hasty glance around, Craig gathered them up and folded them in a piece of paper. Leisurely Kennedy strolled over to the desk, and, as guests in a summer hotel will do, looked over the register. The Mendozas, father and daughter, were registered in rooms 810 and 812, a suite on the eighth floor. Lockwood was across the hall in 811. Turning the pages, Kennedy paused, then nudged me. Señora de Moche and Señor Alfonso de Moche were on the same floor in 839 and 841, just around an "L" in the hall. The two parties must meet frequently not only downstairs in the inn, but in the corridors and elevators. Kennedy said nothing, but glanced at his watch. We had nearly three-quarters of an hour to wait yet until our pretty client returned. "There's no use in wasting time or in trying to conceal our identity," he said finally, drawing a card from his pocket and handing it to the clerk. "Señora de Moche, please." Much to my surprise, the Señora telephoned down that she would see us in her own sitting-room, and I followed Kennedy into the elevator. Alfonso was out and the Señora was alone. "I hope that you will pardon me," began Craig with an elaborate explanation, "but I have become interested in an opportunity to invest in a Peruvian venture and they tell me at the office that you are a Peruvian. I thought that perhaps you could advise me." She looked at us keenly. I fancied that she detected the subterfuge, yet she did not try to avoid us. On closer view, her eyes were really remarkable--those of a woman endowed with an abundance of health and energy--eyes that were full of what the old phrenologists used to call amativeness, denoting a nature capable of intense passion, whether of love or hate. Yet I confess that I could not find anything especially abnormal about them, as I had about Mendoza's. "I suppose you mean that scheme of Señor Mendoza and his friend, Mr. Lockwood," she returned, speaking rapidly. "Let me tell you about it. You may know that the Chimu tribes in the north were the wealthiest at the time of the coming of the Spaniards. Well, they had a custom of burying with their dead all their movable property. Sometimes a common grave or _huaca_ was given to many. That would become a cache of treasure. "Back in the seventeenth century," she continued, leaning forward eagerly as she talked, "a Spaniard opened a Chimu _huaca_ and found gold that is said to have been worth a million dollars. An Indian told him of it. After he had shown him the treasure, the Indian told the Spaniard that he had given him only the little fish, the _peje chica_, but that some day he would give him the big fish, the _peje grande_. "The Indian died," she went on solemnly, flashing at Craig a glance from her wonderful eyes. "He was poisoned by the other members of his tribe." She paused, then flashed, "That is my tribe, my family." She paused a moment. "The big fish is still a secret--or at least it was until they got it from my brother, to whom the tradition had been intrusted. They drove him crazy--until he talked. Then, after he had told the secret, and lost his mind, he threw himself one day into Lake Titicaca." She stopped dramatically in her passionate out-pouring of the tragedies that had followed the hidden treasure. "I cannot tell you more than you probably already know," she resumed, watching our faces intently. "You know, I suppose, that the treasure is believed to be in a large mound, a tumulus I think you call it, visible from our town of Truxillo. Many people have tried to open it, but the mass of sand pours down on them and they have been discouraged. But Señor Mendoza believes that he knows just where to bore and Mr. Lockwood has a plan for a well-timbered tunnel which can be driven at the right point." She said it with a sort of quiet assurance that conveyed the impression without her saying it that the venture was somehow doomed to failure, that these desecrators were merely toying with fate. All through her remarks one could feel that she suspected Mendoza of having been responsible for the downfall and tragedy of her brother, who had betrayed the age-old secret. Her eyes assumed a far-away, dreamy look as she went on. "You must know that we Peruvians have been so educated that we never explore ruins for hidden treasure--not even if we have the knowledge of engineering to do so." Apparently she was thinking of her son and his studies at the University. One could follow her thoughts as they flitted from him to the beautiful girl with whom she had seen us. "We are a peculiar race," she proceeded. "We seldom intermarry with other races. We are as proud as Señor Mendoza, as proud of our unmixed lineage as your 'belted earls.'" She said it with a quiet dignity quite in contrast with the nervous, hasty manner of Don Luis. There was no doubt that the race feeling cut deep. Kennedy had been following her closely and I could see that the cross currents of superstition, avarice and race hatred in the case presented a tangle that challenged him. "Thank you," he murmured, rising. "You have told me quite enough to make me think seriously before I join in any such undertaking." She smiled enigmatically and we bowed ourselves out. "A most baffling woman," was Craig's only comment as we rode down again in the elevator to wait for the return of Don Luis and the Señorita. Scarcely had their chair set them down at the inn than Alfonso seemed to appear from nowhere. He had evidently been waiting in the shadow of the porch for them. We stood aside and watched the little drama. For a few minutes the Señorita talked with him. One did not need to be told that she had a deep regard for the young man. She wanted to see him, yet she did not want to see him. Don Luis, on the contrary, seemed to become quite restive and impatient again and to wish to cut the conversation short. It was self-evident that Alfonso was deeply in love with Inez. I wondered whether, after all, the trouble was that the proud old Castilian Don Luis would never consent to the marriage of his daughter to one of Indian blood? Was he afraid of a love forbidden by race prejudice? In any event, one could easily imagine the feelings of Alphonso toward Lockwood, whom he saw carrying off the prize under his very eyes. As for his mother, we had seen that the Peruvians of her caste were a proud old race. Her son was the apple of her eye. Who were these to scorn her race, her family? It was a little more than an hour after our first meeting when the party, including Lockwood, who had finished his letters, gathered again up in the rooms of the Mendozas. It was a delightful evening, even in spite of the tension on which we were. We chatted about everything from archeology to Wall Street, until I could well imagine how anyone possessed of an imagination susceptible to the influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering charm of the magic words, _peje chica_, and feel all the gold hunter's enthusiasm when brought into the atmosphere of the _peje grande_. Visions of hidden treasure seemed to throw a glamour over everything. Kennedy and the Señorita had moved over to a window, where they were gazing out on the fairyland of Atlantic Beach spread out before them, while Lockwood and Don Luis were eagerly quizzing me on the possibilities of newspaper publicity. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," I heard her say under her breath, "sometimes I fear that it is the _mal de ojo_--the evil eye." I did not catch Craig's answer, but I did catch time and again narrowly observing Don Luis. Our host was smoking furiously now, and his eyes had even more than before that peculiar, staring look. By the way his veins stood out I could see that Mendoza's heart action must be rapid. He was talking more and more wildly as he grew more excited. Even Lockwood noticed it and, I thought, frowned. Slowly the conviction was forced on me. The man was mad--raving mad! "Really, I must get back to the city tonight," I overheard Craig say to the Señorita as finally he turned from the window toward us. Her face clouded, but she said nothing. "If you could arrange to have us dine with you tomorrow night up here, however," he added quickly in a whisper, "I think I might be prepared to take some action." "By all means," she replied eagerly, as though catching at anything that promised aid. On the late train back, I half dozed, wondering what had caused Mendoza's evident madness. Was it a sort of auto-hypnotism? There was, I knew, a form of illusion known as ophthalmophobia--fear of the eye. It ranged from mere aversion at being gazed at, all the way to the subjective development of real physical illness out of otherwise trifling ailments. If not that, what object could there be for anyone to cause such a condition? Might it be for the purpose of robbery? Or might it be for revenge? Back in the laboratory, Kennedy pulled out from a cabinet a peculiar apparatus. It seemed to consist of a sort of triangular prism set with its edge vertically on a rigid platform attached to a massive stand. Next he lighted one of the cigarette stubs which he had carried away so carefully. The smoke curled up between a powerful light and the peculiar instrument, while Craig peered through a lens, manipulating the thing with exhaustless patience and skill. Finally he beckoned me over and I looked through, too. On a sort of fine grating all I could see was a number of strange lines. "That," he explained in answer to my unspoken question as I continued to gaze, "is one of the latest forms of the spectroscope, known as the interferometer, with delicately ruled gratings in which power to resolve the straight close lines in the spectrum is carried to the limit of possibility. A small watch is delicate, but it bears no comparison to the delicacy of these detraction spectroscopes. "Every substance, you know, is, when radiating light, characterized by what at first appears to be almost a haphazard set of spectral lines without relation to one another. But they are related by mathematical laws and the apparent haphazard character is only the result of our lack of knowledge of how to interpret the results." He resumed his place at the eye-piece to check over his results. "Walter," he said finally with a twinkle of the eye, "I wish you'd go out and find me a cat." "A cat?" I repeated. "Yes--a cat--felis domesticus, if it sounds better that way, a plain ordinary cat." I jammed on my hat and, late as it was, sallied forth on this apparently ridiculous mission. Several belated passers-by and a policeman watched me as though I were a house-breaker and I felt like a fool, but at last by perseverance and tact I managed to capture a fairly good specimen of the species and transported it in my arms to the laboratory without an undue number of scratches. CHAPTER XXXVI THE WEED OF MADNESS In my absence Craig had set to work on a peculiar apparatus, as though he were distilling something from several of the other cigarette stubs. I placed the cat in a basket and watched Craig until finally he seemed to be rewarded for his patient labors. It was well along toward morning when he obtained in a test-tube a few drops of a colorless, almost odorless liquid. I watched him curiously as he picked the cat out of the basket and held it gently in his arms. With a dropper he sucked up a bit of the liquid from the test-tube. Then he let a small drop fall into the eye of the cat. The cat blinked a moment and I bent over to observe it more closely. The cat's eye seemed to enlarge, even under the light, as if it were the proverbial cat's eye under a bed. What did it mean? Was there such a thing as the drug of the evil eye? "What have you found?" I queried. "Something very much like the so-called 'weed of madness,' I think," he replied slowly. "The weed of madness?" I repeated. "Yes, something like that Mexican toloache and the Hindu datura which you must have heard about," he continued. "You know the jimson weed--the Jamestown weed? It grows almost everywhere in the world, but most thrivingly in the tropics. They are all related in some way, I believe. The jimson weed on the Pacific coast of the Andes has large white flowers which exhale a faint, repulsive odor. It is a harmless looking plant with its thick tangle of leaves, a coarse green growth, with trumpet-shaped flowers. But, to one who knows its properties, it is quite too dangerously convenient. "I think those cigarettes have been doped," he went on positively. "It isn't toloache that was used. I think it must be some particularly virulent variety of the jimson weed. Perhaps it is in the preparation of the thing. The seeds of the stramonium, which is the same thing, contain a higher percentage of poison than the leaves and flowers. Perhaps they were used. I can't say." He took a drop of the liquid he had isolated and added a drop of nitric acid. Then he evaporated it by gentle heat and it left a residue which was slightly yellow. Next he took from the shelf over his table a bottle marked alcoholic solution, potassium hydrate, and let a drop fall on it. Instantly the residue became a beautiful purple, turning rapidly to violet, then to dark red and finally disappeared. "Stramonium all right," he nodded with satisfaction. "That was known as Vitali's test. Yes, there was stramonium in those cigarettes--datura stramonium--perhaps a trace of hyocyamino. They are all, like atropine, mydriatic alkaloids, so-called from the effect on the eye. One one-hundred-thousandth of a grain will affect the cat's eye. You saw how it acted. It is more active than even atropine. Better yet, you remember how Don Luis's eyes looked." "How about the Señora?" I put in. "Oh," he answered quickly, "her pupils were normal enough. Didn't you notice that? This concentrated poison which has been used in Mendoza's cigarettes does not kill, at least not outright. It is worse. Slowly it accumulates in the system. It acts on the brain. Of all the dangers to be met with in superstitious countries, these mydriatic alkaloids are among the worst. They offer a chance for crimes of the most fiendish nature--worse than the gun or the stiletto, and with little fear of detection. It is the production of insanity!" Horrible though the idea was I could not doubt it in the face of Craig's investigations and what I had already seen. In fact, it was necessary for me only to recall the peculiar sensations I myself had experienced after smoking merely a few puffs of one of Mendoza's cigarettes in order to be convinced of the possible effect of the insidious poison contained in the many that he smoked. It was almost dawn before Craig and I left the laboratory after his discovery of the manner of the stramonium poisoning. I was thoroughly tired, though not so much so that my dreams were not haunted by a succession of baleful eyes peering at me from the darkness. I slept late, but Kennedy was about early at the laboratory, verifying his experiments and checking over his results, carefully endeavoring to isolate any other of the closely related mydriatic alkaloids that might be contained in the noxious fumes of the poisoned tobacco. Though he was already convinced of what was going on, I knew that he considered it a matter of considerable medico-legal importance to be exact, for if the affair ever came to the stage of securing an indictment, the charge could be sustained only by specific proof. Early in the forenoon Kennedy left me alone in the laboratory and made a trip downtown, where he visited a South American tobacco dealer and placed a rush order for a couple of hundred cigarettes, duplicating in shape and quality those which Señor Mendoza doza preferred, except, however, the deadly drug which was in those he was smoking. I had some writing to do and was busily engaged at my typewriter when I suddenly became conscious of that feeling of being watched. Perhaps I had heard a footstep outside and did not remember it, but at any rate I had the feeling. I stopped tapping the keys suddenly and wheeled about in my chair just in time to catch a glimpse of a face dodging back from the window. I don't think that I would be prepared to swear just who it was, but there was just enough that was familiar about the fleeting glimpse of the eyes to make me feel uncomfortable. I ran to the door, but it was too late. The intruder had disappeared. Still, the more I thought about it, the more determined I was to verify my suspicions, if possible. I put on my hat and walked over to the registrar's office. Sure enough, Alfonso de Moche was registered in the summer school as well as in the regular course. I was now fully convinced that it was he who had been watching us. Not satisfied, I determined to make further inquiries about the young man. He had been at the University that morning, I learned from one of his professors, and that convinced me more than ever that he had employed at least a part of the time in spying on us. As I had expected, the professor told me that he was an excellent student, though very quiet and reserved. His mind seemed to run along the line of engineering and mining, especially, and I could not help drawing the conclusion that perhaps he, too, was infected by the furore for treasure hunting, in spite of his Indian ancestry. Nothing further occurred, however, during the day to excite suspicion and Craig listened with interest, though without comment, when I related what had happened. He divided his time during the rest of the day between some experimental work of his own and fits of deep reverie in which he was evidently trying to piece together the broken strands of the strange story in which we were now concerned. The package of cigarettes which he had ordered was delivered late in the afternoon. Kennedy had already wrapped up a small package of a powder and filled a small atomizer with some liquid. Stowing these things away in his pockets as best he could, with a little vial which he shoved into his waistcoat pocket, he announced that he was ready at last to take an early train to Atlantic Beach. We dined that night, as Craig had requested, with the Mendozas and Lockwood up in the sitting-room of Don Luis's suite. It was a delightfully situated room, overlooking the boardwalk and the ocean, and the fresh wind that was wafted in from the water made it quite the equal of a roof garden. Dinner had been ordered but not served, when Craig maneuvered to get a few minutes alone with Inez. Although I could not hear, I gathered that he was outlining at least a part of his plans to her and seeking her co-operation. She seemed to understand and approve, and I really believe that the dinner was the first in a long time that the distracted girl had really enjoyed. While we were waiting for it, I suddenly became aware that she had contrived to leave Kennedy and myself alone in the sitting-room for a moment. It was evidently part of Craig's plan. Instantly he opened a large case in which Mendoza kept cigarettes and hastily substituted for those in it an equal number of the cigarettes which he had had made. The dinner itself was more like a family party than a formal dinner, for Kennedy, when he wanted to do so, had a way of ingratiating himself and leading the conversation so that everyone was at his ease. Everything progressed smoothly until we came to the coffee. The Señorita poured, and as she raised the coffee pot Kennedy called our attention to a long line of colliers just on the edge of the horizon, slowly making their way up the coast. I was sitting next to the Señorita, not particularly interested in colliers at that moment. From a fold in her dress I saw her hastily draw a little vial and pour a bit of yellowish, syrupy liquid into the cup which she was preparing for her father. I could not help looking at her quickly. She saw me, then raised her finger to her lips with an explanatory glance at Kennedy, who was keeping the others interested in colliers. Instantly I recognized the little vial that Kennedy had shoved into his vest pocket. More coffee and innumerable cigarettes followed. I did my best to aid in the conversation, but my real interest was centered in Don Luis himself, whom I could not help watching closely. Was it a fact or was it merely imagination? He seemed quite different. The pupils of his eyes did not seem to be quite so dilated as they had been the night before. Even his heart action appeared to be more normal. I think the Señorita noticed it, too. Dinner over and darkness cutting off the magnificent sweep of ocean view, Inez suggested that we go down to the concert, as had been their custom. It was the first time that Kennedy had not seemed to fall in with any of her suggestions, but I knew that that, too, must be part of his preconcerted plan. "If you will pardon us," he excused, "Mr. Jameson and I have some friends over at Stillson Hall whom we have promised to run in to see. I think this would be a good opportunity. We'll rejoin you--in the alcove where we were last night, if possible." No one objected. In fact I think Lockwood was rather glad to have a chance to talk to Inez, for Kennedy had monopolized a great deal of her attention. We left them at the elevator, but instead of leaving the Inn Kennedy edged his way around into the shadow of a doorway where we could watch. Fortunately the Señorita managed to get the same settee in the corner which we had occupied the night before. A moment later I caught a glimpse of a familiar face at the long window opening on the veranda. Señora de Moche and her son had drawn up chairs, just outside. They had not seen us and, as far as we knew, had no reason to suspect that we were about. As we watched the two groups, I could not fail to note that the change in Don Luis was really marked. There was none of the wildness in his conversation, as there had been. Once he even met the keen eye of the Señora, but it did not seem to have the effect it had had on the previous occasion. "What was it you had the Señorita drop into his coffee?" I asked Craig under my breath. "You saw that?" he smiled. "It was pilocarpine, jaborandi, a plant found largely in Brazil, one of the antidotes for stramonium poisoning. It doesn't work with everyone. But it seems to have done so with Mendoza. Besides, the caffeine in the coffee probably aided the pilocarpine. Did you notice how it contracted his pupils almost back to normal again?" Kennedy did not take his eyes off the two groups as he talked. "I've got at the case from a brand-new angle, I think," he added. "Unless I am mistaken, when the criminal sees Don Luis getting better, it will mean another attempt to substitute more cigarettes doped with that drug." Satisfied so far with the play he was staging, Kennedy moved over to the hotel desk, and after a quiet conference with the head clerk, found out that the room next to the suite of the Mendozas was empty. The clerk gave him several keys and with a last look at the Señora and her son, to see whether they were getting restive, I followed Craig into the elevator and we rode up to the eighth floor again. The halls were deserted now and we entered the room next to the Mendozas without being observed. It was a simple matter after that to open a rather heavy door that communicated between the two suites. Instead of switching on the light, Kennedy first looked about carefully until he was assured that no one was there. Quickly he sprinkled on the floor from the hall door to the table on which the case of cigarettes lay some of the powder which I had seen him wrap up in the laboratory before we left. Then with the atomizer he sprayed over it something that had a pungent, familiar odor, walking backwards from the hall door as he did so. "Don't you want more light?" I asked, starting to cross to a window to raise a shade to let the moonlight stream in. "Don't walk on it, Walter," he whispered, pushing me back. "First I sprinkled some powdered iodine and then ammonia enough to moisten it. It evaporates quickly, leaving what I call my anti-burglar powder." He had finished his work and now the evening wind was blowing away the slight fumes that had risen. For a few moments he left the door into the next room open to clear away the odor, then quietly closed it, but did not lock it. In the darkness we settled ourselves now for a vigil that was to last we knew not how long. Neither of us spoke as we half crouched in the shadow of the next room, listening. Slowly the time passed. Would anyone take advantage of the opportunity to tamper with that box of cigarettes on Mendoza's table? Who was it who had conceived and executed this devilish plot? What was the purpose back of it all? Once or twice we heard the elevator door clang and waited expectantly, but nothing happened. I began to wonder whether if someone had a pass-key to the Mendoza suite we could hear them enter. The outside hall was thickly carpeted and deadened every footfall if one exercised only reasonable caution. "Don't you think we might leave the door ajar a little?" I suggested anxiously. "Sh!" was Kennedy's only comment in the negative. I glanced now and then at my watch and was surprised to see how early it was. The minutes were surely leaden-footed. In the darkness and silence I fell to reviewing the weird succession of events which had filled the past two days. I am not by nature superstitious, but in the darkness I could well imagine a staring succession of eyes, beginning with the dilated pupils of Don Luis and always ending with those remarkable piercing black eyes of the Indian woman with the melancholy-visaged son. Suddenly I heard in the next room what sounded like a series of little explosions, as though someone were treading on match-heads. "My burglar powder," muttered Craig in a hoarse whisper. "Every step, even those of a mouse running across, sets it off!" He rose quickly and threw open the door into the Mendoza suite. I sprang through after him. There, in the shadows, I saw a dark form, starting back in retreat. But it was too late. In the dim light of the little explosions, I caught a glimpse of a face--the face of the person who had been craftily working on the superstition of Don Luis, now that his influence had got from the government the precious concession, working with the dread drug to drive him insane and thus capture both Mendoza's share of the fortune as well as his daughter, well knowing that suspicion would rest on the jealous Indian woman with the wonderful eyes whose brother had already been driven insane and whose son Inez Mendoza really loved better than himself--the soldier of fortune, Lockwood. 
5087	----	THE TREASURE-TRAIN BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE TREASURE-TRAIN II. THE TRUTH-DETECTOR III. THE SOUL-ANALYSIS IV. THE MYSTIC POISONER V. THE PHANTOM DESTROYER VI. THE BEAUTY MASK VII. THE LOVE METER VIII. THE VITAL PRINCIPLE IX. THE RUBBER DAGGER X. THE SUBMARINE MINE XI. THE GUN-RUNNER XII. THE SUNKEN TREASURE I THE TREASURE-TRAIN "I am not by nature a spy, Professor Kennedy, but--well, sometimes one is forced into something like that." Maude Euston, who had sought out Craig in his laboratory, was a striking girl, not merely because she was pretty or because her gown was modish. Perhaps it was her sincerity and artlessness that made her attractive. She was the daughter of Barry Euston, president of the Continental Express Company, and one could readily see why, aside from the position her father held, she should be among the most-sought-after young women in the city. Miss Euston looked straight into Kennedy's eyes as she added, without waiting for him to ask a question: "Yesterday I heard something that has made me think a great deal. You know, we live at the St. Germaine when we are in town. I've noticed for several months past that the lobbies are full of strange, foreign-looking people. "Well, yesterday afternoon I was sitting alone in the tea-room of the hotel, waiting for some friends. On the other side of a huge palm I heard a couple whispering. I have seen the woman about the hotel often, though I know that she doesn't live there. The man I don't remember ever having seen before. They mentioned the name of Granville Barnes, treasurer of father's company--" "Is that so?" cut in Kennedy, quickly. "I read the story about him in the papers this morning." As for myself, I was instantly alive with interest, too. Granville Barnes had been suddenly stricken while riding in his car in the country, and the report had it that he was hovering between life and death in the General Hospital. The chauffeur had been stricken, too, by the same incomprehensible malady, though apparently not so badly. How the chauffeur managed to save the car was a miracle, but he brought it to a stop beside the road, where the two were found gasping, a quarter of an hour later, by a passing motorist, who rushed them to a doctor, who had them transferred to the hospital in the city. Neither of them seemed able or willing to throw any light on what had happened. "Just what was it you overheard?" encouraged Kennedy. "I heard the man tell the woman," Miss Euston replied, slowly, "that now was the chance--when any of the great warring powers would welcome and wink at any blow that might cripple the other to the slightest degree. I heard him say something about the Continental Express Company, and that was enough to make me listen, for, you know, father's company is handling the big shipments of gold and securities that are coming here from abroad by way of Halifax. Then I heard her mention the names of Mr. Barnes and of Mr. Lane, too, the general manager." She paused, as though not relishing the idea of having the names bandied about. "Last night the--the attack on him--for that is all that I can think it was--occurred." As she stopped again, I could not help thinking what a tale of strange plotting the casual conversation suggested. New York, I knew, was full of high-class international crooks and flimflammers who had flocked there because the great field of their operations in Europe was closed. The war had literally dumped them on us. Was some one using a band of these crooks for ulterior purposes? The idea opened up wide possibilities. "Of course," Miss Euston continued, "that is all I know; but I think I am justified in thinking that the two things--the shipment of gold here and the attack--have some connection. Oh, can't you take up the case and look into it?" She made her appeal so winsomely that it would have been difficult to resist even if it had not promised to prove important. "I should be glad to take up the matter," replied Craig, quickly, adding, "if Mr. Barnes will let me." "Oh, he must!" she cried. "I haven't spoken to father, but I know that he would approve of it. I know he thinks I haven't any head for business, just because I wasn't born a boy. I want to prove to him that I can protect the companies interests. And Mr. Barnes--why, of course he will approve." She said it with an assurance that made me wonder. It was only then that I recollected that it had been one of the excuses for printing her picture in the society columns of the Star so often that the pretty daughter of the president of the Continental was being ardently wooed by two of the company's younger officials. Granville Barnes himself was one. The other was Rodman Lane, the young general manager. I wished now that I had paid more attention to the society news. Perhaps I should have been in a better position to judge which of them it was whom she really had chosen. As it was, two questions presented themselves to me. Was it Barnes? And had Barnes really been the victim of an attack--or of an accident? Kennedy may have been thinking the problems over, but he gave no evidence of it. He threw on his hat and coat, and was ready in a moment to be driven in Miss Euston's car to the hospital. There, after the usual cutting of red tape which only Miss Euston could have accomplished, we were led by a white-uniformed nurse through the silent halls to the private room occupied by Barnes. "It's a most peculiar case," whispered the young doctor in charge, as we paused at the door. "I want you to notice his face and his cough. His pulse seems very weak, almost imperceptible at times. The stethoscope reveals subcrepitant sounds all over his lungs. It's like bronchitis or pneumonia--but it isn't either." We entered. Barnes was lying there almost in a state of unconsciousness. As we stood watching him he opened his eyes. But he did not see us. His vision seemed to be riveted on Miss Euston. He murmured something that we could not catch, and, as his eyes closed again, his face seemed to relax into a peaceful expression, as though he were dreaming of something happy. Suddenly, however, the old tense lines reappeared. Another idea seemed to have been suggested. "Is--Lane--hiring the men--himself?" he murmured. The sight of Maude Euston had prompted the thought of his rival, now with a clear field. What did it mean? Was he jealous of Lane, or did his words have a deeper meaning? What difference could it have made if Lane had a free hand in managing the shipment of treasure for the company? Kennedy looked long and carefully at the face of the sick man. It was blue and cyanosed still, and his lips had a violet tinge. Barnes had been coughing a great deal. Now and then his mouth was flecked with foamy blood, which the nurse wiped gently away. Kennedy picked up a piece of the blood-soaked gauze. A moment later we withdrew from the room as quietly as we had entered and tiptoed down the hall, Miss Euston and the young doctor following us more slowly. As we reached the door, I turned to see where she was. A distinguished-looking elderly gentleman, sitting in the waiting-room, had happened to glance up as she passed and had moved quickly to the hall. "What--you here, Maude?" we heard him say. "Yes, father. I thought I might be able to do something for Granville." She accompanied the remark with a sidelong glance and nod at us, which Kennedy interpreted to mean that we might as well keep in the background. Euston himself, far from chiding her, seemed rather to be pleased than otherwise. We could not hear all they said, but one sentence was wafted over. "It's most unfortunate, Maude, at just this time. It leaves the whole matter in the hands of Lane." At the mention of Lane, which her father accompanied by a keen glance, she flushed a little and bit her lip. I wondered whether it meant more than that, of the two suitors, her father obviously preferred Barnes. Euston had called to see Barnes, and, as the doctor led him up the hall again, Miss Euston rejoined us. "You need not drive us back," thanked Kennedy. "Just drop us at the Subway. I'll let you know the moment I have arrived at any conclusion." On the train we happened to run across a former classmate, Morehead, who had gone into the brokerage business. "Queer about that Barnes case, isn't it?" suggested Kennedy, after the usual greetings were over. Then, without suggesting that we were more than casually interested, "What does the Street think of it?" "It is queer," rejoined Morehead. "All the boys down-town are talking about it--wondering how it will affect the transit of the gold shipments. I don't know what would happen if there should be a hitch. But they ought to be able to run the thing through all right." "It's a pretty ticklish piece of business, then?" I suggested. "Well, you know the state of the market just now--a little push one way or the other means a lot. And I suppose you know that the insiders on the Street have boosted Continental Express up until it is practically one of the 'war stocks,' too. Well, good-by--here's my station." We had scarcely returned to the laboratory, however, when a car drove up furiously and a young man bustled in to see us. "You do not know me," he introduced, "but I am Rodman Lane, general manager of the Continental Express. You know our company has had charge of the big shipments of gold and securities to New York. I suppose you've read about what happened to Barnes, our treasurer. I don't know anything about it--haven't even time to find out. All I know is that it puts more work on me, and I'm nearly crazy already." I watched him narrowly. "We've had little trouble of any kind so far," he hurried on, "until just now I learned that all the roads over which we are likely to send the shipments have been finding many more broken rails than usual." Kennedy had been following him keenly. "I should like to see some samples of them," he observed. "You would?" said Lane, eagerly. "I've a couple of sections sawed from rails down at my office, where I asked the officials to send them." We made a hurried trip down to the express company's office. Kennedy examined the sections of rails minutely with a strong pocket-lens. "No ordinary break," he commented. "You can see that it was an explosive that was used--an explosive well and properly tamped down with wet clay. Without tamping, the rails would have been bent, not broken." "Done by wreckers, then?" Lane asked. "Certainly not defective rails," replied Kennedy. "Still, I don't think you need worry so much about them for the next train. You know what to guard against. Having been discovered, whoever they are, they'll probably not try it again. It's some new wrinkle that must be guarded against." It was small comfort, but Craig was accustomed to being brutally frank. "Have you taken any other precautions now that you didn't take before?" "Yes," replied Lane, slowly; "the railroad has been experimenting with wireless on its trains. We have placed wireless on ours, too. They can't cut us off by cutting wires. Then, of course, as before, we shall use a pilot-train to run ahead and a strong guard on the train itself. But now I feel that there may be something else that we can do. So I have come to you." "When does the next shipment start?" asked Kennedy. "To-morrow, from Halifax." Kennedy appeared to be considering something. "The trouble," he said, at length, "is likely to be at this end. Perhaps before the train starts something may happen that will tell us just what additional measures to take as it approaches New York." While Kennedy was at work with the blood-soaked gauze that he had taken from Barnes, I could do nothing but try to place the relative positions of the various actors in the little drama that was unfolding. Lane himself puzzled me. Sometimes I felt almost sure that he knew that Miss Euston had come to Kennedy, and that he was trying, in this way, to keep in touch with what was being done for Barnes. Some things I knew already. Barnes was comparatively wealthy, and had evidently the stamp of approval of Maude Euston's father. As for Lane, he was far from wealthy, although ambitious. The company was in a delicate situation where an act of omission would count for as much as an act of commission. Whoever could foresee what was going to happen might capitalize that information for much money. If there was a plot and Barnes had been a victim, what was its nature? I recalled Miss Euston's overheard conversation in the tea-room. Both names had been mentioned. In short, I soon found myself wondering whether some one might not have tempted Lane either to do or not to do something. "I wish you'd go over to the St. Germaine, Walter," remarked Kennedy, at length, looking up from his work. "Don't tell Miss Euston of Lane's visit. But ask her if she will keep an eye out for that woman she heard talking--and the man, too. They may drop in again. And tell her that if she hears anything else, no matter how trivial, about Barnes, she must let me know." I was glad of the commission. Not only had I been unable to arrive anywhere in my conjectures, but it was something even to have a chance to talk with a girl like Maude Euston. Fortunately I found her at home and, though she was rather disappointed that I had nothing to report, she received me graciously, and we spent the rest of the evening watching the varied life of the fashionable hostelry in the hope of chancing on the holders of the strange conversation in the tea-room. Once in a while an idea would occur to her of some one who was in a position to keep her informed if anything further happened to Barnes, and she would despatch a messenger with a little note. Finally, as it grew late and the adventuress of the tea-room episode seemed unlikely to favor the St. Germaine with her presence again that night, I made my excuses, having had the satisfaction only of having delivered Kennedy's message, without accomplishing anything more. In fact, I was still unable to determine whether there was any sentiment stronger than sympathy that prompted her to come to Kennedy about Barnes. As for Lane, his name was scarcely mentioned except when it was necessary. It was early the next morning that I rejoined Craig at the laboratory. I found him studying the solution which he had extracted from the blood-soaked gauze after first removing the blood in a little distilled water. Before him was his new spectroscope, and I could see that now he was satisfied with what the uncannily delicate light-detective had told him. He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall into a little fresh distilled water, some of which he placed in the spectroscope. "Look through it," he said. "Blood diluted with water shows the well-known dark bands between D and E, known as the oxyhemoglobin absorption." I looked as he indicated and saw the dark bands. "Now," he went on, "I add some of this other liquid." He picked up a bottle of something with a faint greenish tinge. "See the bands gradually fade?" I watched, and indeed they did diminish in intensity and finally disappear, leaving an uninterrupted and brilliant spectrum. "My spectroscope," he said, simply, "shows that the blood-crystals of Barnes are colorless. Barnes was poisoned--by some gas, I think. I wish I had time to hunt along the road where the accident took place." As he said it, he walked over and drew from a cabinet several peculiar arrangements made of gauze. He was about to say something more when there came a knock at the door. Kennedy shoved the gauze arrangements into his pocket and opened it. It was Maude Euston, breathless and agitated. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, have you heard?" she cried. "You asked me to keep a watch whether anything more happened to Mr. Barnes. So I asked some friends of his to let me know of anything. He has a yacht, the Sea Gull, which has been lying off City Island. Well, last night the captain received a message to go to the hospital, that Mr. Barnes wanted to see him. Of course it was a fake. Mr. Barnes was too sick to see anybody on business. But when the captain got back, he found that, on one pretext or another, the crew had been got ashore--and the Sea Gull is gone--stolen! Some men in a small boat must have overpowered the engineer. Anyhow, she has disappeared. I know that no one could expect to steal a yacht--at least for very long. She'd be recognized soon. But they must know that, too." Kennedy looked at his watch. "It is only a few hours since the train started from Halifax," he considered. "It will be due in New York early to-morrow morning--twenty million dollars in gold and thirty millions in securities--a seven-car steel train, with forty armed guards!" "I know it," she said, anxiously, "and I am so afraid something is going to happen--ever since I had to play the spy. But what could any one want with a yacht?" Kennedy shrugged his shoulders non-committally. "It is one of the things that Mr. Lane must guard against," he remarked, simply. She looked up quickly. "Mr. Lane?" she repeated. "Yes," replied Kennedy; "the protection of the train has fallen on him. I shall meet the train myself when it gets to Worcester and come in on it. I don't think there can be any danger before it reaches that point." "Will Mr. Lane go with you?" "He must," decided Kennedy. "That train must be delivered safely here in this city." Maude Euston gave Craig one of her penetrating, direct looks. "You think there is danger, then?" "I cannot say," he replied. "Then I am going with you!" she exclaimed. Kennedy paused and met her eyes. I do not know whether he read what was back of her sudden decision. At least I could not, unless there was something about Rodman Lane which she wished to have cleared up. Kennedy seemed to read her character and know that a girl like Maude Euston would be a help in any emergency. "Very well," he agreed; "meet us at Mr. Lane's office in half an hour. Walter, see whether you can find Whiting." Whiting was one of Kennedy's students with whom he had been lately conducting some experiments. I hurried out and managed to locate him. "What is it you suspect?" I asked, when we returned. "A wreck--some spectacular stroke at the nations that are shipping the gold?" "Perhaps," he replied, absently, as he and Whiting hurriedly assembled some parts of instruments that were on a table in an adjoining room. "Perhaps?" I repeated. "What else might there be?" "Robbery." "Robbery!" I exclaimed. "Of twenty million dollars? Why, man, just consider the mere weight of the metal!" "That's all very well," he replied, warming up a bit as he saw that Whiting was getting things together quickly. "But it needs only a bit of twenty millions to make a snug fortune--" He paused and straightened up as the gathering of the peculiar electrical apparatus, whatever it was, was completed. "And," he went on quickly, "consider the effect on the stock-market of the news. That's the big thing." I could only gasp. "A modern train-robbery, planned in the heart of dense traffic!" "Why not?" he queried. "Nothing is impossible if you can only take the other fellow unawares. Our job is not to be taken unawares. Are you ready, Whiting?" "Yes, sir," replied the student, shouldering the apparatus, for which I was very thankful, for my arms had frequently ached carrying about some of Kennedy's weird but often weighty apparatus. We piled into a taxicab and made a quick journey to the office of the Continental Express. Maude Euston had already preceded us, and we found her standing by Lane's desk as he paced the floor. "Please, Miss Euston, don't go," he was saying as we entered. "But I want to go," she persisted, more than ever determined, apparently. "I have engaged Professor Kennedy just for the purpose of foreseeing what new attack can be made on us," he said. "You have engaged Professor Kennedy?" she asked. "I think I have a prior claim there, haven't I?" she appealed. Kennedy stood for a moment looking from one to the other. What was there in the motives that actuated them? Was it fear, hate, love, jealousy? "I can serve my two clients only if they yield to me," Craig remarked, quietly. "Don't set that down, Whiting. Which is it--yes or no?" Neither Lane nor Miss Euston looked at each other for a moment. "Is it in my hands?" repeated Craig. "Yes," bit off Lane, sourly. "And you, Miss Euston?" "Of course," she answered. "Then we all go," decided Craig. "Lane, may I install this thing in your telegraph-room outside?" "Anything you say," Lane returned, unmollified. Whiting set to work immediately, while Kennedy gave him the final instructions. Neither Lane nor Miss Euston spoke a word, even when I left the room for a moment, fearing that three was a crowd. I could not help wondering whether she might not have heard something more from the woman in the tea-room conversation than she had told us. If she had, she had been more frank with Lane than with us. She must have told him. Certainly she had not told us. It was the only way I could account for the armed truce that seemed to exist as, hour after hour, our train carried us nearer the point where we were to meet the treasure-train. At Worcester we had still a long wait for the argosy that was causing so much anxiety and danger. It was long after the time scheduled that we left finally, on our return journey, late at night. Ahead of us went a dummy pilot-train to be sacrificed if any bridges or trestles were blown up or if any new attempts were made at producing artificially broken rails. We four established ourselves as best we could in a car in the center of the treasure-train, with one of the armed guards as company. Mile after mile we reeled off, ever southward and westward. We must have crossed the State of Connecticut and have been approaching Long Island Sound, when suddenly the train stopped with a jerk. Ordinarily there is nothing to grow alarmed about at the mere stopping of a train. But this was an unusual train under unusual circumstances. No one said a word as we peered out. Down the track the signals seemed to show a clear road. What was the matter? "Look!" exclaimed Kennedy, suddenly. Off a distance ahead I could see what looked like a long row of white fuses sticking up in the faint starlight. From them the fresh west wind seemed to blow a thick curtain of greenish-yellow smoke which swept across the track, enveloping the engine and the forward cars and now advancing toward us like the "yellow wind" of northern China. It seemed to spread thickly on the ground, rising scarcely more than sixteen or eighteen feet. A moment and the cloud began to fill the air about us. There was a paralyzing odor. I looked about at the others, gasping and coughing. As the cloud rolled on, inexorably increasing in density, it seemed literally to grip the lungs. It flashed over me that already the engineer and fireman had been overcome, though not before the engineer had been able to stop the train. As the cloud advanced, the armed guards ran from it, shouting, one now and then falling, overcome. For the moment none of us knew what to do. Should we run and desert the train for which we had dared so much? To stay was death. Quickly Kennedy pulled from his pocket the gauze arrangements he had had in his hand that morning just as Miss Euston's knock had interrupted his conversation with me. Hurriedly he shoved one into Miss Euston's hands, then to Lane, then to me, and to the guard who was with us. "Wet them!" he cried, as he fitted his own over his nose and staggered to a water-cooler. "What is it?" I gasped, hoarsely, as we all imitated his every action. "Chlorin gas," he rasped back, "the same gas that overcame Granville Barnes. These masks are impregnated with a glycerin solution of sodium phosphate. It was chlorin that destroyed the red coloring matter in Barnes's blood. No wonder, when this action of just a whiff of it on us is so rapid. Even a short time longer and death would follow. It destroys without the possibility of reconstitution, and it leaves a dangerous deposit of albumin. How do you feel?" "All right," I lied. We looked out again. The things that looked like fuses were not bombs, as I had expected, but big reinforced bottles of gas compressed at high pressure, with the taps open. The supply was not inexhaustible. In fact, it was decidedly limited. But it seemed to have been calculated to a nicety to do the work. Only the panting of the locomotive now broke the stillness as Kennedy and I moved forward along the track. Crack! rang out a shot. "Get on the other side of the train--quick!" ordered Craig. In the shadow, aside from the direction in which the wind was wafting the gas, we could now just barely discern a heavy but powerful motor-truck and figures moving about it. As I peered out from the shelter of the train, I realized what it all meant. The truck, which had probably conveyed the gas-tanks from the rendezvous where they had been collected, was there now to convey to some dark wharf what of the treasure could be seized. There the stolen yacht was waiting to carry it off. "Don't move--don't fire," cautioned Kennedy. "Perhaps they will think it was only a shadow they saw. Let them act first. They must. They haven't any too much time. Let them get impatient." For some minutes we waited. Sure enough, separated widely, but converging toward the treasure-train at last, we could see several dark figures making their way from the road across a strip of field and over the rails. I made a move with my gun. "Don't," whispered Kennedy. "Let them get together." His ruse was clever. Evidently they thought that it had been indeed a wraith at which they had fired. Swiftly now they hurried to the nearest of the gold-laden cars. We could hear them, breaking in where the guards had either been rendered unconscious or had fled. I looked around at Maude Euston. She was the calmest of us all as she whispered: "They are in the car. Can't we DO something?" "Lane," whispered Kennedy, "crawl through under the trucks with me. Walter, and you, Dugan," he added, to the guard, "go down the other side. We must rush them--in the car." As Kennedy crawled under the train again I saw Maude Euston follow Lane closely. How it happened I cannot describe, for the simple reason that I don't remember. I know that it was a short, sharp dash, that the fight was a fight of fists in which guns were discharged wildly in the air against the will of the gunner. But from the moment when Kennedy's voice rang out in the door, "Hands up!" to the time that I saw that we had the robbers lined up with their backs against the heavy cases of the precious metal for which they had planned and risked so much, it is a blank of grim death-struggle. I remember my surprise at seeing one of them a woman, and I thought I must be mistaken. I looked about. No; there was Maude Euston standing just beside Lane. I think it must have been that which recalled me and made me realize that it was a reality and not a dream. The two women stood glaring at each other. "The woman in the tea-room!" exclaimed Miss Euston. "It was about this--robbery--then, that I heard you talking the other afternoon." I looked at the face before me. It was, had been, a handsome face. But now it was cold and hard, with that heartless expression of the adventuress. The men seemed to take their plight hard. But, as she looked into the clear, gray eyes of the other woman, the adventuress seemed to gain rather than lose in defiance. "Robbery?" she repeated, bitterly. "This is only a beginning." "A beginning. What do you mean?" It was Lane who spoke. Slowly she turned toward him. "You know well enough what I mean." The implication that she intended was clear. She had addressed the remark to him, but it was a stab at Maude Euston. "I know only what you wanted me to do--and I refused. Is there more still?" I wondered whether Lane could really have been involved. "Quick--what DO you mean?" demanded Kennedy, authoritatively. The woman turned to him: "Suppose this news of the robbery is out? What will happen? Do you want me to tell you, young lady?" she added, turning again to Maude Euston. "I'll tell you. The stock of the Continental Express Company will fall like a house of cards. And then? Those who have sold it at the top price will buy it back again at the bottom. The company is sound. The depression will not last--perhaps will be over in a day, a week, a month. Then the operators can send it up again. Don't you see? It is the old method of manipulation in a new form. It is a war-stock gamble. Other stocks will be affected the same way. This is our reward--what we can get out of it by playing this game for which the materials are furnished free. We have played it--and lost. The manipulators will get their reward on the stock-market this morning. But they must still reckon with us--even if we have lost." She said it with a sort of grim humor. "And you have put Granville Barnes out of the way, first?" I asked, remembering the chlorin. She laughed shrilly. "That was an accident--his own carelessness. He was carrying a tank of it for us. Only his chauffeur's presence of mind in throwing it into the shrubbery by the road saved his life and reputation. No, young man; he was one of the manipulators, too. But the chief of them was--" She paused as if to enjoy one brief moment of triumph at least. "The president of the company," she added. "No, no, no!" cried Maude Euston. "Yes, yes, yes! He does not dare deny it. They were all in it." "Mrs. Labret--you lie!" towered Lane, in a surging passion, as he stepped forward and shook his finger at her. "You lie and you know it. There is an old saying about the fury of a woman scorned." She paid no attention to him whatever. "Maude Euston," she hissed, as though Lane had been as inarticulate as the boxes of gold about, "you have saved your lover's reputation--perhaps. At least the shipment is safe. But you have ruined your father. The deal will go through. Already that has been arranged. You may as well tell Kennedy to let us go and let the thing go through. It involves more than us." Kennedy had been standing back a bit, carefully keeping them all covered. He glanced a moment out of the corner of his eye at Maude Euston, but said nothing. It was a terrible situation. Had Lane really been in it? That question was overshadowed by the mention of her father. Impulsively she turned to Craig. "Oh, save him!" she cried. "Can't anything be done to save my father in spite of himself?" "It is too late," mocked Mrs. Labret. "People will read the account of the robbery in the papers, even if it didn't take place. They will see it before they see a denial. Orders will flood in to sell the stock. No; it can't be stopped." Kennedy glanced momentarily at me. "Is there still time to catch the last morning edition of the Star, Walter?" he asked, quietly. I glanced at my watch. "We may try. It's possible." "Write a despatch--an accident to the engine--train delayed--now proceeding--anything. Here, Dugan, you keep them covered. Shoot to kill if there's a move." Kennedy had begun feverishly setting up the part of the apparatus which he had brought after Whiting had set up his. "What can you do?" hissed Mrs. Labret. "You can't get word through. Orders have been issued that the telegraph operators are under no circumstances to give out news about this train. The wireless is out of commission, too--the operator overcome. The robbery story has been prepared and given out by this time. Already reporters are being assigned to follow it up." I looked over at Kennedy. If orders had been given for such secrecy by Barry Euston, how could my despatch do any good? It would be held back by the operators. Craig quickly slung a wire over those by the side of the track and seized what I had written, sending furiously. "What are you doing?" I asked. "You heard what she said." "One thing you can be certain of," he answered, "that despatch can never be stolen or tapped by spies." "Why--what is this?" I asked, pointing to the instrument. "The invention of Major Squier, of the army," he replied, "by which any number of messages may be sent at the same time over the same wire without the slightest conflict. Really it consists in making wireless electric waves travel along, instead of inside, the wire. In other words, he had discovered the means of concentrating the energy of a wireless wave on a given point instead of letting it riot all over the face of the earth. "It is the principle of wireless. But in ordinary wireless less than one-millionth part of the original sending force reaches the point for which it is intended. The rest is scattered through space in all directions. If the vibrations of a current are of a certain number per second, the current will follow a wire to which it is, as it were, attached, instead of passing off into space. "All the energy in wireless formerly wasted in radiation in every direction now devotes itself solely to driving the current through the ether about the wire. Thus it goes until it reaches the point where Whiting is--where the vibrations correspond to its own and are in tune. There it reproduces the sending impulse. It is wired wireless." Craig had long since finished sending his wired wireless message. We waited impatiently. The seconds seemed to drag like hours. Far off, now, we could hear a whistle as a train finally approached slowly into our block, creeping up to see what was wrong. But that made no difference now. It was not any help they could give us that we wanted. A greater problem, the saving of one man's name and the re-establishment of another, confronted us. Unexpectedly the little wired wireless instrument before us began to buzz. Quickly Kennedy seized a pencil and wrote as the message that no hand of man could interfere with was flashed back to us. "It is for you, Walter, from the Star," he said, simply handing me what he had written on the back of an old envelope. I read, almost afraid to read: Robbery story killed. Black type across page-head last edition, "Treasure-train safe!" McGRATH. "Show it to Miss Euston," Craig added, simply, gathering up his wired wireless set, just as the crew from the train behind us ran up. "She may like to know that she has saved her father from himself through misunderstanding her lover." I thought Maude Euston would faint as she clutched the message. Lane caught her as she reeled backward. "Rodman--can you--forgive me?" she murmured, simply, yielding to him and looking up into his face. II THE TRUTH DETECTOR "You haven't heard--no one outside has heard--of the strange illness and the robbery of my employer, Mr. Mansfield--'Diamond Jack' Mansfield, you know." Our visitor was a slight, very pretty, but extremely nervous girl, who had given us a card bearing the name Miss Helen Grey. "Illness--robbery?" repeated Kennedy, at once interested and turning a quick glance at me. I shrugged my shoulders in the negative. Neither the Star nor any of the other papers had had a word about it. "Why, what's the trouble?" he continued to Miss Grey. "You see," she explained, hurrying on, "I'm Mr. Mansfield's private secretary, and--oh, Professor Kennedy, I don't know, but I'm afraid it is a case for a detective rather than a doctor." She paused a moment and leaned forward nearer to us. "I think he has been poisoned!" The words themselves were startling enough without the evident perturbation of the girl. Whatever one might think, there was no doubt that she firmly believed what she professed to fear. More than that, I fancied I detected a deeper feeling in her tone than merely loyalty to her employer. "Diamond Jack" Mansfield was known in Wall Street as a successful promoter, on the White Way as an assiduous first-nighter, in the sporting fraternity as a keen plunger. But of all his hobbies, none had gained him more notoriety than his veritable passion for collecting diamonds. He came by his sobriquet honestly. I remembered once having seen him, and he was, in fact, a walking De Beers mine. For his personal adornment, more than a million dollars' worth of gems did relay duty. He had scores of sets, every one of them fit for a king of diamonds. It was a curious hobby for a great, strong man, yet he was not alone in his love of and sheer affection for things beautiful. Not love of display or desire to attract notice to himself had prompted him to collect diamonds, but the mere pleasure of owning them, of associating with them. It was a hobby. It was not strange, therefore, to suspect that Mansfield might, after all, have been the victim of some kind of attack. He went about with perfect freedom, in spite of the knowledge that crooks must have possessed about his hoard. "What makes you think he has been poisoned?" asked Kennedy, betraying no show of doubt that Miss Grey might be right. "Oh, it's so strange, so sudden!" she murmured. "But how do you think it could have happened?" he persisted. "It must have been at the little supper-party he gave at his apartment last night," she answered, thoughtfully, then added, more slowly, "and yet, it was not until this morning, eight or ten hours after the party, that he became ill." She shuddered. "Paroxysms of nausea, followed by stupor and such terrible prostration. His valet discovered him and sent for Doctor Murray--and then for me." "How about the robbery?" prompted Kennedy, as it became evident that it was Mansfield's physical condition more than anything else that was on Miss Grey's mind. "Oh yes"--she recalled herself--"I suppose you know something of his gems? Most people do." Kennedy nodded. "He usually keeps them in a safe-deposit vault downtown, from which he will get whatever set he feels like wearing. Last night it was the one he calls his sporting-set that he wore, by far the finest. It cost over a hundred thousand dollars, and is one of the most curious of all the studies in personal adornment that he owns. All the stones are of the purest blue-white and the set is entirely based on platinum. "But what makes it most remarkable is that it contains the famous M-1273, as he calls it. The M stands for Mansfield, and the figures represent the number of stones he had purchased up to the time that he acquired this huge one." "How could they have been taken, do you think?" ventured Kennedy. Miss Grey shook her head doubtfully. "I think the wall safe must have been opened somehow," she returned. Kennedy mechanically wrote the number, M-1273, on a piece of paper. "It has a weird history," she went on, observing what he had written, "and this mammoth blue-white diamond in the ring is as blue as the famous Hope diamond that has brought misfortune through half the world. This stone, they say, was pried from the mouth of a dying negro in South Africa. He had tried to smuggle it from the mine, and when he was caught cursed the gem and every one who ever should own it. One owner in Amsterdam failed; another in Antwerp committed suicide; a Russian nobleman was banished to Siberia, and another went bankrupt and lost his home and family. Now here it is in Mr. Mansfield's life. I--I hate it!" I could not tell whether it was the superstition or the recent events themselves which weighed most in her mind, but, at any rate, she resumed, somewhat bitterly, a moment later: "M-1273! M is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, and 1, 2, 7, 3 add up to thirteen. The first and last numbers make thirteen, and John Mansfield has thirteen letters in his name. I wish he had never worn the thing--never bought it!" The more I listened to her the more impressed I was with the fact that there was something more here than the feeling of a private secretary. "Who were in the supper-party?" asked Kennedy. "He gave it for Madeline Hargrave--the pretty little actress, you know, who took New York by storm last season in 'The Sport' and is booked, next week, to appear in the new show, 'The Astor Cup.'" Miss Grey said it, I thought, with a sort of wistful envy. Mansfield's gay little bohemian gatherings were well known. Though he was not young, he was still somewhat of a Lothario. "Who else was there?" asked Kennedy. "Then there was Mina Leitch, a member of Miss Hargrave's new company," she went on. "Another was Fleming Lewis, the Wall Street broker. Doctor Murray and myself completed the party." "Doctor Murray is his personal physician?" ventured Craig. "Yes. You know when Mr. Mansfield's stomach went back on him last year it was Doctor Murray who really cured him." Kennedy nodded. "Might this present trouble be a recurrence of the old trouble?" She shook her head. "No; this is entirely different. Oh, I wish that you could go with me and see him!" she pleaded. "I will," agreed Kennedy. A moment later we were speeding in a taxicab over to the apartment. "Really," she remarked, nervously, "I feel lost with Mr. Mansfield so ill. He has so many interests downtown that require constant attention that just the loss of time means a great deal. Of course, I understand many of them--but, you know, a private secretary can't conduct a man's business. And just now, when I came up from the office, I couldn't believe that he was too ill to care about things until I actually saw him." We entered the apartment. A mere glance about showed that; even though Mansfield's hobby was diamonds, he was no mean collector of other articles of beauty. In the big living-room, which was almost like a studio, we met a tall, spare, polished-mannered man, whom I quickly recognized as Doctor Murray. "Is he any better?" blurted out Miss Grey, even before our introductions were over. Doctor Murray shook his head gravely. "About the same," he answered, though one could find little reassurance in his tone. "I should like to see him," hinted Kennedy, "unless there is some real reason why I should not." "No," replied the doctor, absently; "on the contrary, it might perhaps rouse him." He led the way down the hall, and Kennedy and I followed, while Miss Grey attempted to busy herself over some affairs at a huge mahogany table in the library just off the living-room. Mansfield had shown the same love of luxury and the bizarre even in the furnishing of his bedroom, which was a black-and-white room with furniture of Chinese lacquer and teakwood. Kennedy looked at the veteran plunger long and thoughtfully as he lay stretched out, listless, on the handsome bed. Mansfield seemed completely indifferent to our presence. There was something uncanny about him. Already his face was shrunken, his skin dark, and his eyes were hollow. "What do you suppose it is?" asked Kennedy, bending over him, and then rising and averting his head so that Mansfield could not hear, even if his vagrant faculties should be attracted. "His pulse is terribly weak and his heart scarcely makes a sound." Doctor Murray's face knit in deep lines. "I'm afraid," he said, in a low tone, "that I will have to admit not having been able to diagnose the trouble, I was just considering whom I might call in." "What have you done?" asked Kennedy, as the two moved a little farther out of ear-shot of the patient. "Well," replied the doctor, slowly, "when his valet called me in, I must admit that my first impression was that I had to deal with a case of diphtheria. I was so impressed that I even took a blood smear and examined it. It showed the presence of a tox albumin. But it isn't diphtheria. The antitoxin has had no effect. No; it isn't diphtheria. But the poison is there. I might have thought it was cholera, only that seems so impossible here in New York." Doctor Murray looked at Kennedy with no effort to conceal his perplexity. "Over and over I have asked myself what it could be," he went on. "It seems to me that I have thought over about everything that is possible. Always I get back to the fact that there is that tox albumin present. In some respects, it seems like the bite of a poisonous animal. There are no marks, of course, and it seems altogether impossible, yet it acts precisely as I have seen snake bites affect people. I am that desperate that I would try the Noguchi antivenene, but it would have no more effect than the antitoxin. No; I can only conclude that there is some narcotic irritant which especially affects the lungs and heart." "Will you let me have one of the blood smears?" asked Kennedy. "Certainly," replied the doctor, reaching over and taking a glass slide from several lying on a table. For some time after we left the sick-room Craig appeared to be considering what Doctor Murray had said. Seeking to find Miss Grey in the library, we found ourselves in the handsome, all-wood-paneled dining-room. It still showed evidences of the late banquet of the night before. Craig paused a moment in doubt which way to go, then picked up from the table a beautifully decorated menu-card. As he ran his eye down it mechanically, he paused. "Champignons," he remarked, thoughtfully. "H-m!--mushrooms." Instead of going on toward the library, he turned and passed through a swinging door into the kitchen. There was no one there, but it was in a much more upset condition than the dining-room. "Pardon, monsieur," sounded a voice behind us. It was the French chef who had entered from the direction of the servants' quarters, and was now all apologies for the untidy appearance of the realm over which he presided. The strain of the dinner had been too much for his assistants, he hastened to explain. "I see that you had mushrooms--creamed," remarked Kennedy. "Oui, monsieur," he replied; "some that Miss Hargrave herself sent in from her mushroom-cellar out in the country." As he said it his eye traveled involuntarily toward a pile of ramekins on a table. Kennedy noticed it and deliberately walked over to the table. Before I knew what he was about he had scooped from them each a bit of the contents and placed it in some waxed paper that was lying near by. The chef watched him curiously. "You would not find my kitchen like this ordinarily," he remarked. "I would not like to have Doctor Murray see it, for since last year, when monsieur had the bad stomach, I have been very careful." The chef seemed to be nervous. "You prepared the mushrooms yourself?" asked Kennedy, suddenly. "I directed my assistant," came back the wary reply. "But you know good mushrooms when you see them?" "Certainly," he replied, quickly. "There was no one else in the kitchen while you prepared them?" "Yes," he answered, hurriedly; "Mr. Mansfield came in, and Miss Hargrave. Oh, they are very particular! And Doctor Murray, he has given me special orders ever since last year, when monsieur had the bad stomach," he repeated. "Was any one else here?" "Yes--I think so. You see, I am so excited--a big dinner--such epicures--everything must be just so--I cannot say." There seemed to be little satisfaction in quizzing the chef, and Kennedy turned again into the dining-room, making his way back to the library, where Miss Grey was waiting anxiously for us. "What do you think?" she asked, eagerly. "I don't know what to think," replied Kennedy. "No one else has felt any ill effects from the supper, I suppose?" "No," she replied; "at least, I'm sure I would have heard by this time if they had." "Do you recall anything peculiar about the mushrooms?" shot out Kennedy. "We talked about them some time, I remember," she said, slowly. "Growing mushrooms is one of Miss Hargrave's hobbies out at her place on Long Island." "Yes," persisted Kennedy; "but I mean anything peculiar about the preparation of them." "Why, yes," she said, suddenly; "I believe that Miss Hargrave was to have superintended them herself. We all went out into the kitchen. But it was too late. They had been prepared already." "You were all in the kitchen?" "Yes; I remember. It was before the supper and just after we came in from the theater-party which Mr. Mansfield gave. You know Mr. Mansfield is always doing unconventional things like that. If he took a notion, he would go into the kitchen of the Ritz." "That is what I was trying to get out of the chef--Francois," remarked Kennedy. "He didn't seem to have a very clear idea of what happened. I think I'll see him again--right away." We found the chef busily at work, now, cleaning up. As Kennedy asked him a few inconsequential questions, his eye caught a row of books on a shelf. It was a most complete library of the culinary arts. Craig selected one and turned the pages over rapidly. Then he came back to the frontispiece, which showed a model dinner-table set for a number of guests. He placed the picture before Francois, then withdrew it in, I should say, about ten seconds. It was a strange and incomprehensible action, but I was more surprised when Kennedy added: "Now tell me what you saw." Francois was quite overwhelming in his desire to please. Just what was going on in his mind I could not guess, nor did he betray it, but quickly he enumerated the objects on the table, gradually slowing up as the number which he recollected became exhausted. "Were there candles?" prompted Craig, as the flow of Francois's description ceased. "Oh yes, candles," he agreed, eagerly. "Favors at each place?" "Yes, sir." I could see no sense in the proceeding, yet knew Kennedy too well to suppose, for an instant, that he had not some purpose. The questioning over, Kennedy withdrew, leaving poor Francois more mystified than ever. "Well," I exclaimed, as we passed through the dining-room, "what was all that?" "That," he explained, "is what is known to criminologists as the 'Aussage test.' Just try it some time when you get a chance. If there are, say, fifty objects in a picture, normally a person may recall perhaps twenty of them." "I see," I interrupted; "a test of memory." "More than that," he replied. "You remember that, at the end, I suggested several things likely to be on the table. They were not there, as you might have seen if you had had the picture before you. That was a test of the susceptibility to suggestion of the chef. Francois may not mean to lie, but I'm afraid we'll have to get along without him in getting to the bottom of the case. You see, before we go any further we know that he is unreliable--to say the least. It may be that nothing at all happened in the kitchen to the mushrooms. We'll never discover it from him. We must get it elsewhere." Miss Grey had been trying to straighten out some of the snarls which Mansfield's business affairs had got into as a result of his illness; but it was evident that she had difficulty in keeping her mind on her work. "The next thing I'd like to see," asked Kennedy, when we rejoined her, "is that wall safe." She led the way down the hall and into an ante-room to Mansfield's part of the suite. The safe itself was a comparatively simple affair inside a closet. Indeed, I doubt whether it had been seriously designed to be burglar-proof. Rather it was merely a protection against fire. "Have you any suspicion about when the robbery took place?" asked Kennedy, as we peered into the empty compartment. "I wish I had been called in the first thing when it was discovered. There might have been some chance to discover fingerprints. But now, I suppose, every clue of that sort has been obliterated." "No," she replied; "I don't know whether it happened before or after Mr. Mansfield was discovered so ill by his valet." "But at least you can give me some idea of when the jewels were placed in the safe." "It must have been before the supper, right after our return from the theater." "So?" considered Kennedy. "Then that would mean that they might have been taken by any one, don't you see? Why did he place them in the safe so soon, instead of wearing them the rest of the evening?" "I hadn't thought of that way of looking at it," she admitted. "Why, when we came home from the theater I remember it had been so warm that Mr. Mansfield's collar was wilted and his dress shirt rumpled. He excused himself, and when he returned he was not wearing the diamonds. We noticed it, and Miss Hargrave expressed a wish that she might wear the big diamond at the opening night of 'The Astor Cup.' Mr. Mansfield promised that she might and nothing more was said about it." "Did you notice anything else at the dinner--no matter how trivial?" asked Kennedy. Helen Grey seemed to hesitate, then said, in a low voice, as though the words were wrung from her: "Of course, the party and the supper were given ostensibly to Miss Hargrave. But--lately--I have thought he was paying quite as much attention to Mina Leitch." It was quite in keeping with what we knew of "Diamond Jack." Perhaps it was this seeming fickleness which had saved him from many entangling alliances. Miss Grey said it in such a way that it seemed like an apology for a fault in his character which she would rather have hidden. I could not but fancy that it mitigated somewhat the wistful envy I had noticed before when she spoke of Madeline Hargrave. While he had been questioning her Kennedy had been examining the wall safe, particularly with reference to its accessibility from the rest of the apartment. There appeared to be no reason why one could not have got at it from the hallway as well as from Mansfield's room. The safe itself seemed to yield no clue, and Kennedy was about to turn away when he happened to glance down at the dark interior of the closet floor. He stooped down. When he rose he had something in his hand. It was just a little thin piece of something that glittered iridescently. "A spangle from a sequin dress," he muttered to himself; then, turning to Miss Grey, "Did any one wear such a dress last night?" Helen Grey looked positively frightened. "Miss Hargrave!" she murmured, simply. "Oh, it cannot be--there must be some mistake!" Just then we heard voices in the hall. "But, Murray, I don't see why I can't see him," said one. "What good will it do, Lewis?" returned the other, which I recognized as that of Doctor Murray. "Fleming Lewis," whispered Miss Grey, taking a step out into the hallway. A moment later Doctor Murray and Lewis had joined us. I could see that there was some feeling between the two men, though what it was about I could not say. As Miss Grey introduced us, I glanced hastily out of the corner of my eye at Kennedy. Involuntarily his hand which held the telltale sequin had sought his waistcoat pocket, as though to hide it. Then I saw him check the action and deliberately examine the piece of tinsel between his thumb and forefinger. Doctor Murray saw it, too, and his eyes were riveted on it, as though instantly he saw its significance. "What do you think--Jack as sick as a dog, and robbed, too, and yet Murray says I oughtn't to see him!" complained Lewis, for the moment oblivious to the fact that all our eyes were riveted on the spangle between Kennedy's fingers. And then, slowly it seemed to dawn on him what it was. "Madeline's!" he exclaimed, quickly. "So Mina did tear it, after all, when she stepped on the train." Kennedy watched the faces before us keenly. No one said anything. It was evident that some such incident had happened. But had Lewis, with a quick flash of genius, sought to cover up something, protect somebody? Miss Grey was evidently anxious to transfer the scene at least to the living-room, away from the sick-room, and Kennedy, seeing it, fell in with the idea. "Looks to me as though this robbery was an inside affair," remarked Lewis, as we all stood for a moment in the living-room. "Do you suppose one of the servants could have been 'planted' for the purpose of pulling it off?" The idea was plausible enough. Yet, plausible as the suggestion might seem, it took no account of the other circumstances of the case. I could not believe that the illness of Mansfield was merely an unfortunate coincidence. Fleming Lewis's unguarded and blunt tendency to blurt out whatever seemed uppermost in his mind soon became a study to me as we talked together in the living-room. I could not quite make out whether it was studied and astute or whether it was merely the natural exuberance of youth. There was certainly some sort of enmity between him and the doctor, which the remark about the spangle seemed to fan into a flame. Miss Grey manoeuvered tactfully, however, to prevent a scene. And, after an interchange of remarks that threw more heat than light on the matter, Kennedy and I followed Lewis out to the elevator, with a parting promise to keep in touch with Miss Grey. "What do you think of the spangle?" I queried of Craig as Lewis bade us a hasty good-by and climbed into his car at the street-entrance. "Is it a clue or a stall?" "That remains to be seen," he replied, noncommittally. "Just now the thing that interests me most is what I can accomplish at the laboratory in the way of finding out what is the matter with Mansfield." While Kennedy was busy with the various solutions which he made of the contents of the ramekins that had held the mushrooms, I wandered over to the university library and waded through several volumes on fungi without learning anything of value. Finally, knowing that Kennedy would probably be busy for some time, and that all I should get for my pains by questioning him would be monosyllabic grunts until he was quite convinced that he was on the trail of something, I determined to run into the up-town office of the Star and talk over the affair as well as I could without violating what I felt had been given us in confidence. I could not, it turned out, have done anything better, for it seemed to be the gossip of the Broadway cafes and cabarets that Mansfield had been plunging rather deeply lately and had talked many of his acquaintances into joining him in a pool, either outright or on margins. It seemed to be a safe bet that not only Lewis and Doctor Murray had joined him, but that Madeline Hargrave and Mina Leitch, who had had a successful season and some spare thousands to invest, might have gone in, too. So far the fortunes of the stock-market had not smiled on Mansfield's schemes, and, I reflected, it was not impossible that what might be merely an incident to a man like Mansfield could be very serious to the rest of them. It was the middle of the afternoon when I returned to the laboratory with my slender budget of news. Craig was quite interested in what I had to say, even pausing for a few moments in his work to listen. In several cages I saw that he had a number of little guinea-pigs. One of them was plainly in distress, and Kennedy had been watching him intently. "It's strange," he remarked. "I had samples of material from six ramekins. Five of them seem to have had no effect whatever. But if the bit that I gave this fellow causes such distress, what would a larger quantity do?" "Then one of the ramekins was poisoned?" I questioned. "I have discovered in it, as well as in the blood smear, the tox albumin that Doctor Murray mentioned," he said, simply, pulling out his watch. "It isn't late. I think I shall have to take a trip out to Miss Hargrave's. We ought to do it in an hour and a half in a car." Kennedy said very little as we sped out over the Long Island roads that led to the little colony of actors and actresses at Cedar Grove. He seemed rather to be enjoying the chance to get away from the city and turn over in his mind the various problems which the case presented. As for myself, I had by this time convinced myself that, somehow, the mushrooms were involved. What Kennedy expected to find I could not guess. But from what I had read I surmised that it must be that one of the poisonous varieties had somehow got mixed with the others, one of the Amanitas, just as deadly as the venom of the rattler or the copperhead. I knew that, in some cases, Amanitas had been used to commit crimes. Was this such a case? We had no trouble in finding the estate of Miss Hargrave, and she was at home. Kennedy lost no time introducing himself and coming to the point of his visit. Madeline Hargrave was a slender, willowy type of girl, pronouncedly blond, striking, precisely the type I should have imagined that Mansfield would have been proud to be seen with. "I've just heard of Mr. Mansfield's illness," she said, anxiously. "Mr. Lewis called me up and told me. I don't see why Miss Grey or Doctor Murray didn't let me know sooner." She said it with an air of vexation, as though she felt slighted. In spite of her evident anxiety to know about the tragedy, however, I did not detect the depth of feeling that Helen Grey had shown. In fact, the thoughtfulness of Fleming Lewis almost led me to believe that it was he, rather than Mansfield, for whom she really cared. We chatted a few minutes, as Kennedy told what little we had discovered. He said nothing about the spangle. "By the way," remarked Craig, at length, "I would very much like to have a look at that famous mushroom-cellar of yours." For the first time she seemed momentarily to lose her poise. "I've always had a great interest in mushrooms," she explained, hastily. "You--you do not think it could be the mushrooms--that have caused Mr. Mansfield's illness, do you?" Kennedy passed off the remark as best he could under the circumstances. Though she was not satisfied with his answer, she could not very well refuse his request, and a few minutes later we were down in the dark dampness of the cellar back of the house, where Kennedy set to work on a most exhaustive search. I could see by the expression on his face, as his search progressed, that he was not finding what he had expected. Clearly, the fungi before us were the common edible mushrooms. The upper side of each, as he examined it, was white, with brownish fibrils, or scales. Underneath, some were a beautiful salmon-pink, changing gradually to almost black in the older specimens. The stem was colored like the top. But search as he might for what I knew he was after, in none did he find anything but a small or more often no swelling at the base, and no "cup," as it is called. As he rose after his thorough search, I saw that he was completely baffled. "I hardly thought you'd find anything," Miss Hargrave remarked, noticing the look on his face. "I've always been very careful of my mushrooms." "You have certainly succeeded admirably," he complimented. "I hope you will let me know how Mr. Mansfield is," she said, as we started back toward our car on the road. "I can't tell you how I feel. To think that, after a party which he gave for me, he should be taken ill, and not only that but be robbed at the same time! Really, you must let me know--or I shall have to come up to the city." It seemed gratuitous for Kennedy to promise, for I knew that he was by no means through with her yet; but she thanked him, and we turned back toward town. "Well," I remarked, as we reeled off the miles quickly, "I must say that that puts me all at sea again. I had convinced myself that it was a case of mushroom poisoning. What can you do now?" "Do?" he echoed. "Why, go on. This puts us a step nearer the truth, that's all." Far from being discouraged at what had seemed to me to be a fatal blow to the theory, he now seemed to be actually encouraged. Back in the city, he lost no time in getting to the laboratory again. A package from the botanical department of the university was waiting there for Kennedy, but before he could open it the telephone buzzed furiously. I could gather from Kennedy's words that it was Helen Grey. "I shall be over immediately," he promised, as he hung up the receiver and turned to me. "Mansfield is much worse. While I get together some material I must take over there, Walter, I want you to call up Miss Hargrave and tell her to start for the city right away--meet us at Mansfield's. Then get Mina Leitch and Lewis. You'll find their numbers in the book--or else you'll have to get them from Miss Grey." While I was delivering the messages as diplomatically as possible Kennedy had taken a vial from a medicine-chest, and then from a cabinet a machine which seemed to consist of a number of collars and belts fastened to black cylinders from which ran tubes. An upright roll of ruled paper supported by a clockwork arrangement for revolving it, and a standard bearing a recording pen, completed the outfit. "I should much have preferred not being hurried," he confessed, as we dashed over in the car to Mansfield's again, bearing the several packages. "I wanted to have a chance to interview Mina Leitch alone. However, it has now become a matter of life or death." Miss Grey was pale and worn as she met us in the living-room. "He's had a sinking-spell," she said, tremulously. "Doctor Murray managed to bring him around, but he seems so much weaker after it. Another might--" She broke off, unable to finish. A glance at Mansfield was enough to convince any one that unless something was done soon the end was not far. "Another convulsion and sinking-spell is about all he can stand," remarked Doctor Murray. "May I try something?" asked Kennedy, hardly waiting for the doctor to agree before he had pulled out the little vial which I had seen him place in his pocket. Deftly Kennedy injected some of the contents into Mansfield's side, then stood anxiously watching the effect. The minutes lengthened. At least he seemed to be growing no worse. In the next room, on a table, Kennedy was now busy setting out the scroll of ruled paper and its clockwork arrangement, and connecting the various tubes from the black cylinders in such a way that the recording pen just barely touched on the scroll. He had come back to note the still unchanged condition of the patient when the door opened and a handsome woman in the early thirties entered, followed by Helen Grey. It was Mina Leitch. "Oh, isn't it terrible! I can hardly believe it!" she cried, paying no attention to us as she moved over to Doctor Murray. I recalled what Miss Grey had said about Mansfield's attentions. It was evident that, as far as Mina was concerned, her own attentions were monopolized by the polished physician. His manner in greeting her told me that Doctor Murray appreciated it. Just then Fleming Lewis bustled in. "I thought Miss Hargrave was here," he said, abruptly, looking about. "They told me over the wire she would be." "She should be here any moment," returned Kennedy, looking at his watch and finding that considerably over an hour had elapsed since I had telephoned. What it was I could not say, but there was a coldness toward Lewis that amounted to more than latent hostility. He tried to appear at ease, but it was a decided effort. There was no mistaking his relief when the tension was broken by the arrival of Madeline Hargrave. The circumstances were so strange that none of them seemed to object while Kennedy began to explain, briefly, that, as nearly as he could determine, the illness of Mansfield might be due to something eaten at the supper. As he attached the bands about the necks and waists of one after another of the guests, bringing the little black cylinders thus close to the middle of their chests, he contrived to convey the impression that he would like to determine whether any one else had been affected in a lesser degree. I watched most intently the two women who had just come in. One would certainly not have detected from their greeting and outward manner anything more than that they were well acquainted. But they were an interesting study, two quite opposite types. Madeline, with her baby-blue eyes, was of the type that craved admiration. Mina's black eyes flashed now and then imperiously, as though she sought to compel what the other sought to win. As for Fleming Lewis, I could not fail to notice that he was most attentive to Madeline, though he watched, furtively, but none the less keenly, every movement and word of Mina. His preparations completed, Kennedy opened the package which had been left at the laboratory just before the hasty call from Miss Grey. As he did so he disclosed several specimens of a mushroom of pale-lemon color, with a center of deep orange, the top flecked with white bits. Underneath, the gills were white and the stem had a sort of veil about it. But what interested me most, and what I was looking for, was the remains of a sort of dirty, chocolate-colored cup at the base of the stem. "I suppose there is scarcely any need of saying," began Kennedy, "that the food which I suspect in this case is the mushrooms. Here I have some which I have fortunately been able to obtain merely to illustrate what I am going to say. This is the deadly Amanita muscaria, the fly-agaric." Madeline Hargrave seemed to be following him with a peculiar fascination. "This Amanita," resumed Kennedy, "has a long history, and I may say that few species are quite so interesting. Macerated in milk, it has been employed for centuries as a fly-poison, hence its name. Its deadly properties were known to the ancients, and it is justly celebrated because of its long and distinguished list of victims. Agrippina used it to poison the Emperor Claudius. Among others, the Czar Alexis of Russia died of eating it. "I have heard that some people find it only a narcotic, and it is said that in Siberia there are actually Amanita debauchees who go on prolonged tears by eating the thing. It may be that it does not affect some people as it does others, but in most cases that beautiful gossamer veil which you see about the stem is really a shroud. "The worst of it is," he continued, "that this Amanita somewhat resembles the royal agaric, the Amanita caesarea. It is, as you see, strikingly beautiful, and therefore all the more dangerous." He ceased a moment, while we looked in a sort of awe at the fatally beautiful thing. "It is not with the fungus that I am so much interested just now, however," Kennedy began again, "but with the poison. Many years ago scientists analyzed its poisonous alkaloids and found what they called bulbosine. Later it was named muscarin, and now is sometimes known as amanitin, since it is confined to the mushrooms of the Amanita genus. "Amanitin is a wonderful and dangerous alkaloid, which is absorbed in the intestinal canal. It is extremely violent. Three to five one-thousandths of a gram, or six one-hundredths of a grain, are very dangerous. More than that, the poisoning differs from most poisons in the long time that elapses between the taking of it and the first evidences of its effects. "Muscarin," Kennedy concluded, "has been chemically investigated more often than any other mushroom poison and a perfect antidote has been discovered. Atropin, or belladonna, is such a drug." For a moment I looked about at the others in the room. Had it been an accident, after all? Perhaps, if any of the others had been attacked, one might have suspected that it was. But they had not been affected at all, at least apparently. Yet there could be no doubt that it was the poisonous muscarin that had affected Mansfield. "Did you ever see anything like that?" asked Kennedy, suddenly, holding up the gilt spangle which he had found on the closet floor near the wall safe. Though no one said a word, it was evident that they all recognized it. Lewis was watching Madeline closely. But she betrayed nothing except mild surprise at seeing the spangle from her dress. Had it been deliberately placed there, it flashed over me, in order to compromise Madeline Hargrave and divert suspicion from some one else? I turned to Mina. Behind the defiance of her dark eyes I felt that there was something working. Kennedy must have sensed it even before I did, for he suddenly bent down over the recording needle and the ruled paper on the table. "This," he shot out, "is a pneumograph which shows the actual intensity of the emotions by recording their effects on the heart and lungs together. The truth can literally be tapped, even where no confession can be extracted. A moment's glance at this line, traced here by each of you, can tell the expert more than words." "Then it was a mushroom that poisoned Jack!" interrupted Lewis, suddenly. "Some poisonous Amanita got mixed with the edible mushrooms?" Kennedy answered, quickly, without taking his eyes off the line the needle was tracing: "No; this was a case of the deliberate use of the active principle itself, muscarin--with the expectation that the death, if the cause was ever discovered, could easily be blamed on such a mushroom. Somehow--there were many chances--the poison was slipped into the ramekin Francois was carefully preparing for Mansfield. The method does not interest me so much as the fact--" There was a slight noise from the other room where Mansfield lay. Instantly we were all on our feet. Before any of us could reach the door Helen Grey had slipped through it. "Just a second," commanded Kennedy, extending the sequin toward us to emphasize what he was about to say. "The poisoning and the robbery were the work of one hand. That sequin is the key that has unlocked the secret which my pneumograph has recorded. Some one saw that robbery committed--knew nothing of the contemplated poisoning to cover it. To save the reputation of the robber--at any cost--on the spur of the moment the ruse of placing the sequin in the closet occurred." Madeline Hargrave turned to Mina, while I recalled Lewis's remark about Mina's stepping on the train and tearing it. The defiance in her black eyes flashed from Madeline to Kennedy. "Yes," she cried; "I did it! I--" As quickly the defiance had faded. Mina Leitch had fainted. "Some water--quick!" cried Kennedy. I sprang through the door into Mansfield's room. As I passed I caught sight of Helen Grey supporting the head of Mansfield--both oblivious to actresses, diamonds, everything that had so nearly caused a tragedy. "No," I heard Kennedy say to Lewis as I returned; "it was not Mina. The person she shielded was wildly in love with her, insanely jealous of Mansfield for even looking at her, and in debt so hopelessly in Mansfield's ventures that only the big diamond could save him--Doctor Murray himself!" III THE SOUL-ANALYSIS "Here's the most remarkable appeal," observed Kennedy, one morning, as he tossed over to me a letter. "What do you make of that?" It read: MONTROSE, CONN. MY DEAR PROFESSOR KENNEDY: You do not know me, but I have heard a great deal about you. Please, I beg of you, do not disregard this letter. At least try to verify the appeal I am making. I am here at the Belleclaire Sanatorium, run by Dr. Bolton Burr, in Montrose. But it is not a real sanatorium. It is really a private asylum. Let me tell my story briefly. After my baby was born I devoted myself to it. But, in spite of everything, it died. Meanwhile my husband neglected me terribly. After the baby's death I was a nervous wreck, and I came up here to rest. Now I find I am being held here as an insane patient. I cannot get out. I do not even know whether this letter will reach you. But the chambermaid here has told me she will post it for me. I am ill and nervous--a wreck, but not insane, although they will tell you that the twilight-sleep treatment affected my mind. But what is happening here will eventually drive me insane if some one does not come to my rescue. Cannot you get in to see me as a doctor or friend? I will leave all to you after that. Yours anxiously, JANET (MRS. ROGER) CRANSTON. "What do you make of it yourself?" I returned, handing back the letter. "Are you going to take it up?" He slowly looked over the letter again. "Judging by the handwriting," he remarked, thoughtfully, "I should say that the writer is laboring under keen excitement--though there is no evidence of insanity on the face of it. Yes; I think I'll take up the case." "But how are you going to get in?" I asked. "They'll never admit you willingly." Kennedy pondered a minute. "I'll get in, all right," he said, at length; "come on--I'm going to call on Roger Cranston first." "Roger Cranston?" I repeated, dumfounded. "Why, he'll never help you! Ten to one he's in on it." "We'll have to take a chance," returned Kennedy, hurrying me out of the laboratory. Roger Cranston was a well-known lawyer and man about town. We found him in his office on lower Broadway. He was young and distinguished-looking, which probably accounted for the fact that his office had become a sort of fashionable court of domestic relations. "I'm a friend of Dr. Bolton Burr, of Montrose," introduced Kennedy. Cranston looked at him keenly, but Kennedy was a good actor. "I have been studying some of the patients at the sanatorium, and I have seen Mrs. Cranston there." "Indeed!" responded Cranston. "I'm all broken up by it myself." I could not resist thinking that he took it very calmly, however. "I should like very much to make what we call a psychanalysis of Mrs. Cranston's mental condition," Kennedy explained. "A psychanalysis?" repeated Cranston. "Yes; you know it is a new system. In the field of abnormal psychology, the soul-analysis is of first importance. To-day, this study is of the greatest help in neurology and psychiatry. Only, I can't make it without the consent of the natural guardian of the patient. Doctor Burr tells me that you will have no objection." Cranston thoughtfully studied the wall opposite. "Well," he returned, slowly, "they tell me that without treatment she will soon be hopelessly insane--perhaps dangerously so. That is all I know. I am not a specialist. If Doctor Burr--" He paused. "If you can give me just a card," urged Kennedy, "that is all Doctor Burr wishes." Cranston wrote hastily on the back of one of his cards what Kennedy dictated. Please allow Doctor Kennedy to make a psychanalysis of my wife's mental condition. "You will let me know--if there is--any hope?" he asked. "As soon as I can," replied Kennedy, "I'll let you have a copy of my report." Cranston thanked us and bowed us to the door suavely. "Well," I remarked, as we rode down in the elevator, "that was clever. He fell for it, too. You're an artist. Do you think he was posing?" Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. We lost no time in getting the first train for Montrose, before Cranston had time to reconsider and call up Doctor Burr. The Belleclaire Sanatorium was on the outskirts of the town. It was an old stone house, rather dingy, and surrounded by a high stone wall surmounted by sharp pickets. Dr. Bolton Burr, who was at the head of the institution, met us in the plainly furnished reception-room which also served as his office. Through a window we could see some of the patients walking or sitting about on a small stretch of scraggly grass between the house and the wall. Doctor Burr was a tall and commanding-looking man with a Vandyke beard, and one would instinctively have picked him out anywhere as a physician. "I believe you have a patient here--Mrs. Roger Cranston," began Kennedy, after the usual formalities. Doctor Burr eyed us askance. "I've been asked by Mr. Cranston to make an examination of his wife," pursued Craig, presenting the card which he had obtained from Roger Cranston. "H'm!" mused Doctor Burr, looking quickly from the card to Kennedy with a searching glance. "I wish you would tell me something of the case before I see her," went on Kennedy, with absolute assurance. "Well," temporized Doctor Burr, twirling the card, "Mrs. Cranston came to me after the death of her child. She was in a terrible state. But we are slowly building up her shattered nerves by plain, simple living and a tonic." "Was she committed by her husband?" queried Kennedy, unexpectedly. Whether or not Doctor Burr felt suspicious of us I could not tell. But he seemed eager to justify himself. "I have the papers committing her to my care," he said, rising and opening a safe in the corner. He laid before us a document in which appeared the names of Roger Cranston and Julia Giles. "Who is this Julia Giles?" asked Kennedy, after he had read the document. "One of our nurses," returned the doctor. "She has had Mrs. Cranston under observation ever since she arrived." "I should like to see both Miss Giles and Mrs. Cranston," insisted Kennedy. "It is not that Mr. Cranston is in any way dissatisfied with your treatment, but he thought that perhaps I might be of some assistance to you." Kennedy's manner was ingratiating but firm, and he hurried on, lest it should occur to Doctor Burr to call up Cranston. The doctor, still twirling the card, finally led us through the wide central hall and up an old-fashioned winding staircase to a large room on the second floor. He tapped at the door, which was opened, disclosing an interior tastefully furnished. Doctor Burr introduced us to Miss Giles, conveying the impression, which Kennedy had already given, that he was a specialist, and I his assistant. Janet Cranston was a young and also remarkably beautiful girl. One could see traces of sorrow in her face, which was exceedingly, though not unpleasingly, pale. The restless brilliancy of her eyes spoke of some physical, if not psychical, disorder. She was dressed in deep mourning, which heightened her pallor and excited a feeling of mingled respect and interest. Thick brown coils of chestnut hair were arranged in such a manner as to give an extremely youthful appearance to her delicate face. Her emotions were expressed by the constant motion of her slender fingers. Miss Giles was a striking woman of an entirely different type. She seemed to be exuberant with health, as though nursing had taught her not merely how to take care of others, but had given her the secret of caring, first of all, for herself. I could see, as Doctor Burr introduced us to his patient, that Mrs. Cranston instantly recognized Kennedy's interest in her case. She received us with a graceful courtesy, but she betrayed no undue interest that might excite suspicion, nor was there any hint given of the note of appeal. I wondered whether that might not be an instance of the cunning for which I had heard that the insane are noted. She showed no sign of insanity, however. I looked about curiously to see if there were evidences of the treatment which she was receiving. On a table stood a bottle and a glass, as well as a teaspoon, and I recalled the doctor's remark about the tonic. "You look tired, Mrs. Cranston," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully. "Why not rest while we are here, and then I will be sure my visit has had no ill effects." "Thank you," she murmured, and I was much impressed by the sweetness of her voice. As he spoke, Kennedy arranged the pillows on a chaise lounge and placed her on it with her head slightly elevated. Having discussed the subject of psychanalysis with Kennedy before, I knew that this was so that nothing might distract her from the free association of ideas. He placed himself near her head, and motioned to us to stand farther back of him, where she could not see us. "Avoid all muscular exertion and distraction," he continued. "I want you to concentrate your attention thoroughly. Tell me anything that comes into your mind. Tell all you know of your symptoms. Concentrate, and repeat all you think of. Frankly express all the thoughts that you have, even though they may be painful and embarrassing." He said this soothingly, and she seemed to understand that much depended upon her answers and the fact of not forcing her ideas. "I am thinking of my husband," Mrs. Cranston began, finally, in a dreamy tone. "What of him?" suggested Kennedy. "Of how the baby--separated us--and--" She paused, almost in tears. From what I knew of the method of psychanalysis, I recalled it was the gaps and hesitations which were most important in arriving at the truth regarding the cause of her trouble. "Perhaps it was my fault; perhaps I was a better mother than wife. I thought I was doing what he would want me to do. Too late I see my mistake." It was easy to read into her story that there had been other women in his life. It had wounded her deeply. Yet it was equally plain that she still loved him. "Go on," urged Kennedy, gently. "Oh yes," she resumed, dreamily; "I am thinking about once, when I left him, I wandered through the country. I remember little except that it was the country through which we had passed on an automobile trip on our honeymoon. Once I thought I saw him, and I tried to get to him. I longed for him, but each time, when I almost reached him, he would disappear. I seemed to be so deserted and alone. I tried to call him, but my tongue refused to say his name. It must have been hours that I wandered about, for I recall nothing after that until I was found, disheveled and exhausted." She paused and closed her eyes, while I could see that Kennedy considered this gap very important. "Don't stop," persisted Kennedy. "Once we quarreled over one of his clients who was suing for a divorce. I thought he was devoting too much time and attention to her. While there might not have been anything wrong, still I was afraid. In my anger and anxiety I accused him. He retorted by slamming the door, and I did not see him for two or three days. I realized my nervous condition, and one day a mutual friend of ours introduced me to Doctor Burr and advised me to take a rest-cure at his sanatorium. By this time Roger and I were on speaking-terms again. But the death of the baby and the quarrel left me still as nervous as before. He seemed anxious to have me do something, and so I came here." "Do you remember anything that happened after that?" asked Craig, for the first time asking a mildly leading question. "Yes; I recall everything that happened when I came here," she went on. "Roger came up with me to complete the necessary arrangements. We were met at the station by Doctor Burr and this woman who has since been my nurse and companion. On the way up from the station to the sanatorium Doctor Burr was very considerate of me, and I noticed that my husband seemed interested in Miss Giles and the care she was to take of me." Kennedy flashed a glance at me from a note-book in which he was apparently busily engaged in jotting down her answers. I did not know just what interpretation to put on it, but surmised that it meant that he had struck what the new psychologists call a "complex," in the entrance of Miss Giles into the case. Before we realized it there came a sudden outburst of feeling. "And now--they are keeping me here by force!" she cried. Doctor Burr looked at us significantly, as much as to say, "Just what might be expected, you see." Kennedy nodded, but made no effort to stop Mrs. Cranston. "They have told Roger that I am insane, and I know he must believe it or he would not leave me here. But their real motive, I can guess, is mercenary. I can't complain about my treatment here--it costs enough." By this time she was sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead as though amazed at her own boldness in speaking so frankly before them. "I feel all right at times--then--it is as though I had a paralysis of the body, but not of the mind--not of the mind," she repeated, tensely. There was a frightened look on her face, and her voice was now wildly appealing. What would have followed I cannot guess, for at that instant there came a noise outside from another of the rooms as though pandemonium had broken loose. By the shouting and confusion, one might easily have wondered whether keepers and lunatics might not have exchanged places. "It is just one of the patients who has escaped from his room," explained Doctor Burr; "nothing to be alarmed about. We'll soon have him quieted." Doctor Burr hurried out into the corridor while Miss Giles was looking out of the door. Quickly Kennedy reached over and abstracted several drops from a bottle of tonic on the table, pouring it into his handkerchief, which he rolled up tightly and stuffed into his pocket. Mrs. Cranston watched him pleadingly, and clasped her hands in mute appeal, with a hasty glance at Miss Giles. Kennedy said nothing, either, but rapidly folded up a page of the note-book on which he had been writing and shoved it into Mrs. Cranston's hand, together with something he had taken from his pocket. She understood, and quickly placed it in her corsage. "Read it--when you are absolutely alone," he whispered, just as Miss Giles shut the door and turned to us. The excitement subsided almost as quickly as it had arisen, but it had been sufficient to put a stop to any further study of the case along those lines. Miss Giles's keen eyes missed no action or movement of her patient. Doctor Burr returned shortly. It was evident from his manner that he wished to have the visit terminated, and Kennedy seemed quite willing to take the hint. He thanked Mrs. Cranston, and we withdrew quietly, after bidding her good-by in a manner as reassuring as we could make it under the circumstances. "You see," remarked Doctor Burr, as we walked down the hall, "she is quite unstrung still. Mr. Cranston comes up here once in a while, and we notice that after these visits she is, if anything, worse." Down the hall a door had been left open, and we could catch a glimpse of a patient rolled in a blanket, while two nurses forced something down his throat. Doctor Burr hastily closed the door as we passed. "That is the condition Mrs. Cranston might have got into if she had not come to us when she did," he said. "As it is, she is never violent and is one of the most tractable patients we have." We left shortly, without finding out whether Doctor Burr suspected us of anything or not. As we made our way back to the city, I could not help the feeling of depression such as Poe mentioned at seeing the private madhouse in France. "That glimpse we had into the other room almost makes one recall the soothing system of Doctor Maillard. Is Doctor Burr's system better?" I asked. "A good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now," returned Kennedy. "I think you are already familiar with the theory of dreams that has been developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud, of Vienna. But perhaps you are not aware of the fact that Freud's contribution to the study of insanity is of even greater scientific value than his dream theories taken by themselves. "Hers, I feel sure now, is what is known as one of the so-called 'border-line cases,'" he continued. "It is clearly a case of hysteria--not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly, but the condition which scientists know as such. We trace the impulses from which hysterical conditions arise, penetrate the disguises which these repressed impulses or wishes must assume in order to appear in the consciousness. Such transformed impulses are found in normal people, too, sometimes. The hysteric suffers mostly from reminiscences which, paradoxically, may be completely forgotten. "Obsessions and phobias have their origin, according to Freud, in sexual life. The obsession represents a compensation or substitute for an unbearable sexual idea and takes its place in consciousness. In normal sexual life, no neurosis is possible, say the Freudists. Sex is the strongest impulse, yet subject to the greatest repression, and hence the weakest point of our cultural development. Hysteria arises through the conflict between libido and sex-repression. Often sex-wishes may be consciously rejected but unconsciously accepted. So when they are understood every insane utterance has a reason. There is really method in madness. "When hysteria in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place, and, in a sense, may be said to be desirable. The great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Breuer and Freud, is that certain symptoms of hysteria disappear when the hidden causes are brought to light and the repressed desires are gratified." "How does that apply to Mrs. Cranston?" I queried. "Mrs. Cranston," he replied, "is suffering from what the psychanalysts call a psychic trauma--a soul-wound, as it were. It is the neglect, in this case, of her husband, whom she deeply loves. That, in itself, is sufficient to explain her experience wandering through the country. It was the region which she associated with her first love-affair, as she told us. The wave of recollection that swept over her engulfed her mind. In other words, reason could no longer dominate the cravings for a love so long suppressed. Then, when she saw, or imagined she saw, one who looked like her lover the strain was too great." It was the middle of the afternoon when we reached the laboratory. Kennedy at once set to work studying the drops of tonic which had been absorbed in the handkerchief. As Kennedy worked, I began thinking over again of what we had seen at the Belleclaire Sanatorium. Somehow or other, I could not get out of my mind the recollection of the man rolled in the blanket and trussed up as helpless as a mummy. I wondered whether that alone was sufficient to account for the quickness with which he had been pacified. Then I recalled Mrs. Cranston's remark about her mental alertness and physical weakness. Had it anything to do with the "tonic"? "Suppose, while I am waiting," I finally suggested to Craig, "I try to find out what Cranston does with his time since his wife has been shut off from the world." "That's a very good idea," acquiesced Kennedy. "Don't take too long, however, for I may strike something important here any minute." After several inquiries over the telephone, I found that since his wife had been in Montrose Cranston had closed his apartment and was living at one of his clubs. Having two or three friends who were members, I did not hesitate to drop around. Unfortunately, none of my friends happened to be there, and I was forced, finally, to ask for Cranston himself, although all that I really wanted to know was whether he was there or not. One of the clerks told me that he had been in, but had left in a taxicab only a short time before. As there was a cab-stand outside the club, I determined to make an inquiry and perhaps discover the driver who had had him. The starter knew him, and when I said that it was very important business on which I wanted to see him he motioned to a driver who had just pulled up. A chance for another fare and a generous tip were all that was necessary to induce him to drive me to the Trocadero, a fashionable restaurant and cabaret, where he had taken Cranston a short time before. It was crowded when I entered, and, avoiding the headwaiter, I stood by the door a few minutes and looked over the brilliant and gay throng. Finally, I managed to catch a glimpse of Cranston's head at a table in a far corner. As I made my way down the line of tables, I was genuinely amazed to see that he was with a woman. It was Julia Giles! She must have come down on the next train after we did, but, at any rate, it looked as though she had lost no time in seeking out Cranston after our visit. I took a seat at a table next them. They were talking about Kennedy, and, during a lull in the music, I overheard him asking her just what Craig had done. "It was certainly very clever in him to play both you and Doctor Burr the way he did. He told Doctor Burr that you had sent him, and told you that Doctor Burr had sent him. By whom do you suppose he really was sent?" "Could it have been my wife?" "It must have been, but how she did it is more than I can imagine." "How is she, anyway?" he asked. "Sometimes she seems to be getting along finely, and then, other days, I feel quite discouraged about her. Her case is very obstinate." "Perhaps I had better go out and see Burr," he considered. "It is early in the evening. I'll drive you out in my car. I'll stay at the sanatorium tonight, and then, perhaps, I'll know a little better what we can do." It was his tone rather than his words which gave me the impression that he was more interested in being with Miss Giles than with Mrs. Cranston. I wondered whether it was a plot of Cranston's and Miss Giles's. Had he been posing before Kennedy, and were they really trying to put Mrs. Cranston out of the way? As the music started up again, I heard her say, "Can't we have just one more dance?" A moment later they were lost in the gay whirl on the dancing-floor. They made a handsome couple, and it was evident that it was not the first time that they had dined and danced together. The music ceased, and they returned to their places reluctantly, while Cranston telephoned for his car to be brought around to the cabaret. I hastened back to the laboratory to inform Craig what I had seen. As I told my story he looked up at me with a sudden flash of comprehension. "I am glad to know where they will all be tonight," he said. "Some one has been giving her henbane--hyoscyamin. I have just discovered it in the tonic." "What's henbane?" I asked. "It is a drug derived from the hyoscyamus plant, much like belladonna, though more distinctly sedative. It is a hypnotic used often in mania and mental excitement. The feeling which Mrs. Cranston described is one of its effects. You recall the brightness of her eyes? That is one of the effects of the mydriatic alkaloids, of which this is one. The ancients were familiar with several of its peculiar properties, as they knew of the closely allied poison hemlock. "Many of the text-books at the present time fail to say anything about the remarkable effect produced by large doses of this terrible alkaloid. This effect can be described technically so as to be intelligible, but no description can convey, even approximately, the terrible sensation produced in many insane patients by large doses. In a general way, it is the condition of paralysis of the body without the corresponding paralysis of the mind." "And it's this stuff that somebody has been putting into her tonic?" I asked, startled. "Do you suppose that is part of Burr's system, or did Miss Giles lighten her work by putting it into the tonic?" Kennedy did not betray his suspicion, but went on describing the drug which was having such a serious effect on Mrs. Cranston. "The victim lies in an absolutely helpless condition sometimes with his muscles so completely paralyzed that he cannot so much as move a finger, cannot close his lips or move his tongue to moisten them. This feeling of helplessness is usually followed by unconsciousness and then by a period of depression. The combined feeling of helplessness and depression is absolutely unlike any other feeling imaginable, if I may judge from the accounts of those who have experienced it. Other sensations, such as pain, may be judged, in a measure, by comparison with other painful sensations, but the sensation produced by hyoscyamin in large doses seems to have no basis for comparison. There is no kindred feeling. Practically every institution for the insane used it a few years ago for controlling patients, but now better methods have been devised." "The more I think of what I saw at the Trocadero," I remarked, "the more I wonder if Miss Giles has been seeking to win Cranston herself." "In large-enough doses and repeated often enough," continued Kennedy, "I suppose the toxic effect of the drug might be to produce insanity. At any rate, if we are going to do anything, it might better be done at once. They are all out there now. If we act to-night, surely we shall have the best chance of making the guilty person betray himself." Kennedy telephoned for a fast touring-car, and in half an hour, while he gathered some apparatus together, the car was before the door. In it he placed a couple of light silk-rope ladders, some common wooden wedges, and an instrument which resembled a surveyor's transit with two conical horns sticking out at the ends. We made the trip out of New York and up the Boston post-road, following the route which Cranston and Miss Giles must have taken some hours before us. In the town of Montrose, Kennedy stopped only long enough to get a bite to eat and to study up in the roads in the vicinity. It was long after midnight when we struck up into the country. The night was very dark, thick, and foggy. With the engine running as muffled as possible and the lights dimmed, Kennedy quietly jammed on the brakes as we pulled up along the side of the road. A few rods farther ahead I could make out the Belleclaire Sanatorium surrounded by its picketed stone wall. Not a light was visible in any of the windows. "Now that we're here," I whispered, "what can we do?" "You remember the paper I gave Mrs. Cranston when the excitement in the hall broke loose?" "Yes," I nodded, as we moved over under the shadow of the wall. "I wrote on a sheet from my note-book," said Kennedy, "and told her to be ready when she heard a pebble strike the window; and I gave her a piece of string to let down to the ground." Kennedy threw the silk ladder up until it caught on one of the pickets; then, with the other ladder and the wedges, he reached the top of the wall, followed by me. We pulled the first ladder up as we clung to the pickets, and let it down again inside. Noiselessly we crossed the lawn. Above was Mrs. Cranston's window. Craig picked up some bits of broken stone from a walk about the house and threw them gently against the pane. Then we drew back into the shadow of the house, lest any prying eyes might discover us. In a few minutes the window on the second floor was stealthily opened. The muffled figure of Mrs. Cranston appeared in the dim light; then a piece of string was lowered. To it Kennedy attached a light silk ladder and motioned in pantomime for her to draw it up. It took her some time to fasten the ladder to one of the heavy pieces of furniture in the room. Swaying from side to side, but clinging with frantic desperation to the ladder while we did our best to steady it, she managed to reach the ground. She turned from the building with a shudder, and whispered: "This terrible place! How can I ever thank you for getting me out of it?" Kennedy did not pause long enough to say a word, but hurried her across to the final barrier, the wall. Suddenly there was a shout of alarm from the front of the house under the columns. It was the night watchman, who had discovered us. Instantly Kennedy seized a chair from a little summer-house. "Quick, Walter," he cried, "over the wall with Mrs. Cranston, while I hold him! Then throw the ladder back on this side. I'll join you in a moment, as soon as you get her safely over." A chair is only an indifferent club, if that is all one can think of using it for. Kennedy ran squarely at the watchman, holding it out straight before him. Only once did I cast a hasty glance back. There was the man pinned to the wall by the chair, with Kennedy at the other end of it and safely out of reach. Mrs. Cranston and I managed to scramble over the wall, although she tore her dress on the pickets before we reached the other side. I hustled her into the car and made everything ready to start. It was only a couple of minutes after I threw the ladder back before Craig rejoined us. "How did you get away from the watchman?" I demanded, breathlessly, as we shot away. "I forced him back with the chair into the hall and slammed the door. Then I jammed a wedge under it," he chuckled. "That will hold it better than any lock. Every push will jam it tighter." Above the hubbub, inside now, we could hear a loud gong sounding insistently. All about were lights flashing up at the windows and moving through the passageways. Shouts came from the back of the house as a door was finally opened there. But we were off now, with a good start. I could imagine the frantic telephoning that was going on in the sanatorium. And I knew that the local police of Montrose and every other town about us were being informed of the escape. They were required by the law to render all possible assistance, and, as the country boasted several institutions quite on a par with Belleclaire, an attempt at an escape was not an unusual occurrence. The post-road by which we had come was therefore impossible, and Kennedy swung up into the country, in the hope of throwing off pursuit long enough to give us a better chance. "Take the wheel, Walter," he muttered. "I'll tell you what turns to make. We must get to the State line of New York without being stopped. We can beat almost any car. But that is not enough. A telephone message ahead may stop us, unless we can keep from being seen." I took the wheel, and did not stop the car as Kennedy climbed over the seat. In the back of the car, where Mrs. Cranston was sitting, he hastily adjusted the peculiar apparatus. "Sounds at night are very hard to locate," he explained. "Up this side road, Walter; there is some one coming ahead of us." I turned and shot up the detour, stopping in the shadow of some trees, where we switched off every light and shut down the engine. Kennedy continued to watch the instrument before him. "What is it?" I whispered. "A phonometer," he replied. "It was invented to measure the intensity of sound. But it is much more valuable as an instrument that tells with precision from what direction a sound comes. It needs only a small dry battery and can be carried around easily. The sound enters the two horns of the phonometer, is focused at the neck, and strikes on a delicate diaphragm, behind which is a needle. The diaphragm vibrates and the needle moves. The louder the sound the greater the movement of this needle. "At this end, where it looks as though I were sighting like a surveyor, I am gazing into a lens, with a tiny electric bulb close to my eye. The light of this bulb is reflected in a mirror which is moved by the moving needle. When the sound is loudest the two horns are at right angles to the direction whence it comes. So it is only necessary to twist the phonometer about on its pivot until the sound is received most loudly in the horns and the band of light is greatest. I know then that the horns are at right angles to the direction from which the sound proceeds, and that, as I lift my head, I am looking straight toward the source of the sound. I can tell its direction to a few degrees." I looked through it myself to see how sound was visualized by light. "Hush!" cautioned Kennedy. Down on the main road we could see a car pass along slowly in the direction of Montrose, from which we had come. Without the phonometer to warn us, it must inevitably have met us and blocked our escape over the road ahead. That danger passed, on we sped. Five minutes, I calculated, and we should cross the State line to New York and safety. We had been going along nicely when, "Bang!" came a loud report back of us. "Confound it!" muttered Kennedy; "a blowout always when you least expect it." We climbed out of the car and had the shoe off in short order. "Look!" cried Janet Cranston, in a frightened voice, from the back of the car. The light of the phonometer had flashed up. A car was following us. "There's just one chance!" cried Kennedy, springing to the wheel. "We might make it on the rim." Banging and pounding, we forged ahead, straining our eyes to watch the road, the distance, the time, and the phonometer all at once. It was no use. A big gray roadster was overtaking us. The driver crowded us over to the very edge of the road, then shot ahead, and, where the road narrowed down, deliberately pulled up across the road in such a way that we had to run into him or stop. Quickly Craig's automatic gleamed in the dim beams from the side lights. "Just a minute," cautioned a voice. "It was a plot against me, quite as much as it was against her--the nurse to lead me on, while the doctor got a rich patient. I suspected all was not right. That's why I gave you the card. I knew you didn't come from Burr. Then, when I heard nothing from you, I let the Giles woman think I was coming to Montrose to be with her. But, really, I wanted to beat that fake asylum--" Two piercing headlights shone down the road back of us. We waited a moment until they, too, came to a stop. "Here they are!" shouted the voice of a man, as he jumped out, followed by a woman. Kennedy stepped forward, waving his automatic menacingly. "You are under arrest for conspiracy--both of you!" he cried, as we recognized Doctor Burr and Miss Giles. A little cry behind me startled me, and I turned. Janet Cranston had flung herself into the arms of the only person who could heal her wounded soul. IV THE MYSTIC POISONER "It's almost as though he had been struck down by a spirit hand, Kennedy." Grady, the house detective of the Prince Edward Charles Hotel, had routed us out of bed in the middle of the night with a hurried call for help, and now met us in the lobby of the fashionable hostelry. All that he had said over the wire was that there had been a murder--"an Englishman, a Captain Shirley." "Why," exclaimed Grady, lowering his voice as he led us through the lobby, "it's the most mysterious thing, I think, that I've ever seen!" "In what way?" prompted Kennedy. "Well," continued Grady, "it must have been just a bit after midnight that one of the elevator-boys heard what sounded like a muffled report in a room on the tenth floor. There were other employees and some guests about at the time, and it was only a matter of seconds before they were on the spot. Finally, the sound was located as having come probably from Captain Shirley's room. But the door was locked--on the inside. There was no response, although some one had seen him ride up in the elevator scarcely five minutes before. By that time they had sent for me. We broke in. There was Shirley, alone, fully dressed, lying on the floor before a writing-table. His face was horribly set, as though he had perhaps seen something that frightened and haunted him--though I suppose it might have been the pain that did it. I think he must have heard something, jumped from the chair, perhaps in fear, then have fallen down on the floor almost immediately. "We hurried over to him. He was still alive, but could not speak. I turned him over, tried to rouse him and make him comfortable. It was only then that I saw that he was really conscious. But it seemed as if his tongue and most of his muscles were paralyzed. Somehow he managed to convey to us the idea that it was his heart that troubled him most. "Really, at first I thought it was a case of suicide. But there was no sign of a weapon about and not a trace of poison--no glass, no packet. There was no wound on him, either--except a few slight cuts and scratches on his face and hands. But none of them looked to be serious. And yet, before we could get the house physician up to him he was dead." "And with not a word?" queried Kennedy. "That's the strangest part of it. No; not a word spoken. But as he lay there, even in spite of his paralyzed muscles, he was just able to motion with his hands. I thought he wanted to write, and gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. He clutched at them, but here is all he was able to do." Grady drew from his pocket a piece of paper and handed it to us. On it were printed in trembling, irregular characters, "G A D," the "D" scarcely finished and trailing off into nothing. What did it all mean? How had Shirley met his death, and why? "Tell me something about him," said Kennedy, studying the paper with a frown. Grady shrugged his shoulders. "An Englishman--that's about all I know. Looked like one of the younger sons who so frequently go out to seek their fortunes in the colonies. By his appearance, I should say he had been in the Far East--India, no doubt. And I imagine he had made good. He seemed to have plenty of money. That's all I know about him." "Is anything missing from his room?" I asked. "Could it have been a robbery?" "I searched the room hastily," replied Grady. "Apparently not a thing had been touched. I don't think it was robbery." By this time we had made our way through the lobby and were in the elevator. "I've kept the room just as it was," went on Grady to Kennedy, lowering his voice. "I've even delayed a bit in notifying the police, so that you could get here first." A moment later we entered the rooms, a fairly expensive suite, consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bath. Everything was in a condition to indicate that Shirley had just come in when the shot, if shot it had been, was fired. There, on the floor, lay his body, still in the same attitude in which he had died and almost as Grady had found him gasping. Grady's description of the horrible look on his face was, if anything, an understatement. As I stood with my eyes riveted on the horror-stricken face on the floor, Kennedy had been quietly going over the furniture and carpet about the body. "Look!" he exclaimed at last, scarcely turning to us. On the chair, the writing-table, and even on the walls were little pitted marks and scratches. He bent down over the carpet. There, reflecting the electric light, scattered all about, were little fine pieces of something that glittered. "You have a vacuum cleaner, I suppose?" inquired Craig, rising quickly. "Certainly--a plant in the cellar." "No; I mean one that is portable." "Yes; we have that, too," answered Grady, hurrying to the room telephone to have the cleaner sent up. Kennedy now began to look through Shirley's baggage. There was, however, nothing to indicate that it had been rifled. I noted, among other things, a photograph of a woman in Oriental dress, dusky, languorous, of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence. On it something was written in native characters. Just then a boy wheeled the cleaner down the hall, and Kennedy quickly shoved the photograph into his pocket. First, Kennedy removed the dust that was already in the machine. Then he ran the cleaner carefully over the carpet, the upholstery, everything about that corner of the room where the body lay. When he had finished he emptied out the dust into a paper and placed it in his pocket. He was just finishing when there came a knock at the door, and it was opened. "Mr. Grady?" said a young man, entering hurriedly. "Oh, hello, Glenn! One of the night clerks in the office, Kennedy," introduced the house detective. "I've just heard of the--murder," Glenn began. "I was in the dining-room, being relieved for my little midnight luncheon as usual, when I heard of it, and I thought that perhaps you might want to know something that happened just before I went off duty." "Yes; anything," broke in Kennedy. "It was early in the evening," returned the clerk, slowly, "when a messenger left a little package for Captain Shirley--said that Captain Shirley had had it sent himself and asked that it be placed in his room. It was a little affair in a plain, paper-wrapped parcel. I sent one of the boys up with it and a key, and told him to put the package on the writing-desk tip here." Kennedy looked at me. That, then, was the way something, whatever it might be, was introduced into the room. "When the captain came in," resumed the night clerk, "I saw there was a letter for him in the mailbox and handed it to him. He stood before the office desk while he opened it. I thought he looked queer. The contents seemed to alarm him." "What was in it?" asked Kennedy. "Could you see?" "I got one glimpse. It seemed to be nothing but a little scarlet bead with a black spot on it. In his surprise, he dropped a piece of paper from the envelope in which the bead had been wrapped up. I thought it was strange, and, as he hurried over to the elevator, I picked it up. Here it is." The clerk handed over a crumpled piece of notepaper. On it was scrawled the word "Gadhr," and underneath, "Beware!" I spelled out the first strange word. It had an ominous sound--"Gadhr." Suddenly there flashed through my mind the letters Shirley had tried to print but had not finished, "G A D." Kennedy looked at the paper a moment. "Gadhr!" he exclaimed, in a low, tense tone. "Revolt--the native word for unrest in India, the revolution!" We stared at each other blankly. All of us had been reading lately in the despatches about the troubles there, hidden under the ban of the censorship. I knew that the Hindu propaganda in America was as yet in its infancy, although several plots and conspiracies had been hatched here. "Is there any one in the hotel whom you might suspect?" asked Kennedy. Grady cleared his throat and looked at the night clerk significantly. "Well," he answered, thoughtfully, "across the hall there is a new guest who came to-day--or, rather, yesterday--a Mrs. Anthony. We don't know anything about her, except that she looks like a foreigner. She did not come directly from abroad, but must have been living in New York for some time. They tell me she asked for a room on this floor, at this end of the hall." "H'm!" considered Kennedy. "I'd like to see her--without being seen." "I think I can arrange that," acquiesced Grady. "You and Jameson stay in the bedroom. I'll ask her to come over here, and then you can get a good look at her." The plan satisfied Kennedy, and together we entered the bedroom, putting out the light and leaving the door just a trifle ajar. A moment later Mrs. Anthony entered. I heard a suppressed gasp from Kennedy. "The woman in the photograph!" he whispered to me. I studied her face minutely from our coign of vantage. There was, indeed, a resemblance, too striking to be mere coincidence. In the presence of Grady, she seemed to be nervous and on guard, as though she knew, intuitively, that she was suspected. "Did you know Captain Shirley?" shot out Grady. Kennedy looked over at me and frowned. I knew that something more subtle than New York police methods would be necessary in order to get anything from a woman like this. "No," she replied, quietly. "You see, I just came here to-day." Her voice had an English accent. "Did you hear a shot?" "No," she replied. "The voices in the hall wakened me, though I did not know what was the matter until just now." "Then you made no effort to find out?" inquired Grady, suspiciously. "I am alone here in the city," she answered, simply. "I was afraid to intrude." Throughout she gave the impression that she was strangely reticent about herself. Evidently Kennedy had not much faith that Grady would elicit anything of importance. He tiptoed to the door that led from the bedroom to the hall and found that it could be opened from the inside. While Grady continued his questioning, Craig and I slipped out into the hall to the room which Mrs. Anthony occupied. It was a suite much plainer than that occupied by Shirley. Craig switched on the light and looked about hastily and keenly. For a moment he stood before a dressing-table on which were several toilet articles. A jewel-case seemed to attract his attention, and he opened it. Inside were some comparatively trifling trinkets. The thing that caused him to exclaim, however, was a necklace, broken and unstrung. I looked, too. It was composed of little crimson beads, each with a black spot on it! Quickly he drew from his pocket the photograph he had taken from Shirley's baggage. As I looked at it again there could be no doubt now in my mind of the identity of the original. It was the same face. And about the neck, in the picture, was a necklace, plainly the same as that before us. "What are the beads?" I asked, fingering them. "I've never seen anything like them." "Not beads at all," he replied. "They are Hindu prayer-beans, sometimes called ruttee, jequirity beans, seeds of the plant known to science as Abrus precatorius. They produce a deadly poison--abrin." He slipped four or five of them into his pocket. Then he resumed his cursory search of the room. There, on a writing-pad, was a note which Mrs. Anthony had evidently been engaged in writing. Craig pored over it for some time, while I fidgeted. It was nothing but a queer jumble of letters: SOWC FSSJWA EKNLFFBY WOVHLX IHWAJYKH 101MLEL EPJNVPSL WCLURL GHIHDA ELBA. "Come," I cautioned; "she may return any moment." Quickly he copied off the letters. "It's a cipher," he said, simply, "a new and rather difficult one, too, I imagine. But I may be able to decipher it." Kennedy withdrew from the room and, instead of going back to Shirley's, rode down in the elevator to find the night clerk. "Had Captain Shirley any friends in the city?" asked Craig. Glenn shrugged his shoulders. "He was out most of the time," he replied. "He seemed to be very occupied about something. No, I don't think I ever saw him speak to a soul here, except a word to the waiters and the boys. Once, though," he recollected, "he was called up by a Mrs. Beekman Rogers." "Mrs. Beekman Rogers," repeated Kennedy, jotting the name down and looking it up in the telephone-book. She lived on Riverside Drive, and, slender though the information was, Kennedy seemed glad to get it. Grady joined us a moment later, having been wondering where we had disappeared. "You saw her?" he asked. "What did you think of her?" "Worth watching," was all Kennedy would say. "Did you get anything out of her?" Grady shook his head. "But I am convinced she knows something," he insisted. Kennedy was about to reply when he was interrupted by the arrival of a couple of detectives from the city police, tardily summoned by Grady. "I shall let you know the moment I have discovered anything," he said, as he bade Grady good-by. "And thank you for letting me have a chance at the case before all the clues had been spoiled." Late though it was, in the laboratory Kennedy set to work examining the dust which he had swept up by the vacuum cleaner, as well as the jequirity beans he had taken from Mrs. Anthony's jewel-case. I do not know how much sleep he had, but I managed to snatch a few hours' rest, and early in the morning I found him at work again, examining the cipher message which he had copied. "By the way," he said, scarcely looking up as he saw me again, "there is something quite important which you can do for me." Rather pleased to be of some use, I waited eagerly. "I wish you'd go out and see what you can find out about that Mrs. Beekman Rogers," he continued. "I've some work here that will keep me for several hours; so come back to me here." It was such a commission as he had often given me before, and, through my connection with the Star, I found no difficulty in executing it. I found that Mrs. Rogers was well known in a certain circle of society in the city. She was wealthy and had the reputation of having given quite liberally to many causes that had interested her. Just now, her particular fad was Oriental religions, and some of her bizarre beliefs had attracted a great deal of attention. A couple of years before she had made a trip around the world, and had lived in India for several months, apparently fascinated by the life and attracted to the mysteries of Oriental faiths. With my budget of information I hastened back again to join Kennedy at the laboratory. I could see that the cipher was still unread. From that, I conjectured that it was, as he had guessed, constructed on some new and difficult plan. "What do you think of Mrs. Rogers?" I asked, as I finished reciting what I had learned. "Is it possible that she can be in this revolutionary propaganda?" He shook his head doubtfully. "Much of the disaffection that exists in India to-day," he replied, "is due to the encouragement and financial assistance which it has received from people here in this country, although only a fraction of the natives of India have ever heard of us. Much of the money devoted to the cause of revolution and anarchy in India is contributed by worthy people who innocently believe that their subscriptions are destined to promote the cause of native enlightenment. I prefer to believe that there is some such explanation in her case. At any rate, I think that we had better make a call on Mrs. Rogers." Early that afternoon, accordingly, we found ourselves at the door of the large stone house on Riverside Drive in which Mrs. Rogers lived. Kennedy inquired for her, and we were admitted to a large reception-room, the very decorations of which showed evidence of her leaning toward the Orient. Mrs. Rogers proved to be a widow of baffling age, good-looking, with a certain indefinable attractiveness. Kennedy's cue was obvious. It was to be an eager neophyte in the mysteries of the East, and he played the part perfectly without overdoing it. "Perhaps you would like to come to some of the meetings of our Cult of the Occult," she suggested. "Delighted, I am sure," returned Kennedy. She handed him a card. "We have a meeting this afternoon at four," she explained. "I should be glad to welcome you among us." Kennedy thanked her and rose to go, preferring to say nothing more just then about the problems which vexed us in the Shirley case, lest it should make further investigation more difficult. Nothing more had happened at the hotel, as we heard from Grady a few minutes later, and, as there was some time before the cult met, we returned to the laboratory. Things had evidently progressed well, even in the few hours that he had been studying his meager evidence. Not only was he making a series of delicate chemical tests, but, in cases, he had several guinea-pigs which he was using also. He now studied through a microscope some of the particles of dust from the vacuum cleaner. "Little bits of glass," he said, briefly, taking his eye from the eyepiece. "Captain Shirley was not shot." "Not shot?" I repeated. "Then how was he killed?" Kennedy eyed me gravely. "Shirley was murdered by a poisoned bomb!" I said nothing, for the revelation was even more startling than I had imagined. "In that package which was placed in his room," he went on, "must have been a little infernal machine of glass, constructed so as to explode the moment the wrapper was broken. The flying pieces of glass injected the poison as by a myriad of hypodermic needles--the highly poisonous toxin of abrin, product of the jequirity, which is ordinarily destroyed in the stomach but acts powerfully if injected into the blood. Shirley died of jequirity poisoning, or rather of the alkaloid in the bean. It has been used in India for criminal poisoning for ages. Only, there it is crushed, worked into a paste, and rolled into needle-pointed forms which prick the skin. Abrin is composed of two albuminous bodies, one of which resembles snake-venom in all its effects, attacking the heart, making the temperature fall rapidly, and leaving the blood fluid after death. It is a vegetable toxin, quite comparable with ricin from the castor-oil bean." In spite of my horror at the diabolical plot that had been aimed at Shirley, my mind ran along, keenly endeavoring to piece together the scattered fragments of the case. Some one, of course, had sent the package while he was out and had it placed in his room. Had it been the same person who had sent the single jequirity bean? My mind instantly reverted to the strange woman across the hall, the photograph in his luggage, and the broken necklace in the jewel-case. Kennedy continued looking at the remainder of the jequirity beans and a liquid he had developed from some of them. Finally, with a glance at his watch, he placed a tube of the liquid in a leather case in his pocket. "This may not be the only murder," he remarked, sententiously. "It is best to be prepared. Come; we must get up to that meeting." We journeyed up-town and arrived at the little private hall which the Cult of the Occult had hired somewhat ahead of the time set for the meeting, as Kennedy had aimed to do. Mrs. Rogers was already there and met us at the door. "So glad to see you," she welcomed, leading us in. As we entered we could breathe the characteristic pervading odor of sandalwood. Rich Oriental hangings were on the walls, interspersed with cabalistic signs, while at one end was a raised dais. Mrs. Rogers introduced us to a rather stout, middle-aged, sallow-faced individual in a turban and flowing robes of rustling purple silk. His eyes were piercing, small, and black. The plump, unhealthy, milk-white fingers of his hands were heavy with ornate rings. He looked like what I should have imagined a swami to be, and such, I found, was indeed his title. "The Swami Rajmanandra," introduced Mrs. Rogers. He extended his flabby hand in welcome, while Kennedy eyed him keenly. We were not permitted many words with the swami, however, for Mrs. Rogers next presented us to a younger but no less interesting-looking Oriental who was in Occidental dress. "This is Mr. Singh Bandematarain," said Mrs. Rogers. "You know, he has been sent here by the nizam of his province to be educated at the university." Mrs. Rogers then hastened to conduct us to seats as, one by one, the worshipers entered. They were mostly women of the aristocratic type who evidently found in this cult a new fad to occupy their jaded craving for the sensational. In the dim light, there was something almost sepulchral about the gathering, and their complexions seemed as white as wax. Again the door opened and another woman entered. I felt the pressure of Kennedy's hand on my arm and turned my eyes unobtrusively. It was Mrs. Anthony. Quietly she seemed to glide over the floor toward the swami and, for a moment, stood talking to him. I saw Singh eye her with a curious look. Was it fear or suspicion? I had come expecting to see something weird and wild, perhaps the exhibition of an Indian fakir--I know not what. In that, at least, I was disappointed. The Swami Rajmanandra, picturesque though he was, talked most fascinatingly about his religion, but either the theatricals were reserved for an inner circle or else we were subtly suspected, for I soon found myself longing for the meeting to close so that we could observe those whom we had come to watch. I had almost come to the conclusion that our mission had been a failure when the swami concluded and the visitors swarmed forward to talk with the holy man from the East. Kennedy managed to make his way about the circle to Mrs. Rogers and soon was in an animated conversation. "Were you acquainted with a Captain Shirley?" he asked, finally, as she opened the way for the question by a remark about her life in Calcutta. "Y-yes," she replied, hesitating; "I read in the papers this morning that he was found dead, most mysteriously. Terrible, wasn't it? Yes, I met him in Calcutta while I was there. Why, he was on his way to London, and came to New York and called on me." My eye followed the direction of Mrs. Rogers's. She was talking to us, but really her attention was centered on Mrs. Anthony and the swami together. As I glanced back at her I caught sight of Singh, evidently engaged in watching the same two that I was. Did he have some suspicion of Mrs. Anthony? Why was he watching Mrs. Rogers? I determined to study the two women more closely. I saw that Kennedy had already noticed what I had seen. "One very peculiar thing," he said, deliberately modulating his voice so that it could be heard by those about us, "was that, just before he was killed, some one sent a prayer-bean from a necklace to him." At the mention of the necklace I saw that Mrs. Rogers was all attention. Involuntarily she shot a glance at Mrs. Anthony, as if she noted that she was not wearing the necklace now. "Is that Englishwoman a member of the cult?" queried Kennedy, a moment later, as, quite naturally, he looked over at Mrs. Anthony. "Who is she?" "Oh," replied Mrs. Rogers, quickly, "she isn't an Englishwoman at all. She is a Hindu--I believe, a former nautch-girl, daughter of a nautch-girl. She passes by the name of Mrs. Anthony, but really her name is Kalia Dass. Every one in Calcutta knew her." Kennedy quietly drew his card-case from his pocket and handed a card to Mrs. Rogers. "I should like to talk to you about her some time," he said, in a careful whisper. "If anything happens--don't hesitate to call on me." Before Mrs. Rogers could recover from her surprise Kennedy had said good-by and we were on our way to the laboratory. "That's a curious situation," I observed. "Can you make it out? How does Shirley fit into this thing?" Craig hesitated a moment, as though debating whether to say anything, even to me, about his suspicions. "Suppose," he said, slowly, "that Shirley was a secret agent of the British government, charged with the mission of finding out whether Mrs. Rogers was contributing--unknowingly, perhaps--to hatching another Indian mutiny? Would that suggest anything to you?" "And the nautch-girl whom he had known in Calcutta followed him, hoping to worm from him the secrets which he--" "Not too fast," he cautioned. "Let us merely suppose that Shirley was a spy. If I am not mistaken, we shall see something happen soon, as a result of what I said to Mrs. Rogers." Excited now by the possibilities opened up by his conjecture regarding Shirley, which I knew must have amounted to a certainty in his mind, I watched him impatiently, as he calmly set to work cleaning up the remainder of the laboratory investigation in the affair. It was scarcely half an hour later that a car drove up furiously to our door and Mrs. Rogers burst in, terribly agitated. "You remember," she cried, breathlessly, "you said that a jequirity bean was sent to Captain Shirley?" "Yes," encouraged Kennedy. "Well, after you left, I was thinking about it. That Kalia Dass used to wear a necklace of them, but she didn't have it on to-day. I began thinking about it. While she was talking to the swami I went over. I've noticed how careful she always is of her hand-bag. So I managed to catch my hand in the loop about her wrist. It dropped on the floor. We both made a dive for it, but I got it. I managed, also, to open the catch and, when I picked it up to hand to her, with an apology, what should roll out but a score of prayer-beans! Some papers dropped out, too. She almost tore them from my hands; in fact, one of them did tear. After it was over I had this scrap, a corner torn off one of them." Kennedy took the scrap which she handed to him and studied it carefully, while we looked over his shoulder. On it was a queer alphabetical table. Across the first line were the letters singly, each followed by a dash. Then, in squares underneath, were pairs of letters--AA, BA, CA, DA, and so on, while, vertically, the column on the left read: AA, AB, AC, AD, and so on. "Thank you, Mrs. Rogers," Craig said, rising. "This is very important." She seemed reluctant to go, but, as there was no excuse for staying longer, she finally left. Kennedy immediately set to work studying the scrap of paper and the cipher message he had copied, while I stifled my impatience as best I could. I could do nothing but reflect on the possibility of what a jealous woman might do. Mrs. Rogers had given us one example. Did the same explanation shed any light on the mystery of the nautch-girl and the jequirity bean sent to Shirley? There was no doubt now that Shirley had known her in Calcutta--intimately, also. Perhaps the necklace had some significance. At least, he must have remembered it, as his agitation over the single bean and the word "Gadhr" seemed to indicate. If she had sent it to him, was it as a threat? To all appearance, he had not known that she was in New York, much less that she was at the same hotel and on the same floor. Why had she followed him? Had she misinterpreted his attentions to Mrs. Rogers? Longing to ask Kennedy the myriad questions that flashed through my mind, I turned to him as he scowled at the scrap of paper and the cipher before him. Presently he glanced up at me, still scowling. "It's no use, Walter," he said; "I can't make it out without the key--at least, it will take so long to discover the key that it may be useless." Just then the telephone-bell rang and he sprang to it eagerly. As I listened I gathered that it was another hurried call from Grady. "Something has happened to Mrs. Anthony!" cried Craig, as he hooked up the receiver and seized his hat. A second time we posted to the Prince Edward Charles, spurred by the mystery that surrounded the case. No one met us in the lobby this time, and we rode up directly in the elevator to Mrs. Anthony's room. As we came down the hall and Grady met us at the door, he did not need to tell us that something was wrong. One experience like that with Shirley had put the hotel people on guard, and the house physician was already there, administering stimulants to Mrs. Anthony, who was lying on the bed. "It's just like the other case," whispered Grady. "There are the same scratches on her face and hands." The doctor glanced about at us. By the look on his face, I read that it was a losing fight. Kennedy bent down. The floor about the door was covered with little glittering slivers of glass. On Mrs. Anthony's face was the same drawn look as on Shirley's. Was it a suicide? Had we been getting too close on her trail, or had Mrs. Anthony been attacked? Had some one been using her, and now was afraid of her and sought to get her out of the way for safety? What was the secret locked in her silent lips? The woman was plainly dying. Would she carry the secret with her, after all? Kennedy quickly drew from his pocket the vial which I had seen him place there in the laboratory early in the day. From the doctor's case he selected a hypodermic and coolly injected a generous dose of the stuff into her arm. "What is it?" asked the doctor, as we all watched her face anxiously. "The antitoxin to abrin," he replied. "I developed some of it at the same time that I was studying the poison. If an animal that is immune to a toxin is bled and the serum collected, the antitoxin in it may be injected into a healthy animal and render it immune. Ricin and abrin are vegetable protein toxins of enormous potency and exert a narcotic action. Guinea-pigs fed on them in proper doses attain such a degree of immunity that, in a short time, they can tolerate four hundred times the fatal dose. The serum also can be used to neutralize the toxin in another animal, to a certain extent." We crowded about Kennedy and the doctor, our eyes riveted on the drawn face before us. Would the antitoxin work? Meanwhile, Kennedy moved over to the writing-table which he had examined on our first visit to the room. Covered up in the writing-pad was still the paper which he had copied. Only, Mrs. Anthony had added much more to it. He looked at it desperately. What good would it do if, after hours, his cleverness might solve the cipher--too late? Mrs. Anthony seemed to be struggling bravely. Once I thought she was almost conscious. Glazed though her eyes looked, she saw Kennedy vaguely, with the paper in his hand. Her lips moved. Kennedy bent down, though whether he heard or read her lip movements I do not know. "Her pocket-book!" he exclaimed. We found it crushed under her coat which she had taken off when she entered. Craig opened it and drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper from which a corner had been torn. It exactly fitted the scrap that Mrs. Rogers had given us. There, contained within twenty-seven horizontal and twenty-seven vertical lines, making in all six hundred and seventy-six squares, was every possible combination of two letters of the alphabet. Kennedy looked up, still in desperation. It did him no good. He could have completed the table himself. "In--the--lining." Her lips managed to frame the words. Kennedy literally tore the bag apart. There was nothing but a plain white blank card. With a superhuman effort she moved her lips again. "Smelling-salts," she seemed to say. I looked about. On the dressing-table stood a little dark-green bottle. I pulled the ground-glass stopper from it and a most pungent odor of carbonate of ammonia filled the room. Quickly I held it under her nose, but she shook her head weakly. Kennedy seemed to understand. He snatched the bottle from me and held the card directly over its mouth. As the fumes of the ammonia poured out, I saw faintly on the card the letters HR. We turned to Mrs. Anthony. The effort had used up her strength. She had lapsed again into unconsciousness as Craig bent over her. "Will she live?" lasted. "I think so," he replied, adding a hasty word to the doctor. "What's that? Look!" I exclaimed, pointing to the card from which the letters HR had already faded as mysteriously as they had appeared, leaving the card blank again. "It is the key!" he cried, excitedly. "Written in sympathetic ink. At last we have it all." On the queer alphabetical table which the two pieces of paper made, he now wrote quickly the alphabet again, horizontally across the top, starting with H, and vertically down the side, starting with R, thus: H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G R a- b- c- d- e- f- g- h- i- j- k- l- m- n- o- p- q- r- s- t- u- v- w- x- y- z-S aa ba ca da ea fa ga ha ia ja ka la ma na oa pa qa ra sa ta ua va wa xa ya za T ab bb cb db eb fb gb hb ib jb kb lb mb nb ob pb qb rb sb tb ub vb wb xb yb zb U ac bc cc dc ec fc gc hc ic jc kc lc mc nc oc pc qc rc sc tc uc vc wc xc yc zc V ad bd cd dd ed fd gd hd id jd kd ld md nd od pd qd rd sd td ud vd wd xd yd zd W ae be ce de ee fe ge he ie je ke le me ne oe pe qe re se te ue ve we xe ye ze X af bf cf df ef ff gf hf if jf kf lf mf nf of pf qf rf sf tf uf vf wf xf yf zf Y ag bg cg dg eg fg gg hg ig jg kg lg mg ng og pg qg rg sg tg ug vg wg xg yg zg Z ah bh ch dh eh fh gh hh ih jh kh lh mh nh oh ph qh rh sh th uh vy wh xh yh zh & ai bi ci di ei fi gi hi ii ji ki li mi ni oi pi qi ri si ti ui vi wi xi yi zi A aj bj cj dj ej fj gj hj ij jj kj lj mj nj oj pj qj rj sj tj uj vj wj xj yj zj B ak bk ck dk ek fk gk hk ik jk kk lk mk nk ok pk qk rk sk tk uk vk wk xk yk zk C al bl cl dl el fl gl hl il jl kl ll ml nl ol pl ql rl sl tl ul vl wl xl yl zl D am bm cm dm em fm gm hm im jm km lm mm nm om pm qm rm sm tm um vm wm xm ym zm E an bn cn dn en fn gn hn in jn kn ln mn nn on pn qn rn sn tn un vn wn xn yn zn F ao bo co do eo fo go ho io jo ko lo mo no oo po qo ro so to uo vo wo xo yo zo G ap bp cp dp ep fp gp hp ip jp kp lp mp np op pp qp rp sp tp up vp wp xp yp zp H aq bq cq dq eq fq gq hq iq jq kq lq mq nq oq pq qq rq sq tq uq vq wq xq yq zq I ar br cr dr er fr gr hr ir jr kr lr mr nr or pr qr rr sr tr ur vr wr xr yr zr J as bs cs ds es fs gs hs is js ks ls ms ns os ps qs rs ss ts us vs ws xs ys zs K at bt ct dt et ft gt ht it jt kt lt mt nt ot pt qt rt st tt ut vt wt xt yt zt L au bu cu du eu fu gu hu iu ju ku lu mu nu ou pu qu ru su tu uu vu wu xu yu zu M av bv cv dv ev fv gv hv iv jv kv lv mv nv ov pv qv rv sv tv uv vv wv xv yv zv N aw bw cw dw ew fw gw hw iw jw kw lw mw nw ow pw qw rw sw tw uw vw ww xw yw zw O ax bx cx dx ex fx gx hx ix jx kx lx mx nx ox px qx rx sx tx ux vx wx xx yx zx P ay by cy dy ey fy gy hy iy jy ky ly my ny oy py qy ry sy ty uy vy wy xy yy zy Q az bz cz dz ez fz gz hz iz jz kz lz mz nz oz pz qz rz sz tz uz vz wz xz yz zz "See!" exclaimed Kennedy, triumphantly, working rapidly. "Take the word 'war' for instance. The square which contains WA is in line S, column D. So I put down SD. The odd letter R, with a dash, is in line R, column Y. So I put down RY. WAR thus becomes SDRY. Working it backward from SDRY, I take the two letters SD. In line S, column D, I find WA in the square, and in line R, column Y, I find just R--making the translation of the cipher read 'War.' Now," he went on, excitedly, "take the message we have: "SOWC FSSJWA EKNLFFBY WOVHLX IHWAJYKH 101MLEL EPJNVPSL WCLURL GHIHDA ELBA. "I translate each pair of letters as I come to them." He was writing rapidly. There was the message: Have located New York headquarters at 101 Eveningside Avenue, Apartment K. Kennedy did not pause, but dashed from the room, followed by Grady and myself. As our taxi pulled up on the avenue, we saw that the address was a new but small apartment-house. We entered and located Apartment K. Casting about for a way to get in, Craig discovered that the fire-escape could be reached from a balcony by the hall window. He swung himself over the gap, and we followed. It was the work of only a minute to force the window-latch. We entered. No one was there. As we pressed after him, he stopped short and flashed his electric bull's-eye about with an exclamation of startled surprise. There was a fully equipped chemical and electrical laboratory. There were explosives enough to have blown not only us but a whole block to kingdom come. More than that, it was a veritable den of poisons. On a table stood beakers and test-tubes in which was crushed a paste that still showed parts of the red ruttee beans. "Some one planned here to kill Shirley, get him out of the way," reconstructed Kennedy, gazing about; "some one working under the cloak of Oriental religion." "Mrs. Anthony?" queried Grady. Kennedy shook his head. "On the contrary, like Shirley, she was an agent of the Indian Secret Service. The rest of the cipher shows it. She was sent to watch some one else, as he was sent to watch Mrs. Rogers. Neither could have known that the other was on the case. She found out, first, that the package with the prayer-bean and the word 'Gadhr' was an attempt to warn and save Shirley, whom she had known in Calcutta and still loved, but feared to compromise. She must have tried to see him, but failed. She hesitated to write, but finally did. Then some one must have seen that she was dangerous. Another poisoned bomb was sent to her. No; the nautch-girl is innocent." "'Sh!" cautioned Grady. Outside we could hear the footsteps of some one coming along the hall. Kennedy snapped off his light. The door opened. "Stand still! One motion and I will throw it!" As Kennedy's voice rang out from the direction of the table on which stood the half-finished glass bombs, Grady and I flung ourselves forward at the intruder, not knowing what we would encounter. A moment later Kennedy had found the electric switch and flashed up the lights. It was Singh, who had used both Mrs. Rogers's money and Raimanandra's religion to cover his conspiracy of revolt. V THE PHANTOM DESTROYER "Guy Fawkes himself would shudder in that mill. Think of it--five explosions on five successive days, and not a clue!" Our visitor had presented a card bearing the name of Donald MacLeod, chief of the Nitropolis Powder Company's Secret Service. It was plain that he was greatly worried over the case about which he had at last been forced to consult Kennedy. As he spoke, I remembered having read in the despatches about the explosions, but the accounts had been so meager that I had not realized that there was anything especially unusual about them, for it was at the time when accidents in and attacks on the munitions-plants were of common occurrence. "Why," went on MacLeod, "the whole business is as mysterious as if there were some phantom destroyer at work! The men are so frightened that they threaten to quit. Several have been killed. There's something strange about that, too. There are ugly rumors of poisonous gases being responsible, quite as much as the explosions, though, so far, I've been able to find nothing in that notion." "What sort of place is it?" asked Kennedy, interested at once. "Well, you see," explained MacLeod, "since the company's business has increased so fast lately, it has been forced to erect a new plant. Perhaps you have heard of the Old Grove Amusement Park, which failed? It's not far from that." MacLeod looked at us inquiringly, and Kennedy nodded to go on, though I am sure neither of us was familiar with the place. "They've called the new plant Nitropolis--rather a neat name for a powder-works, don't you think?" resumed MacLeod. "Everything went along all right until a few days ago. Then one of the buildings, a storehouse, was blown up. We couldn't be sure that it was an accident, so we redoubled our precautions. It was of no use. That started it. The very next day another building was blown up, then another, until now there have been five of them. What may happen to-day Heaven only knows! I want to get back as soon as I can." "Rather too frequent, I must admit, to be coincidences," remarked Kennedy. "No; they can't all be accidents," asserted MacLeod, confidently. "There's too great regularity for that. I think I've considered almost everything. I don't see how they can be from bombs placed by workmen. At least, it's not a bit likely. Besides, the explosions all occur in broad daylight, not at night. We're very careful about the men we employ, and they're watched all the time. The company has a guard of its own, twenty-five picked men, under me--all honorably discharged United States army men." "You have formed no theory of your own?" queried Kennedy. MacLeod paused, then drew from his pocket the clipping of a despatch from the front in which one of the war correspondents reported the destruction of wire entanglements with heat supposed to have been applied by the use of reflecting mirrors. "I'm reduced to pure speculation," he remarked. "To-day they seem to be reviving all the ancient practices. Maybe some one is going at it like Archimedes." "Not impossible," returned Craig, handing back the clipping. "Buffon tested the probability of the achievement of Archimedes in setting fire to the ships of Marcellus with mirrors and the sun's rays. He constructed a composite mirror of a hundred and twenty-eight plane mirrors, and with it he was able to ignite wood at two hundred and ten feet. However, I shrewdly suspect that, even if this story is true, they are using hydrogen or acetylene flares over there. But none of these things would be feasible in your case. You'd know it." "Could it be some one who is projecting a deadly wireless force which causes the explosions?" I put in, mindful of a previous case of Kennedy's. "We all know that inventors have been working for years on the idea of making explosives obsolete and guns junk. If some one has hit on a way of guiding an electric wave through the air and concentrating power at a point, munitions-plants could be wiped out." MacLeod looked anxiously from me to Kennedy, but Craig betrayed nothing by his face except his interest. "Sometimes I have imagined I heard a peculiar, faint, whirring noise in the air," he remarked, thoughtfully. "I thought of having the men on the watch for air-ships, but they've never seen a trace of one. It might be some power either like this," he added, shaking the clipping, "or like that which Mr. Jameson suggests." "It's something like that you meant, I presume, when you called it a 'phantom destroyer' a moment ago?" asked Kennedy. MacLeod nodded. "If you're interested," he pursued, hastily, "and feel like going down there to look things over, I think the best place for you to go would be to the Sneddens'. They're some people who have seen a chance to make a little money out of the boom. Many visitors are now coming and going on business connected with the new works. They have started a boarding-house--or, rather, Mrs. Snedden has. There's a daughter, too, who seems to be very popular." Kennedy glanced whimsically at me. "Well, Walter," he remarked, tentatively, "entirely aside from the young lady, this ought to make a good story for the Star." "Indeed it ought!" I replied, enthusiastically. "Then you'll go down to Nitropolis?" queried MacLeod, eagerly. "You can catch a train that will get you there about noon. And the company will pay you well." "MacLeod, with the mystery, Miss Snedden, and the remuneration, you are irresistible," smiled Kennedy. "Thank you," returned the detective. "You won't regret it. I can't tell you how much relieved I feel to have some one else, and, above all, yourself, on the case. You can get a train in half an hour. I think it would be best for you to go as though you had no connection with me--at least for the present." Kennedy agreed, and MacLeod excused himself, promising to be on the train, although not to ride with us, in case we should be the target of too inquisitive eyes. For a few moments, while our taxicab was coming, Kennedy considered thoughtfully what the company detective had said. By the time the vehicle arrived he had hurriedly packed up some apparatus in two large grips, one of which it fell to my lot to carry. The trip down to Nitropolis was uninteresting, and we arrived at the little station shortly after noon. MacLeod was on the train, but did not speak to us, and it was perhaps just as well, for the cabmen and others hanging about the station were keenly watching new arrivals, and any one with MacLeod must have attracted attention. We selected or were, rather, selected by one of the cabmen and driven immediately to the Snedden house. Our cover was, as Craig and I had decided, to pose as two newspaper men from New York, that being the easiest way to account for any undue interest we might show in things. The powder-company's plant was situated on a large tract of land which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, six feet high and constructed in a manner very similar to the fences used in protecting prison-camps in war-times. At various places along the several miles of fence gates were placed, with armed guards. Many other features were suggestive of war-times. One that impressed us most was that each workman had to carry a pass similar, almost, to a passport. This entire fence, we learned, was patrolled day and night by armed guards. A mile or so from the plant, or just outside the main gate, quite a settlement had grown up, like a mushroom, almost overnight--the product of a flood of new money. Originally, there had been only one house for some distance about--that of the Sneddens. But now there were scores of houses, mostly those of officials and managers, some of them really pretentious affairs. MacLeod himself lived in one of them, and we could see him ahead of us, being driven home. The workmen lived farther along the line, in a sort of company town, which at present greatly resembled a Western mining-camp, though ultimately it was to be a bungalow town. Just at present, however, it was the Snedden house that interested us most, for we felt the need of getting ourselves established in this strange community. It was an old-fashioned farm-house and had been purchased very cheaply by Snedden several years before. He had altered it and brought it up to date, and the combination of old and new proved to be typical of the owner as well as of the house. Kennedy carried off well the critical situation of our introduction, and we found ourselves welcomed rather than scrutinized as intruders. Garfield Snedden was much older than his second wife, Ida. In fact, she did not seem to be much older than Snedden's daughter Gertrude, whom MacLeod had already mentioned--a dashing young lady, never intended by nature to vegetate in the rural seclusion that her father had sought before the advent of the powder-works. Mrs. Snedden was one of those capable women who can manage a man without his knowing it. Indeed, one felt that Snedden, who was somewhat of both student and dreamer, needed a manager. "I'm glad your train was on time," bustled Mrs. Snedden. "Luncheon will be ready in a few moments now." We had barely time to look about before Gertrude led us into the dining-room and introduced us to the other boarders. Knowing human nature, Kennedy was careful to be struck with admiration and amazement at everything we had seen in our brief whirl through Nitropolis. It was not a difficult or entirely assumed feeling, either, when one realized that, only a few short months before, the region had been nothing better than an almost hopeless wilderness of scrub-pines. We did not have to wait long before the subject uppermost in our minds was brought up--the explosions. Among the boarders there were at least two who, from the start, promised to be interesting as well as important. One was a tall, slender chap named Garretson, whose connection with the company, I gathered from the conversation, took him often on important matters to New York. The other was an older man, Jackson, who seemed to be connected with the management of the works, a reticent fellow, more given to listening to others than to talking himself. "Nothing has happened so far to-day, anyhow," remarked Garretson, tapping the back of his chair with his knuckle, as a token of respect for that evil spirit who seems to be exorcised by knocking wood. "Oh," exclaimed Gertrude, with a little half-suppressed shudder, "I do hope those terrible explosions are at last over!" "If I had my way," asserted Garretson, savagely, "I'd put this town under martial law until they WERE over." "It may come to that," put in Jackson, quietly. "Quite in keeping with the present tendency of the age," agreed Snedden, in a tone of philosophical disagreement. "I don't think it makes much difference how you accomplish the result, Garfield," chimed in his wife, "as long as you accomplish it, and it is one that should be accomplished." Snedden retreated into the refuge of silence. Though this was only a bit of the conversation, we soon found out that he was an avowed pacifist. Garretson, on the other hand, was an ardent militarist, a good deal of a fire-eater. I wondered whether there might not be a good deal of the poseur about him, too. It needed no second sight to discover that both he and Gertrude were deeply interested in each other. Garretson was what Broadway would call "a live one," and, though there is nothing essentially wrong in that, I fancied that I detected, now and then, an almost maternal solicitude on the part of her stepmother, who seemed to be watching both the young man and her husband alternately. Once Jackson and Mrs. Snedden exchanged glances. There seemed to be some understanding between them. The time to return to the works was approaching, and we all rose. Somehow, Gertrude and Garretson seemed naturally to gravitate toward the door together. Some distance from the house there was a large barn. Part of it had been turned into a garage, where Garretson kept a fast car. Jackson, also, had a roadster. In fact, in this new community, with its superabundant new wealth, everybody had a car. Kennedy and I sauntered out after the rest. As we turned an angle of the house we came suddenly upon Garretson in his racer, talking to Gertrude. The crunch of the gravel under our feet warned them before we saw them, but not before we could catch a glimpse of a warning finger on the rosy lips of Gertrude. As she saw us she blushed ever so slightly. "You'll be late!" she cried, hastily. "Mr. Jackson has been gone five minutes." "On foot," returned Garretson, nonchalantly. "I'll overtake him in thirty seconds." Nevertheless, he did not wait longer, but swung up the road at a pace which was the admiration of all speed-loving Nitropolitans. Craig had ordered our taxicab driver to stop for us after lunch, and, without exciting suspicion, managed to stow away the larger part of the contents of our grips in his car. Still without openly showing our connection with MacLeod, Kennedy sought out the manager of the works, and, though scores of correspondents and reporters from various newspapers had vainly applied for permission to inspect the plant, somehow we seemed to receive the freedom of the place and without exciting suspicion. Craig's first move was to look the plant over. As we approached it our attention was instantly attracted to the numerous one-story galvanized-iron buildings that appeared to stretch endlessly in every direction. They seemed to be of a temporary nature, though the power-plants, offices, and other necessary buildings were very substantially built. The framework of the factory-buildings was nothing but wood, covered by iron sheathing, and even the sides seemed to be removable. The floors, however, were of concrete. "They serve their purpose well," observed Kennedy, as we picked our way about. "Explosions at powder-mills are frequent, anyhow. After an explosion there is very little debris to clear away, as you may imagine. These buildings are easily repaired or replaced, and they keep a large force of men for these purposes, as well as materials for any emergency." One felt instinctively the hazard of the employment. Everywhere were signs telling what not and what to do. One that stuck in my mind was, "It is better to be careful than sorry." Throughout the plant at frequent intervals were first-aid stations with kits for all sorts of accidents, including respirators, for workmen were often overcome by ether or alcohol fumes. Everything was done to minimize the hazard, yet one could not escape the conviction that human life and limb were as much a cost of production in this industry as fuel and raw material. Once, in our wanderings about the plant, I recall we ran across both Garretson and Jackson in one of the offices. They did not see us, but seemed to be talking very earnestly about something. What it was we could not guess, but this time it seemed to be Jackson who was doing most of the talking. Kennedy watched them as they parted. "There's something peculiar under the surface with those people at the boarding-house," was all he observed. "Come; over there, about an eighth of a mile, I think I see evidences of the latest of the explosions. Let's look at it." MacLeod had evidently reasoned that, sooner of later, Kennedy would appear in this part of the grounds, and as we passed one of the shops he joined us. "You mentioned something about rumors of poisonous gases," hinted Craig, as we walked along. "Yes," assented MacLeod; "I don't know what there is in it. I suppose you know that there is a very poisonous gas, carbon monoxide, or carbonic oxide, formed in considerable quantity by the explosion of several of the powders commonly used in shells. The gas has the curious power of combining with the blood and refusing to let go, thus keeping out the oxygen necessary for life. It may be that that is what accounts for what we've seen--that it is actual poisoning to death of men not killed by the immediate explosion." We had reached the scene of the previous day's disaster. No effort had yet been made to clear it up. Kennedy went over it carefully. What it was he found I do not know, but he had not spent much time before he turned to me. "Walter," he directed, "I wish you would go back to the office near the gate, where I left that paraphernalia we brought down. Carry it over--let me see--there's an open space there on that knoll. I'll join you there." Whatever was in the packages was both bulky and heavy, and I was glad to reach the hillside he had indicated. Craig was waiting for me there with MacLeod, and at once opened the packages. From them he took a thin steel rod, which he set up in the center of the open space. To it he attached a frame and to the frame what looked like four reversed megaphones. Attached to the frame, which was tubular, was an oak box with a little arrangement of hard rubber and metal which fitted into the ears. For some time Kennedy's face wore a set, far-away expression, as if he were studying something. "The explosions seem always to occur in the middle of the afternoon," observed MacLeod, fidgeting apprehensively. Kennedy motioned petulantly for silence. Then suddenly he pulled the tubes out of his ears and gazed about sharply. "There's something in the air!" he cried. "I can hear it!" MacLeod and I strained our eyes. There was nothing visible. "This is an anti-aircraft listening-post, such as the French use," explained Craig, hurriedly. "Between the horns and the microphone in the box you can catch the hum of an engine, even when it is muffled. If there's an aeroplane or a Zeppelin about, this thing would locate it." Still, there was nothing that we could see, though now the sound was just perceptible to the ear if one strained his attention a bit. I listened. It was plain in the detector; yet nothing was visible. What strange power could it be that we could not see or feel in broad daylight? Just then came a low rumbling, and then a terrific roar from the direction of the plant. We swung about in time to see a huge cloud of debris lifted literally into the air above the tree-tops and dropped to earth again. The silence that succeeded the explosion was eloquent. The phantom destroyer had delivered his blow again. "The distillery--where we make the denatured alcohol!" cried MacLeod, gazing with tense face as from other buildings, we could see men pouring forth, panic-stricken, and the silence was punctured by shouts. Kennedy bent over his detector. "That same mysterious buzzing," he muttered, "only fainter." Together we hastened now toward the distillery, another of those corrugated-iron buildings. It had been completely demolished. Here and there lay a dark, still mass. I shuddered. They were men! As we ran toward the ruin we crossed a baseball-field which the company had given the men. I looked back for Kennedy. He had paused at the wire backstop behind the catcher. Something caught in the wires interested him. By the time I reached him he had secured it--a long, slender metal tube, cleverly weighted so as to fall straight. "Not a hundred per cent. of hits, evidently," he muttered. "Still, one was enough." "What is it?" asked MacLeod. "An incendiary pastille. On contact, the nose burns away anything it hits, goes right through corrugated iron. It carries a charge of thermit ignited by this piece of magnesium ribbon. You know what thermit will penetrate with its thousands of degrees of heat. Only the nose of this went through the netting and never touched a thing. This didn't explode anything, but another one did. Thousands of gallons of alcohol did the rest." Kennedy had picked up his other package as we ran, and was now busily unwrapping it. I looked about at the crowd that had collected, and saw that there was nothing we could do to help. Once I caught sight of Gertrude's face. She was pale, and seemed eagerly searching for some one. Then, in the crowd, I lost her. I turned to MacLeod. He was plainly overwhelmed. Kennedy was grimly silent and at work on something he had jammed into the ground. "Stand back!" he cautioned, as he touched a match to the thing. With a muffled explosion, something whizzed and shrieked up into the air like a sky-rocket. Far above, I could now see a thing open out like a parachute, while below it trailed something that might have been the stick of the rocket. Eagerly Kennedy followed the parachute as the wind wafted it along and it sank slowly to the earth. When, at last, he recovered it I saw that between the parachute and the stick was fastened a small, peculiar camera. "A Scheimpflug multiple camera," he explained as he seized it almost ravenously. "Is there a place in town where I can get the films in this developed quickly?" MacLeod, himself excited now, hurried us from the scene of the explosion to a local drug-store, which combined most of the functions of a general store, even being able to improvise a dark-room in which Kennedy could work. It was some time after the excitement over the explosion had quieted down that MacLeod and I, standing impatiently before the drug-store, saw Snedden wildly tearing down the street in his car. He saw us and pulled up at the curb with a jerk. "Where's Gertrude?" he shouted, wildly. "Has any one seen my daughter?" Breathlessly he explained that he had been out, had returned to find his house deserted, Gertrude gone, his wife gone, even Jackson's car gone from the barn. He had been to the works. Neither Garretson nor Jackson had been seen since the excitement of the explosion, they told him. Garretson's racer was gone, too. There seemed to have been a sort of family explosion, also. Kennedy had heard the loud talking and had left his work to the druggist to carry on and joined us. There was no concealment now of our connection with MacLeod, for it was to him that every one in town came when in trouble. In almost no time, so accurately did he keep his fingers on the fevered pulse of Nitropolis, MacLeod had found out that Gertrude had been seen driving away from the company's grounds with some one in Garretson's car, probably Garretson himself. Jackson had been seen hurrying down the street. Some one else had seen Ida Snedden in Jackson's car, alone. Meanwhile, over the wire, MacLeod had sent out descriptions of the four people and the two cars, in the hope of intercepting them before they could be plunged into the obscurity of any near-by city. Not content with that, MacLeod and Kennedy started out in the former's car, while I climbed in with Snedden, and we began a systematic search of the roads out of Nitropolis. As we sped along, I could not help feeling, though I said nothing, that, somehow, the strange disappearances must have something to do with the mysterious phantom destroyer. I did not tell even Snedden about the little that Kennedy had discovered, for I had learned that it was best to let Craig himself tell, at his own time and in his own way. But the man seemed frantic in his search, and I could not help the impression that there was something, perhaps only a suspicion, that he knew which might shed some light. We were coming down the river, or, rather, the bay, after a fruitless search of unfrequented roads and were approaching the deserted Old Grove Amusement Park, to which excursions used, years ago, to come in boats. No one could make it pay, and it was closed and going to ruin. There had been some hint that Garretson's racer might have disappeared down this unfrequented river road. As we came to a turn in the road, we could see Kennedy and MacLeod in their car, coming up. Instead of keeping on, however, they turned into the grove, Kennedy leaning far over the running-board as MacLeod drove slowly, following his directions, as though Craig were tracing something. With a hurried exclamation of surprise, Snedden gave our car the gas and shot ahead, swinging around after them. They were headed, following some kind of tire-tracks, toward an old merry-go-round that was dismantled and all boarded up. They heard us coming and stopped. "Has any one told you that Garretson's car went down the river road, too?" called Snedden, anxiously. "No; but some one thought he saw Jackson's car come down here," called back MacLeod. "Jackson's?" exclaimed Snedden. "Maybe both are right," I ventured, as we came closer. "What made you turn in here?'" "Kennedy thought he saw fresh tire-tracks running into the grove." We were all out of our cars by this time, and examining the soft roadway with Craig. It was evident to any one that a car had been run in, and not so very long ago, in the direction of the merry-go-round. We followed the tracks on foot, bending about the huge circle of a building until we came to the side away from the road. The tracks seemed to run right in under the boards. Kennedy approached and touched the boards. They were loose. Some one had evidently been there, had taken them down, and put them up. In fact, by the marks on them, it seemed as though he had made a practice of doing so. MacLeod and Kennedy unhooked the boarding, while Snedden looked on in a sort of daze. They had taken down only two or three sections, which indicated that that whole side might similarly be removed, when I heard a low, startled exclamation from Snedden. We peered in. There, in the half-light of the gloomy interior, we could see a car. Before we knew it Snedden had darted past us. An instant later I distinguished what his more sensitive eye had seen--a woman, all alone in the car, motionless. "Ida!" he cried. There was no answer. "She--she's dead!" he shouted. It was only too true. There was Ida Snedden, seated in Jackson's car in the old deserted building, all shut up--dead. Yet her face was as pink as if she were alive and the blood had been whipped into her cheeks by a walk in the cold wind. We looked at one another, at a loss. How did she get there--and why? She must have come there voluntarily. No one had seen any one else with her in the car. Snedden was now almost beside himself. "Misfortunes never come singly," he wailed. "My daughter Gertrude gone--now my wife dead. Confound that young fellow Garretson--and Jackson, too! Where are they? Why have they fled? The scoundrels--they have stolen my whole family. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?" Trying to quiet Snedden, at the same time we began to look about the building. On one side was a small stove, in which were still the dying coals of a fire. Near by were a work-bench, some tools, pieces of wire, and other material. Scattered about were pieces of material that looked like celluloid. Some one evidently used the place as a secret workshop. Kennedy picked up a piece of the celluloid-like stuff and carefully touched a match to it. It did not burn rapidly as celluloid does, and Craig seemed more than ever interested. MacLeod himself was no mean detective. Accustomed to action, he had an idea of what to do. "Wait here!" he called back, dashing out. "I'm going to the nearest house up the road for help. I'll be back in a moment." We heard him back and turn his car and shoot away. Meanwhile, Kennedy was looking over carefully Jackson's roadster. He tapped the gas-tank in the rear, then opened it. There was not a drop of gas in it. He lifted up the hood and looked inside at the motor. Whatever he saw there, he said nothing. Finally, by siphoning some gas from Snedden's tank and making some adjustments, he seemed to have the car in a condition again for it to run. He was just about to start it when MacLeod returned, carrying a canary-bird in a cage. "I've telephoned to town," he announced. "Some one will be here soon now. Meanwhile, an idea occurred to me, and I borrowed this bird. Let me see whether the idea is any good." Kennedy, by this time, had started the engine. MacLeod placed the bright little songster near the stove on the work-bench and began to watch it narrowly. More than ever up in the air over the mystery, I could only watch Kennedy and MacLeod, each following his own lines. It might, perhaps, have been ten minutes after MacLeod returned, and during that time he had never taken his eyes off the bird, when I began to feel a little drowsy. A word from MacLeod roused me. "There's carbon monoxide in the air, Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "You know how this gas affects birds." Kennedy looked over intently. The canary had begun to show evident signs of distress over something. "It must be that this stove is defective," pursued MacLeod, picking up the poor little bird and carrying it quickly into the fresh air, where it could regain its former liveliness. Then, when he returned, he added, "There must be some defect in the stove or the draught that makes it send out the poisonous gas." "There's some gas," agreed Kennedy. "It must have cleared away mostly, though, or we couldn't stand it ourselves." Craig continued to look about the car and the building, in the vain hope of discovering some other clue. Had Mrs. Snedden been killed by the carbonic oxide? Was it a case of gas poisoning? Then, too, why had she been here at all? Who had shut her up? Had she been overcome first and, in a stupor, been unable to move to save herself? Above all, what had this to do with the mysterious phantom slayer that had wrecked so much of the works in less than a week? It was quite late in the afternoon when, at last, people came from the town and took away both the body of Mrs. Snedden and Jackson's car. Snedden could only stare and work his fingers, and after we had seen him safely in the care of some one we could trust Kennedy, MacLeod, and I climbed into MacLeod's car silently. "It's too deep for me," acknowledged MacLeod. "What shall we do next?" "Surely that fellow must have my pictures developed by this time," considered Kennedy. "Shoot back there." "They came out beautifully--all except one," reported the druggist, who was somewhat of a camera fiend himself. "That's a wonderful system, sir." Kennedy thanked him for his trouble and took the prints. With care he pieced them together, until he had several successive panoramas of the country taken from various elevations of the parachute. Then, with a magnifying-glass, he went over each section minutely. "Look at that!" he pointed out at last with the sharp tip of a pencil on one picture. In what looked like an open space among some trees was a tiny figure of a man. It seemed as if he were hacking at something with an ax. What the something was did not appear in the picture. "I should say that it was half a mile, perhaps a mile, farther away than that grove," commented Kennedy, making a rough calculation. "On the old Davis farm," considered MacLeod. "Look and see if you can't make out the ruins of a house somewhere near-by. It was burned many years ago." "Yes, yes," returned Kennedy, excitedly; "there's the place! Do you think we can get there in a car before it's dark?" "Easily," replied MacLeod. It was only a matter of minutes before we three were poking about in a tangle of wood and field, seeking to locate the spot where Kennedy's apparatus had photographed the lone axman. At last, in a large, cleared field, we came upon a most peculiar heap of debris. As nearly as I could make out, it was a pile of junk, but most interesting junk. Practically all of it consisted in broken bits of the celluloid-like stuff we had seen in the abandoned building. Twisted inextricably about were steel wires and bits of all sorts of material. In the midst of the wreckage was something that looked for all the world like the remains of a gas-motor. It was not rusted, either, which indicated that it had been put there recently. As he looked at it, Craig's face displayed a smile of satisfaction. "Looks as though it might have been an aeroplane of the tractor type," he vouchsafed, finally. "Surely there couldn't have been an accident," objected MacLeod. "No aviator could have lived through it, and there's no body." "No; it was purposely destroyed," continued Craig. "It was landed here from somewhere else for that purpose. That was what the man in the picture was doing with the ax. After the last explosion something happened. He brought the machine here to destroy the evidence." "But," persisted MacLeod, "if there had been an aeroplane hovering about we should have seen it in the air, passing over the works at the time of the explosion." Kennedy picked the pieces, significantly. "Some one about here has kept abreast of the times, if not ahead. See; the planes were of this non-inflammable celluloid that made it virtually transparent and visible only at a few hundred feet in the air. The aviator could fly low and so drop those pastilles accurately--and unseen. The engine had one of those new muffler-boxes. He would have been unheard, too, except for that delicate air-ship detector." MacLeod and I could but stare at each other, aghast. Without a doubt it was in the old merry-go-round building that the phantom aviator had established his hangar. What the connection was between the tragedy in the Snedden family and the tragedy in the powder-works we did not know, but, at least, now we knew that there was some connection. It was growing dark rapidly, and, with some difficulty, we retraced our steps to the point where we had left the car. We whirled back to the town, and, of course, to the Snedden house. Snedden was sitting in the parlor when we arrived, by the body of his wife, staring, speechless, straight before him, while several neighbors were gathered about, trying to console him. We had scarcely entered when a messenger-boy came up the path from the gate. Both Kennedy and MacLeod turned toward him, expecting some reply to the numerous messages of alarm sent out earlier in the afternoon. "Telegram for Mrs. Snedden," announced the boy. "MRS. Snedden?" queried Kennedy, surprised, then quickly: "Oh yes, that's all right. I'll take care of it." He signed for the message, tore it open, and read it. For a moment his face, which had been clouded, smoothed out, and he took a couple of turns up and down the hall, as though undecided. Finally he crumpled the telegram abstractedly and shoved it into his pocket. We followed him as he went into the parlor and stood for several moments, looking fixedly on the strangely flushed face of Mrs. Snedden. "MacLeod," he said, finally, turning gravely toward us, and, for the present, seeming to ignore the presence of the others, "this amazing series of crimes has brought home to me forcibly the alarming possibilities of applying modern scientific devices to criminal uses. New modes and processes seem to bring new menaces." "Like carbon-monoxide poisoning?" suggested MacLeod. "Of course it has long been known as a harmful gas, but--" "Let us see," interrupted Kennedy. "Walter, you were there when I examined Jackson's car. There was not a drop of gasolene in the tank, you will recall. Even the water in the radiator was low. I lifted the hood. Some one must have tampered with the carburetor. It was adjusted so that the amount of air in the mixture was reduced. More than that, I don't know whether you noticed it or not, but the spark and gas were set so that, when I did put gasolene in the tank, I had but to turn the engine over and it went. In other words, that car had been standing there, the engine running, until it simply stopped for want of fuel." He paused while we listened intently, then resumed. "The gas-engine and gas-motor have brought with them another of those unanticipated menaces of which I spoke. Whenever the explosion of the combustible mixture is incomplete or of moderated intensity a gas of which little is known may be formed in considerable quantities. "In this case, as in several others that have come to my attention, vapors arising from the combustion must have emitted certain noxious products. The fumes that caused Ida Snedden's death were not of carbon monoxide from the stove, MacLeod. They were splitting-products of gasolene, which are so new to science that they have not yet been named. "Mrs. Snedden's death, I may say for the benefit of the coroner, was due to the absorption of some of these unidentified gaseous poisons. They are as deadly as a knife-thrust through the heart, under certain conditions. Due to the non-oxidation of some of the elements of gasolene, they escape from the exhaust of every running gas-engine. In the open air, where only a whiff or two would be inhale now and then, they are not dangerous. But in a closed room they may kill in an incredibly short time. In fact, the condition has given rise to an entirely new phenomenon which some one has named 'petromortis.'" "Petromortis?" repeated Snedden, who, for the first time, began to show interest in what was going on about him. "Then it was an accident?" "I did not say it was an accident," corrected Craig. "There is an old adage that murder will out. And this expression of human experience is only repeated in what we modern scientific detectives are doing. No man bent on the commission of a crime can so arrange the circumstances of that crime that it will afterward appear, point by point, as an accident." Kennedy had us all following him breathlessly now. "I do not consider it an accident," he went on, rapidly piecing together the facts as we had found them. "Ida Snedden was killed because she was getting too close to some one's secret. Even at luncheon, I could see that she had discovered Gertrude's attachment for Garretson. How she heard that, following the excitement of the explosion this afternoon, Gertrude and Garretson had disappeared, I do not pretend to know. But it is evident that she did hear, that she went out and took Jackson's car, probably to pursue them. If we have heard that they went by the river road, she might have heard it, too. "In all probability she came along just in time to surprise some one working on the other side of the old merry-go-round structure. There can be no reason to conceal the fact longer. From that deserted building some one was daily launching a newly designed invisible aeroplane. As Mrs. Snedden came along, she must have been just in time to see that person at his secret hangar. What happened I do not know, except that she must have run the car off the river road and into the building. The person whom she found must have suddenly conceived a method of getting her out of the way and making it look like an accident of some kind, perhaps persuaded her to stay in the car with the engine running, while he went off and destroyed the aeroplane which was damning evidence now." Startling as was the revelation of an actual phantom destroyer, our minds were more aroused as to who might be the criminal who had employed such an engine of death. Kennedy drew from his pocket the telegram which had just arrived, and spread it out flat before us on a table. It was dated Philadelphia, and read: MRS. IDA SNEDDEN, Nitropolis: Garretson and Gertrude were married to-day. Have traced them to the Wolcott. Try to reconcile Mr. Snedden. HUNTER JACKSON. I saw at once that part of the story. It was just a plain love-affair that had ended in an elopement at a convenient time. The fire-eating Garretson had been afraid of the Sneddens and Jackson, who was their friend. Before I could even think further, Kennedy had drawn out the films taken by the rocket-camera. "With the aid of a magnifying-glass," he was saying, "I can get just enough of the lone figure in this picture to identify it. These are the crimes of a crazed pacifist, one whose mind had so long dwelt on the horrors of--" "Look out!" shouted MacLeod, leaping in front of Kennedy. The strain of the revelation had been too much. Snedden--a raving maniac--had reeled forward, wildly and impotently, at the man who had exposed him. VI THE BEAUTY MASK "Oh, Mr. Jameson, if they could only wake her up--find out what is the matter--do something! This suspense is killing both mother and myself." Scenting a good feature story, my city editor had sent me out on an assignment, my sole equipment being a clipping of two paragraphs from the morning Star. GIRL IN COMA SIX DAYS--SHOWS NO SIGN OF REVIVAL Virginia Blakeley, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Mrs. Stuart Blakeley, of Riverside Drive, who has been in a state of coma for six days, still shows no sign of returning consciousness. Ever since Monday some member of her family has been constantly beside her. Her mother and sister have both vainly tried to coax her back to consciousness, but their efforts have not met with the slightest response. Dr. Calvert Haynes, the family physician, and several specialists who have been called in consultation, are completely baffled by the strange malady. Often I had read of cases of morbid sleep lasting for days and even for weeks. But this was the first case I had ever actually encountered and I was glad to take the assignment. The Blakeleys, as every one knew, had inherited from Stuart Blakeley a very considerable fortune in real estate in one of the most rapidly developing sections of upper New York, and on the death of their mother the two girls, Virginia and Cynthia, would be numbered among the wealthiest heiresses of the city. They lived in a big sandstone mansion fronting the Hudson and it was with some misgiving that I sent up my card. Both Mrs. Blakeley and her other daughter, however, met me in the reception-room, thinking, perhaps, from what I had written on the card, that I might have some assistance to offer. Mrs. Blakeley was a well-preserved lady, past middle-age, and very nervous. "Mercy, Cynthia!" she exclaimed, as I explained my mission, "it's another one of those reporters. No, I cannot say anything--not a word. I don't know anything. See Doctor Haynes. I--" "But, mother," interposed Cynthia, more calmly, "the thing is in the papers. It may be that some one who reads of it may know of something that can be done. Who can tell?" "Well, I won't say anything," persisted the elder woman. "I don't like all this publicity. Did the newspapers ever do anything but harm to your poor dear father? No, I won't talk. It won't do us a bit of good. And you, Cynthia, had better be careful." Mrs. Blakeley backed out of the door, but Cynthia, who was a few years older than her sister, had evidently acquired independence. At least she felt capable of coping with an ordinary reporter who looked no more formidable than myself. "It is quite possible that some one who knows about such cases may learn of this," I urged. She hesitated as her mother disappeared, and looked at me a moment, then, her feelings getting the better of her, burst forth with the strange appeal I have already quoted. It was as though I had come at just an opportune moment when she must talk to some outsider to relieve her pent-up feelings. By an adroit question here and there, as we stood in the reception-hall, I succeeded in getting the story, which seemed to be more of human interest than of news. I even managed to secure a photograph of Virginia as she was before the strange sleep fell on her. Briefly, as her sister told it, Virginia was engaged to Hampton Haynes, a young medical student at the college where his father was a professor of diseases of the heart. The Hayneses were of a fine Southern family which had never recovered from the war and had finally come to New York. The father, Dr. Calvert Haynes, in addition to being a well-known physician, was the family physician of the Blakeleys, as I already knew. "Twice the date of the marriage has been set, only to be postponed," added Cynthia Blakeley. "We don't know what to do. And Hampton is frantic." "Then this is really the second attack of the morbid sleep?" I queried. "Yes--in a few weeks. Only the other wasn't so long--not more than a day." She said it in a hesitating manner which I could not account for. Either she thought there might be something more back of it or she recalled her mother's aversion to reporters and did not know whether she was saying too much or not. "Do you really fear that there is something wrong?" I asked, significantly, hastily choosing the former explanation. Cynthia Blakeley looked quickly at the door through which her mother had retreated. "I--I don't know," she replied, tremulously. "I don't know why I am talking to you. I'm so afraid, too, that the newspapers may say something that isn't true." "You would like to get at the truth, if I promise to hold the story back?" I persisted, catching her eye. "Yes," she answered, in a low tone, "but--" then stopped. "I will ask my friend, Professor Kennedy, at the university, to come here," I urged. "You know him?" she asked, eagerly. "He will come?" "Without a doubt," I reassured, waiting for her to say no more, but picking up the telephone receiver on a stand in the hall. Fortunately I found Craig at his laboratory and a few hasty words were all that was necessary to catch his interest. "I must tell mother," Cynthia cried, excitedly, as I hung up the receiver. "Surely she cannot object to that. Will you wait here?" As I waited for Craig, I tried to puzzle the case out for myself. Though I knew nothing about it as yet, I felt sure that I had not made a mistake and that there was some mystery here. Suddenly I became aware that the two women were talking in the next room, though too low for me to catch what they were saying. It was evident, however, that Cynthia was having some difficulty in persuading her mother that everything was all right. "Well, Cynthia," I heard her mother say, finally, as she left the room for one farther back, "I hope it will be all right--that is all I can say." What was it that Mrs. Blakeley so feared? Was it merely the unpleasant notoriety? One could not help the feeling that there was something more that she suspected, perhaps knew, but would not tell. Yet, apparently, it was aside from her desire to have her daughter restored to normal. She was at sea, herself, I felt. "Poor dear mother!" murmured Cynthia, rejoining me in a few moments. "She hardly knows just what it is she does want-except that we want Virginia well again." We had not long to wait for Craig. What I had told him over the telephone had been quite enough to arouse his curiosity. Both Mrs. Blakeley and Cynthia met him, at first a little fearfully, but quickly reassured by his manner, as well as my promise to see that nothing appeared in the Star which would be distasteful. "Oh, if some one could only bring back our little girl!" cried Mrs. Blakeley, with suppressed emotion, leading the way with her daughter up-stairs. It was only for a moment that I could see Craig alone to explain the impressions I had received, but it was enough. "I'm glad you called me," he whispered. "There is something queer." We followed them up to the dainty bedroom in flowered enamel where Virginia Blakeley lay, and it was then for the first time that we saw her. Kennedy drew a chair up beside the little white bed and went to work almost as though he had been a physician himself. Partly from what I observed myself and partly from what he told me afterward, I shall try to describe the peculiar condition in which she was. She lay there lethargic, scarcely breathing. Once she had been a tall, slender, fair girl, with a sort of wild grace. Now she seemed to be completely altered. I could not help thinking of the contrast between her looks now and the photograph in my pocket. Not only was her respiration slow, but her pulse was almost imperceptible, less than forty a minute. Her temperature was far below normal, and her blood pressure low. Once she had seemed fully a woman, with all the strength and promise of precocious maturity. But now there was something strange about her looks. It is difficult to describe. It was not that she was no longer a young woman, but there seemed to be something almost sexless about her. It was as though her secondary sex characteristics were no longer feminine, but--for want of a better word--neuter. Yet, strange to say, in spite of the lethargy which necessitated at least some artificial feeding, she was not falling away. She seemed, if anything, plump. To all appearances there was really a retardation of metabolism connected with the trance-like sleep. She was actually gaining in weight! As he noted one of these things after another, Kennedy looked at her long and carefully. I followed the direction of his eyes. Over her nose, just a trifle above the line of her eyebrows, was a peculiar red mark, a sore, which was very disfiguring, as though it were hard to heal. "What is that?" he asked Mrs. Blakeley, finally. "I don't know," she replied, slowly. "We've all noticed it. It came just after the sleep began." "You have no idea what could have caused it?" "Both Virginia and Cynthia have been going to a face specialist," she admitted, "to have their skins treated for freckles. After the treatment they wore masks which were supposed to have some effect on the skin. I don't know. Could it be that?" Kennedy looked sharply at Cynthia's face. There was no red mark over her nose. But there were certainly no freckles on either of the girls' faces now, either. "Oh, mother," remonstrated Cynthia, "it couldn't be anything Doctor Chapelle did." "Doctor Chapelle?" repeated Kennedy. "Yes, Dr. Carl Chapelle," replied Mrs. Blakeley. "Perhaps you have heard of him. He is quite well known, has a beauty-parlor on Fifth Avenue. He--" "It's ridiculous," cut in Cynthia, sharply. "Why, my face was worse than Virgie's. Car--He said it would take longer." I had been watching Cynthia, but it needed only to have heard her to see that Doctor Chapelle was something more than a beauty specialist to her. Kennedy glanced thoughtfully from the clear skin of Cynthia to the red mark on Virginia. Though he said nothing, I could see that his mind was on it. I had heard of the beauty doctors who promise to give one a skin as soft and clear as a baby's--and often, by their inexpert use of lotions and chemicals, succeed in ruining the skin and disfiguring the patient for life. Could this be a case of that sort? Yet how explain the apparent success with Cynthia? The elder sister, however, was plainly vexed at the mention of the beauty doctor's name at all, and she showed it. Kennedy made a mental note of the matter, but refrained from saying any more about it. "I suppose there is no objection to my seeing Doctor Haynes?" asked Kennedy, rising and changing the subject. "None whatever," returned Mrs. Blakeley. "If there's anything you or he can do to bring Virginia out of this--anything safe--I want it done," she emphasized. Cynthia was silent as we left. Evidently she had not expected Doctor Chapelle's name to be brought into the case. We were lucky in finding Doctor Haynes at home, although it was not the regular time for his office hours. Kennedy introduced himself as a friend of the Blakeleys who had been asked to see that I made no blunders in writing the story for the Star. Doctor Haynes did not question the explanation. He was a man well on toward the sixties, with that magnetic quality that inspires the confidence so necessary for a doctor. Far from wealthy, he had attained a high place in the profession. As Kennedy finished his version of our mission, Doctor Haynes shook his head with a deep sigh. "You can understand how I feel toward the Blakeleys," he remarked, at length. "I should consider it unethical to give an interview under any circumstances--much more so under the present." "Still," I put in, taking Kennedy's cue, "just a word to set me straight can't do any harm. I won't quote you directly." He seemed to realize that it might be better to talk carefully than to leave all to my imagination. "Well," he began, slowly, "I have considered all the usual causes assigned for such morbid sleep. It is not auto-suggestion or trance, I am positive. Nor is there any trace of epilepsy. I cannot see how it could be due to poisoning, can you?" I admitted readily that I could not. "No," he resumed, "it is just a case of what we call narcolepsy--pathological somnolence--a sudden, uncontrollable inclination to sleep, occurring sometimes repeatedly or at varying intervals. I don't think it hysterical, epileptic, or toxemic. The plain fact of the matter, gentlemen, is that neither myself nor any of my colleagues whom I have consulted have the faintest idea what it is--yet." The door of the office opened, for it was not the hour for consulting patients, and a tall, athletic young fellow, with a keen and restless face, though very boyish, entered. "My son," the doctor introduced, "soon to be the sixth Doctor Haynes in direct line in the family." We shook hands. It was evident that Cynthia had not by any means exaggerated when she said that he was frantic over what had happened to his fiancee. Accordingly, there was no difficulty in reverting to the subject of our visit. Gradually I let Kennedy take the lead in the conversation so that our position might not seem to be false. It was not long before Craig managed to inject a remark about the red spot over Virginia's nose. It seemed to excite young Hampton. "Naturally I look on it more as a doctor than a lover," remarked his father, smiling indulgently at the young man, whom it was evident he regarded above everything else in the world. "I have not been able to account for it, either. Really the case is one of the most remarkable I have ever heard of." "You have heard of a Dr. Carl Chapelle?" inquired Craig, tentatively. "A beauty doctor," interrupted the young man, turning toward his father. "You've met him. He's the fellow I think is really engaged to Cynthia." Hampton seemed much excited. There was unconcealed animosity in the manner of his remark, and I wondered why it was. Could there be some latent jealousy? "I see," calmed Doctor Haynes. "You mean to infer that this--er--this Doctor Chapelle--" He paused, waiting for Kennedy to take the initiative. "I suppose you've noticed over Miss Blakeley's nose a red sore?" hazarded Kennedy. "Yes," replied Doctor Haynes, "rather refractory, too. I--" "Say," interrupted Hampton, who by this time had reached a high pitch of excitement, "say, do you think it could be any of his confounded nostrums back of this thing?" "Careful, Hampton," cautioned the elder man. "I'd like to see him," pursued Craig to the younger. "You know him?" "Know him? I should say I do. Good-looking, good practice, and all that, but--why, he must have hypnotized that girl! Cynthia thinks he's wonderful." "I'd like to see him," suggested Craig. "Very well," agreed Hampton, taking him at his word. "Much as I dislike the fellow, I have no objection to going down to his beauty-parlor with you." "Thank you," returned Craig, as we excused ourselves and left the elder Doctor Haynes. Several times on our journey down Hampton could not resist some reference to Chapelle for commercializing the profession, remarks which sounded strangely old on his lips. Chapelle's office, we found, was in a large building on Fifth Avenue in the new shopping district, where hundreds of thousands of women passed almost daily. He called the place a Dermatological Institute, but, as Hampton put it, he practised "decorative surgery." As we entered one door, we saw that patients left by another. Evidently, as Craig whispered, when sixty sought to look like sixteen the seekers did not like to come in contact with one another. We waited some time in a little private room. At last Doctor Chapelle himself appeared, a rather handsome man with the manner that one instinctively feels appeals to the ladies. He shook hands with young Haynes, and I could detect no hostility on Chapelle's part, but rather a friendly interest in a younger member of the medical profession. Again I was thrown forward as a buffer. I was their excuse for being there. However, a newspaper experience gives you one thing, if no other--assurance. "I believe you have a patient, a Miss Virginia Blakeley?" I ventured. "Miss Blakeley? Oh yes, and her sister, also." The mention of the names was enough. I was no longer needed as a buffer. "Chapelle," blurted out Hampton, "you must have done something to her when you treated her face. There's a little red spot over her nose that hasn't healed yet." Kennedy frowned at the impetuous interruption. Yet it was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. "So," returned Chapelle, drawing back and placing his head on one side as he nodded it with each word, "you think I've spoiled her looks? Aren't the freckles gone?" "Yes," retorted Hampton, bitterly, "but on her face is this new disfigurement." "That?" shrugged Chapelle. "I know nothing of that--nor of the trance. I have only my specialty." Calm though he appeared outwardly, one could see that Chapelle was plainly worried. Under the circumstances, might not his professional reputation be at stake? What if a hint like this got abroad among his rich clientele? I looked about his shop and wondered just how much of a faker he was. Once or twice I had heard of surgeons who had gone legitimately into this sort of thing. But the common story was that of the swindler--or worse. I had heard of scores of cases of good looks permanently ruined, seldom of any benefit. Had Chapelle ignorantly done something that would leave its scar forever? Or was he one of the few who were honest and careful? Whatever the case, Kennedy had accomplished his purpose. He had seen Chapelle. If he were really guilty of anything the chances were all in favor of his betraying it by trying to cover it up. Deftly suppressing Hampton, we managed to beat a retreat without showing our hands any further. "Humph!" snorted Hampton, as we rode down in the elevator and hopped on a 'bus to go up-town. "Gave up legitimate medicine and took up this beauty doctoring--it's unprofessional, I tell you. Why, he even advertises!" We left Hampton and returned to the laboratory, though Craig had no present intention of staying there. His visit was merely for the purpose of gathering some apparatus, which included a Crookes tube, carefully packed, a rheostat, and some other paraphernalia which we divided. A few moments later we were on our way again to the Blakeley mansion. No change had taken place in the condition of the patient, and Mrs. Blakeley met us anxiously. Nor was the anxiety wholly over her daughter's condition, for there seemed to be an air of relief when Kennedy told her that we had little to report. Up-stairs in the sick-room, Craig set silently to work, attaching his apparatus to an electric-light socket from which he had unscrewed the bulb. As he proceeded I saw that it was, as I had surmised, his new X-ray photographing machine which he had brought. Carefully, from several angles, he took photographs of Virginia's head, then, without saying a word, packed up his kit and started away. We were passing down the hall, after leaving Mrs. Blakeley, when a figure stepped out from behind a portiere. It was Cynthia, who had been waiting to see us alone. "You--don't think Doctor Chapelle had anything to do with it?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper. "Then Hampton Haynes has been here?" avoided Kennedy. "Yes," she admitted, as though the question had been quite logical. "He told me of your visit to Carl." There was no concealment, now, of her anxiety. Indeed, I saw no reason why there should be. It was quite natural that the girl should worry over her lover, if she thought there was even a haze of suspicion in Kennedy's mind. "Really I have found out nothing yet," was the only answer Craig gave, from which I readily deduced that he was well satisfied to play the game by pitting each against all, in the hope of gathering here and there a bit of the truth. "As soon as I find out anything I shall let you and your mother know. And you must tell me everything, too." He paused to emphasize the last words, then slowly turned again toward the door. From the corner of my eye I saw Cynthia take a step after him, pause, then take another. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she called. Craig turned. "There's something I forgot," she continued. "There's something wrong with mother!" She paused, then resumed: "Even before Virginia was taken down with this--illness I saw a change. She is worried. Oh, Professor Kennedy, what is it? We have all been so happy. And now--Virgie, mother--all I have in the world. What shall I do?" "Just what do you mean?" asked Kennedy, gently. "I don't know. Mother has been so different lately. And now, every night, she goes out." "Where?" encouraged Kennedy, realizing that his plan was working. "I don't know. If she would only come back looking happier." She was sobbing, convulsively, over she knew not what. "Miss Blakeley," said Kennedy, taking her hand between both of his, "only trust me. If it is in my power I shall bring you all out of this uncertainty that haunts you." She could only murmur her thanks as we left. "It is strange," ruminated Kennedy, as we sped across the city again to the laboratory. "We must watch Mrs. Blakeley." That was all that was said. Although I had no inkling of what was back of it all, I felt quite satisfied at having recognized the mystery even on stumbling on it as I had. In the laboratory, as soon as he could develop the skiagraphs he had taken, Kennedy began a minute study of them. It was not long before he looked over at me with the expression I had come to recognize when he found something important. I went over and looked at the radiograph which he was studying. To me it was nothing but successive gradations of shadows. But to one who had studied roentgenography as Kennedy had each minute gradation of light and shade had its meaning. "You see," pointed out Kennedy, tracing along one of the shadows with a fine-pointed pencil, and then along a corresponding position on another standard skiagraph which he already had, "there is a marked diminution in size of the sella turcica, as it is called. Yet there is no evidence of a tumor." For several moments he pondered deeply over the photographs. "And it is impossible to conceive of any mechanical pressure sufficient to cause such a change," he added. Unable to help him on the problem, whatever it might be, I watched him pacing up and down the laboratory. "I shall have to take that picture over again--under different circumstances," he remarked, finally, pausing and looking at his watch. "To-night we must follow this clue which Cynthia has given us. Call a cab, Walter." We took a stand down the block from the Blakeley mansion, near a large apartment, where the presence of a cab would not attract attention. If there is any job I despise it is shadowing. One must keep his eyes riveted on a house, for, once let the attention relax and it is incredible how quickly any one may get out and disappear. Our vigil was finally rewarded when we saw Mrs. Blakeley emerge and hurry down the street. To follow her was easy, for she did not suspect that she was being watched, and went afoot. On she walked, turning off the Drive and proceeding rapidly toward the region of cheap tenements. She paused before one, and as our cab cruised leisurely past we saw her press a button, the last on the right-hand side, enter the door, and start up the stairs. Instantly Kennedy signaled our driver to stop and together we hopped out and walked back, cautiously entering the vestibule. The name in the letter-box was "Mrs. Reba Rinehart." What could it mean? Just then another cab stopped up the street, and as we turned to leave the vestibule Kennedy drew back. It was too late, however, not to be seen. A man had just alighted and, in turn, had started back, also realizing that it was too late. It was Chapelle! There was nothing to do but to make the best of it. "Shadowing the shadowers?" queried Kennedy, keenly watching the play of his features under the arc-light of the street. "Miss Cynthia asked me to follow her mother the other night," he answered, quite frankly. "And I have been doing so ever since." It was a glib answer, at any rate, I thought. "Then, perhaps you know something of Reba Rinehart, too," bluffed Kennedy. Chapelle eyed us a moment, in doubt how much we knew. Kennedy played a pair of deuces as if they had been four aces instead. "Not much," replied Chapelle, dubiously. "I know that Mrs. Blakeley has been paying money to the old woman, who seems to be ill. Once I managed to get in to see her. It's a bad case of pernicious anemia, I should say. A neighbor told me she had been to the college hospital, had been one of Doctor Haynes's cases, but that he had turned her over to his son. I've seen Hampton Haynes here, too." There was an air of sincerity about Chapelle's words. But, then, I reflected that there had also been a similar ring to what we had heard Hampton say. Were they playing a game against each other? Perhaps--but what was the game? What did it all mean and why should Mrs. Blakeley pay money to an old woman, a charity patient? There was no solution. Both Kennedy and Chapelle, by a sort of tacit consent, dismissed their cabs, and we strolled on over toward Broadway, watching one another, furtively. We parted finally, and Craig and I went up to our apartment, where he sat for hours in a brown study. There was plenty to think about even so far in the affair. He may have sat up all night. At any rate, he roused me early in the morning. "Come over to the laboratory," he said. "I want to take that X-ray machine up there again to Blakeley's. Confound it! I hope it's not too late." I lost no time in joining him and we were at the house long before any reasonable hour for visitors. Kennedy asked for Mrs. Blakeley and hurriedly set up the X-ray apparatus. "I wish you would place that face mask which she was wearing exactly as it was before she became ill," he asked. Her mother did as Kennedy directed, replacing the rubber mask as Virginia had worn it. "I want you to preserve that mask," directed Kennedy, as he finished taking his pictures. "Say nothing about it to any one. In fact, I should advise putting it in your family safe for the present." Hastily we drove back to the laboratory and Kennedy set to work again developing the second set of skiagraphs. I had not long to wait, this time, for him to study them. His first glance brought me over to him as he exclaimed loudly. At the point just opposite the sore which he had observed on Virginia's forehead, and overlying the sella turcica, there was a peculiar spot on the radiograph. "Something in that mask has affected the photographic plate," he explained, his face now animated. Before I could ask him what it was he had opened a cabinet where he kept many new things which he studied in his leisure moments. From it I saw him take several glass ampules which he glanced at hastily and shoved into his pocket as we heard a footstep out in the hall. It was Chapelle, very much worried. Could it be that he knew his society clientele was at stake, I wondered. Or was it more than that? "She's dead!" he cried. "The old lady died last night!" Without a word Kennedy hustled us out of the laboratory, stuffing the X-ray pictures into his pocket, also, as we went. As we hurried down-town Chapelle told us how he had tried to keep a watch by bribing one of the neighbors, who had just informed him of the tragedy. "It was her heart," said one of the neighbors, as we entered the poor apartment. "The doctor said so." "Anemia," insisted Chapelle, looking carefully at the body. Kennedy bent over, also, and examined the poor, worn frame. As he did so he caught sight of a heavy linen envelope tucked under her pillow. He pulled it out gently and opened it. Inside were several time-worn documents and letters. He glanced over them hastily, unfolding first a letter. "Walter," he whispered, furtively, looking at the neighbors in the room and making sure that none of them had seen the envelope already. "Read these. That's her story." One glance was sufficient. The first was a letter from old Stuart Blakeley. Reba Rinehart had been secretly married to him--and never divorced. One paper after another unfolded her story. I thought quickly. Then she had had a right in the Blakeley millions. More than that, the Blakeleys themselves had none, at least only what came to them by Blakeley's will. I read on, to see what, if any, contest she had intended to make. And as I read I could picture old Stuart Blakeley to myself--strong, direct, unscrupulous, a man who knew what he wanted and got it, dominant, close-mouthed, mysterious. He had understood and estimated the future of New York. On that he had founded his fortune. According to the old lady's story, the marriage was a complete secret. She had demanded marriage when he had demanded her. He had pointed out the difficulties. The original property had come to him and would remain in his hands only on condition that he married one of his own faith. She was not of the faith and declined to become so. There had been other family reasons, also. They had been married, with the idea of keeping it secret until he could arrange his affairs so that he could safely acknowledge her. It was, according to her story, a ruse. When she demanded recognition he replied that the marriage was invalid, that the minister had been unfrocked before the ceremony. She was not in law his wife and had no claim, he asserted. But he agreed to compromise, in spite of it all. If she would go West and not return or intrude, he would make a cash settlement. Disillusioned, she took the offer and went to California. Somehow, he understood that she was dead. Years later he married again. Meanwhile she had invested her settlement, had prospered, had even married herself, thinking the first marriage void. Then her second husband died and evil times came. Blakeley was dead, but she came East. Since then she had been fighting to establish the validity of the first marriage and hence her claim to dower rights. It was a moving story. As we finished reading, Kennedy gathered the papers together and took charge of them. Taking Chapelle, who by this time was in a high state of excitement over both the death and the discovery, Kennedy hurried to the Blakeley mansion, stopping only long enough to telephone to Doctor Haynes and his son. Evidently the news had spread. Cynthia Blakeley met us in the hall, half frightened, yet much relieved. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried, "I don't know what it is, but mother seems so different. What is it all about?" As Kennedy said nothing, she turned to Chapelle, whom I was watching narrowly. "What is it, Carl?" she whispered. "I--I can't tell," he whispered back, guardedly. Then, with an anxious glance at the rest of us, "Is your sister any better?" Cynthia's face clouded. Relieved though she was about her mother, there was still that horror for Virginia. "Come," I interrupted, not wishing to let Chapelle get out of my sight, yet wishing to follow Kennedy, who had dashed up-stairs. I found Craig already at the bedside of Virginia. He had broken one of the ampules and was injecting some of the extract in it into the sleeping girl's arm. Mrs. Blakeley bent over eagerly as he did so. Even in her manner she was changed. There was anxiety for Virginia yet, but one could feel that a great weight seemed to be lifted from her. So engrossed was I in watching Kennedy that I did not hear Doctor Haynes and Hampton enter. Chapelle heard, however, and turned. For a moment he gazed at Hampton. Then with a slight curl of the lip he said, in a low tone, "Is it strictly ethical to treat a patient for disease of the heart when she is suffering from anemia--if you have an interest in the life and death of the patient?" I watched Hampton's face closely. There was indignation in every line of it. But before he could reply Doctor Haynes stepped forward. "My son was right in the diagnosis," he almost shouted, shaking a menacing finger at Chapelle. "To come to the point, sir, explain that mark on Miss Virginia's forehead!" "Yes," demanded Hampton, also taking a step toward the beauty doctor, "explain it--if you dare." Cynthia suppressed a little cry of fear. For a moment I thought that the two young men would forget everything in the heat of their feelings. "Just a second," interposed Kennedy, quickly stepping between them. "Let me do the talking." There was something commanding about his tone as he looked from one to the other of us. "The trouble with Miss Virginia," he added, deliberately, "seems to lie in one of what the scientists have lately designated the 'endocrine glands'--in this case the pituitary. My X-ray pictures show that conclusively. "Let me explain for the benefit of the rest. The pituitary is an oval glandular body composed of two lobes and a connecting area, which rest in the sella turcica, enveloped by a layer of tissue, about under this point." He indicated the red spot on her forehead as he spoke. "It is, as the early French surgeons called it, l'organe enigmatique. The ancients thought it discharged the pituita, or mucus, into the nose. Most scientists of the past century asserted that it was a vestigial relic of prehistoric usefulness. To-day we know better. "One by one the functions of the internal secretions are being discovered. Our variously acquired bits of information concerning the ductless glands lie before us like the fragments of a modern picture puzzle. And so, I may tell you, in connection with recent experimental studies of the role of the pituitary, Doctor Cushing and other collaborators at Johns Hopkins have noticed a marked tendency to pass into a profoundly lethargic state when the secretion of the pituitary is totally or nearly so removed." Kennedy now had every eye riveted on him as he deftly led the subject straight to the case of the poor girl before us. "This," he added, with a wave of his hand toward her, "is much like what is called the Frohlich syndrome--the lethargy, the subnormal temperature, slow pulse, and respiration, lowered blood pressure, and insensitivity, the growth of fat and the loss of sex characteristics. It has a name--dystrophia adiposogenitalis." He nodded to Doctor Haynes, but did not pause. "This case bears a striking resemblance to the pronounced natural somnolence of hibernation. And induced hypopituitarism--under activity of the gland--produces a result just like natural hibernation. Hibernation has nothing to do with winter, or with food, primarily; it is connected in some way with this little gland under the forehead. "As the pituitary secretion is lessened, the blocking action of the fatigue products in the body be-comes greater and morbid somnolence sets in. There is a high tolerance of carbohydrates which are promptly stored as fat. I am surprised, Doctor Haynes, that you did not recognize the symptoms." A murmur from Mrs. Blakeley cut short Doctor Haynes's reply. I thought I noticed a movement of the still face on the white bed. "Virgie! Virgie!" called Mrs. Blakeley, dropping on her knee beside her daughter. "I'm here--mother!" Virginia's eyes opened ever so slightly. Her face turned just an inch or two. She seemed to be making a great effort, but it lasted only a moment. Then she slipped back into the strange condition that had baffled skilled physicians and surgeons for nearly a week. "The sleep is being dispelled," said Kennedy, quietly placing his hand on Mrs. Blakeley's shoulder. "It is a sort of semi-consciousness now and the improvement should soon be great." "And that?" I asked, touching the empty ampule from which he had injected the contents into her. "Pituitrin--the extract of the anterior lobe of the pituitary body. Some one who had an object in removing her temporarily probably counted on restoring her to her former blooming womanhood by pituitrin--and by removing the cause of the trouble." Kennedy reached into his pocket and drew forth the second X-ray photograph he had taken. "Mrs. Blakeley, may I trouble you to get that beauty mask which your daughter wore?" Mechanically Mrs. Blakeley obeyed. I expected Chapelle to object, but not a word broke the death-like stillness. "The narcolepsy," continued Kennedy, taking the mask, "was due, I find, to something that affected the pituitary gland. I have here a photograph of her taken when she was wearing the mask." He ran his finger lightly over the part just above the eyes. "Feel that little lump, Walter," he directed. I did so. It was almost imperceptible, but there was something. "What is it?" I asked. "Located in one of the best protected and most inaccessible parts of the body," Kennedy considered, slowly, "how could the pituitary be reached? If you will study my skiagraph, you will see how I got my first clue. There was something over that spot which caused the refractory sore. What was it? Radium--carefully placed in the mask with guards of lead foil in such a way as to protect the eyes, but direct the emission full at the gland which was to be affected, and the secretions stopped." Chapelle gave a gasp. He was pale and agitated. "Some of you have already heard of Reba Rinehart," shot out Kennedy, suddenly changing the subject. Mrs. Blakeley could not have been more astounded if a bomb had dropped before her. Still kneeling before Virginia's bed, she turned her startled face at Kennedy, clasping her hands in appeal. "It was for my girls that I tried to buy her off--for their good name--their fortune--their future," she cried, imploringly. Kennedy bent down, "I know that is all," he reassured, then, facing us, went on: "Behind that old woman was a secret of romantic interest. She was contemplating filing suit in the courts to recover a widow's interest in the land on which now stand the homes of millionaires, hotel palaces, luxurious apartments, and popular theaters--millions of dollars' worth of property." Cynthia moved over and drew her arms about the convulsed figure of her mother. "Some one else knew of this old marriage of Stuart Blakeley," proceeded Kennedy, "knew of Reba Rinehart, knew that she might die at any moment. But until she died none of the Blakeleys could be entirely sure of their fortune." It flashed over me that Chapelle might have conceived the whole scheme, seeking to gain the entire fortune for Cynthia. "Who was interested enough to plot this postponement of the wedding until the danger to the fortune was finally removed?" I caught sight of Hampton Haynes, his eyes riveted on the face on the bed before us. Virginia stirred again. This time her eyes opened wider. As if in a dream she caught sight of the face of her lover and smiled wanly. Could it have been Hampton? It seemed incredible. "The old lady is dead," pursued Kennedy, tensely. "Her dower right died with her. Nothing can be gained by bringing her case back again--except to trouble the Blakeleys in what is rightfully theirs." Gathering up the beauty mask, the X-ray photographs, and the papers of Mrs. Rinehart, Kennedy emphasized with them the words as he whipped them out suddenly. "Postponing the marriage, at the possible expense of Chapelle, until Reba Rinehart was dead, and trusting to a wrong diagnosis and Hampton's inexperience as the surest way of bringing that result about quickly, it was your inordinate ambition for your son, Doctor Haynes, that led you on. I shall hold these proofs until Virginia Blakeley is restored completely to health and beauty." VII THE LOVE METER "Since we brought him home, my brother just tosses and gasps for air. Oh, I think Eulalie and I shall both go mad!" The soft, pleading voice of Anitra Barrios and her big, appealing brown eyes filled with tears were doubly affecting as, in spite of her own feelings, she placed her hand on that of a somewhat younger girl who had accompanied her to the laboratory. "We were to have been married next month," sobbed Eulalie Sandoval. "Can't you come and see Jose, Professor Kennedy? There must be something you can do. We fear he is dying--yes, dying." "Poor little girl!" murmured Anitra, still patting her hand affectionately, then to us, "You know, Eulalie is the sister of Manuel Sandoval, who manages the New York business of my brother." She paused. "Oh, I can't believe it, myself. It's all so strange, so sudden." For the moment her own grief overwhelmed Anitra, and both sister and sweetheart of Jose Barrios clung to each other. "What is the trouble?" soothed Craig. "What has happened? How can I help you?" "Everything was so happy with us," cried Anitra, "until Jose and I came to New York--and--now--" She broke down again. "Please be calm," encouraged Kennedy. "Tell me everything--anything." With an effort Anitra began again. "It was last night--quite late--at his office at the foot of Wall Street--he was there alone," she strove to connect her broken thoughts. "Some one--I think it must have been the janitor--called me up at home and said that my brother was very ill. Eulalie was there with me. We hurried down to him. When we got there Jose was on the floor by his desk, unconscious, struggling for breath, just as he is now." "Did you observe anything peculiar?" queried Kennedy. "Was there anything that might give you a hint of what had happened?" Anitra Barrios considered. "Nothing," she replied, slowly, "except that the windows were all closed. There was a peculiar odor in the room. I was so excited over Jose, though, that I couldn't tell you just what it was like." "What did you do?" inquired Craig. "What could we do, just two girls, all alone? It was late. The streets were deserted. You know how they are down-town at night. We took him home, to the hotel, in a cab, and called the hotel physician, Doctor Scott." Both girls were again weeping silently in each other's arms. If there was anything that moved Kennedy to action it was distress of this sort. Without a word he rose from his desk, and I followed him. Anitra and Eulalie seemed to understand. Though they said nothing, they looked their gratitude as we four left the laboratory. On the way down to the hotel Anitra continued to pour out her story in a fragmentary way. Her brother and she, it seemed, had inherited from their father a large sugar-plantation in Santa Clara, the middle province of Cuba. Jose had not been like many of the planters. He had actually taken hold of the plantation, after the revolution had wrecked it, and had re-established it on modern, scientific lines. Now it was one of the largest independent plantations on the island. To increase its efficiency, he had later established a New York office to look after the sale of the raw sugar and had placed it in charge of a friend, Manuel Sandoval. A month or so before he had come to New York with his sister to sell the plantation, to get the high price that the boom in sugar had made it worth. It was while he had been negotiating for the sale that he had fallen in love with Eulalie and they had become engaged. Doctor Scott met us in the sitting-room of the suite which Anitra and her brother occupied, and, as she introduced us, with an anxious glance in the direction of the door of the sick-room, he shook his head gravely, though he did his best to seem encouraging. "It's a case of poisoning of some kind, I fear," he whispered aside to us, at the first opportunity. "But I can't quite make out just what it is." We followed the doctor into the room. Eulalie had preceded us and had dropped down on her knees by the bed, passing her little white hand caressingly over the pale and distorted face of Jose. He was still unconscious, gasping and fighting for breath, his features pinched and skin cold and clammy. Kennedy examined the stricken man carefully, first feeling his pulse. It was barely perceptible, rapid, thready, and irregular. Now and then there were muscular tremblings and convulsive movements of the limbs. Craig moved over to the side of the room away from the two girls, where Doctor Scott was standing. "Sometimes," I heard the doctor venture, "I think it is aconite, but the symptoms are not quite the same. Besides, I don't see how it could have been administered. There's no mark on him that might have come from a hypodermic, no wound, not even a scratch. He couldn't have swallowed it. Suicide is out of the question. But his nose and throat are terribly swollen and inflamed. It's beyond me." I tried to recall other cases I had seen. There was one case of Kennedy's in which several deaths had occurred due to aconite. Was this another of that sort? I felt unqualified to judge, where Doctor Scott himself confessed his inability. Kennedy himself said nothing, and from his face I gathered that even he had no clue as yet. As we left the sick-room, we found that another visitor had arrived and was standing in the sitting-room. It was Manuel Sandoval. Sandoval was a handsome fellow, tall, straight as an arrow, with bushy dark hair and a mustache which gave him a distinguished appearance. Born in Cuba, he had been educated in the United States, had taken special work in the technology of sugar, knew the game from cane to centrifugal and the ship to the sugar trust. He was quite as much a scientist as a business man. He and Eulalie talked for a moment in low tones in Cuban Spanish, but it needed only to watch his eyes to guess where his heart was. He seemed to fairly devour every move that Anitra made about the apartment. A few minutes later the door opened again and a striking-looking man entered. He was a bit older than Sandoval, but still young. As he entered he bowed to Sandoval and Eulalie but greeted Anitra warmly. "Mr. Burton Page," introduced Anitra, turning to us quickly, with just the trace of a flush on her face. "Mr. Page has been putting my brother in touch with people in New York who are interested in Cuban sugar-plantations." A call from Doctor Scott for some help took both girls into the sick-room for a moment. "Is Barrios any better?" asked Page, turning to Sandoval. Sandoval shook his head in the negative, but said nothing. One could not help observing that there seemed to be a sort of antipathy between the two, and I saw that Craig was observing them both closely. Page was a typical, breezy Westerner, who had first drifted to New York as a mining promoter. Prom that he had gone into selling ranches, and, by natural stages, into the promotion of almost anything in the universe. Sugar being at the time uppermost in the mind of the "Street," Page was naturally to be found crammed with facts about that staple. One could not help being interested in studying a man of his type, as long as one kept his grip on his pocket-book. For he was a veritable pied piper when it came to enticing dollars to follow him, and in his promotions he had the reputation of having amassed an impressive pile of dollars himself. No important change in the condition of Barrios had taken place, except that he was a trifle more exhausted, and Doctor Scott administered a stimulant. Kennedy, who was eager to take up the investigation of the case on the outside in the hope of discovering something that might be dignified into being a clue, excused himself, with a nod to Anitra to follow into the hall. "I may look over the office?" Craig ventured when we were alone with her. "Surely," she replied, frankly, opening her handbag which was lying on a table near the door. "I have an equal right in the business with my brother. Here are the keys. The office has been closed to-day." Kennedy took the keys, promising to let her know the moment he discovered anything important, and we hurried directly down-town. The office of the Barrios Company was at the foot of Wall Street, where the business of importing touched on the financial district. From the window one could see freighters unloading their cargoes at the docks. In the other direction, capital to the billions was represented. But in all that interesting neighborhood nothing just at present could surpass the mystery of what had taken place in the lonely little office late the night before. Kennedy passed the rail that shut the outer office off from a sort of reception space. He glanced about at the safe, the books, papers, and letter-files. It would take an accountant and an investigator days, perhaps weeks, to trace out anything in them, if indeed it were worth while at all. Two glass doors opened at one end to two smaller private offices, one belonging evidently to Sandoval, the other to Barrios. What theory Craig formed I could not guess, but as he tiptoed from the hall door, past the rail, to the door of Jose's office, I could see that first of all he was trying to discover whether it was possible to enter the outer office and reach Jose's door unseen and unheard by any one sitting at the desk inside. Apparently it was easily possible, and he paused a moment to consider what good that knowledge might do. As he did so his eye rested on the floor. A few feet away stood one of the modern "sanitary" desks. In this case the legs of the desk raised the desk high enough from the floor so that one could at least see where the cleaning-woman had left a small pile of unsanitary dust near the wall. Suddenly Kennedy bent down and poked something out of the pile of dust. There on the floor was an empty shell of a cartridge. Kennedy picked it up and looked at it curiously. What did it mean? I recalled that Doctor Scott had particularly said that Barrios had not been wounded. Still regarding the cartridge shell, Kennedy sat down at the desk of Barrios. Looking for a piece of paper in which to wrap the shell, he pulled out the middle drawer of the desk. In a back corner was a package of letters, neatly tied. We glanced at them. The envelopes bore the name of Jose Barrios and were in the handwriting of a woman. Some were postmarked Cuba; others, later, New York. Kennedy opened one of them. I could not restrain an exclamation of astonishment. I had expected that they were from Eulalie Sandoval. But they were signed by a name that we had not heard--Teresa de Leon! Hastily Kennedy read through the open letter. Its tone seemed to be that of a threat. One sentence I recall was, "I would follow you anywhere--I'll make you want me." One after another Kennedy ran through them. All were vague and veiled, as though the writer wished by some circumlocution to convey an idea that would not be apparent to some third, inquisitive party. What was back of it all? Had Jose been making love to another woman at the same time that he was engaged to Eulalie Sandoval? As far as the contents of the letters went there was nothing to show that he had done anything wrong. The mystery of the "other woman" only served to deepen the mystery of what little we already knew. Craig dropped the letters into his pocket along with the shell, and walked around into the office of Sandoval. I followed him. Quickly he made a search, but it did not seem to net him anything. Meanwhile I had been regarding a queer-looking instrument that stood on a flat table against one wall. It seemed to consist of a standard on each end of which was fastened a disk, besides several other arrangements the purpose of which I had not the slightest idea. Between the two ends rested a glass tube of some liquid. At one end was a lamp; the other was fitted with an eyepiece like a telescope. Beside the instrument on the table lay some more glass-capped tubes and strewn about were samples of raw sugar. "It is a saccharimeter," explained Kennedy, also looking at it, "an instrument used to detect the amount of sugar held in solution, a form of the polariscope. We won't go into the science of it now. It's rather abstruse." He was about to turn back into the outer office when an idea seemed to occur to him. He took the cartridge from his pocket and carefully scraped off what he could of the powder that still adhered to the outer rim. It was just a bit, but he dissolved it in some liquid from a bottle on the table, filled one of the clean glass tubes, capped the open end, and placed this tube in the saccharimeter where the first one I noticed had been. Carefully he lighted the lamp, then squinted through the eyepiece at the tube of liquid containing what he had derived from the cartridge. He made some adjustments, and as he did so his face indicated that at last he began to see something dimly. The saccharimeter had opened the first rift in the haze that surrounded the case. "I think I know what we have here," he said, briefly, rising and placing the tube and its contents in his pocket with the other things he had discovered. "Of course it is only a hint. This instrument won't tell me finally. But it is worth following up." With a final glance about to make sure that we had overlooked nothing, Kennedy closed and locked the outside door. "I'm going directly up to the laboratory, Walter," decided Kennedy. "Meanwhile you can help me very much if you will look up this Teresa de Leon. I noticed that the New York letters were written on the stationery of the Pan-America Hotel. Get what you can. I leave it to you. And if you can find out anything about the others, so much the better. I'll see you as soon as you finish." It was rather a large contract. If the story had reached the newspaper stage, I should have known how to go about it. For there is no detective agency in the world like the Star, and even on the slender basis that we had, with a flock of reporters deployed at every point in the city, with telephones, wires, and cables busily engaged, I might have gathered priceless information in a few hours. But, as it was, whatever was to be got must be got by me alone. I found Teresa de Leon registered at the Pan-America, as Craig had surmised. Such inquiries as I was able to make about the hotel did not show a trace of reason for believing that Jose Barrios had been numbered among her visitors. While that proved nothing as to the relations of the two, it was at least reassuring as far as Anitra and Eulalie were concerned, and, after all, as in such cases, this was their story. Not having been able to learn much about the lady, I decided finally to send up my card, and to my satisfaction she sent back word that she would receive me in the parlor of the hotel. Teresa de Leon proved to be a really striking type of Latin-American beauty. She was no longer young, but there was an elusiveness about her personality that made a more fascinating study than youth. I felt that with such a woman directness might be more of a surprise than subtlety. "I suppose you know that Senor Barrios is very seriously ill?" I ventured, in answer to her inquiring gaze that played from my card to my face. For a fleeting instant she looked startled. Yet she betrayed nothing as to whether it was fear or surprise. "I have called his office several times," she replied, "but no one answered. Even Senor Sandoval was not there." I felt that she was countering as cleverly as I might lead. "Then you know Mr. Sandoval also?" I asked, adding, "and Mr. Page?" "I have known Senor Barrios a long time in Cuba," she answered, "and the others, too--here." There was something evasive about her answers. She was trying to say neither too much nor too little. She left one in doubt whether she was trying to shield herself or to involve another. Though we chatted several minutes, I could gain nothing that would lead me to judge how intimately she knew Barrios. Except that she knew Sandoval and Page, her conversation might have been a replica of the letters we had discovered. Even when she hinted politely, but finally, that the talk was over she left me in doubt even whether she was an adventuress. The woman was an enigma. Had revenge or jealousy brought her to New York, or was she merely a tool in the hands of another? I was not ready to return to Kennedy merely with another unanswered question, and I determined to stop again at the hotel where Barrios and his sister lived, in the hope of picking up something there. The clerk at the desk told me that no one had called since we had been there, adding: "Except the tall gentleman, who came back. I think Senorita Barrios came down and met him in the tea-room." Wondering whether it was Page or Sandoval the clerk meant, I sauntered down the corridor past the door of the tea-room. It was Page with whom Anitra was talking. There was no way in which I could hear what was said, although Page was very earnest and Anitra showed plainly that she was anxious to return to the sick-room up-stairs. As I watched, I took good care that I should not be seen. It was well that I did, for once when I looked about I saw that some one else in another doorway was watching them, too, so intently that he did not see me. It was Sandoval. Jealousy of Page was written in every line of his face. Studying the three, while I could not escape the rivalry of the two men, I was unable to see now or recollect anything that had happened which would convey even an inkling of her feelings toward them. Yet I was convinced that that way lay a problem quite as important as relations between the other triangle of Eulalie, Teresa, and Barrios. I was not psychologist enough to deal with either triangle. There was something that distinctly called for the higher mathematics of Kennedy. Determined not to return to him entirely empty-mouthed, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see Eulalie alone, and hurried to the elevator, which whisked me up to the Barrios apartment. Doctor Scott had not left his patient, though he seemed to realize that Eulalie was a most efficient nurse. "No change," whispered the doctor, "except that he is reaching a crisis." Interested as I was in the patient, it had been for the purpose of seeing Eulalie that I had come, and I was glad when Doctor Scott left us a moment. "Has Mr. Kennedy found out anything yet?" she asked, in a tremulous whisper. "I think he is on the right track now," I encouraged. "Has anything happened here? Remember--it is quite as important that you should tell him all as it is for him to tell you." She looked at me a moment, then drew from a fold of her waist a yellow paper. It was a telegram. I took it and read: Beware of Teresa de Leon, Hotel Pan-America. A FRIEND. "You know her?" I asked, folding the telegram, but not returning it. Eulalie looked at me frankly and shook her head. "I have no idea who she is." "Or of who sent the telegram?" "None at all." "When did you receive it?" "Only a few minutes ago." Here was another mystery. Who had sent the anonymous telegram to Eulalie so soon after it had been evident that Kennedy had entered the case? What was its purpose? "I may keep this?" I asked, indicating the telegram. "I was about to send it to Professor Kennedy," she replied. "Oh, I hope he will find something Won't you go to him and tell him to hurry?" I needed no urging, not only for her sake, but also because I did not wish to be seen or to have the receipt of the telegram by Kennedy known so soon. In the hotel I stopped only long enough to see that Anitra was now hurrying toward the elevator, eager to get back to her brother and oblivious to every one around. What had become of Page and the sinister watcher whom he had not seen I did not know, nor did I have time to find out. A few moments later I rejoined Kennedy at the laboratory. He was still immersed in work, and, scarcely stopping, nodded to me to tell what I had discovered. He listened with interest until I came to the receipt of the anonymous telegram. "Did you get it?" he asked, eagerly. He almost seized it from my hands as I pulled it out of my pocket and studied it intently. "Strange," he muttered. "Any of them might have sent it." "Have you discovered anything?" I asked, for I had been watching him, consumed by curiosity, as I told my story. "Do you know yet how the thing was done?" "I think I do," he replied, abstractedly. "How was it?" I prompted, for his mind was now on the telegram. "A poison-gas pistol," he resumed, coming back to the work he had just been doing. "Instead of bullets, this pistol used cartridges charged with some deadly powder. It might have been something like the anesthetic pistol devised by the police authorities in Paris some years ago when the motor bandits were operating." "But who could have used it?" I asked. Kennedy did not answer directly. Either he was not quite sure yet or did not feel that the time was ripe to hazard a theory. "In this case," he continued, after a moment's thought, "I shouldn't be surprised if even the wielder of the pistol probably wore a mask, doubly effective, for disguise and to protect the wielder from the fumes that were to overcome the victim." "You have no idea who it was?" I reiterated. Before Kennedy could answer there came a violent ring at the laboratory bell, and I hurried to the door. It was one of the bell-boys from the hotel where the Barrioses had their apartment, with a message for Kennedy. Craig tore it open and read it hurriedly. "From Doctor Scott," he said, briefly, in answer to my anxious query. "Barrios is dead." Even though I had been prepared for the news by my last visit, death came as a shock, as it always does. I had felt all along that Kennedy had been called in too late to do anything to save Barrios, but I had been hoping against hope. But I knew that it was not too late to catch the criminal who had done the dastardly, heartless deed. A few hours and perhaps all clues might have been covered up. But there is always something that goes wrong with crime, always some point where murder cannot be covered up. I think if people could only be got to realize it, as my experience both on the Star and with Kennedy have impressed it on me, murder would become a lost art. Without another word Kennedy seized his hat and together we hurried to the hotel. We found Anitra crying softly to herself, while near her sat Eulalie, tearless, stunned by the blow, broken-hearted. In the realization of the tragedy everything had been forgotten, even the mysterious anonymous telegram signed, Judas-like, "A Friend." Sandoval, we learned, had been there when the end came, and had now gone out to make what arrangements were necessary. I had nothing against the man, but I could not help feeling that, now that the business was all Anitra's, might he not be the one to profit most by the death? The fact was that Kennedy had expressed so little opinion on the case so far that I might be pardoned for suspecting any one--even Teresa de Leon, who must have seen Jose slipping away from her in spite of her pursuit, whatever actuated it. It was while I was in the midst of these fruitless speculations that Doctor Scott beckoned us outside, and we withdrew quietly. "I don't know that there is anything more that I can do," he remarked, "but I promised Senor Sandoval that I would stay here until he came back. He begged me to, seems scarcely to know how to do enough to comfort his sister and Senorita Barrios." I listened to the doctor keenly. Was it possible that Sandoval had one of those Jekyll-Hyde natures which seem to be so common in some of us? Had his better nature yielded to his worse? To my mind that has often been an explanation of crime, never an adequate defense. Kennedy was about to say something when the elevator door down the hall opened. I expected that it was Sandoval returning, but it was Burton Page. "They told me you were here," he said, greeting us. "I have been looking all over for you, down at your laboratory and at your apartment. Would you mind stepping down around the bend in the hall?" We excused ourselves from Doctor Scott, wondering what Page had to reveal. "I knew Sandoval had not returned," he began as soon as we were out of ear-shot of the doctor, "and I don't want to see him--again--not after what happened this afternoon. The man is crazy." We had reached an alcove and sank down into a soft settee. "Why, what was that?" I asked, recalling the look of hate on the man's face as he had watched Page talking to Anitra in the tea-room. "I'm giving you this for what it may be worth," began Page, turning from me to Kennedy. "Down in the lobby this afternoon, after you had been gone some time, I happened to run into Sandoval. He almost seized hold of me. 'You have been at the office,' he said. 'You've been rummaging around there.' Well, I denied it flatly. 'Who took those letters?' he shot back at me. All I could do was to look at him. 'I don't know about any letters. What letters?' I asked. Oh, he's a queer fellow all right. I thought he was going to kill me by the black look he gave me. He cooled down a bit, but I didn't wait for any apology. The best thing to do with these hot-headed people is to cut out and let them alone." "How do you account for his strange actions?" asked Kennedy. "Have you ever heard anything more that he did?" Page shrugged his shoulders as if in doubt whether to say anything, then decided quickly. "The other day I heard Barrios and Sandoval in the office. They were quite excited. Barrios was talking loudly. I didn't know at first what it was all about. But I soon found out. Sandoval had gone to him, as the head of the family, following their custom, I believe, to ask whether he might seek to win Anitra." "Have you ever heard of Teresa de Leon?" interrupted Kennedy suddenly. Page looked at him and hesitated. "There's some scandal, there, I'm afraid," he nodded, combining his answers. "I heard Sandoval say something about her to Barrios that day--warn him against something. That was when the argument was heated. It seemed to make Barrios angry. Sandoval said something about Barrios refusing to let him court Anitra while at the same time Barrios was engaged to Eulalie. Barrios retorted that the cases were different. He said he had decided that Anitra was going to marry an American millionaire." There could be no doubt about how Page himself interpreted the remark. It was evident that he took it to mean himself. "Sandoval had warned against this De Leon?" asked Kennedy, evidently having in mind the anonymous telegram. "Something--I don't know what it was all about," returned Page, then added, in a burst of confidence: "I never heard of the lady until she came to New York and introduced herself to me. For a time she was interesting. But I'm too old for that sort of thing. Besides, she always impressed me as though she had some ulterior motive, as though she was trying to get at something through me. I cut it all out." Kennedy nodded, but for a moment said nothing. "I think I'll be getting out," remarked Page, with a half smile. "I don't want a knife in the back. I thought you ought to know all this, though. And if I hear anything else I'll let you know." Kennedy thanked him and together we rode down in the next elevator, parting with Page at the hotel entrance. It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had no intention now of wasting a moment. He beckoned for a cab and directed the man to drive immediately to the Pan-America. This time Teresa de Leon was plainly prepared for a visit, though I am not sure that she was prepared to receive two visitors. "I believe you were acquainted with Senior Barrios, who died to-night?" opened Kennedy, after I had introduced him. "He was acquainted with me," she corrected, with a purr in her voice that suggested claws. "You were not married to him," shot out Kennedy; then before she could reply, "nor even engaged." "He had known me a long time. We were intimate--" "Friends," interrupted Kennedy, leaving no doubt as to the meaning of his emphasis. She colored. It was evident that, at least to her, it was more than friendship. "Senor Sandoval says," romanced Kennedy, in true detective style, "that you wrote--" It was her turn to interrupt. "If Senor Sandoval says anything against me, he tells what is not--the truth." In spite of Kennedy's grilling she was still mistress of herself. "You introduced yourself to Burton Page, and--" "You had better remember your own proverb," she retorted. "Don't believe anything you hear and only half you see." Kennedy snapped down the yellow telegram before her. It was a dramatic moment. The woman did not flinch at the anonymous implication. Straight into Kennedy's eyes she shot a penetrating glance. "Watch both of THEM," she replied, shortly, then turned and deliberately swept out of the hotel parlor as though daring us to go as far as we cared. "I think we have started forces working for us," remarked Kennedy, coolly consulting his watch. "For the present at least let us retire to the laboratory. Some one will make a move. My game is to play one against the other--until the real one breaks." We had scarcely switched on the lights and Kennedy was checking over the results he had obtained during his afternoon's investigations, when the door was flung open and a man dashed in on us unexpectedly. It was Sandoval, and as he advanced furiously at Kennedy I more than feared that Page's idea was correct. "It was you, Kennedy," he hissed, "who took those letters from Jose's desk. It is you--or Page back of you--who are trying to connect me with that woman, De Leon. But let me tell you--" A sharp click back of Sandoval caused him to cut short the remark and look about apprehensively. Kennedy's finger, sliding along the edge of the laboratory table, had merely found an electric button by which he could snap the lock on the door. "We are two to one," returned Kennedy, nonchalantly. "That was nothing but the lock on the door closing. Mr. Jameson has a revolver in the top drawer of his desk over there. You will pardon me if I do a little telephoning--through the central office of the detective bureau? Some of our friends may not be overanxious to come here, and it may be necessary to compel their attendance." Sandoval subsided into a sullen silence as Kennedy made arrangements to have Burton Page, Anitra, Eulalie, and Teresa de Leon hurried to us at once. There was nothing for me to do but watch Sandoval as Kennedy prepared a little instrument with a scale and dial upon which rested an indicator resembling a watch hand, something like the new horizontal clocks which have only one hand to register seconds, minutes, and hours. In them, like a thermometer held sidewise, the hand moves along from zero to twenty-four. In this instrument a little needle did the same thing. Pairs of little wire-like strings ran to the instrument. Kennedy had finished adjusting another instrument which was much like the saccharimeter, only more complicated, when the racing of an engine outside announced the arrival of the party in one of the police department cars. Between us, Craig and I lost no time in disposing the visitors so that each was in possession of a pair of the wire-like strings, and then disdaining to explain why he had gathered them together so unceremoniously, Kennedy turned and finished adjusting the other apparatus. "Most people regard light, so abundant, so necessary, so free as a matter of course," he remarked, contemplatively. "Not one person in ten thousand ever thinks of its mysterious nature or ever attempts to investigate it. In fact, most of us are in utter darkness as to light." He paused, tapped the machine and went on, "This is a polarimeter--a simple polariscope--a step beyond the saccharimeter," he explained, with a nod at Sandoval. "It detects differences of structure in substances not visible in ordinary light. "Light is polarized in several ways--by reflection, by transmission, but most commonly through what I have here, a prism of calcite, or Iceland spar, commonly called a Nicol prism. Light fully polarized consists of vibrations transverse to the direction of the ray, all in one plane. Ordinary light has transverse vibrations in all planes. Certain substances, due to their molecular structure, are transparent to vibrations in one plane, but opaque to those at right angles. "Here we have," he explained, tapping the parts in order, "a source of light, passing in through this aperture, here a Nicol polarizer, next a liquid to be examined in a glass-capped tube; here on this other side an arrangement of quartz plates with rotary power which I will explain in a moment, next an analyzer, and finally the aperture for the eye of an observer." Kennedy adjusted the glass tube containing the liquid which bore the substance scraped from the cartridge--he had picked up in the office of Jose. "Look through the eyepiece, Walter," he directed. The field appeared halved. He made an adjustment and at once the field of vision appeared wholly the same tint. When he removed the tube it was dark. "If a liquid has not what we call rotary power both halves of the double disk appear of the same tint," he explained. "If it has rotary power, the halves appear of different tints and the degree of rotation is measured by the alteration of thickness of this double quartz plate necessary to counteract it. It is, as I told Mr. Jameson early to-day, a rather abstruse subject, this of polarized light. I shall not bore you with it, but I think you will see in a moment why it is necessary, perhaps why some one who knew thought it would never be used. "What I am getting at now is that some substances with the same chemical formula rotate polarized light to the right, are dextro-rotary, as, for instance, what is known as dextrose. Others rotate it to the left, are levo-rotary, as the substance called levose. Both of them are glucose. So there are substances which give the same chemical reactions which can only be distinguished by their being left or right rotary." Craig took a bit of crystalline powder and dissolved it in ether. Then he added some strong sulphuric acid. The liquid turned yellow, then slowly a bright scarlet. Beside the first he repeated the operation with another similar-looking powder, with the identical result. "Both of those," he remarked, holding up the vials, "were samples of pure veratrine, but obtained from different sources. You see the brilliant reaction--unmistakable. But it makes all the difference in the world in this case what was the source of the veratrine. It may mean the guilt or innocence of one of you." He paused, to let the significance of his remark sink in. "Veratrine," he resumed, "is a form of hellebore, known to gardeners for its fatal effect on insects. There are white and green hellebore, Veratrum alba and Veratrum viride. It is the pure alkaloid, or rather one of them, that we have to deal with here--veratrine. "There are various sources of veratrine. For instance, there is the veratrine that may be derived from the sabadilla seeds which grow in the West Indies and Mexico. It is used, I am informed, by the Germans in their lachrymatory and asphyxiating bombs." The mention of the West Indies brought, like a flash, to my mind Sandoval and Senorita de Leon. "Then, too," continued Kennedy, "there is a plant out in our own Western country, of which you may have heard, known as the death camas, very fatal to cattle when they eat it. The active principle in this is also veratrine." I began to see what Kennedy was driving at. If it were veratrine derived from death camas it would point toward Page. "Abderhalden, the great German physiological chemist, has discovered that substances that once get into the blood produce specific ferments. Not long ago, in a case, I showed it by the use of dialyzing membranes. But Abderhalden has found that the polariscope can show it also. And in this case only the polariscope can show what chemistry cannot show when we reach the point of testing Senor Barrios's blood--if that becomes necessary." It was plain that Kennedy was confident. "There are other sources of drugs of the nature used in this case to asphyxiate and kill, but the active principle of all is veratrine. The point is, veratrine from what source? The sabadilla is dextro-rotary; the death camas is levo-rotary. Which is it here?" As I tried to figure out the ramifications of the case, I could see that it was a cruel situation for one or the other of the girls. Was one of her lovers the murderer of Anitra's brother? Or was her own brother the murderer of Eulalie's lover? I looked at the faces before me, now tensely watching Kennedy, forgetful of the wire-like strings which they held in their hands. I studied Teresa de Leon intently for a while. She was still the enigma which she had been the first time I saw her. Kennedy paused long enough to look through the eyepiece again as if to reassure himself finally that he was right. There was a tantalizing suspense as we waited for the verdict of science on this intensely human tragedy. Then he turned to the queer instrument over which the needle-hand was moving. "Though some scientists would call this merely a sensitive form of galvanometer," he remarked, "it is, to me, more than that. It registers feelings, emotions. It has been registering your own every moment that I have been talking. "But most of all it registers the grand passion. I might even call it a love meter. Love might seem to be a subject which could not be investigated. But even love can be attributed to electrical forces, or, perhaps better, is expressed by the generation of an electric current, as though the attraction between men and women were the giving off of electrons or radiations of one to the other. I have seen this galvanometer stationary during the ordinary meeting of men and women, yet exhibit all sorts of strange vibrations when true lovers meet." Not used to Kennedy's peculiar methods, they were now on guard, ignorant of the fact that that alone was sufficient to corroborate unescapably any evidence they had already given of their feelings toward each other. Kennedy passed lightly over the torn and bleeding heart of Eulalie. But, much as he disliked to do so, he could not so quickly pass Anitra. In spite of her grief, I could see that she was striving to control herself. A quick blush suffused her face and her breath came and went faster. "This record," went on Kennedy, lowering his voice, "tells me that two men are in love with Anitra Barrios. I will not say which exhibits the deeper, truer passion. You shall see for yourself in a moment. But, more than that, it tells me which of the two she cares for most--a secret her heart would never permit her lips to disclose. Nor will I disclose it. "One of them, with supreme egotism, was so sure that he would win her heart that he plotted this murder of her brother so that she would have the whole estate to bring to him--a terrible price for a dowry. My love meter tells me, however, that Anitra has something to say about it yet. She does not love this man. "As for Teresa de Leon, it was jealousy that impelled her to follow Jose Barrios from Cuba to New York. The murderer, in his scheming, knew it, saw a chance to use her, to encourage her, perhaps throw suspicion on her, if necessary. When I came uncomfortably close to him he even sent an anonymous telegram that might point toward her. It was sent by the same person who stole in Barrios's office and shot him with an asphyxiating pistol which discharged a fatal quantity of pure veratrine full at him. "My love meter, in registering hidden emotions, supplements what the polarimeter tells me. It was the levo-rotary veratrine of the fatal death camas which you used, Page," concluded Craig, as again the electric attachment clicked shut the lock on the laboratory door. VIII THE VITAL PRINCIPLE "That's the handwriting of a woman--a jealous woman," remarked Kennedy, handing to me a dainty note on plain paper which had come in the morning mail. I did not stop to study the writing, for the contents of the letter were more fascinating than even Kennedy's new science of graphology. You don't know me [the note read], but I know of your work of scientific investigation. Let me inform you of something that ought to interest you. In the Forum Apartments you will find that there is some strange disease affecting the Wardlaw family. It is a queer disease of the nerves. One is dead. Others are dying. Look into it. A FRIEND. As I read it I asked myself vainly what it could mean. There was no direct accusation against any one, yet the implication was plain. A woman had been moved by one of the primal passions to betray--some one. I looked up from the note on the table at Craig. He was still studying the handwriting. "It's that peculiar vertical, angular hand affected by many women," he commented, half to himself. "Even at a glance you can see that it's written hastily, as if under the stress of excitement and sudden resolution. You'll notice how those capitals--" The laboratory door opened, interrupting him. "Hello, Kennedy," greeted Doctor Leslie, our friend, the coroner's physician, who had recently been appointed Health Commissioner of the city. It was the first time we had seen him since the appointment and we hastened to congratulate him. He thanked us absently, and it was evident that there was something on his mind, some problem which, in his new office, he felt that he must solve if for no other purpose than to justify his reputation. Craig said nothing, preferring to let the commissioner come to the point in his own way. "Do you know, Kennedy," he said, at length, turning in his chair and facing us, "I believe we have found one of the strangest cases in the history of the department." The commissioner paused, then went on, quickly, "It looks as if it were nothing less than an epidemic of beriberi--not on a ship coming into port as so often happens, but actually in the heart of the city." "Beriberi--in New York?" queried Craig, incredulously. "It looks like it," reiterated Leslie, "in the family of a Doctor Wardlaw, up-town here, in the Forum--" Kennedy had already shoved over the letter he had just received. Leslie did not finish the sentence, but read the note in amazement. "What are the symptoms?" inquired Craig. "What makes you think it is beriberi, of all things?" "Because they show the symptoms of beriberi," persisted Leslie, doggedly. "You know what they are like. If you care to go into the matter I think I can convince you." The commissioner was still holding the letter and gazing, puzzled, from it to us. It seemed as if he regarded it merely as confirming his own suspicions that something was wrong, even though it shed no real light on the matter. "How did you first hear of it?" prompted Kennedy. Leslie answered frankly. "It came to the attention of the department as the result of a reform I have inaugurated. When I went in office I found that many of the death certificates were faulty, and in the course of our investigations we ran across one that seemed to be most vaguely worded. I don't know yet whether it was ignorance--or something worse. But it started an inquiry. I can't say that I'm thoroughly satisfied with the amended certificate of the physician who attended Mrs. Marbury, the mother of Doctor Wardlaw's wife, who died about a week ago--Doctor Aitken." "Then Wardlaw didn't attend her himself?" asked Kennedy. "Oh no. He couldn't, under the circumstances, as I'll show you presently, aside from the medical ethics of the case. Aitken was the family physician of the Marburys." Kennedy glanced at the note. "One is dead. Others are dying," he read. "Who are the others? Who else is stricken?" "Why," continued Leslie, eager to unburden his story, "Wardlaw himself has the marks of a nervous affection as plainly as the eye can see it. You know what it is in this disease, as though the nerves were wasting away. But he doesn't seem half as badly affected as his wife. They tell me Maude Marbury was quite a beauty once, and photographs I have seen prove it. She's a wreck now. And, of course, the old lady must have been the most seriously affected of them all." "Who else is there in the household?" inquired Kennedy, growing more and more interested. "Well," answered Leslie, slowly, "they've had a nurse for some time, Natalie Langdale. Apparently she has escaped." "Any servants?" "Some by the day; only one regularly--a Japanese, Kato. He goes home at night, too. There's no evidence of the disease having affected him." I caught Leslie's eye as he gave the last information. Though I did not know much about beriberi, I had read of it, and knew that it was especially prevalent in the Orient. I did not know what importance to attach to Kato and his going home at night. "Have you done any investigating yourself?" asked Kennedy. Leslie hesitated a moment, as though deprecating his own efforts in that line, though when he spoke I could see no reason why he should, except that it had so often happened that Kennedy had seen the obvious which was hidden from most of those who consulted him. "Yes," he replied, "I thought perhaps there might be some motive back of it all which I might discover. Possibly it was old Mrs. Marbury's fortune--not a large one, but substantial. So it occurred to me that the will might show it. I have been to the surrogate." "And?" prompted Kennedy, approvingly. "Mrs. Marbury's will has already been offered for probate. It directs, among other things, that twenty-five thousand dollars be given by her daughter, to whom she leaves the bulk of her fortune, to Doctor Aitken, who had been Mr. Marbury's physician and her own." Leslie looked at us significantly, but Kennedy made no comment. "Would you like to go up there and see them?" urged the commissioner, anxious to get Craig's final word on whether he would co-operate in the affair. "I certainly should," returned Kennedy, heartily, folding up the letter which had first attracted his interest. "It looks as if there were more to this thing than a mere disease, however unusual." Doctor Leslie could not conceal his satisfaction, and without delaying a moment more than was necessary hurried us out into one of the department cars, which he had left waiting outside, and directed the driver to take us to the Forum Apartments, one of the newest and most fashionable on the Drive. Miss Langdale met us at the door and admitted us into the apartment. She was a striking type of trained nurse, one of those who seem bubbling over with health and vivacity. She seemed solicitous of her patients and reluctant to have them disturbed, yet apparently not daring to refuse to admit Doctor Leslie. There was nothing in her solicitude, however, that one could take exception to. Miss Langdale conducted us softly down a hallway through the middle of the apartment, and I noted quickly how it was laid out. On one side we passed a handsomely furnished parlor and dining-room, opposite which were the kitchen and butler's pantry, and, farther along, a bedroom and the bath. On down the hall, on the right, was Doctor Wardlaw's study, or rather den, for it was more of a library than an office. The nurse led the way, and we entered. Through the windows one caught a beautiful vista of the Drive, the river, and the Jersey shore. I gazed about curiously. Around the room there were bookcases and cabinets, a desk, some easy-chairs, and in the corner a table on which were some of Wardlaw's paraphernalia, for, although he was not a practising physician, he still specialized in his favorite branches of eye and ear surgery. Miss Langdale left us a moment, with a hasty excuse that she must prepare Mrs. Wardlaw for the unexpected visit. The preparation, however, did not take long, for a moment later Maude Wardlaw entered, supported by her nurse. Her lips moved mechanically as she saw us, but we could not hear what she said. As she walked, I could see that she had a peculiar gait, as though she were always lifting her feet over small obstacles. Her eyes, too, as she looked at us, had a strange squint, and now and then the muscles of her face twitched. She glanced from Leslie to Kennedy inquiringly, as Leslie introduced us, implying that we were from his office, then dropped into the easy-chair. Her breathing seemed to be labored and her heart action feeble, as the nurse propped her up comfortably. As Mrs. Wardlaw's hand rested on the arm of the chair I saw that there was a peculiar flexion of her wrist which reminded me of the so-called "wrist-drop" of which I had heard. It was almost as if the muscles of her hands and arms, feet and legs, were weak and wasting. Once she had been beautiful, and even now, although she seemed to be a wreck of her former self, she had a sort of ethereal beauty that was very touching. "Doctor is out--just now," she hesitated, in a tone that hinted at the loss of her voice. She turned appealingly to Miss Langdale. "Oh," she murmured, "I feel so badly this morning--as if pins and needles were sticking in me--vague pains in all my limbs--" Her voice sank to a whisper and only her lips moved feebly. One had only to see her to feel sympathy. It seemed almost cruel to intrude under the circumstances, yet it was absolutely necessary if Craig were to accomplish anything. Maude Wardlaw, however, did not seem to comprehend the significance of our presence, and I wondered how Kennedy would proceed. "I should like to see your Japanese servant, Kato," he began, directly, somewhat to my surprise, addressing himself rather to Miss Langdale than to Mrs. Wardlaw. The nurse nodded and left the room without a word, as though appreciating the anomalous position in which she was placed as temporary mistress of the household. A few moments later Kato entered. He was a typical specimen of the suave Oriental, and I eyed him keenly, for to me East was East and West was West, and I was frankly suspicious, especially as I saw no reason to be otherwise in Kennedy's manner. I waited eagerly to see what Craig would do. "Sit here," directed Kennedy, indicating a straight-backed chair, on which the Japanese obediently sat. "Now cross your knees." As Kato complied, Kennedy quickly brought his hand, held flat and palm upward, sharply against the Jap's knee just below the kneecap. There was a quick reflex jerk of the leg below the knee in response. "Quite natural," Kennedy whispered, turning to Leslie, who nodded. He dismissed Kato without further questioning, having had an opportunity to observe whether he showed any of the symptoms that had appeared in the rest of the family. Craig and the Health Commissioner exchanged a few words under their breath, then Craig crossed the room to Mrs. Wardlaw. The entrance of Kato had roused her momentarily and she had been watching what was going on. "It is a simple test," explained Kennedy, indicating to Miss Langdale that he wished to repeat it on her patient. Mrs. Wardlaw's knee showed no reflex! As he turned to us, we could see that Kennedy's face was lined deeply with thought, and he paced up and down the room once or twice, considering what he had observed. I could see that even this simple interview had greatly fatigued Mrs. Wardlaw. Miss Langdale said nothing, but it was plainly evident that she objected strongly to the strain on her patient's strength. "That will be sufficient," nodded Craig, noticing the nurse. "Thank you very much. I think you had better let Mrs. Wardlaw rest in her own room." On the nurse's arm Mrs. Wardlaw withdrew and I looked inquiringly from Kennedy to Doctor Leslie. What was it that had made this beautiful woman such a wreck? It seemed almost as though the hand of fate had stretched out against one who had all to make her happy--wealth, youth, a beautiful home--for the sullen purpose of taking away what had been bestowed so bounteously. "It is polyneuritis, all right, Leslie," Craig agreed, the moment we were alone. "I think so," coincided Leslie, with a nod. "It's the CAUSE I can't get at. Is it polyneuritis of beriberi--or something else?" Kennedy did not reply immediately. "Then there are other causes?" I inquired of Leslie. "Alcohol," he returned, briefly. "I don't think that figures in this instance. At least I've seen no evidence." "Perhaps some drug?" I hazarded at a venture. Leslie shrugged. "How about the food?" inquired Craig. "Have you made any attempt to examine it?" "I have," replied the commissioner. "When I came up here first I thought of that. I took samples of all the food that I could find in the ice-box, the kitchen, and the butler's pantry. I have the whole thing, labeled, and I have already started to test them out. I'll show you what I have done when we go down to the department laboratory." Kennedy had been examining the books in the bookcase and now pulled out a medical dictionary. It opened readily to the heading, "Polyneuritis--multiple neuritis." I bent over and read with him. In the disease, it seemed, the nerve fibers themselves in the small nerves broke down and the affection was motor, sensory, vasomotor, or endemic. All the symptoms described seemed to fit what I had observed in Mrs. Wardlaw. "Invariably," the article went on, "it is the result of some toxic substance circulating in the blood. There is a polyneuritis psychosis, known as Korsakoff's syndrome, characterized by disturbances of the memory of recent events and false reminiscences, the patient being restless and disorientated." I ran my finger down the page until I came to the causes. There were alcohol, lead, arsenic, bisulphide of carbon, diseases such as diabetes, diphtheria, typhoid, and finally, much to my excitement, was enumerated beriberi, with the added information, "or, as the Japanese call it, kakke." I placed my finger on the passage and was about to say something about my suspicions of Kato when we heard the sound of footsteps in the hall, and Craig snapped the book shut, returning it hastily to the bookcase. It was Miss Langdale who had made her patient comfortable in bed and now returned to us. "Who is this Kato?" inquired Craig, voicing what was in my own mind. "What do you know about him?" "Just a young Japanese from the Mission downtown," replied the nurse, directly. "I don't suppose you know, but Mrs. Wardlaw used to be greatly interested in religious and social work among the Japanese and Chinese; would be yet, but," she added, significantly, "she is not strong enough. They employed him before I came here, about a year ago, I think." Kennedy nodded, and was about to ask another question, when there was a slight noise out in the hall. Thinking it might be Kato himself, I sprang to the door. Instead, I encountered a middle-aged man, who drew back in surprise at seeing me, a stranger. "Oh, good morning, Doctor Aitken!" greeted Miss Langdale, in quite the casual manner of a nurse accustomed to the daily visit at about this hour. As for Doctor Aitken, he glanced from Leslie, whom he knew, to Kennedy, whom he did not know, with a very surprised look on his face. In fact, I got the impression that after he had been admitted he had paused a moment in the hall to listen to the strange voices in the Wardlaw study. Leslie nodded to him and introduced us, without quite knowing what to say or do, any more than Doctor Aitken. "A most incomprehensible case," ventured Aitken to us. "I can't, for the life of me, make it out." The doctor showed his perplexity plainly, whether it was feigned or not. "I'm afraid she's not quite so well as usual," put in Miss Langdale, speaking to him, but in a manner that indicated that first of all she wished any blame for her patient's condition to attach to us and not to herself. Doctor Aitken pursed up his lips, bowed excusingly to us, and turned down the hall, followed by the nurse. As they passed on to Mrs. Wardlaw's room, I am sure they whispered about us. I was puzzled by Doctor Aitken. He seemed to be sincere, yet, under the circumstances, I felt that I must be suspicious of everybody and everything. Alone again for a moment, Kennedy turned his attention to the furniture of the room, and finally paused before a writing-desk in the corner. He tried it. It was not locked and he opened it. Quickly he ran through a pile of papers carefully laid under a paper-weight at the back. A suppressed exclamation from him called my attention to something that he had discovered. There lay two documents, evidently recently drawn up. As we looked over the first, we saw that it was Doctor Wardlaw's will, in which he had left everything to his wife, although he was not an especially wealthy man. The other was the will of Mrs. Wardlaw. We devoured it hastily. In substance it was identical with the first, except that at the end she had added two clauses. In the first she had done just as her mother had directed. Twenty-five thousand dollars had been left to Doctor Aitken. I glanced at Kennedy, but he was reading on, taking the second clause. I read also. Fifty thousand dollars was given to endow the New York Japanese Mission. Immediately the thought of Kato and what Miss Langdale had just told us flashed through my mind. A second time we heard the nurse's footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hall. Craig closed the desk softly. "Doctor Aitken is ready to go," she announced. "Is there anything more you wish to ask?" Kennedy spoke a moment with the doctor as he passed out, but, aside from the information that Mrs. Wardlaw was, in his opinion, growing worse, the conversation added nothing to our meager store of information. "I suppose you attended Mrs. Marbury?" ventured Kennedy of Miss Langdale, after the doctor had gone. "Not all the time," she admitted. "Before I came there was another nurse, a Miss Hackstaff." "What was the matter? Wasn't she competent?" Miss Langdale avoided the question, as though it were a breach of professional etiquette to cast reflections on another nurse, although whether that was the real reason for her reticence did not appear. Craig seemed to make a mental note of the fact. "Have you seen anything--er--suspicious about this Kato?" put in Leslie, while Kennedy frowned at the interruption. Miss Langdale answered quickly, "Nothing." "Doctor Aitken has never expressed any suspicion?" pursued Leslie. "Oh no," she returned. "I think I would have known it if he had any. No, I've never heard him even hint at anything." It was evident that she wished us to know that she was in the confidence of the doctor. "I think we'd better be going," interrupted Kennedy, hastily, not apparently pleased to have Leslie break in in the investigation just at present. Miss Langdale accompanied us to the door, but before we reached it it was opened from the outside by a man who had once been and yet was handsome, although one could see that he had a certain appearance of having neglected himself. Leslie nodded and introduced us. It was Doctor Wardlaw. As I studied his face I could see that, as Leslie had already told us, it plainly bore the stigma of nervousness. "Has Doctor Aitken been here?" he inquired, quickly, of the nurse. Then, scarcely waiting for her even to nod, he added: "What did he say? Is Mrs. Wardlaw any better?" Miss Langdale seemed to be endeavoring to make as optimistic a report as the truth permitted, but I fancied Wardlaw read between the lines. As they talked it was evident that there was a sort of restraint between them. I wondered whether Wardlaw might not have some lurking suspicion against Aitken, or some one else. If he had, even in his nervousness he did not betray it. "I can't tell you how worried I am," he murmured, almost to himself. "What can this thing be?" He turned to us, and, although he had just been introduced, I am sure that our presence seemed to surprise him, for he went on talking to himself, "Oh yes--let me see--oh yes, friends of Doctor--er--Leslie." I had been studying him and trying to recall what I had just read of beriberi and polyneuritis. There flashed over my mind the recollection of what had been called Korsakoff's syndrome, in which one of the mental disturbances was the memory of recent events. Did not this, I asked myself, indicate plainly enough that Leslie might be right in his suspicions of beriberi? It was all the more apparent a moment later when, turning to Miss Langdale, Wardlaw seemed almost instantly to forget our presence again. At any rate, his anxiety was easy to see. After a few minutes' chat during which Craig observed Wardlaw's symptoms, too, we excused ourselves, and the Health Commissioner undertook to conduct us to his office to show us what he had done so far. As for me, I could not get Miss Langdale out of my mind, and especially the mysterious letter to Kennedy. What of it and what of its secret sender? None of us said much until, half an hour later, in the department laboratory, Leslie began to recapitulate what he had already done in the case. "You asked whether I had examined the food," he remarked, pausing in a corner before several cages in which were a number of pigeons, separated and carefully tagged. With a wave of his hand at one group of cages he continued: "These fellows I have been feeding exclusively on samples of the various foods which I took from the Wardlaw family when I first went up there. Here, too, are charts showing what I have observed up to date. Over there are the 'controls'--pigeons from the same group which have been fed regularly on the usual diet so that I can check my tests." Kennedy fell to examining the pigeons carefully as well as the charts and records of feeding and results. None of the birds fed on what had been taken from the apartment looked well, though some were worse than others. "I want you to observe this fellow," pointed out Leslie at last, singling out one cage. The pigeon in it was a pathetic figure. His eyes seemed dull and glazed. He paid little or no attention to us; even his food and water did not seem to interest him. Instead of strutting about, he seemed to be positively wabbly on his feet. Kennedy examined this one longer and more carefully than any of the rest. "There are certainly all the symptoms of beriberi, or rather, polyneuritis, in pigeons, with that bird," admitted Craig, finally, looking up at Leslie. The commissioner seemed to be gratified. "You know," he remarked, "beriberi itself is a common disease in the Orient. There has been a good deal of study of it and the cause is now known to be the lack of something in the food, which in the Orient is mostly rice. Polishing the rice, which removes part of the outer coat, also takes away something that is necessary for life, which scientists now call 'vitamines.'" "I may take some of these samples to study myself?" interrupted Kennedy, as though the story of vitamines was an old one to him. "By all means," agreed Leslie. Craig selected what he wanted, keeping each separate and marked, and excused himself, saying that he had some investigations of his own that he wished to make and would let Leslie know the result as soon as he discovered anything. Kennedy did not go back directly to the laboratory, however. Instead, he went up-town and, to my surprise, stopped at one of the large breweries. What it was that he was after I could not imagine, but, after a conference with the manager, he obtained several quarts of brewer's yeast, which he had sent directly down to the laboratory. Impatient though I was at this seeming neglect of the principal figures in the case, I knew, nevertheless, that Kennedy had already schemed out his campaign and that whatever it was he had in mind was of first importance. Back at last in his own laboratory, Craig set to work on the brewer's yeast, deriving something from it by the plentiful use of a liquid labeled "Lloyd's reagent," a solution of hydrous aluminum silicate. After working for some time, I saw that he had obtained a solid which he pressed into the form of little whitish tablets. He had by no means finished, but, noticing my impatience, he placed the three or four tablets in a little box and handed them to me. "You might take these over to Leslie in the department laboratory, Walter," he directed. "Tell him to feed them to that wabbly-looking pigeon over there--and let me know the moment he observes any effect." Glad of the chance to occupy myself, I hastened on the errand, and even presided over the first feeding of the bird. When I returned I found that Kennedy had finished his work with the brewer's yeast and was now devoting himself to the study of the various samples of food which he had obtained from Leslie. He was just finishing a test of the baking-powder when I entered, and his face showed plainly that he was puzzled by something that he had discovered. "What is it?" I asked. "Have you found out anything?" "This seems to be almost plain sodium carbonate," he replied, mechanically. "And that indicates?" I prompted. "Perhaps nothing, in itself," he went on, less abstractedly. "But the use of sodium carbonate and other things which I have discovered in other samples disengages carbon dioxide at the temperature of baking and cooking. If you'll look in that public-health report on my desk you'll see how the latest investigations have shown that bicarbonate of soda and a whole list of other things which liberate carbon dioxide destroy the vitamines Leslie was talking about. In other words, taken altogether I should almost say there was evidence that a concerted effort was being made to affect the food--a result analogous to that of using polished rice as a staple diet--and producing beriberi, or, perhaps more accurately, polyneuritis. I can be sure of nothing yet, but--it's worth following up." "Then you think Kato--" "Not too fast," cautioned Craig. "Remember, others had access to the kitchen, too." In spite of his hesitancy, I could think only of the two paragraphs we had read in Mrs. Wardlaw's will, and especially of the last. Might not Kato have been forced or enticed into a scheme that promised a safe return and practically no chance of discovery? What gruesome mystery had been unveiled by the anonymous letter which had first excited our curiosity? It was late in the afternoon that Commissioner Leslie called us up, much excited, to inform us that the drooping pigeon was already pecking at food and beginning to show some interest in life. Kennedy seemed greatly gratified as he hung up the receiver. "Almost dinner-time," he commented, with a glance at his watch. "I think we'll make another hurried visit to the Wardlaw apartment." We had no trouble getting in, although as outsiders we were more tolerated than welcome. Our excuse was that Kennedy had some more questions which we wished to ask Miss Langdale. While we waited for her we sat, not in the study, but in the parlor. The folding-doors into the dining-room were closed, but across the hall we could tell by the sound when Kato was in the kitchen and when he crossed the hall. Once I heard him in the dining-room. Before I knew it Kennedy had hastily tiptoed across the hall and into the kitchen. He was gone only a couple of minutes, but it was long enough to place in the food that was being prepared, and in some unprepared, either the tablets he had made or a powder he had derived from them crushed up. When he returned I saw from his manner that the real purpose of the visit had been accomplished, although when Miss Langdale appeared he went through the form of questioning her, mostly on Mrs. Marbury's sickness and death. He did not learn anything that appeared to be important, but at least he covered up the reason for his visit. Outside the apartment, Kennedy paused a moment. "There's nothing to do now but await developments," he meditated. "Meanwhile, there is no use for us to double up our time together. I have decided to watch Kato to-night. Suppose you shadow Doctor Aitken. Perhaps we may get a line on something that way." The plan seemed admirable to me. In fact, I had been longing for some action of the sort all the afternoon, while Kennedy had been engaged in the studies which he evidently deemed more important. Accordingly, after dinner, we separated, Kennedy going back to the Forum Apartments to wait until Kato left for the night, while I walked farther up the Drive to the address given in the directory as that of Doctor Aitken. It happened to be the time when the doctor had his office hours for patients, so that I was sure at least that he was at home when I took my station just down the street, carefully scrutinizing every one who entered and left his house. Nothing happened, however, until the end of the hour during which he received office calls. As I glanced down the street I was glad that I had taken an inconspicuous post, for I could see Miss Langdale approaching. She was not in her nurse's uniform, but seemed to be off duty for an hour or two, and I must confess she was a striking figure, even in that neighborhood which was noted for its pretty and daintily gowned girls. Almost before I knew it she had entered the English-basement entrance of Doctor Aitken's. I thought rapidly. What could be the purpose of her visit? Above all, how was I, on the outside, to find out? I walked down past the house. But that did no good. In a quandary, I stopped. Hesitation would get me nothing. Suddenly an idea flashed through my mind. I turned in and rang the bell. "It's past the doctor's office hours," informed a servant who opened the door. "He sees no one after hours." "But," I lied, "I have an appointment. Don't disturb him. I can wait." The waiting-room was empty, I had seen, and I was determined to get in at any cost. Reluctantly the servant admitted me. For several moments I sat quietly alone, fearful that the doctor might open the double doors of his office and discover me. But nothing happened and I grew bolder. Carefully I tiptoed to the door. It was of solid oak and practically impervious to sound. The doors fitted closely, too. Still, by applying my ear, I could make out the sound of voices on the other side. I strained my ears both to catch a word now and then and to be sure that I might hear the approach of anybody outside. Was Aitken suspiciously interested in the pretty nurse--or was she suspiciously interested in him? Suddenly their voices became a trifle more distinct. "Then you think Doctor Wardlaw has it, too?" I heard her ask. I did not catch the exact reply, but it was in the affirmative. They were approaching the door. In a moment it would be opened. I waited to hear no more, but seized my hat and dashed for the entrance from the street just in time to escape observation. Miss Langdale came out shortly, the doctor accompanying her to the door, and I followed her back to the Forum. What I had heard only added to the puzzle. Why her anxiety to know whether Wardlaw himself was affected? Why Aitken's solicitude in asserting that he was? Were they working together, or were they really opposed? Which might be using the other? My queries still unanswered, I returned to Aitken's and waited about some time, but nothing happened, and finally I went on to our own apartment. It was very late when Craig came in, but I was still awake and waiting for him. Before I could ask him a question he was drawing from me what I had observed, listening attentively. Evidently he considered it of great importance, though no remark of his betrayed what interpretation he put on the episode. "Have you found anything?" I managed to ask, finally. "Yes, indeed," he nodded, thoughtfully. "I shadowed Kato from the Forum. It must have been before Miss Langdale came out that he left. He lives down-town in a tenement-house. There's something queer about that Jap." "I think there is," I agreed. "I don't like his looks." "But it wasn't he who interested me so much to-night," Craig went on, ignoring my remark, "as a woman." "A woman?" I queried, in surprise. "A Jap, too?" "No, a white woman, rather good-looking, too, with dark hair and eyes. She seemed to be waiting for him. Afterward I made inquiries. She has been seen about there before." "Who was she?" I asked, fancying perhaps Miss Langdale had made another visit while she was out, although from the time it did not seem possible. "I followed her to her house. Her name is Hackstaff--" "The first trained nurse!" I exclaimed. "Miss Hackstaff is an enigma," confessed Kennedy. "At first I thought that perhaps she might be one of those women whom the Oriental type fascinated, that she and Kato might be plotting. Then I have considered that perhaps her visits to Kato may be merely to get information--that she may have an ax to grind. Both Kato and she will bear watching, and I have made arrangements to have it done. I've called on that young detective, Chase, whom I've often used for the routine work of shadowing. There's nothing more that we can do now until to-morrow, so we might as well turn in." Early the next day Kennedy was again at work, both in his own laboratory and in that of the Health Department, making further studies of the food and the effect it had on the pigeons, as well as observing what changes were produced by the white tablets he had extracted from the yeast. It was early in the forenoon when the buzzer on the laboratory door sounded and I opened the door to admit Chase in a high state of excitement. "What has happened?" asked Craig, eagerly. "Many things," reported the young detective, breathlessly. "To begin with, I followed Miss Hackstaff from her apartment this morning. She seemed to be worked up over something--perhaps had had a sleepless night. As nearly as I could make out she was going about aimlessly. Finally, however, I found that she was getting into the neighborhood of Doctor Aitken and of the Forum. Well, when we got to the Forum she stopped and waited in front of it--oh, I should say almost half an hour. I couldn't make out what it was she wanted, but at last I found out." He paused a moment, then raced on, without urging. "Miss Langdale came out--and you should have seen the Hackstaff woman go for her." He drew in his breath sharply at the reminiscence. "I thought there was going to be a murder done--on Riverside Drive. Miss Langdale screamed and ran back into the apartment. There was a good deal of confusion. The hall-boys came to the rescue. In the excitement, I managed to slip into the elevator with her. No one seemed to think it strange then that an outsider should be interested. I went up with her--saw Wardlaw, as she poured out the story. He's a queer one. Is he RIGHT?" "Why?" asked Craig, indulgently. "He seems so nervous; things upset him so easily. Yet, after we had taken care of Miss Langdale and matters had quieted down, I thought I might get some idea of the cause of the fracas and asked him if he knew of any reason. Why, he looked at me kind of blankly, and I swear he acted as though he had almost forgotten it already. I tell you, he's not RIGHT." Remembering our own experience, I glanced significantly at Craig. "Korsakoff's syndrome?" I queried, laconically. "Another example of a mind confused even on recent events?" Kennedy, however, was more interested in Chase. "What did Miss Hackstaff do?" he asked. "I don't know. I missed her. When I got out again she was gone." "Pick her up again," directed Craig. "Perhaps you'll get her at her place. And see, this time, if you can get what I asked you." "I'll try," returned Chase, much pleased at the words of commendation which Craig added as he left us again. On what errand Chase had gone I could not guess, except that it had something to do with this strange woman who had so unexpectedly entered the case. Nor was Craig any more communicative. There were evidently many problems which only events could clear up even in his mind. Though he did not say anything, I knew that he was as impatient as I was, and as Leslie, too, who called up once or twice to learn whether he had discovered anything. There was nothing to do but wait. It was early in the afternoon that the telephone rang and I answered it. It was Chase calling Kennedy. I heard only half the conversation and there was not much of that, but I knew that something was about to happen. Craig hastily summoned a cab, then in rapid succession called up Doctor Aitken and Leslie, for whom we stopped as our driver shot us over to the Forum Apartments. There was no ceremony or unnecessary explanation about our presence, as Kennedy entered and directed Miss Langdale to bring her patients into the little office-study of Doctor Wardlaw. Miss Langdale obeyed reluctantly. When she returned I felt that it was appreciable that a change had taken place. Mrs. Wardlaw, at least, was improved. She was still ill, but she seemed to take a more lively interest in what was going on about her. As for Doctor Wardlaw, however, I could not see that there had been any improvement in him. His nervousness had not abated. Kato, whom Kennedy summoned at the same time, preserved his usual imperturbable exterior. Miss Langdale, in spite of the incident of the morning, was quite as solicitous as ever of her charges. We had not long to wait for Doctor Aitken. He arrived, inquiring anxiously what had happened, although Kennedy gave none of us any satisfaction immediately as to the cause of his quick action. Aitken fidgeted uneasily, glancing from Kennedy to Leslie, then to Miss Langdale, and back to Kennedy, without reading any explanation in the faces. I knew that Craig was secretly taking his time both for its effect on those present and to give Chase a chance. "Our poisons and our drugs," he began, leisurely, at length, "are in many instances the close relatives of harmless compounds that represent the intermediate steps in the daily process of metabolism. There is much that I might say about protein poisons. However, that is not exactly what I want to talk about--at least first." He stopped to make sure that he had the attention of us all. As a matter of fact, his manner was such that he attracted even the vagrant interest of the Wardlaws. "I do not know how much of his suspicions Commissioner Leslie has communicated to you," he resumed, "but I believe that you have all heard of the disease beriberi so common in the Far East and known to the Japanese as kakke. It is a form of polyneuritis and, as you doubtless know, is now known to be caused, at least in the Orient, by the removal of the pericarp in the polishing of rice. Our milling of flour is, in a minor degree, analogous. To be brief, the disease arises from the lack in diet of certain substances or bodies which modern scientists call vitamines. Small quantities of these vital principles are absolutely essential to normal growth and health and even to life itself. They are nitrogenous compounds and their absence gives rise to a class of serious disorders in which the muscles surrender their store of nitrogen first. The nerves seems to be the preferred creditors, so to speak. They are affected only after the muscles begin to waste. It is an abstruse subject and it is not necessary for me to go deeper into it now." I controlled my own interest in order to watch those about me. Kato, for one, was listening attentively, I saw. "In my studies of the diet of this household," continued Kennedy, "I have found that substances have been used in preparing food which kill vitamines. In short, the food has been denatured. Valuable elements, necessary elements, have been taken away." "I, sir, not always in kitchen, sir," interrupted Kato, still deferential. "I not always know--" With a peremptory wave of his hand Kennedy silenced the Jap. "It has long been a question," he hurried on, "whether these vitamines are tangible bodies or just special arrangements of molecules. Recently government investigators have discovered that they are bodies that can be isolated by a special process from the filtrate of brewer's yeast by Lloyd's reagent. Five grams of this"--he held up some of the tablets he had made--"for a sixty-kilogram person each day are sufficient. Unknown to you, I have introduced some of this substance into the food already deficient in vitamines. I fancy that even now I can detect a change," he nodded toward Mrs. Wardlaw. There was a murmur of surprise in the room, but before Craig could continue further the door opened and Mrs. Wardlaw uttered a nervous exclamation. There stood Chase with a woman. I recognized her immediately from Kennedy's description as Miss Hackstaff. Chase walked deliberately over to Kennedy and handed him something, while the nurse glanced calmly, almost with pity, at Mrs. Wardlaw, ignoring Wardlaw, then fixing her gaze venomously on Miss Langdale. Recalling the incident of the morning, I was ready to prevent, if necessary, a repetition now. Neither moved. But it was a thrilling, if silent, drama as the two women glared at each other. Kennedy was hastily comparing the anonymous note he had received with something Chase had brought. "Some one," he shot out, suddenly, looking up and facing us, "has, as I have intimated, been removing or destroying the vital principle in the food--these vitamines. Clearly the purpose was to make this case look like an epidemic of beriberi, polyneuritis. That part has been clear to me for some time. It has been the source of this devilish plot which has been obscure. Just a moment, Kato, I will do the talking. My detective, Chase, has been doing some shadowing for me, as well as some turning over of past history. He has found a woman, a nurse, more than a nurse, a secret lover, cast off in favor of another. Miss Hackstaff--you wrote that letter--it is your hand--for revenge--on Miss Langdale and--" "You shan't have him!" almost hissed Helen Hackstaff. "If I cannot--no one shall!" Natalie Langdale faced her, defiant. "You are a jealous, suspicious person," she cried. "Doctor Aitken knows--" "One moment," interrupted Craig. "Mrs. Marbury is gone. Mrs. Wardlaw is weakened. Yet all who are affected with nerve troubles are not necessarily suffering from polyneuritis. Some one here has been dilettanting with death. It is of no use," he thundered, turning suddenly on a cowering figure. "You stood to win most, with the money and your unholy love. But Miss Hackstaff, cast off, has proved your Nemesis. Your nervousness is the nervousness not of polyneuritis, but of guilt, Doctor Wardlaw!" IX THE RUBBER DAGGER "Hypnotism can't begin to accomplish what Karatoff claims. He's a fake, Kennedy, a fake." Professor Leslie Gaines of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the university paced excitedly up and down Craig's laboratory. "There have been complaints to the County Medical Society," he went on, without stopping, "and they have taken the case up and arranged a demonstration for this afternoon. I've been delegated to attend it and report." I fancied from his tone and manner that there was just a bit more than professional excitement involved. We did not know Gaines intimately, though of course Kennedy knew of him and he of Kennedy. Some years before, I recollected, he had married Miss Edith Ashmore, whose family was quite prominent socially, and the marriage had attracted a great deal of attention at the time, for she had been a student in one of his courses when he was only an assistant professor. "Who is Karatoff, anyhow?" asked Kennedy. "What is known about him?" "Dr. Galen Karatoff--a Russian, I believe," returned Gaines. "He claims to be able to treat disease by hypnotism-suggestion, he calls it, though it is really something more than that. As nearly as I can make out it must almost amount to thought transference, telepathy, or some such thing. Oh, he has a large following; in fact, some very well-known people in the smart set are going to him. Why," he added, facing us, "Edith--my wife--has become interested in his hypnotic clinics, as he calls them. I tell her it is more than half sham, but she won't believe it." Gaines paused and it was evident that he hesitated over asking something. "When is the demonstration?" inquired Kennedy, with unconcealed interest. The professor looked at his watch. "I'm going over there now; in fact, I'm just a bit late--only, I happened to think of you and it occurred to me that perhaps if you could add something to my report it might carry weight. Would you like to come with me? Really, I should think that it might interest you." So far Kennedy had said little besides asking a question or two. I knew the symptoms. Gaines need not have hesitated or urged him. It was just the thing that appealed to him. "How did Mrs. Gaines become interested in the thing?" queried Craig, a moment later, outside, as we climbed into the car with the professor. "Through an acquaintance who introduced her to Karatoff and the rest. Carita Belleville, the dancer, you know?" Kennedy glanced at me and I nodded that I had heard of her. It was only a few nights before that I had seen Carita at one of the midnight revues, doing a dance which was described as the "hypnotic whirl," a wild abandon of grace and motion. Carita Belleville had burst like a meteor on the sky of the "Great White Way," blazing a gorgeous trail among the fixed stars of that gay firmament. She had even been "taken up" by society, or at least a certain coterie of it, had become much sought after to do exhibition dancing at social affairs, and now was well known in the amusement notes of the newspapers and at the fashionable restaurants. She had hosts of admirers and I had no doubt that Mrs. Gaines might well have fallen under the spell of her popularity. "What is Miss Belleville's interest in Karatoff?" pursued Craig, keenly. Gaines shrugged his shoulders. "Notoriety, perhaps," he replied. "It is a peculiar group that Karatoff has gathered about him, they tell me." There was something unsatisfactory about the answer and I imagined that Gaines meant purposely to leave it so as not to prejudice the case. Somehow, I felt that there must be something risque in the doings of Karatoff and his "patients." At any rate, it was only natural with anything that Carita Belleville was likely to be concerned with. There was little time for further questions, for our destination was not far down the Drive from the university, and the car pulled up before one of the new handsome and ornate "studio apartments" up-town. We followed Gaines into the building, and the hall-boy directed us to a suite on the first floor. A moment later we were admitted by Karatoff himself to what had become known as his "hypnotic clinic," really a most artistically furnished studio. Karatoff himself was a tall, dark-haired fellow, bearded, somewhat sallow. Every feature of his remarkable face, however, was subordinate to a pair of wonderful, deep-set, piercing eyes. Even as he spoke, greeting Gaines on the rather ticklish mission he had come, and accepting us with a quick glance and nod, we could see instantly that he was, indeed, a fascinating fellow, every inch a mystic. His clinic, or, as I have said, studio, carried out well the impression of mysticism that one derived from the strange personality who presided over it. There were only two or three rooms in the apartment, one being the large room down the end of a very short hall to which he conducted us. It was darkened, necessarily, since it was on the first floor of the tall building, and the air seemed to be heavy with odors that suggested the Orient. Altogether there was a cultivated dreaminess about it that was no less exotic because studied. Doctor Karatoff paused at the door to introduce us, and we could see that we were undergoing a close scrutiny from the party who were assembled there. On a quaint stand tea was brewing and the whole assemblage had an atmosphere of bohemian camaraderie which, with the professions of Karatoff, promised well that Kennedy was not wasting time. I watched particularly the exchange of greetings between Professor Gaines and Edith Gaines, who was already there. Neither of them seemed to be perfectly at ease, though they betrayed as little as they could. However, one could not help noticing that each was watching the other, naturally. Edith Gaines was a pretty little woman, petite, light of hair, dainty, the very type of woman who craved for and thrived on attention. Here at least there seemed to be no lack of it. There was only one other woman in the room who attracted the men equally, Carita Belleville herself. Carita was indeed a stunning woman, tall, slender, dark, with a wonderful pair of magnetic eyes. As I watched, I could see that both women were quite friendly with Doctor Karatoff--perhaps even rivals for his attentions. I saw Gaines watching Carita attentively, never in the mean time failing for long to lose sight of Mrs. Gaines. Was he trying to estimate the relative popularity of the two in this strange group? If so, I failed to see any approval of either. Introductions were now coming so fast that neither Kennedy nor I had much opportunity except for the most cursory observation of the people. Among the men, however, I noticed two especially who proved worth observation. One was Armand Marchant, well known as a broker, not so much for his professional doings as for his other activities. Though successful, he was better known as one of those who desert Wall Street promptly at the hour of closing, to be found late in the afternoon at the tea dances up-town. Another was Cyril Errol, a man of leisure, well known also in the club world. He had inherited an estate, small, perhaps, but ample to allow him to maintain appearances. Errol impressed you as being one to whom the good things of the world appealed mightily, a hedonist, and, withal, very much attracted to and by the ladies. It was fortunate that the serving of tea enabled us to look about and get our bearings. In spite of the suppressed excitement and obvious restraint of the occasion, we were able to learn much over the tea-cups. Errol seemed to vibrate between the group about Mrs. Gaines and that about Miss Belleville, welcome wherever he went, for he was what men commonly call a "good mixer." Marchant, on the other hand, was almost always to be found not far from Edith Gaines. Perhaps it was the more brilliant conversation that attracted him, for it ran on many subjects, but it was difficult to explain it so to my satisfaction. All of which I saw Gaines duly noting, not for the report he had to make to the Medical Society, but for his own information. In fact, it was difficult to tell the precise degree of disapproval with which he regarded Karatoff, Errol, and Marchant, in turn, as he noted the intimacy of Edith Gaines with them. I wished that we might observe them all when they did not know it, for I could not determine whether she was taking pleasure in piquing the professor or whether she was holding her admirers in leash in his presence. At any rate, I felt I need lay no claim to clairvoyance to predict the nature of the report that Gaines would prepare. The conversation was at its height when Karatoff detached himself from one of the groups and took a position in a corner of the room, alone. Not a word was said by him, yet as if by magic the buzz of conversation ceased. Karatoff looked about as though proud of the power of even his silence. Whatever might be said of the man, at least his very presence seemed to command respect from his followers. I had expected that he would make some reference to Gaines and ourselves and the purpose of the meeting, but he avoided the subject and, instead, chose to leap right into the middle of things. "So that there can be no question about what I am able to do," he began, "I wish each of you to write on a piece of paper what you would like to have me cause any one to do or say under hypnotism. You will please fold the paper tightly, covering the writing. I will read the paper to myself, still folded up, will hypnotize the subject, and will make the subject do whatever is desired. That will be preliminary to what I have to say later about my powers in hypnotic therapeutics." Pieces of paper and little lead-pencils were distributed by an attendant and in the rustling silence that followed each cudgeled his brain for something that would put to the test the powers of Karatoff. Thinking, I looked about the room. Near the speaker stood a table on which lay a curious collection of games and books, musical instruments, and other things that might suggest actions to be performed in the test. My eye wandered to a phonograph standing next the table. Somehow, I could not get Mrs. Gaines and Carita Belleville out of my head. Slowly I wrote, "Have Mrs. Gaines pick out a record, play it on the phonograph, then let her do as she pleases." Some moments elapsed while the others wrote. Apparently they were trying to devise methods of testing Doctor Karatoff's mettle. Then the papers were collected and deposited on the table beside him. Apparently at random Karatoff picked out one of the folded papers, then, seemingly without looking at it and certainly without unfolding it, as far as I could determine, he held it up to his forehead. It was an old trick, I knew. Perhaps he had palmed a sponge wet with alcohol or some other liquid, had brushed it over the paper, making the writing visible through it, and drying out rapidly so as to leave the paper opaque again long before any of us saw it a second time. Or was he really exercising some occult power? At any rate, he read it, or pretended to read it, at least. "I am asked to hypnotize Mrs. Gaines," he announced, dropping the paper unconcernedly on the table beside the other pile, as though this were mere child's play for his powers. It was something of a shock to realize that it was my paper he had chanced to pick up first, and I leaned forward eagerly, watching. Mrs. Gaines rose and every eye was riveted on her as Karatoff placed her in an easy-chair before him. There was an expectant silence, as Karatoff moved the chair so that she could concentrate her attention only on a bright silver globe suspended from the ceiling. The half-light, the heavy atmosphere, the quiet, assured manner of the chief actor in the scene, all combined to make hypnotization as nearly possible as circumstances could. Karatoff moved before her, passing his hands with a peculiar motion before her eyes. It seemed an incredibly short time in which Edith Gaines yielded to the strange force which fascinated the group. "Quite susceptible," murmured Kennedy, beside me, engrossed in the operation. "It is my test," I whispered back, and he nodded. Slowly Edith Gaines rose from the chair, faced us with unseeing eyes, except as Karatoff directed. Karatoff himself was a study. It seemed as if he had focused every ounce of his faculties on the accomplishment of the task in hand. Slowly still the woman moved, as if in a dream walk, over toward the phonograph, reached into the cabinet beneath it and drew forth a book of records. Karatoff faced us, as if to assure us that at that point he had resigned his control and was now letting her act for her subconscious self. Her fingers passed over page after page until finally she stopped, drew forth the record, placed it on the machine, wound it, then placed the record on the revolving disk. My first surprise was quickly changed to gratification. She had picked out the music to the "Hypnotic Whirl." I bent forward, more intent. What would she do next? As she turned I could see, even in the dim light, a heightened color in her cheeks, as though the excitement of the catchy music had infected her. A moment later she was executing, and very creditably, too, an imitation of Carita herself in the Revue. What did it mean? Was it that consciously or unconsciously she was taking the slender dancer as her model? The skill and knowledge that she put into the dance showed plainly. Next to Kennedy, I saw Gaines leaning far forward, looking now at his wife, now at the little group. I followed his eyes. To my surprise, I saw Marchant, his gaze riveted on Edith Gaines as if she had been the star performer in a play. Evidently my chance request to Karatoff had been builded better than I knew. I ran my gaze over the others. Errol was no less engrossed than Marchant. Quickly I glanced at Carita, wondering whether she might be gratified by the performance of a pupil. Whether it was natural grace or real hypnotism in the "Hypnotic Whirl," I was surprised to see on Carita's face something that looked strangely akin to jealousy. It was as though some other woman had usurped her prerogative. She leaned over to speak to Errol with the easy familiarity of an old admirer. I could not hear what was said and perhaps it was inconsequential. In fact, it must have been the very inconsequentiality of his reply that piqued her. He glanced at Marchant a moment, as if she had said something about him, then back at Edith Gaines. On his part, Professor Gaines was growing more and more furious. I had just about decided that the little drama in the audience was of far more importance and interest than even the dance, when the music ceased. Karatoff approached, took Mrs. Gaines by the hand, led her back to the chair, and, at a word, she regained her normal consciousness. As she rose, still in a daze it seemed, it was quite evident that she had no waking realization of what had happened, for she walked back and sat down beside her husband, quite as though nothing had happened. As for me, I could not help wondering what had actually happened. What did it all mean? Had Mrs. Gaines expressed her own self--or was it Karatoff--or Marchant--or Errol? What was the part played by Carita Belleville? Gaines did not betray anything to her, but their mutual attitude was eloquent. There was something of which he disapproved and she knew it, some lack of harmony. What was the cause? As for Karatoff's exhibition, it was all truly remarkable, whether in his therapeutics the man was a faker or not. Karatoff seemed to realize that he had made a hit. Without giving any one a chance to question him, he reached down quickly and picked up another of the papers, repeating the process through which he had gone before. "Mr. Errol," he summoned, placing the second folded paper on the table with the first. Errol rose and went forward and Karatoff placed him in the chair as he had Mrs. Gaines. There seemed to be no hesitation, at least on the part of Karatoff's followers, to being hypnotized. Whatever it was written on the paper, the writer had evidently not trusted to chance, as I had, but had told specifically what to do. At the mute bidding of Karatoff Errol rose. We watched breathlessly. Deliberately he walked across the room to the table, and, to the astonishment of all save one, picked up a rubber dagger, one of those with which children play, which was lying in the miscellaneous pile on the table. I had not noticed it, but some one's keen eye had, and evidently it had suggested a melodramatic request. Quickly Errol turned. If he had been a motion-picture actor, he could not have portrayed better the similitude of hate that was written on his face. A few strides and he had advanced toward our little audience, now keyed up to the highest pitch of excitement by the extraordinary exhibition. "Of course," remarked Karatoff, as at a word Errol paused, still poising the dagger, "you know that under hypnotism in the psychological laboratory a patient has often struck at his 'enemy' with a rubber dagger, going through all the motions of real passion. Now!" No word was said by Karatoff to indicate to Errol what it was that he was to do. But a gasp went up from some one as he took another step and it was evident that it was Marchant whom he had singled out. For just a moment Errol poised the rubber dagger over his "victim," as if gloating. It was dramatic, realistic. As Errol paused, Marchant smiled at the rest of us, a sickly smile, I thought, as though he would have said that the play was being carried too far. Never for a moment did Errol take from him the menacing look. It was only a moment in the play, yet it was so unexpected that it seemed ages. Then, swiftly, down came the dagger on Marchant's left side just over the breast, the rubber point bending pliantly as it descended. A sharp cry escaped Marchant. I looked quickly. He had fallen forward, face down, on the floor. Edith Gaines screamed as we rushed to Marchant and turned him over. For the moment, as Kennedy, Karatoff, and Gaines bent over him and endeavored to loosen his collar and apply a restorative, consternation reigned in the little circle. I bent over, too, and looked first at Marchant's flushed face, then at Kennedy. Marchant was dead! There was not a mark on him, apparently. Only a moment before he had been one of us. We could look at one another only in amazement, tinged with fear. Killed by a rubber dagger? Was it possible? "Call an ambulance--quick!" directed Kennedy to me, though I knew that he knew it was of no use except as a matter of form. We stood about the prostrate form, stunned. In a few moments the police would be there. Instinctively we looked at Karatoff. Plainly he was nervous and overwrought now. His voice shook as he brought Errol out of the trance, and Errol, dazed, uncomprehending, struggled to take in the horribly unreal tragedy which greeted his return to consciousness. "It--it was an accident," muttered Karatoff, eagerly trying to justify himself, though trembling for once in his life. "Arteriosclerosis, perhaps, hardening of the arteries, some weakness of the heart. I never--" He cut the words short as Edith Gaines reeled and fell into her husband's arms. She seemed completely prostrated by the shock. Or was it weakness following the high mental tension of her own hypnotization? Together we endeavored to revive her, waiting for the first flutter of her eyelids, which seemed an interminable time. Errol in the mean time was pacing the floor like one in a dream. Events had followed one another so fast in the confusion that I had only an unrelated series of impressions. It was not until a moment later that I realized the full import of the affair, when I saw Kennedy standing near the table in the position Karatoff had assumed, a strange look of perplexity on his face. Slowly I realized what was the cause. The papers on which were written the requests for the exhibitions of Karatoff's skill were gone! Whatever was done must be done quickly, and Kennedy looked about with a glance that missed nothing. Before I could say a word about the papers he had crossed the room to where Marchant had been standing in the little group about Edith Gaines as we entered. On a side-table stood the teacup from which he had been sipping. With his back to the rest, Kennedy drew from his breast pocket a little emergency case he carried containing a few thin miniature glass tubes. Quickly he poured the few drops of the dregs of the tea into one of the tubes, then into others tea from the other cups. Again he looked at the face of Marchant as though trying to read in the horrified smile that had petrified on it some mysterious secret hidden underneath. Slowly the question was shaping in my mind, was it, as Karatoff would have us believe, an accident? The clang of a bell outside threw us all into worse confusion, and a moment later, almost together, a white-coated surgeon and a blue-coated policeman burst into the room. It seemed almost no time, in the swirl of events, before the policeman was joined by a detective assigned by the Central Office to that district. "Well, doctor," demanded the detective as he entered, "what's the verdict?" "Arteriosclerosis, I think," replied the young surgeon. "They tell me there was some kind of hypnotic seance going on. One of them named Errol struck at him with a rubber dagger, and--" "Get out!" scoffed the Central Office man. "Killed by a rubber dagger! Say, what do you think we are? What did you find when you entered, sergeant?" The policeman handed the detective the rubber dagger which he had picked up, forgotten, on the floor where Errol had dropped it when he came out from the hypnotization. The detective took it gingerly and suspiciously, with a growl. "I'll have the point of this analyzed. It may be--well--we won't say what may be. But I can tell you what is. You, Doctor Karatoff, or whatever your name is, and you, Mr. Errol, are under arrest. It's a good deal easier to take you now than it will be later. Then if you can get a judge to release you, we'll at least know where you are." "This is outrageous, preposterous!" stormed Karatoff. "Can't help it," returned the officer, coolly. "Why," exclaimed Carita Belleville, excitedly projecting herself before the two prisoners, "it's ridiculous! Even the ambulance surgeon says it was arteriosclerosis, an accident. I--" "Very well, madam," calmed the sergeant. "So much the better. They'll get out of our hands that much quicker. Just at present it is my duty." Errol was standing silent, his eyes averted from the hideous form on the floor, not by word or action betraying a feeling. The police moved to the door. Weak and trembling still from the triple shock she had received, Edith Gaines leaned heavily on the arm of her husband, but it was, as nearly as I could make out, only for physical support. "I told you, Edith, it was a dangerous business," I heard him mutter. "Only I never contemplated that they'd carry it this far. Now you see what such foolishness can lead to." Weak though she was, she drew away and flashed a glance at him, resenting his man's "I-told-you-so" manner. The last I saw of them in the confusion was as they drove off in the car, still unreconciled. Kennedy seemed well contented, for the present at least, to allow the police a free hand with Errol and Karatoff. As for me, Mrs. Gaines and Carita Belleville presented a perplexing problem, but I said nothing, for he was hurrying back now to his laboratory. At once he drew forth the little tube containing the few drops of tea and emptied a drop or two into a beaker of freshly distilled water as carefully as if the tea had been some elixir of life. As he was examining the contents of the beaker his face clouded with thought. "Do you find anything?" I asked, eagerly. Kennedy shook his head. "There's something wrong," he hazarded. "Perhaps it's only fancy, but I am sure that there is something with a slight odor in the tea, something tea-like, but with a more bitter taste, something that would be nauseous if not concealed in the tea. There's more than tannin and sugar here." "Then you think that some one present placed something in the tea?" I inquired, shuddering at the thought that we had run some unknown danger. "I can't just say, without further investigation of this and the other samples I took." "Still, you have eliminated that ridiculous dagger theory," I ventured. "The police can never appreciate the part it played," Craig answered, non-committally, laying out various chemicals preparatory to his exhaustive analysis. "I began to suspect something the moment I noticed that those notes which we all wrote were gone. When we find out about this tea we may find who took them. Perhaps the mystery is not such a mystery after all, then." There seemed to be nothing that I could do, in the mean time, except to refrain from hindering Kennedy in his investigations, and I decided to leave him at the laboratory while I devoted my time to watching what the police might by chance turn up, even if they should prove to be working on the wrong angle of the case. I soon found that they were showing energy, if nothing else. Although it was so soon after the death of Marchant, they had determined that there could not have been anything but rubber on the end of the toy dagger which had excited the doubts of the detective. As for the autopsy that was performed on Marchant, it did, indeed, show that he was suffering from hardening of the arteries, due to his manner of living, as Karatoff had asserted. Indeed, the police succeeded in showing that it was just for that trouble that Marchant was going to Karatoff, which, to my mind, seemed quite sufficient to establish the therapeutic hypnotist as all that Gaines had accused him of being. Even to my lay mind the treatment of arteriosclerosis by mental healing seemed, to say the least, incongruous. Yet the evidence against Karatoff and Errol was so flimsy that they had little trouble in getting released on bail, though, of course, it was fixed very high. My own inquiries among the other reporters on the Star who might know something offered a more promising lead. I soon found that Errol had none too savory a reputation. His manner of life had added nothing to his slender means, and there was a general impression among his fellow club-members that unfortunate investments had made serious inroads into the principal of his fortune. Still, I hesitated to form even an opinion on gossip. Quite unsatisfied with the result of my investigation, I could not restrain my impatience to get back to the laboratory to find out whether Kennedy had made any progress in his tests of the tea. "If you had been five minutes earlier," he greeted me, "you would have been surprised to find a visitor." "A visitor?" I repeated. "Who?" "Carita Belleville," he replied, enjoying my incredulity. "What could she want?" I asked, at length. "That's what I've been wondering," he agreed "Her excuse was plausible. She said that she had just heard why I had come with Gaines. I suppose it was half an hour that she spent endeavoring to convince me that Karatoff and Errol could not possibly have had any other connection than accidental with the death of Marchant." "Could it have been a word for them and half an hour for herself?" I queried, mystified. Kennedy shrugged. "I can't say. At any rate, I must see both Karatoff and Errol, now that they are out. Perhaps they did send her, thinking I might fall for her. She hinted pretty broadly at using my influence with Gaines on his report. Then, again, she may simply have been wondering how she herself stood." "Have you found anything?" I asked, noticing that his laboratory table was piled high with its usual paraphernalia. "Yes," he replied, laconically, taking a bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid and pouring a few drops in a beaker of slightly tinged water. The water turned slowly to a beautiful green. No sooner was the reaction complete than he took some bromine and added it. Slowly again the water changed, this time from the green to a peculiar violet red. Adding more water restored the green color. "That's the Grandeau test," he nodded, with satisfaction. "I've tried the physiological test, too, with frogs from the biological department, and it shows the effect on the heart that I--" "What shows the effect?" I interrupted, somewhat impatiently. "Oh, to be sure," he smiled. "I forgot I hadn't told you what I suspected. Why, digitalis--foxglove, you know. I suppose it never occurred to the police that the rubber dagger might have covered up a peculiar poisoning? Well, if they'll take the contents of the stomach, in alcohol, with a little water acidulated, strain off the filtrate and try it on a dog, they will see that its effect is the effect of digitalis. Digitalis is an accumulative poison and a powerful stimulant of arterial walls, by experimental evidence an ideal drug for the purpose of increasing blood pressure. Don't you see it?" he added, excitedly. "The rubber dagger was only a means to an end. Some one who knew the weakness of Marchant first placed digitalis in his tea. That was possible because of the taste of the tea. Then, in the excitement of the act pantomimed by Errol, Marchant's disease carried him off, exactly as was to be expected under the circumstances. It was clever, diabolically clever. Whoever did it destroyed the note in which the act was suggested and counted that no one would ever stop to search for a poison in the tangle of events." Slowly but clearly I began to realize how certainly Kennedy was reconstructing the strange case. But who was it? What was the motive back of this sinister murder that had been so carefully planned that no one would ever suspect a crime? I had hardly framed the queries when our telephone rang. It was the Central Office man. The detective had anticipated my own line of inquiry, only had gone much further with it. He had found a clear record of the business relations existing between Errol and Marchant. One episode consisted of a stock deal between them in which Errol had invested in a stock which Marchant was promoting and was known to be what brokers call "cats and dogs." That, I reasoned, must have been the basis of the gossip that Errol had suffered financial losses that seriously impaired his little fortune. It was an important item and Kennedy accepted it gladly, but said nothing of his own discovery. The time had not arrived yet to come out into the open. For a few moments after the talk with the detective Kennedy seemed to be revolving the case, as though in doubt whether the new information cleared it up or added to the mystery. Then he rose suddenly. "We must find Karatoff," he announced. Whatever might have been the connection of the hypnotist with this strange case, he was far too clever to betray himself by any such misstep as seeming to avoid inquiry. We found him easily at his studio apartment, nor did we have any difficulty in gaining admittance. He knew that he was watched and that frankness was his best weapon of defense. "Of course," opened Kennedy, "you know that investigation has shown that you were right in your diagnosis of the trouble with Marchant. Was it arteriosclerosis for which you were treating him?" "It would be unprofessional to discuss it," hastily parried Karatoff, "but, since Mr. Marchant is now dead, I think I may say that it was. In fact, few persons, outside of those whom I have associated about me, realize to what a wonderful extent hypnotism may be carried in the treatment of disease. Why, I have even had wonderful success with such disorders as diabetes mellitus. We are only on the threshold of understanding what a wonderful thing is the human mind in its effect on the material body." "But another patient might have known what Marchant was being treated for?" interrupted Kennedy, ignoring the defense of Karatoff, which was proceeding along the stereotyped lines of such vagaries which seem never to be without followers. Karatoff looked at him a moment in surprise. Evidently he was doing some hasty mental calculation to determine what was Craig's ulterior motive. And, in spite of his almost uncanny claims and performances, I could see that he was able to read Kennedy's mind no whit better than myself. "I suppose so," he admitted. "No doctor was ever able to control his patients' tongues. Sometimes they boast of their diseases." "Especially if they are women?" hinted Kennedy, watching the effect of the remark keenly. "I have just had the pleasure of a visit from Carita Belleville in my laboratory." "Indeed?" returned Karatoff, with difficulty restraining his curiosity. "Miss Belleville has been very kind in introducing me to some of her friends and acquaintances, and I flatter myself that I have been able to do them much good." "Then she was not a patient?" pursued Kennedy, studiously avoiding enlightening Karatoff on the visit. "Rather a friend," he replied, quickly. "It was she who introduced Mr. Errol." "They are quite intimate, I believe," put in Kennedy at a chance. "Really, I knew very little about it," Karatoff avoided. "Did she introduce Mr. Marchant?" "She introduced Mrs. Gaines, who introduced Mr. Marchant," the hypnotist replied, with apparent frankness. "You were treating Mrs. Gaines?" asked Craig, again shifting the attack unexpectedly. "Yes," admitted Karatoff, stopping. "I imagine her trouble was more mental than physical," remarked Kennedy, in a casual tone, as though feeling his way. Karatoff looked up keenly, but was unable to read Kennedy's face. "I think," he said, slowly, "that one trouble was that Mrs. Gaines liked the social life better than the simple life." "Your clinic, Mr. Marchant, and the rest better than her husband and the social life at the university," amplified Kennedy. "I think you are right. She had drifted away from her husband, and when a woman does that she has hosts of admirers--of a certain sort. I should say that Mr. Errol was the kind who would care more for the social life than the simple life, as you put it, too." I did not gather in what direction Kennedy was tending, but it was evident that Karatoff felt more at ease. Was it because the quest seemed to be leading away from himself? "I had noticed something of the sort," he ventured. "I saw that they were alike in that respect, but, of course, Mr. Marchant was her friend." Suddenly the implication flashed over me, but before I could say anything Kennedy cut in, "Then Mr. Errol might have been enacting under hypnotism what were really his own feelings and desires?" "I cannot say that," replied Karatoff, seeking to dodge the issue. "But under the influence of suggestion I suppose it is true that an evil-minded person might suggest to another the commission of a crime, and the other, deprived of free will, might do it. The rubber dagger has often been used for sham murders. The possibility of actual murder cannot be denied. In this case, however, there can be no question that it was an unfortunate accident." "No question?" demanded Kennedy, directly. If Karatoff was concealing anything, he made good concealment. Either to protect himself or another he showed no evidence of weakening his first theory of the case. "No question as far as I know," he reiterated. I wondered whether Kennedy planned to enlighten him on the results of his laboratory tests, but was afraid to look at either for fear of betraying some hint. I was glad I did not. Kennedy's next question carried him far afield from the subject. "Did you know that the Medical Society were interested in you and your clinic before the demonstration before Professor Gaines was arranged?" "I suspected some one was interested," answered Karatoff, quickly, "But I had no idea who it might be. As I think it over now, perhaps it was Professor Gaines who instigated the whole inquiry. He would most likely be interested. My work is so far in advance of any that the conservative psychologists do that he would naturally feel hostile, would he not?" "Especially with the added personal motive of knowing that his wife was one of your patients, along with Carita Belleville, Marchant, Errol, and the rest," added Kennedy. Karatoff smiled. "I would not have said that myself. But since you have said it, I cannot help admitting its truth. Don't you suppose I could predict the nature of any report he would make?" Karatoff faced Kennedy squarely. There was an air almost of triumph in his eyes. "I think I had better say no more, except under the advice of my lawyer," he remarked, finally. "When the police want me, they can find me here." Quite evident to me now, as we went out of the studio, was the fact that Karatoff considered himself a martyr, that he was not only the victim of an accident, but of persecution as well. "The fishing was good," remarked Kennedy, tersely, as we reached the street. "Now before I see Errol I should like to see Gaines again." I tried to reason it out as we walked along in silence. Marchant had known Edith Gaines intimately. Carita Belleville had known Errol as well. I recalled Errol hovering about Mrs. Gaines at the tea and the incident during the seance when Carita Belleville had betrayed her annoyance over some remark by Errol. The dancing by Edith Gaines had given a flash of the jealous nature of the woman. Had it been interest in Errol that had led her to visit the laboratory? Kennedy was weaving a web about some one, I knew. But about whom? As we passed a corner, he paused, entered a drugstore and called up several numbers at a pay-station telephone booth. Then we turned into the campus and proceeded rapidly toward the laboratory of the psychological department. Gaines was there, sitting at his desk, writing, as we entered. "I'm glad to see you," he greeted, laying down his work. "I am just finishing the draft of my report on that Karatoff affair. I have been trying to reach you by telephone to know whether you would add anything to it. Is there anything new?" "Yes," returned Kennedy, "there is something new. I've just come from Karatoff's and on the way I decided suddenly that it was time we did something. So I have called up, and the police will bring Errol here, as well as Miss Belleville. Karatoff will come--he won't dare stay away; and I also took the liberty of calling Mrs. Gaines." "To come here?" repeated Gaines, in mild surprise. "All of them?" "Yes. I hope you will pardon me for intruding, but I want to borrow some of your psychological laboratory apparatus, and I thought the easiest way would be to use it here rather than take it all over to my place and set it up again." "I'm sure everything is at your service," offered Gaines. "It's a little unexpected, but if the others can stand the chaotic condition of the room, I guess we can." Kennedy had been running his eye over the various instruments which Gaines and his students used in their studies, and was now examining something in a corner on a little table. It was a peculiar affair, quite simple, but conveying to me no idea of its use. There seemed to be a cuff, a glass chamber full of water into which it fitted, tubes and wires that attached various dials and recording instruments to the chamber, and what looked like a chronograph. "That is my new plethysmograph," remarked Gaines, noting with some satisfaction how Kennedy had singled it out. "I've heard the students talk of it," returned Kennedy. "It's an improved apparatus, Walter, that records one's blood flow." I nodded politely and concealed my ignorance in a discreet silence, hoping that Gaines would voluntarily enlighten us. "One of my students is preparing an exhaustive table," went on Gaines, as I had hoped, "showing the effects on blood distribution of different stimuli--for instance, cold, heat, chloroform, arenalin, desire, disgust, fear; physical conditions, drugs, emotions--all sorts of things can be studied by this plethysmograph which can be set to record blood flow through the brain, the extremities, any part of the body. When the thing is charted I think we shall have opened up a new field." "Certainly a very promising one for me," put in Kennedy. "How has this machine been improved? I've seen the old ones, but this is the first time I've seen this. How does it work?" "Well," explained Gaines, with just a touch of pride, "you see, for studying blood flow in the extremities, I slip this cuff over my arm, we'll say. Suppose it is the effect of pain I want to study. Just jab that needle in my other arm. Don't mind. It's in the interest of science. See, when I winced then, the plethysmograph recorded it. It smarts a bit and I'm trying to imagine it smarts worse. You'll see how pain affects blood flow." As he watched the indicator, Kennedy asked one question after another about the working of the machine, and the manner in which the modern psychologist was studying every emotion. "By the way, Walter," he interrupted, glancing at his watch, "call up and see if they've started with Errol and the rest yet. Don't stop, Gaines. I must understand this thing before they get here. It's just the thing I want." "I should be glad to let you have it, then," replied Gaines. "I think I'll need something new with these people," went on Kennedy. "Why, do you know what I've discovered?" "No, but I hope it's something I can add to my report?" "Perhaps. We'll see. In the first place, I found that digitalis had been put in Marchant's tea." "They'll be here directly," I reported from the telephone, hanging it up and joining them again. "It couldn't have been an accident, as Karatoff said," went on Kennedy, rapidly. "The drug increased the blood pressure of Marchant, who was already suffering from hardening of the arteries. In short, it is my belief that the episode of the rubber dagger was deliberately planned, an elaborate scheme to get Marchant out of the way. No one else seems to have noticed it, but those slips of paper on which we all wrote have disappeared. At the worst, it would look like an accident, Karatoff would be blamed, and--" There was a noise outside as the car pulled up. "Here, let me take this off before any of them see it," whispered Gaines, removing the cuff, just as the door opened and Errol and Karatoff, Carita Belleville and Edith Gaines entered. Before even a word of greeting passed, Kennedy stepped forward. "It was NOT an accident," he repeated. "It was a deliberately planned, apparently safe means of revenge on Marchant, the lover of Mrs. Gaines. Without your new plethysmograph, Gaines, you might have thrown it on an innocent person!" X THE SUBMARINE MINE "Here's the bullet. What I want you to do, Professor Kennedy, is to catch the crank who fired it." Capt. Lansing Marlowe, head of the new American Shipbuilding Trust, had summoned us in haste to the Belleclaire and had met us in his suite with his daughter Marjorie. Only a glance was needed to see that it was she, far more than her father, who was worried. "You must catch him," she appealed. "Father's life is in danger. Oh, you simply MUST." I knew Captain Marlowe to be a proverbial fire-eater, but in this case, at least, he was no alarmist. For, on the table, as he spoke, he laid a real bullet. Marjorie Marlowe shuddered at the mere sight of it and glanced apprehensively at him as if to reassure herself. She was a tall, slender girl, scarcely out of her teens, whose face was one of those quite as striking for its character as its beauty. The death of her mother a few years before had placed on her much of the responsibility of the captain's household and with it a charm added to youth. More under the spell of her plea than even Marlowe's vigorous urging, Kennedy, without a word, picked up the bullet and examined it. It was one of the modern spitzer type, quite short, conical in shape, tapering gradually, with the center of gravity back near the base. "I suppose you know," went on the captain, eagerly, "that our company is getting ready to-morrow to launch the Usona, the largest liner that has ever been built on this side of the water--the name is made up of the initials of the United States of North America. "Just now," he added, enthusiastically, "is what I call the golden opportunity for American shipping. While England and Germany are crippled, it's our chance to put the American flag on the sea as it was in the old days, and we're going to do it. Why, the shipyards of my company are worked beyond their capacity now." Somehow the captain's enthusiasm was contagious. I could see that his daughter felt it, that she was full of fire over the idea. But at the same time something vastly more personal weighed on her mind. "But, father," she interrupted, anxiously, "tell them about the BULLET." The captain smiled indulgently as though he would say that he was a tough old bird to wing. It was only a mask to hide the fighting spirit underneath. "We've had nothing but trouble ever since we laid the keel of that ship," he continued, pugnaciously, "strikes, a fire in the yard, delays, about everything that could happen. Lately we've noticed a motor-boat hanging about the river-front of the yards. So I've had a boat of my own patrolling the river." "What sort of craft is this other?" inquired Kennedy, interested at once. "A very fast one--like those express cruisers that we hear so much about now." "Whose is it? Who was in it? Have you any idea?" Marlowe shook his head doubtfully. "No idea. I don't know who owns the boat or who runs it. My men tell me they think they've seen a woman in it sometimes, though. I've been trying to figure it out. Why should it be hanging about? It can't be spying. There isn't any secrecy about the Usona. Why is it? It's a mystery." "And the shot?" prompted Craig, tapping the bullet. "Oh yes, let me tell you. Last night, Marjorie and I arrived from Bar Harbor on my yacht, for the launching. It's anchored off the yard now. Well, early this morning, while it was still gray and misty, I was up. I'll confess I'm worried over to-morrow. I hadn't been able to forget that cruiser. I was out on the deck, peering into the mist, when I'm sure I saw her. I was just giving a signal to the boat we have patrolling, when a shot whistled past me and the bullet buried itself in the woodwork of the main saloon back of me. I dug it out of the wood with my knife--so you see I got it almost unflattened. That's all I have got, too. The cruiser made a getaway, clean." "I'm sure it was aimed at him," Marjorie exclaimed. "I don't think it was chance. Don't you see? They've tried everything else. Now if they could get my father, the head of the company, that would be a blow that would cripple the trust." Marlowe patted his daughter's hand reassuringly and smiled again, as though not to magnify the incident. "Marjorie was so alarmed," he confessed, "that nothing would satisfy her but that I should come ashore and stay here at the Belleclaire, where we always put up when we are in town." The telephone rang and Marjorie answered it. "I hope you'll pardon me," she excused, hanging up the receiver. "They want me very much down-stairs." Then appealing, she added: "I'll have to leave you with father. But, please, you must catch that crank who is threatening him." "I shall do my level best," promised Kennedy. "You may depend on that." "You see," explained the captain as she left us, "I've invited quite a large party to attend the launching, for one reason or another. Marjorie must play hostess. They're mostly here at the hotel. Perhaps you saw some of them as you came in." Craig was still scanning the bullet. "It looks almost as if some one had dum-dummed it," he remarked, finally. "It's curiously done, too. Just look at those grooves." Both the captain and I looked. It had a hard jacket of cupro-nickel, like the army bullet, covering a core of softer metal. Some one had notched or scored the jacket as if with a sharp knife, though not completely through it. Had it been done for the purpose of inflicting a more frightful wound if it struck the captain? "There've been other shots, too," went on Marlowe. "One of my watchmen was wounded the night before. It didn't took like a serious wound, in the leg. Yet the poor fellow seems to be in a bad way, they tell me." "How is that?" asked Craig, glancing up quickly from studying the bullet. "The wound seems to be all puffed up, and very painful. It won't heal, and he seems to be weak and feverish. Why, I'm afraid the man will die." "I'd like to see that case," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully. "Very well. I'll have you driven to the hospital where we have had to take him." "I'd like to see the yards, too, and the Usona," he added. "All right. After you go to the hospital I'll meet you at the yards at noon. Now if you'll come down-stairs with me, I'll get my car and have you taken to the hospital first." We followed Marlowe into the elevator and rode down. In the large parlor we saw that Marjorie Marlowe had joined a group of the guests, and the captain turned aside to introduce us. Among them I noticed a striking-looking woman, somewhat older than Marjorie. She turned as we approached and greeted the captain cordially. "I'm so glad there was nothing serious this morning," she remarked, extending her hand to him. "Oh, nothing at all, nothing at all," he returned, holding the hand, I thought, just a bit longer than was necessary. Then he turned to us, "Miss Alma Hillman, let me present Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson." I was not so preoccupied in taking in the group that I did not notice that the captain was more than ordinarily attentive to her. Nor can I say that I blamed him, for, although he might almost have been her father in age, there was a fascination about her that youth does not often possess. Talking with her had been a young man, slender, good-looking, with almost a military bearing. "Mr. Ogilvie Fitzhugh," introduced Marjorie, seeing that her father was neglecting his duties. Fitzhugh bowed and shook hands, murmured something stereotyped, and turned again to speak to Marjorie. I watched the young people closely. If Captain Marlowe was interested in Alma, it was more than evident that Fitzhugh was absolutely captivated by Marjorie, and I fancied that Marjorie was not averse to him, for he had a personality and a manner which were very pleasing. As the conversation ran gaily on to the launching and the gathering party of notables who were expected that night and the next day, I noticed that a dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-complexioned young man approached and joined us. "Doctor Gavira," said Marlowe, turning to us, his tone indicating that he was well acquainted about the hotel. "He is our house physician." Gavira also was welcomed in the party, chatting with animation. It was apparent that the physician also was very popular with the ladies, and it needed only half an eye to discern that Fitzhugh was jealous when he talked to Marjorie, while Marlowe but ill concealed his restlessness when Gavira spoke to Alma. As for Alma, she seemed to treat all men impartially, except that just now it pleased her to bestow the favor of her attention on the captain. Just then a young lady, all in white, passed. Plainly she did not belong to the group, though she was much interested in it. As his eye roved over the parlor, Gavira caught her glance and bowed. She returned it, but her look did not linger. For a moment she glanced sharply at Fitzhugh, still talking to Marjorie, then at Marlowe and Alma Hillman. She was a very pretty girl with eyes that it was impossible to control. Perhaps there was somewhat of the flirt in her. It was not that that interested me. For there was something almost akin to jealousy in the look she gave the other woman. Marlowe was too engrossed to see her and she passed on slowly. What did it mean, if anything? The conversation, as usual at such times, consisted mostly of witticisms, and just at present we had a rather serious bit of business in hand. Kennedy did not betray any of the impatience that I felt, yet I knew he was glad when Marlowe excused himself and we left the party and passed down the corridor while the captain called his car. "I don't know how you are going to get at this thing," he remarked, pausing after he had sent a boy for his driver. "But I'll have to rely on you. I've told you all I know. I'll see you at noon, at the yards. My man will take you there." As he turned and left us I saw that he was going in the direction of the barber-shop. Next to it and in connection with it, though in a separate room, was a manicure. As we passed we looked in. There, at the manicure's table, sat the girl who had gone by us in the parlor and had looked so sharply at Marlowe and Alma. The boy had told us that the car was waiting at a side entrance, but Kennedy seemed now in no haste to go, the more so when Marlowe, instead of going into the barber-shop, apparently changed his mind and entered the manicure's. Craig stopped and watched. Prom where we were we could see Marlowe, though his back was turned, and neither he nor the manicure could see us. For a moment the captain paused and spoke, then sat down. Quite evidently he had a keen eye for a pretty face and trim figure. Nor was there any mistaking the pains which the manicure took to please her rich and elderly customer. After watching them a moment Kennedy lounged over to the desk in the lobby. "Who is the little manicure girl?" he asked. The clerk smiled. "Seems as if she was a good drawing-card for the house, doesn't it?" he returned. "All the men notice her. Why, her name is Rae Melzer." He turned to speak to another guest before Kennedy could follow with another inquiry. As we stood before the desk, a postman, with the parcel post, arrived. "Here's a package addressed to Dr. Fernando Gavira," he said, brusquely. "It was broken in the mail. See?" Kennedy, waiting for the clerk to be free again, glanced casually at the package at first, then with a sudden, though concealed, interest. I followed his eye. In the crushed box could be seen some thin broken pieces of glass and a wadding of cotton-wool. As the clerk signed for another package Craig saw a chance, reached over and abstracted two or three of the broken pieces of glass, then turned with his back to the postman and clerk and examined them. One I saw at once had a rim around it. It was quite apparently the top of a test-tube. The other, to which some cotton-wool still adhered, was part of the rounded bowl. Quickly Craig dropped the pieces into one of the hotel envelopes that stood in a rack on the desk, then, changing his mind about asking more now about the little manicure, strode out of the side entrance where Marlowe's car was waiting for us. Hurriedly we drove across town to the City Hospital, where we had no difficulty in being admitted and finding, in a ward, on a white cot, the wounded guard. Though his wound was one that should not have bothered him much, it had, as Marlowe said, puffed up angrily and in a most peculiar manner. He was in great pain with it and was plainly in a bad way. Though he questioned the man, Craig did not get anything out of him except that the shot had come from a cruiser which had been hanging about and was much faster than the patrol boat. The nurse and a young intern seemed inclined to be reticent, as though we might imply that the mail's condition reflected on the care he had received, which they were at pains to convince us had been perfect. Puzzled himself, Craig did not say much, but as he pondered the case, shook his head gravely to himself and finally walked out of the hospital abstractedly. "We have almost an hour before we are to meet Marlowe at the yard," he considered, as we came to the car. "I think I'll go up to the laboratory first." In the quiet of his own workshop, Kennedy carefully examined again the peculiar grooves on the bullet. He was about to scrape it, but paused. Instead, he filled a tube with a soapy solution, placed the bullet in it, and let it stand. Next he did the same with the pieces of glass from the envelope. Then he opened a drawer and from a number of capillary pipettes selected a plain capillary tube of glass. He held it in the flame of a burner until it was red hot. Then carefully he drew out one end of the tube until it was hair fine. Again he heated the other end, but this time he let the end alone, except that he allowed it to bend by gravity, then cool. It now had a siphon curve. Another tube he treated in the same way. By this time he was ready to proceed with what he had in mind. He took a glass slide and on it placed a drop from each of the tubes containing the bullet and the glass. That done, he placed the bent, larger end of the capillary tubes in turn on each of the drops on the slide. The liquid ascended the tubes by capillary attraction and siphoned over the curve, running as he turned the tubes up to the finely pointed ends. Next in a watch glass he placed some caustic soda and in another some pyrogallic acid, from each of which he took just a drop, as he had done before, inclining the tubes to let the fluid gravitate to the throttle end. Finally in the flame he sealed both the tip and butt of the tubes. "There's a bubble of air in there," he remarked. "The acid and the soda will absorb the oxygen from it. Then I can tell whether I'm right. By the way, we'll have to hurry if we're to be on time to meet Marlowe in the yard," he announced, glancing at his watch as he placed the tubes in his little electric incubator. We were a little late as the chauffeur pulled in at the executive offices at the gate of the shipyard, and Marlowe was waiting impatiently for us. Evidently he wanted action, but Kennedy said nothing yet of what he suspected and appeared now to be interested only in the yard. It was indeed something to interest any one. Everywhere were tokens of feverish activity, in office, shop, and slip. As we picked our way across, little narrow and big wide gauge engines and trains whistled and steamed about. We passed rolling-mills, forging-machines, and giant shearing-machines, furnaces for heating the frames or ribs, stone floors on which they could be pegged out and bent to shape, places for rolling and trimming the plates, everything needed from the keel plates to the deck. In the towering superstructure of the building slip we at last came to the huge steel monster itself, the Usona. As we approached, above us rose her bow, higher than a house, with poppets both there and at the stern, as well as bracing to support her. All had been done up to the launching, the stem and stern posts set in place, her sides framed and plated up, decks laid, bulkheads and casings completed, even much of her internal fitting done. Overhead and all about the huge monster was a fairy network of steel, the vast permanent construction of columns and overhead girders. Suspended beneath was a series of tracks carrying traveling and revolving cranes capable of handling the heaviest pieces. We climbed to the top and looked down at the vast stretch of hundreds of feet of deck. It was so vast that it seemed rather the work of a superman than of the puny little humans working on her. As I looked down the slip where the Usona stood inclined about half an inch to the foot, I appreciated as never before what a task it was merely to get her into the water. Below again, Marlowe explained to us how the launching ways were composed of the ground ways, fastened to the ground as the name implied, and the sliding ways that were to move over them. The sliding ways, he said, were composed of a lower course and an upper course, on which rested the "cradle," fitting closely the side of the ship. To launch her, she must be lifted slightly by the sliding ways and cradle from the keel blocks and bilge blocks, and this was done by oak wedges, hundreds of which we could see jammed between the upper and lower courses of sliding ways. Next he pointed out the rib-bands which were to keep the sliding ways on the ground ways, and at the bow the points on either side where the sliding and ground ways were bolted together by two huge timbers known as sole pieces. "You see," he concluded, "it is a gigantic task to lift thousands of tons of steel and literally carry it a quarter of a mile to forty feet of water in less than a minute. Everything has to be calculated to a nicety. It's a matter of mathematics--the moment of weight, the moment of buoyancy, and all that. This launching apparatus is strong, but compared to the weight it has to carry it is really delicate. Why, even a stray bolt in the ways would be a serious matter. That's why we have to have this eternal vigilance." As he spoke with a significant look at Kennedy, I felt that it was no wonder that Marlowe was alarmed for the safety of the ship. Millions were at stake for just that minute of launching. It was all very interesting and we talked with men whom it was a pleasure to see handling great problems so capably. But none could shed any light on the problem which it was Kennedy's to solve. And yet I felt sure, as I watched Craig, that unsatisfactory as it appeared to Marlowe and to myself, he was slowly forming some kind of theory, or at least plan of action, in his head. "You'll find me either here or at the hotel--I imagine," returned Marlowe to Kennedy's inquiry as we parted from him. "I've instructed all the men to keep their eyes open. I hope some of us have something to report soon." Whether or not the remark was intended as a hint to Kennedy, it was unnecessary. He was working as fast and as surely as he could, going over in hours what others had failed to fathom in weeks. Late in the afternoon we got back to the laboratory and Craig began immediately by taking from the little electric incubator the two crooked tubes he had left there. Breaking off the ends with tweezers, he began examining on slides the two drops that exuded, using his most powerful microscope. I was forced to curb my impatience as he proceeded carefully, but I knew that Craig was making sure of his ground at each step. "I suppose you're bursting with curiosity," he remarked at last, looking up from his examination of one of the slides. "Well, here is a drop that shows what was in the grooves of that bullet. Just take a look." I applied my eye to the microscope. All I could see was some dots and rods, sometimes something that looked like chains of dots and rods, the rods straight with square ends, sometimes isolated, but more usually joined end to end in long strings. "What is it?" I asked, not much enlightened by what he had permitted me to see. "Anaerobic bacilli and spores," he replied, excitedly. "The things that produce the well-known 'gas gangrene' of the trenches, the gas phlegmon bacilli--all sorts, the bacillus aerogenes capsulatus, bacillus proteus, pyogenic cocci, and others, actively gas-forming microbes that can't live in air. The method I took to develop and discover them was that of Col. Sir Almroth Wright of the British army medical corps." "And that is what was on the bullet?" I queried. "The spores or seeds," he replied. "In the tubes, by excluding the air, I have developed the bacilli. Why, Walter," he went on, seriously, "those are among the microbes most dreaded in the infection of wounds. The spores live in the earth, it has been discovered, especially in cultivated soil, and they are extraordinarily long-lived, lying dormant for years, waiting for a chance to develop. These rods you saw are only from five to fifteen thousandths of a millimeter long and not more than one-thousandth of a millimeter broad. "You can't see them move here, because the air has paralyzed them. But these vibrios move among the corpuscles of the blood just as a snake moves through the grass, to quote Pasteur. If I colored them you would see that each is covered with fine vibrating hairs three or four times as long as itself. At certain times an oval mass forms in them. That is the spore which lives so long and is so hard to kill. It was the spores that were on the bullet. They resist any temperature except comparatively high and prolonged, and even resist antiseptics for a long time. On the surface of a wound they aren't so bad; but deep in they distil minute gas bubbles, puff up the surrounding tissues, and are almost impossible to combat." As he explained what he had found, I could only stare at him while the diabolical nature of the attack impressed itself on my mind. Some one had tried to murder Marlowe in this most hideous way. No need to be an accurate marksman when a mere scratch from such a bullet meant ultimate death anyhow. Why had it been done and where had the cultures come from? I asked myself. I realized fully the difficulty of trying to trace them. Any one could purchase germs, I knew. There was no law governing the sale. Craig was at work again over his microscope. Again he looked up at me. "Here on this other film I find the same sort of wisp-like anaerobes," he announced. "There was the same thing on those pieces of glass that I got." In my horror at the discovery, I had forgotten the broken package that had come to the hotel desk while we stood there. "Then it was Gavira who was receiving spores and cultures of the anaerobes!" I exclaimed, excitedly. "But that doesn't prove that it was he who used them," cautioned Craig, adding, "not yet, at least." Important as the discoveries were which he had made, I was not much farther along in fixing the guilt of anybody in particular in the case. Kennedy, however, did not seem to be perturbed, though I wondered what theory he could have worked out. "I think the best thing for us to do will be to run over to the Belleclaire," he decided as he doffed his laboratory coat and carefully cleansed his hands in an antiseptic almost boiling hot. "I should like to see Marlowe again, and, besides, there we can watch some of these people around him." Whom he meant other than Gavira I had no idea, but I felt sure that with the launching now only a matter of hours something was bound to happen soon. Marlowe was out when we arrived; in fact, had not yet returned from the yard. Nor had many of the guests remained at the hotel during the day. Most of them had been out sightseeing, though now they were returning, and as they began to gather in the hotel parlor Marjorie was again called on to put them at their ease. Fitzhugh had returned and had wasted no time dressing and getting down-stairs again to be near Marjorie. Gavira also appeared, having been out on a case. "I wish you would call up the shipyard, Walter," asked Kennedy, as we stood in the lobby, where we could see best what was going on. "Tell him I would like to see him very urgently." I found the number and entered a booth, but, as often happens, the telephone central was overwhelmed by the rush of early-evening calls, and after waiting some time the only satisfaction I got was that the line was busy. Meanwhile I decided to stick about the booth so that I could get the yard as soon as possible. From where I stood I could see that Kennedy was closely watching the little manicure, Rae Melzer. A moment later I saw Alma Hillman come out of the manicure shop, and before any one else could get in to monopolize the fascinating little manicure I saw Craig saunter over and enter. I was so interested in what he was doing that for the moment I forgot about my call and found myself unconsciously moving over in that direction, too. As I looked in I saw that he was seated at the little white table, in much the same position as Marlowe had been, deeply in conversation with the girl, though of course I could not make out what they were talking about. Once she turned to reach something on a shelf back of her. Quick as a flash Kennedy abstracted a couple of the nearest implements, one being a nail file and the other, I think, a brush. A moment later she resumed her work, Kennedy still talking and joking with her, though furtively observing. "Where is my nail file--and brush?" I could imagine her saying, as she hunted for them in pretty confusion, aided by Kennedy who, when he wanted to, could act the Fitzhugh and Gavira as well as they. The implements were not to be found and from a drawer she took another set. Just then Gavira passed on his way to his office in the front of the building, saw me, and smiled. "Kennedy's cut you out," he laughed, catching a glimpse through the door. "Never mind. I used to think I had some influence there myself--till the captain came along. I tell you these oldsters can give us points." I laughed, too, and joined him down the hall, not because I cared what he thought, but because his presence had reminded me of my original mission to call up Marlowe. However, I decided to postpone calling another moment and take advantage of the chance to talk to the house physician. "Yes," I agreed, as long as he had opened the subject. "I fancy the captain likes young people. He seems to enjoy being with them--Miss Hillman, for instance." Gavira shot a sidelong glance at me. "The Belleclaire's a dangerous place for a wealthy widower," he returned. "I had some hopes in that direction myself--in spite of Fitzhugh--but the captain seems to leave us all at the post. Still, I suppose I may still be a brother to her--and physician. So, I should worry." The impression I got of Gavira was that he enjoyed his freedom too much ever to fall in love, though an intimacy now and then with a clever girl like Alma Hillman was a welcome diversion. "I'm sorry I sha'n't be able to be with you until late to-night," he said, as he paused at his office door. "I'm in the medical corps of the Guard and I promised to lecture to-night on gunshot wounds. Some of my material got smashed up, but I have my lantern slides, anyhow. I'll try to see you all later, though." Was that a clever attempt at confession and avoidance on his part? I wondered. But, then, I reflected he could not possibly know that we knew he had anaerobic microbes and spores in his possession. I had cleared up nothing and I hastened to call up the shipyard, sure that the line could not be busy still. Whatever it was that was the matter, central seemed unable to get me my number. Instead, I found myself cut right into a conversation that did not concern me, evidently the fault of the hotel switchboard operator. I was about to protest when the words I heard stopped me in surprise. A man and a woman were talking, though I could not recognize the voices and no names were used. "I tell you I won't be a party to that launching scheme," I heard the man's voice. "I wash my hands of it. I told you that all along." "Then you're going to desert us?" came back the woman's voice, rather tartly. "It's for that girl. Well, you'll regret it. I'll turn the whole organization on you--I will--you--you--" The voices trailed off, and, try as I could to get the operator to find out who it was, I could not. Who was it? What did it mean? Kennedy had finished with the manicure some time before and was waiting for me impatiently. "I haven't been able to get Marlowe," I hastened, "but I've had an earful." He listened keenly as I told him what I had heard, adding also the account of my encounter with Gavira. "It's just as I thought--I'll wager," he muttered, excitedly, under his breath, taking a hurried turn down the corridor, his face deeply wrinkled. "Well! Anything new? I expected to hear from you, but haven't," boomed the deep voice of Marlowe, who had just come in from an entrance in another direction from that which we were pacing. "No clue yet to my crank?" Without a word, Kennedy drew Marlowe aside into a little deserted alcove. Marlowe followed, puzzled at the air of mystery. Alone, Craig leaned over toward him. "It's no crank," he whispered, in a low tone. "Marlowe, I am convinced that there is a concerted effort to destroy your plans for American commerce building. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that it is more serious than you think--perhaps a powerful group of European steamship men opposed to you. It is economic war! You know they have threatened it at meetings reported in the press all along. Well, it's here!" Half doubting, half convinced, Marlowe drew back. One after another he shot a rapid fire of questions. Who, then, was their agent who had fired the shot? Who was it who had deserted, as I had heard over the wire? Above all, what was it they had planned for the launching? The deeper he got the more the beads of perspiration came out on his sunburnt forehead. The launching was only eighteen hours off, too, and ten of them were darkness. What could be done? Kennedy's mind was working rapidly in the crisis as Marlowe appealed to him, almost helplessly. "May I have your car to-night?" asked Craig, pausing. "Have it? I'll give it to you if it'll do any good." "I'll need it only a few hours. I think I have a scheme that will work perfectly--if you are sure you can guard the inside of the yard to-morrow." "I'm sure of that. We spent hours to-day selecting picked men for the launching, going over everything." Late as it was to start out of town, Craig drove across the bridge and out on Long Island, never stopping until we came to a small lake, around the shores of which he skirted, at last pausing before a huge barn-like structure. As the door swung open to his honking the horn, the light which streamed forth shone on a sign above, "Sprague Aviation School." Inside I could make out enough to be sure that it was an aeroplane hangar. "Hello, Sprague!" called Kennedy, as a man appeared in the light. The man came closer. "Why, hello, Kennedy! What brings you out here at such an hour?" Craig had jumped from the car, and together the two went into the hangar, while I followed. They talked in low tones, but as nearly as I could make out Kennedy was hiring a hydro-aeroplane for to-morrow with as much nonchalance as if it had been a taxicab. As Kennedy and his acquaintance, Sprague, came to terms, my eye fell on a peculiar gun set up in a corner. It had a tremendous cylinder about the barrel, as though it contained some device to cool it. It was not a machine-gun of the type I had seen, however, yet cartridges seemed to be fed to it from a disk on which they were arranged radially rather than from a band. Kennedy had risen to go and looked about at me. "Oh, a Lewis gun!" he exclaimed, seeing what I was looking at. "That's an idea. Sprague, can you mount that on the plane?" Sprague nodded. "That's what I have it here for," he returned. "I've been testing it. Why, do you want it?" "Indeed I do! I'll be out here early in the morning, Sprague." "I'll be ready for you, sir," promised the aviator. Speeding back to the city, Kennedy laid out an extensive program for me to follow on the morrow. Together we arranged an elaborate series of signals, and that night, late as it was, Craig returned to the laboratory, where he continued his studies with the microscope, though what more he expected to discover I did not know. In spite of his late hours, it was Craig who wakened me in the morning, already prepared to motor out to the aviation school to meet Sprague. Hastily he rehearsed our signals, which consisted mostly of dots and dashes in the Morse code which Craig was to convey with a flag and I to receive with the aid of a powerful glass. I must admit that I felt somewhat lost when, later in the morning, I took my place alone on the platform that had been built for the favored few of the launching party at the bow of the huge Usona, without Craig. Already, however, he had communicated at least a part of his plan to Marlowe, and the captain and Marjorie were among the first to arrive. Marjorie never looked prettier in her life than she did now, on the day when she was to christen the great liner, nor, I imagine, had the captain ever been more proud of her. They had scarcely greeted me when we heard a shout from the men down at the end of the slip that commanded a freer view of the river. We craned our necks and in a moment saw what it was. They had sighted the air-boat coming down the river. I turned the glass on the mechanical bird as it soared closer. Already Kennedy had made us on the platform and had begun to signal as a test. At least a part of the suspense was over for me when I discovered that I could read what he sent. So fixed had my attention been that I had not noticed that slowly the members of the elect launching party had arrived, while other thousands of the less favored crowded into the spaces set apart for them. On the stand now with us were Fitzhugh and Miss Hillman, while, between glances at Kennedy, I noticed little Rae Melzer over at the right, and Doctor Gavira, quite in his element, circulating about from one group to another. Every one seemed to feel that thrill that comes with a launching, the appreciation that there is a maximum of risk in a minimum of time. Down the slip the men were driving home the last of the huge oak wedges which lifted the great Usona from the blocks and transferred her weight to the launching ways as a new support. All along the stationary, or ground, ways and those which were to glide into the water with the cradle and the ship, trusted men were making the final examination to be as sure as human care can be that all was well. As the clock neared noon, which was high water, approximately, all the preparatory work was done. Only the sole pieces before us held the ship in place. It was as though all bridges had been burned. High overhead now floated the hydro-aeroplane, on which I kept my eye fixed almost hypnotically. There was still no signal from Kennedy, however. What was it he was after? Did he expect to see the fast express cruiser, lurking like a corsair about the islands of the river? If so, he gave no sign. Men were quitting now the work of giving the last touches to the preparations. Some were placing immense jack-screws which were to give an initial impulse if it were needed to start the ship down the ways. Others were smearing the last heavy dabs of tallow, lard oil, and soft soap on the ways, and graphite where the ways stretched two hundred feet or so out into the water, for the ship was to travel some hundreds of feet on the land and in the water, and perhaps an equal distance out beyond the end of the ways. Late comers still crowded in. Men now reported that everything was ready. Steadily the time of high water approached. "Saw the sole pieces!" finally rang out the order. That was a thing that must be done by two gangs, one on each side, and evenly, too. If one gang got ahead of the other, they must stop and let the second catch up. "Zip--zip--zip," came the shrill singing tone of the saws. Was everything all right? Kennedy and Sprague were still circling overhead, at various altitudes. I redoubled my attention at the glass. Suddenly I saw Craig's flag waving frantically. A muffled exclamation came from my lips involuntarily. Marlowe, who had been watching me, leaned closer. "What is it--for God's sake?" he whispered, hoarsely. "Stop them!" I shouted as I caught Kennedy's signal. At a hurried order from Marlowe the gangs quit. A hush fell over the crowd. Kennedy was circling down now until at last the air-boat rested on the water and skimmed along toward the ways. Out on the ways, as far as they were not yet submerged, some men ran, as if to meet him, but Kennedy began signaling frantically again. Though I had not been expecting it, I made it out. "He wants them to keep back," I called, and the word was passed down the length of the ship. Instead of coming to rest before the slip, the plane turned and went away, making a complete circle, then coming to rest. To the surprise of every one, the rapid staccato bark of the Lewis gun broke the silence. Kennedy was evidently firing, but at what? There was nothing in sight. Suddenly there came a tremendous detonation, which made even the launching-slip tremble, and a huge column of water, like a geyser, rose in the air about eight hundred feet out in the river, directly in front of us. The truth flashed over us in an instant. There, ten feet or so in the dark water out in the river, Craig had seen a huge circular object, visible only against a sandy bottom from the hydro-aeroplane above, as the sun-rays were reflected through the water. It was a contact submarine mine. Marlowe looked at me, his face almost pale. The moment the great hulk of the Usona in its wild flight to the sea would have hit that mine, tilting it, she would have sunk in a blast of flame. The air-boat now headed for the shore, and a few moments later, as Craig climbed into our stand, Marlowe seized him in congratulation too deep for words. "Is it all right?" sang out one of the men in the gangs, less impressionable than the rest. "If there is still water enough," nodded Craig. Again the order to saw away the sole pieces was given, and the gangs resumed. "Zip--zip," again went the two saws. There were perhaps two inches more left, when the hull quivered. There was a crashing and rending as the timbers broke away. Marjorie Marlowe, alert, swung the bottle of champagne in its silken net on a silken cord and it crashed on the bow as she cried, gleefully, "I christen thee Usona!" Down the ship slid, with a slow, gliding motion at first, rapidly gathering headway. As her stern sank and finally the bow dipped into the water, cheers broke forth. Then a cloud of smoke hid her. There was an ominous silence. Was she wrecked, at last, after all? A puff of wind cleared the smoke. "Just the friction of the ways--set the grease on fire," shouted Marlowe. "It always does that." Wedges, sliding ways, and other parts of the cradle floated to the surface. The tide took her and tugs crept up and pulled her to the place selected for temporary mooring. A splash of a huge anchor, and there she rode--safe! In the revulsion of feeling, every eye on the platform turned involuntarily to Kennedy. Marlowe, still holding his hand, was speechless. Marjorie leaned forward, almost hysterical. "Just a moment," called Craig, as some turned to go down. "There is just one thing more." There was a hush as the crowd pressed close. "There's a conspiracy here," rang out Craig's voice, boldly, "a foreign trade war. From the start I suspected something and I tried to reason it out. Having failed to stop the work, failed to kill Marlowe--what was left? Why, the launching. How? I knew of that motor-boat. What else could they do with it? I thought of recent tests that have been made with express cruisers as mine-planters. Could that be the scheme? The air-boat scheme occurred to me late last night. It at least was worth trying. You see what has happened. Now for the reckoning. Who was their agent? I have something here that will interest you." Kennedy was speaking rapidly. It was one of those occasions in which Kennedy's soul delighted. Quickly he drew a deft contrast between the infinitely large hulk of the Usona as compared to the infinitely small bacteria which he had been studying the day before. Suddenly he drew forth from his pocket the bullet that had been fired at Marlowe, then, to the surprise of even myself, he quietly laid a delicate little nail file and brush in the palm of his hand beside the bullet. A suppressed cry from Rae Melzer caused me to recollect the file and brush she had missed. "Just a second," raced on Kennedy. "On this file and brush I found spores of those deadly anaerobes--dead, killed by heat and an antiseptic, perhaps a one-per-cent. solution of carbolic acid at blood heat, ninety-eight degrees--dead, but nevertheless there. I suppose the microscopic examination of finger-nail deposits is too minute a thing to appeal to most people. But it has been practically applied in a number of criminal cases in Europe. Ordinary washing and even cleaning doesn't alter microscope findings. In this case this trifling clue is all that leads to the real brain of this plot, literally to the hand that directed it." He paused a moment. "Yesterday I found that anaerobe cultures were being received by some one in the Belleclaire, and--" "They were stolen from me. Some one must have got into my office, where I was studying them." Doctor Gavira had pressed forward earnestly, but Craig did not pause again. "Who were these agents sent over to wage this secret war at any cost?" he repeated. "One of them, I know now, fell in love with the daughter of the man against whom he was to plot." Marjorie cast a furtive glance at Fitzhugh. "Love has saved him. But the other? To whom do these deadly germs point? Who dum-dummed and poisoned the bullet? Whose own fingers, in spite of antiseptics and manicures, point inexorably to a guilty self?" Rae Melzer could restrain herself no longer. She was looking at the file and brush, as if with a hideous fascination. "They are mine--you took them," she cried, impulsively. "It was she--always having her nails manicured--she who had been there just before--she--Alma Hillman!" XI THE GUN-RUNNER "With the treaty ratified, if the deal goes through we'll all be rich." Something about the remark which rose over the babel of voices arrested Kennedy's attention. For one thing, it was a woman's voice, and it was not the sort of remark to be expected from a woman, at least not in such a place. Craig had been working pretty hard and began to show the strain. We had taken an evening off and now had dropped in after the theater at the Burridge, one of the most frequented midnight resorts on Broadway. At the table next to us--and the tables at the Burridge were so close that one almost rubbed elbows with those at the next--sat a party of four, two ladies in evening gowns and two men in immaculate black and white. "I hope you are right, Leontine," returned one of the men, with an English accent. "The natural place for the islands is under the American flag, anyway." "Yes," put in the other; "the people have voted for it before. They want it." It was at the time that the American and Danish governments were negotiating about the transfer of the Danish West Indies, and quite evidently they were discussing the islands. The last speaker seemed to be a Dane, but the woman with him, evidently his wife, was not. It was a curious group, worth more than a passing glance. For a moment Craig watched them closely. "That woman in blue," he whispered, "is a typical promoter." I recognized the type which is becoming increasingly frequent in Wall Street as the competition in financial affairs grows keener and women enter business and professional life. There were plenty of other types in the brilliantly lighted dining-room, and we did not dwell long on the study of our neighbors. A few moments later Kennedy left me and was visiting another table. It was a habit of his, for he had hundreds of friends and acquaintances, and the Burridge was the place to which every one came. This time I saw that he had stopped before some one whom I recognized. It was Captain Marlowe of the American Shipping Trust, to whom Kennedy had been of great assistance at the time of the launching of his great ship, the Usona. Marlowe's daughter Marjorie was not with him, having not yet returned from her honeymoon trip, and he was accompanied by a man whose face was unfamiliar to me. As I recognized who it was to whom Kennedy was speaking, I also rose and made my way over to the table. As I approached, the captain turned from Kennedy and greeted me cordially. "Mr. Whitson," he introduced the man with him. "Mr. Whitson is sailing to-morrow for St. Thomas on the Arroyo. We're preparing to extend our steamship lines to the islands as soon as the formalities of the purchase are completed." Marlowe turned again to Kennedy and went on with the remark he had evidently been making. "Of course," I heard him say, "you know we have Mexico practically blockaded as far as arms and munitions go. Yet, Kennedy, through a secret channel I know that thousands of stands of arms and millions of rounds of ammunition are filtering in there. It's shameful. I can't imagine anything more traitorous. Whoever is at the bottom of it ought to swing. It isn't over the border that they are going. We know that. The troops are there. How is it, then?" Marlowe looked at us as if he expected Kennedy to catch some one by pure reason. Kennedy said nothing, but it was not because he was not interested. "Think it over," pursued Marlowe, who was a patriot above everything else. "Perhaps it will occur to you how you can be of the greatest service to the country. The thing is damnable--damnable." Neither Kennedy nor I having anything definite to contribute to the subject, the conversation drifted to the islands and Whitson's mission. Whitson proved to be very enthusiastic about it. He knew the islands well and had already made a trip there for Marlowe. A few moments later we shook hands and returned to our own table. It was getting late and the only type that was left to study was the common Broadway midnight-life genus. We paid our check and were about to leave. For an instant we stopped at the coat-room to watch the late arrivals and the departing throng. "Hello!" greeted a familiar voice beside us. "I've been looking all over town for you. They told me you had gone to the theater and I thought I might possibly find you here." We turned. It was our old friend Burke, of the Secret Service, accompanied by a stranger. "I'd like you to meet Mr. Sydney, the new special consular agent whom the government is sending to the Danish West Indies to investigate and report on trade conditions," he introduced. "We're off for St. Thomas on the Arroyo, which sails to-morrow noon." "Great Scott!" ejaculated Kennedy. "Is everybody daffy over those little islands? What takes you down there, Burke?" Burke looked about hastily, then drew us aside into a recess in the lobby. "I don't suppose you know," he explained, lowering his voice, "but since these negotiations began, the consular service has been keenly interested in the present state and the possibilities of the islands. The government sent one special agent there, named Dwight. Well, he died a few days ago. It was very suspicious, so much so that the authorities in the island investigated. Yet the doctors in the island have found no evidence of anything wrong, no poison. Still, it is very mysterious--and, you know," he hinted, "there are those who don't want us down there." The Secret Service man paused as though he had put the case as briefly and pointedly as he could, then went on: "I've been assigned to accompany the new consul down there and investigate. I've no particular orders and the chief will honor any reasonable expense account--but--" He hesitated and stopped, looking keenly at Kennedy's face. I saw what he was driving at. "Well--to come to the point--what I wanted to see you about, Kennedy, is to find out whether you would go with me. I think," he added, persuasively, "it would be quite worth your while. Besides, you look tired. You're working too hard. The change will do you good. And your conscience needn't trouble you. You'll be working, all right." Burke had been quick to note the haggard expression on Kennedy's face and turn it into an argument to carry his point. Kennedy smiled as he read the other's enthusiasm. I would have added my own urging, only I knew that nothing but a sense of duty would weigh with Craig. "I'd like to think the proposal over," he conceded, much to my surprise. "I'll let you know in the morning." "Mind," wheedled Burke, "I won't take no for an answer. We need you." The Secret Service man was evidently delighted by the reception Kennedy had given his scheme. Just then I caught sight of the party of four getting their hats and wraps preparatory to leaving, and Kennedy eyed them sharply. Marlowe and Whitson passed. As they did so I could not help seeing Whitson pause and shoot a quick glance at the four. It was a glance of suspicion and it was not lost on Craig. Did they know more of this Mexican gun-running business than Marlowe had hinted at? I watched Kennedy's face. Evidently his mind was at work on the same idea as mine. Burke accompanied us almost all the way home, with Sydney adding his urging. I could tell that the whole combination of circumstances at the Burridge had had an effect on Kennedy. I went to bed, tired, but through the night I knew Craig was engaged on some work about which he seemed to be somewhat secretive. When I saw him again in the laboratory, in the morning, he had before him a large packing-case of stout wood bound with steel bands. "What's that?" I asked, mystified. He opened the lid, a sort of door, on which was a strong lock, and I looked inside. "My traveling laboratory," he remarked, with pride. I peered in more closely. It was a well-stocked armamentarium, as the doctors would have called it. I shall not make any attempt to describe its contents. They were too varied and too numerous, a little bit of everything, it seemed. In fact, Craig seemed to have epitomized the sciences and arts. It was not that he had anything so wonderful, or even comparable to the collection of his laboratory. But as I ran my eye over the box I would have wagered that from the contents he might have made shift to duplicate in some makeshift form almost anything that he might need. It was truly amazing, representing in miniature his study of crime for years. "Then you are going with Burke to St. Thomas?" I queried, realizing the significance of it. Kennedy nodded. "I've been thinking of what I would do if an important case ever called me away. Burke's proposal hurried me, that's all. And you are going, also," he added. "You have until noon to break the news to the Star." I did not say anything more, fearful lest he might change his mind. I knew he needed the rest, and that no matter what the case was in the islands he could not work as hard as he was doing in New York. Accordingly my own arrangements with the Star were easily made. I had a sort of roving commission, anyhow, since my close association with Kennedy. Moreover, the possibility of turning up something good in the islands, which were much in the news at the time, rather appealed to the managing editor. If Kennedy could arrange his affairs, I felt that the least I could do was to arrange my own. Thus it came about that Craig and I found ourselves in the forenoon in a taxicab, on the front of which was loaded the precious box as well as our other hastily packed luggage, and we were on our way over to Brooklyn to the dock from which the Arroyo sailed. Already the clearance papers had been obtained, and there was the usual last-moment confusion among the passengers as the hour for sailing approached. It seemed as if we had scarcely boarded the ship when Kennedy was as gay as a school-boy on an unexpected holiday. I realized at once what was the cause. The change of scene, the mere fact of cutting loose, were having their effect. As we steamed slowly down the bay, I ran my eye over the other passengers at the rail, straining their eyes to catch the last glimpse of the towers of New York. There were Burke and Sydney, but they were not together, and, to all appearances, did not know each other. Sydney, of course, could not conceal his identity, nor did he wish to, no matter how beset with unseen perils might be his mission. But Burke was down on the passenger-list as, and had assumed the role of, a traveling salesman for a mythical novelty-house in Chicago. That evidently was part of the plan they had agreed on between themselves. Kennedy took the cue. As I studied the various groups, I paused suddenly, surprised. There was the party which had sat at the table next to us at the Burridge the night before. Kennedy had already seen them and had been watching them furtively. Just then Craig jogged my elbow. He had caught sight of Whitson edging his way in our direction. I saw what it was that Craig meant. He wanted purposely to avoid him. I wondered why, but soon I saw what he was up to. He wanted introductions to come about naturally, as they do on shipboard if one only waits. On deck and in the lounging and smoking rooms it did not take long for him to contrive ways of meeting and getting acquainted with those he wished to know, without exciting suspicion. Thus, by the time we sat down to dinner in the saloon we were all getting fairly chummy. We had met Burke quite as naturally as if we were total strangers. It was easy to make it appear that Whitson and Sydney were shipboard acquaintances. Nor was it difficult to secure an introduction to the other party of four. The girl whom we had heard addressed as Leontine seemed to be the leader of the group. Leontine Cowell was a striking personality. Her clear blue eyes directed a gaze at one which tested one's mettle to meet. I was never quite sure whether she remembered seeing us at the Burridge, whether she penetrated the parts we were playing. She was none the less feminine because she had aspirations in a commercial way. As Kennedy had first observed, she was well worth study. Her companion, Barrett Burleigh, was a polished, deferential Englishman, one of those who seem to be citizens of the world rather than subjects of any particular country. I wondered what were the real relations of the two. Jorgen Erickson was, as I had surmised, a Dane. He proved to be one of the largest planters in the island, already wealthy and destined to be wealthier if real estate advanced. The other woman, Nanette, was his wife. She was also a peculiarly interesting type, a Frenchwoman from Guadeloupe. Younger and more vivacious than her husband, her snappy black eyes betokened an attractive personality. Leontine Cowell, it seemed, had been in the islands not long before, had secured options on some score of plantations at a low figure, and made no secret of her business. When the American flag at last flew over the islands she stood to win out of the increase of land values a considerable fortune. Erickson also, in addition to his own holdings, had been an agent for some other planters and thus had met Leontine, who had been the means of interesting some American capital. As for Burleigh, it seemed that he had made the acquaintance of Leontine in Wall Street. He had been in the Caribbean and the impending changes in the Danish West Indies had attracted his notice. Whether he had some money to invest in the speculation or hoped to profit by commissions derived from sales did not appear. But at any rate some common bond had thrown the quartet together. I need not dwell on the little incidents of life on ship. It must have been the second day out that I observed Leontine and Sydney together on the promenade-deck. They seemed to be quite interested in each other, though I felt sure that Leontine was making a play for him. At any rate, Burleigh was jealous. Whatever might be the scheme, it was apparent that the young Englishman was head over heels in love with her. What did it mean? Was she playing with Sydney, seeking to secure his influence to further her schemes? Or did it mask some deeper, more sinister motive? From what I had seen of Sydney, I could not think that he was the man to take such an affair seriously. I felt that he must be merely amusing himself. Busy with my speculations, I was astonished soon after to realize that the triangle had become a hexagon, so to speak. Whitson and Nanette Erickson seemed to be much in each other's company. But, unlike Burleigh, Erickson seemed to be either oblivious or complacent. Whatever it might all portend, I found that it did not worry Kennedy, although he observed closely. Burke, however, was considerably excited and even went so far as to speak to Sydney, over whom he felt a sort of guardianship. Sydney turned the matter off lightly. As for me, I determined to watch both of these women closely. Kennedy spent much time not only in watching the passengers, but in going about the ship, talking to the captain and crew and every one who knew anything about the islands. In fact, he collected enough information in a few days to have satisfied any ordinary tourist for weeks. Even the cargo did not escape his attention, and I found that he was especially interested in the rather heavy shipments of agricultural implements that were consigned to various planters in the islands. So great was his interest that I began to suspect that it had some bearing on the gun-running plot that had been hinted at by Marlowe. It was the evening after one of Kennedy's busy days scouting about that he quietly summoned both Burke and Sydney to our cabin. "There's something queer going on," announced Craig, when he was sure that we were all together without having been observed. "Frankly, I must confess that I don't understand it--yet." "You needn't worry about me," interrupted Sydney, hastily. "I can take care of myself." Kennedy smiled quietly. We knew what Sydney meant. He seemed to resent Burke's solicitude over his acquaintance with Leontine and was evidently warning us off. Kennedy, however, avoided the subject. "I may as well tell you," he resumed, "that I was quite as much influenced by a rumor that arms were somehow getting into Mexican ports as I was by your appeal, Burke, in coming down here. So far I've found nothing that proves my case. But, as I said, there is something under the surface which I don't understand. We have all got to stick together, trust no one but ourselves, and, above all, keep our eyes open." It was all that was said, but I was relieved to note that Sydney seemed greatly impressed. Still, half an hour later, I saw him sitting in a steamer-chair beside Leontine again, watching the beautiful play of the moonlight on the now almost tropical ocean after we had emerged from the Gulf Stream. I felt that it was rather dangerous, but at least he had had his warning. Seeking Kennedy, I found him at last in the smoking-room, to my surprise talking with Erickson. I joined them, wondering how I was to convey to Craig what I had just seen without exciting suspicion. They were discussing the commercial and agricultural future of the islands under the American flag, especially the sugar industry, which had fallen into a low estate. "I suppose," remarked Kennedy, casually, "that you are already modernizing your plant and that others are doing the same, getting ready for a revival." Erickson received the remark stolidly. "No," he replied, slowly. "Some of us may be doing so, but as for me, I shall be quite content to sell if I can get my price." "The planters are not putting in modern machinery, then?" queried Kennedy, innocently, while there flashed over me what he had discovered about shipments of agricultural implements. Erickson shook his head. "Some of them may be. But for one that is, I know twenty whose only thought is to sell out and take a profit." The conversation trailed off on other subjects and I knew that Kennedy had acquired the information which he sought. As neatly as I could I drew him apart from Erickson. "Strange he should tell me that," ruminated Kennedy as we gained a quiet corner of the deck. "I know that there is a lot of stuff consigned to planters in the island, some even to himself." "He must be lying, then," I hastened. "Perhaps these promoters are really plotters. By the way, what I wanted to tell you was that I saw Sydney and Leontine together again." He was about to reply when the sound of some one approaching caused us to draw back farther into the shadow. It proved to be Whitson and Nanette. "Then you do not like St. Thomas?" we heard Whitson remark, as if he were repeating something she had just said. "There is nothing there," she replied. "Why, there aren't a hundred miles of good roads and not a dozen automobiles." Evidently the swiftness of life in New York of which she had tasted was having its effect. "St. Croix, where we have the plantation, is just as bad. Part of the time we live there, part of the time at Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas. But there is little difference. I hope Jorgen is able to sell. At least I should like to live a part of the year in the States." "Would he like that, too?" "Many of us would," she replied, quickly. "For many years things have been getting worse with us. Just now it seems a bit better because of the high price of sugar. But who knows how long that will last? Oh, I wish something would happen soon so that we might make enough money to live as I want to live. Think; here the best years of life are slipping away. Unless we do something soon, it will be too late! We must make our money soon." There was an air of impatience in her tone, of restless dissatisfaction. I felt also that there was an element of danger, too, in a woman just passing from youth making a confidant of another man. It was a mixed situation with the quartet whom we were watching. One thing was sufficiently evident. They were all desperately engaged in the pursuit of wealth. That was a common bond. Nor had I seen anything to indicate that they were over-scrupulous in that pursuit. Within half an hour I had seen Leontine with Sydney and Nanette with Whitson. Both Sydney as consular agent and Whitson through his influence with the shipping trust possessed great influence. Had the party thought it out and were they now playing the game with the main chance in view? I looked inquiringly at Kennedy as the voices died away while the couple walked slowly down the deck. He said nothing, but he was evidently pondering deeply on some problem, perhaps that which the trend of affairs had raised in my own mind. Our delay had not been long, but it had been sufficient to cause us to miss finding Leontine and Sydney. We did, however, run across Burke, bent evidently on watching, also. "I don't like this business," he confessed, as we paused to compare experiences. "I've been thinking of that Mexican business you hinted at, Kennedy. You know the islands would be an ideal out-of-the-way spot from which to start gun-running expeditions to Mexico. I don't like this Leontine and Burleigh. They want to make money too bad." Kennedy smiled. "Burleigh doesn't seem to approve of everything, though," he remarked. "Perhaps not. That's one reason why I think it may be more dangerous for Sydney than he realizes. I know she's a fascinating girl. All the more reason to watch out for her. But I can't talk to Sydney," he sighed. It was an enigma and I had not solved it, though I felt much as Burke did. Kennedy seemed to have determined to allow events to take their course, perhaps in the hope that developments would be quicker that way than by interfering with something which we did not understand. In the smoking-room, after we left Burke, Kennedy and I came upon Erickson and Burleigh. They had just finished a game of poker with some of the other passengers, in which Burleigh's usual run of luck and skill had been with him. "Lucky at cards, unlucky in love," remarked Burleigh as we approached. He said it with an air of banter, yet I could not help feeling that there was a note of seriousness at the bottom of it. Had he known that Leontine had been with Sydney on the deck? His very success at poker had its effect on me. I found myself eying him as if he had been one of the transatlantic card sharps, perhaps an international crook. Yet when I considered I was forced to admit that I had nothing on which to base such a judgment. Erickson presented a different problem, to my mind, There was indeed something queer about him. Either he had not been perfectly frank with us in regard to the improvement of his properties or he was concealing something much more sinister. Again and again my mind reverted to the hints that had been dropped by Marlowe, and I recalled the close scrutiny Whitson had given the four that night. So far, I had felt that in any such attempt we might count on Whitson playing a lone hand and perhaps finding out something to our advantage. It was the morning of the last day of the voyage that most of the passengers gathered on the deck for the first glimpse of the land to which we had been journeying. Before us lay the beautiful and picturesque harbor and town of Charlotte Amalie, one of the finest harbors in the West Indies, deep enough to float the largest vessels, with shipyards, dry-docks, and repair shops. From the deck it was a strikingly beautiful picture, formed by three spurs of mountains covered with the greenest of tropical foliage. From the edge of the dancing blue waves the town itself rose on the hills, presenting an entrancing panorama. All was bustle and excitement as the anchor plunged into the water, for not only was this the end of our journey, but the arrival of the boat from New York was an event for the town. There was much to watch, but I let nothing interfere with my observation of how the affair between Sydney and Leontine was progressing. To my surprise, I saw that this morning she was bestowing the favor of her smile rather on Burleigh. It was Sydney's turn now to feel the pangs of jealousy, and I must admit that he bore them with better grace than Burleigh, whatever that might indicate. As I watched the two and recalled their intimacy at the Burridge the first night we had seen them, I almost began to wonder whether I might not have been wrong about Leontine. Had it been that I had distrusted the woman merely because I was suspicious of the type, both male and female? Had I been finding food for suspicion because I was myself suspicious? Erickson was standing beside Sydney, while we were not far away. Evidently he had been saving up a speech for the occasion and now was prepared to deliver it. "Mr. Sydney," he began, with a wave of his arm that seemed to include us all, "it is a pleasure to welcome you here to our island. Last night it occurred to me that we ought to do something to show that we appreciate it. You must come to dinner to-night at my villa here in the town. You are all invited, all of us who have become so enjoyably acquainted on this voyage which I shall never forget. Believe me when I say that it will be even more a tribute to you personally than because of the official position you are to hold among us." It was a graceful invitation, more so than I had believed Erickson capable of framing. Sydney could do nothing less than thank him cordially and accept, as we all did. Indeed, I could see that Kennedy was delighted at the suggestion. It would give him an opportunity to observe them all under circumstances different enough to show something. While we were thanking Erickson, I saw that Whitson had taken the occasion also to thank Mrs. Erickson, with whom he had been talking, just a bit apart from the group. He made no secret of his attentions, though I thought she was a bit embarrassed by them at such a time. Indeed, she started rather abruptly toward the group which was now intent on surveying the town, and as she did so, I noted that she had forgotten her hand-bag, which lay on a deck-chair near where they had been sitting. I picked it up to restore it. Some uncontrollable curiosity prompted me and I hesitated. All were still looking at the town. I opened the bag. Inside was a little bottle of grayish liquid. What should I do? Any moment she or Whitson might turn around. Hastily I pulled off the cap of my fountain-pen and poured into it some of the liquid, replacing the cork in the bottle and dropping it back into the bag, while I disposed of the cap as best I could without spilling its contents. Whether either she or any one else had observed me, I was not going to run any chances of being seen. I called a passing steward. "Mrs. Erickson forgot her bag," I said, pointing hastily to it. "You'll find her over there with Mr. Whitson." Then I mingled in the crowd to watch her. She did not seem to show any anxiety when she received it. I lost no time in getting back to Kennedy and telling him what I had found, and a few moments later he made an excuse to go to our state-room, as eager as I was to know what had been in the little bottle. First he poured out a drop of the liquid from the cap of my fountain-pen in some water. It did not dissolve. Successively he tried alcohol, ether, then pepsin. None of them had any effect on it. Finally, however, he managed to dissolve it in ammonia. "Relatively high amount of sulphur," he muttered, after a few moments more of study. "Keratin, I believe." "A poison?" I asked. Kennedy shook his head. "No; harmless." "Then what is it for?" He shrugged his shoulders. He may have had some half-formed idea, but if he did it was still indefinite and he refused to commit himself. Instead, he placed the sample in his traveling laboratory, closed and locked it, and, with our luggage, the box was ready to be taken ashore. Nearly every one had gone ashore by the time we returned to the deck. Whitson was there yet, talking to the captain, for the shipping at the port interested him. I wondered whether he, too, might be suspicious of those cases consigned to Erickson and others. If so, he said nothing of it. By this time several vessels that looked as if they might be lighters, though fairly large, had pulled up. It seemed that they had been engaged to carry shipments of goods to the other islands of St. John and St. Croix. Kennedy seemed eager now to get ashore, and we went, accompanied by Whitson, and after some difficulty established ourselves in a small hotel. Most of the tourists were sightseeing, and, while we had no time for that, still we could not help doing so, in going about the town. Charlotte Amalie, I may say, proved to be one of the most picturesque towns in the Windward Islands. The walls of the houses were mostly of a dazzling whiteness, though some were yellow, others gray, orange, blue. But the roofs were all of a generous bright red which showed up very effectively among the clumps of green trees. Indeed, the town seemed to be one of gaily tinted villas and palaces. There were no factories, no slums. Nature had provided against that and man had not violated the provision. The people whom we met on the streets were mostly negroes, though there was a fair sprinkling of whites. What pleased us most was that nearly everywhere we went English was spoken. I had half expected Danish. But there was even very little Spanish spoken. Burke was waiting for us, and in spite of his playing the role of traveling salesman managed to direct us about so that we might as quickly as possible pick up the thread of the mysterious death of Dwight. It did not take long to gather such meager information as there was about the autopsy that had followed the strange death of Sydney's predecessor. We were able to find out little from either the authorities or the doctor who had investigated the case. Under the stress of suspicion, both the stomach and the contents of the stomach of the unfortunate man had been examined. No trace of anything out of the way had been found, and there the matter had rested, except for suspicion. One of our first visits was to the American consulate. There Sydney, by virtue of his special commission, had, with characteristic energy, established himself with the consul. Naturally, he, too, had been making inquiries. But they had led nowhere. There seemed to be no clue to the mysterious death of Dwight, not even a hint as to the cause. All that we were able to discover, after some hours of patient inquiry, was that Dwight had suffered from great prostration, marked cyanosis, convulsions, and coma. Whether it was the result of some strange disease or of a poison no one, not even the doctor, was prepared to say. All that was known was that the blow, if blow it had been, was swift, sudden, sure. We ran across Whitson once or twice during the day, busily engaged renewing acquaintance with merchants and planters whom he had known before, but I do not recall having seen either Burleigh or Leontine, which, at the time, I thought rather strange, for the town was small and strangers were few. The more I thought of it the more firmly convinced I was that Dwight had discovered some secret which it was extremely inconvenient for somebody to have known. What was it? Was it connected with the rumors we had heard of gun-running to Mexico? Erickson had invited us to come late in the afternoon to the dinner and we did not delay in getting there. His house proved to be a veritable palace on the side of one of the hills rising abruptly back of the shore. Flights of massive stone steps, quaint walls covered with creepers, balustrades overlooking charming gardens, arcades from which one looked out on splendid vistas and shady terraces combined to make it a veritable paradise such as can be found only in tropical and subtropical lands. Most wonderful of all was the picture of the other hills unfolded, especially of the two ruined pirates' castles belonging to semi-mythical personages, Bluebeard and Blackbeard. The Ericksons were proud of their home, as well they might be, in spite of the complaints we had heard Nanette utter and the efforts of Erickson to sell his holdings. Mrs. Erickson proved to be a charming hostess and the host extended a hospitality such as one rarely meets. It quite made me uncomfortable to accept it at the same time that I knew we must view it all with suspicion. Nor did it make matters any better, but rather worse, to feel that there was some color of excuse for the suspicion. Burleigh arrived proudly with Leontine, followed closely by Sydney. At once the game was on again, Leontine pitting one against the other. Whitson came, his attentions to Mrs. Erickson a trifle restrained, but still obvious. Burke and ourselves completed the party. To the repeated urging of Erickson we made ourselves quite as much at home as we politely could. Kennedy and Burke, acting under his instructions, seemed to be ubiquitous. Yet, beyond a continuation of the drama that had been unfolded on the ship it did not seem to me at first that we were getting anywhere. Kennedy and I were passing alone along a colonnade that opened off from the large dining-hall, when Craig paused and looked in through an open door at the massive table set for the dinner. A servant had just completed setting out cocktails at the various places, pouring them from a huge tankard, for the purpose, which had been standing on a sideboard. Guests had been walking past through the colonnade ever since we arrived, but at the moment there was no one about, and even the servant had disappeared. Kennedy stepped lightly into the dining-hall and looked about sharply. Instinctively I stepped to a window where I could hear any one approaching. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him narrowly scrutinizing the table. Finally he pulled from his pocket a clean linen handkerchief. Into an empty glass he poured the contents of one of the cocktail-glasses, straining the liquid through the handkerchief. Then he poured the filtrate, if I may call it such, back into the original glass. A second he treated in the same way, and a third. He had nearly completed the round of the table when I heard a light step. My warning came only just in time. It was Burleigh. He saw us standing now in the colonnade, made some hasty remark, then walked on, as if in search for some one. Had it been interest in Leontine or in the dining-room that had drawn him thither? Kennedy was now looking closely at the handkerchief, and I looked also. In the glasses had been innumerable little seeds as if from the fruit juice used in concocting the appetizer. The fine meshes of the linen had extracted them. What were they? I took one in my fingers and crushed it between my nails. There was an unmistakable odor of bitter almonds. What did it mean? We had no time now for speculation. Our prolonged absence might be noticed and we hastened to join the other guests after finishing the round of glasses in which he had been interrupted. How, in my suppressed excitement, I managed to get through that dinner I do not know. It was a brilliant affair, yet I found that I had completely lost my appetite, as well one might after having observed Kennedy's sleuthing. However, the dinner progressed, though each course that brought it nearer a conclusion afforded me an air of relief. I was quite ready when, over the coffee, Kennedy contrived to make some excuse for us, promising to call again and perhaps to visit the Erickson plantation. In the secrecy of our room in the little hotel, Craig was soon deeply buried in making use of his traveling laboratory. As he worked I could no longer restrain my impatience. "What about that little bottle of keratin?" I asked, eagerly. "Oh yes," he replied, not looking up from the tests he was making. "Well, keratin, you know, is also called epidermose. It is a scleroprotein present largely in cuticular structures such as hair, nails, horn. I believe it is usually prepared from pieces of horn steeped in pepsin, hydrochloric acid, and water for a long time. Then the residue is dissolved in ammonia and acetic acid." "But what's its use?" I demanded. "You said it was harmless." "Why, the pepsin of the stomach won't digest it," he returned. "For that reason its chief use is for coating what are known as 'enteric capsules.' Anything coated with keratin is carried on through the stomach into the intestines. It is used much in hot countries in order to introduce drugs into the intestines in the treatment of the tropical diseases that affect the intestines." He paused and devoted his entire attention to his work, but he had told me enough to assure me that at least the bottle of keratin I had found had proved to be a clue. I waited as long as I could, then interrupted again. "What are the seeds?" I queried. "Have you found out yet?" He paused as though he had not quite finished his hasty investigation, yet had found out enough to convince him. "There seem to be two kinds. I wish I had had time to keep each lot separate. Some of them are certainly quite harmless. But there are others, I find, that have been soaked in nitro-benzol, artificial oil of bitter almonds. Even a few drops, such as might be soaked up in this way, might be fatal. The new and interesting phase, to me, is that they were all carefully coated with keratin. Really, they are keratin-coated enteric capsules of nitro-benzol, a deadly poison." I looked at him, aghast at what some of us had been rescued from by his prompt action. "You see," he went on, excitedly, "that is why the autopsies probably showed nothing. These doctors down here sought for a poison in the stomach. But if the poison had been in the stomach the odor alone would have betrayed it. You smelt it when you crushed a seed. But the poisoning had been devised to avoid just that chance of discovery. There was no poison in the stomach. Death was delayed long enough, also, to divert suspicion from the real poisoner. Some one has been diabolically clever in covering up the crimes." I could only gasp my amazement. "Then," I blurted out, "you think the Ericksons--" Our door burst open. It was Burke, in wild excitement. "Has anybody--died?" I managed to demand. He seemed not to hear, but dashed to the window and threw it open. "Look!" he exclaimed. We did. In the late twilight, through the open sash we could see the landlocked basin of the harbor. But it was not that at which Burke pointed. On the horizon an ugly dark cloud rose menacingly. In the strange, unearthly murkiness, I could see people of the town pouring out into the narrow streets, wildly, fearfully, with frantic cries and gesticulations. For a moment I gazed at the sight blankly. Then I realized that sweeping on us was one of those sudden, deadly West-Indian hurricanes. Our harbor was sheltered from the north and east winds. But this wind was southern born, rare, oncoming in a fury against which we had no protection. Hastily closing his armamentarium, Kennedy also hurried out on the street. The gale had become terrific already in the few minutes that had elapsed. From our terrace we could see the water, gray and olive, with huge white breakers, like gnashing teeth, coming on to rend and tear everything in their path. It was as though we stood in an amphitheater provided by nature for a great spectacle, the bold headlands standing out like the curves of a stadium. I looked about. The Ericksons had just driven up with Burleigh and Leontine, as well as Whitson, all of whom were stopping at our hotel, and were about to take Sydney on to the consulate when the approach of the storm warned them to stay. Leontine had hurried into the hotel, evidently fearful of the loss of something she treasured, and the rest were standing apart from the trees and buildings, where the formation of the land offered some protection. As we joined them I peered at the pale faces in the ghastly, unnatural light. Was it, in a sense, retribution? Suddenly, without further warning, the storm broke. Trees were turned up by roots, like weeds, the buildings rocked as if they had been houses of cards. It was a wild, catastrophic spectacle. "Leontine," I heard a voice mutter by my side, as a form catapulted itself past through the murkiness into the crazily swaying hotel. It was Burleigh. I turned to speak to Kennedy. He was gone. Where to find him I had no idea. The force of the wind was such that search was impossible. All we could do was to huddle back of such protection as the earth afforded against the million needles of rain that cut into our faces. The wind almost blew me flat to the earth as, no longer able to stand the suspense, I stumbled toward the hotel, thinking perhaps he had gone to save his armamentarium, although if I had stopped to think I should have realized that that strong box was about the safest piece of property on the island. I was literally picked up and hurled against an object in the darkness--a man. "In the room--more keratin--more seeds." It was Kennedy. He had taken advantage of the confusion to make a search which otherwise might have been more difficult. Together we struggled back to our shelter. Just then came a crash, as the hotel crumpled under the fierce stress of the storm. Out of the doorway struggled a figure just in time to clear the falling walls. It was Burleigh, a huge gash from a beam streaming blood down his forehead which the rain washed away almost as it oozed. In his arms, clinging about his neck, was Leontine, no longer the sophisticated, but in the face of this primeval danger just a woman. Burleigh staggered with his burden a little apart from us, and in spite of everything I could fancy him blessing the storm that had given him his opportunity. Far from abating, the storm seemed increasing in fury, as though all the devils of the underworld were vexed at anything remaining undestroyed. It seemed as if even the hills on which the old pirates had once had their castles must be rocking. "My God!" exclaimed a thick voice, as an arm shot out, pointing toward the harbor. There was the Arroyo tugging at every extra mooring that could be impressed into service. The lighters had broken or been cut away and were scudding, destruction-bent, squarely at the shore almost below us. A moment and they had crashed on the beach, a mass of timbers and spars, while the pounding waves tore open and flung about heavy cases as though they were mere toys. Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, the storm began to abate, the air cleared, and nothing remained but the fury of the waves. "Look!" exclaimed Kennedy, pointing down at the strange wreckage that strewed the beach. "Does that look like agricultural machinery?" We strained our eyes. Kennedy did not pause. "The moment I heard that arms were getting into Mexico I suspected that somewhere here in the Caribbean munitions were being transhipped. Perhaps they have been sent to Atlantic ports ostensibly for the Allies. They have got down here disguised. Even before the storm exposed them I had reasoned it out. From this port, the key to the vast sweep of mainland, I reasoned that they were being taken over to secret points on the coast where big ships could not safely go. It was here that blockade-runners were refitted in our Civil War. It is here that this new gun-running plot has been laid." He turned quickly to Sydney. "The only obstacle between the transfer of the arms and success was the activity of an American consulate. Those lighters were not to carry goods to other islands. They were really destined for Mexico. It was profitable. And the scheme for removing opposition was evidently safe." Kennedy was holding up another bottle of keratin and some fruit seeds. "I found these in a room in the hotel," he added. I did not comprehend. "But," I cut in, "the hand-bag--the dinner--what of them?" "A plant--a despicable trespass on hospitality--all part of a scheme to throw the guilt on some one else, worthy of a renegade and traitor." Craig wheeled suddenly, then added, with an incisive gesture, "I suppose you know that there is reputed to have been on one of these hills the headquarters of the old pirate, Teach--'the mildest manner'd man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat!'" Kennedy paused, then added, quickly, "In respect to covering up your gun-running, Whitson, you are superior even to Teach!" XII THE SUNKEN TREASURE "Get story Everson and bride yacht Belle Aventure seeking treasure sunk Gulf liner Antilles." Kennedy and I had proceeded after a few leisurely days in St. Thomas to Porto Rico. We had no particular destination, and San Juan rather appealed to us as an objective point because it was American. It was there that I found waiting for me the above message by wireless from the Star in New York. San Juan was, as we had anticipated, a thoroughly Americanized town and I lost no time in getting around at once to the office of the leading newspaper, the Colonial News. The editor, Kenmore, proved to be a former New York reporter who had come out in answer to an advertisement by the proprietors of the paper. "What's the big story here now?" I asked by way of preface, expecting to find that colonial newspapermen were provincial. "What's the big story?" repeated Kenmore, impatiently pushing aside a long leader on native politics and regarding me thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not superstitious, but a honeymoon spent trying to break into Davy Jones's locker for sunken treasure--I guess that's a good story, isn't it?" I showed him my message and he smiled. "You see, I was right," he exclaimed. "They're searching now at the Cay d'Or, the Golden Key, one of the southernmost of the Bahamas, I suppose you would call it. I wish I was like you. I'd like to get away from this political stuff long enough to get the story." He puffed absently on a fragrant native cigar. "I met them all when they were here, before they started," he resumed, reminiscently. "It was certainly a picturesque outfit--three college chums--one of them on his honeymoon, and the couple chaperoning the bride's sister. There was one of the college boys--a fellow named Gage--who fairly made news." "How was that?" inquired Kennedy, who had accompanied me, full of zest at the prospect of mixing in a story so romantic. "Oh, I don't know that it was his fault--altogether," replied Kenmore. "There's a young lady here in the city, the daughter of a pilot, Dolores Guiteras. She had been a friend of some one in the expedition, I believe. I suppose that's how Gage met her. I don't think either of them really cared for each other. Perhaps she was a bit jealous of the ladies of the party. I don't know anything much about it, only I remember one night in the cafe of the Palace Hotel, I thought Gage and another fellow would fight a duel--almost--until Everson dropped in and patched the affair up and the next day his yacht left for Golden Key." "I wish I'd been here to go with them," I considered. "How do you suppose I'll be able to get out there, now?" "You might be able to hire a tug," shrugged Kenmore. "The only one I know is that of Captain Guiteras. He's the father of this Dolores I told you about." The suggestion seemed good, and after a few moments more of conversation, absorbing what little Kenmore knew, we threaded our way across the city to the home of the redoubtable Guiteras and his pretty daughter. Guiteras proved to be a man of about fifty, a sturdy, muscular fellow, his face bronzed by the tropical sun. I had scarcely broached the purpose of my visit when his restless brown eyes seemed literally to flash. "No, sir," he exclaimed, emphatically. "You cannot get me to go on any such expedition. Mr. Everson came here first and tried to hire my tug. I wouldn't do it. No, sir--he had to get one from Havana. Why, the whole thing is unlucky--hoodooed, you call it. I will not touch it." "But," I remonstrated, surprised at his unexpected vehemence, "I am not asking you to join the expedition. We are only going to--" "No, no," he interrupted. "I will not consider it. I--" He cut short his remarks as a young woman, radiant in her Latin-American beauty, opened the door, hesitated at sight of us, then entered at a nod from him. We did not need to be told that this was the Dolores whom Kenmore's rumor had credited with almost wrecking Everson's expedition at the start. She was a striking type, her face, full of animation and fire, betraying more of passion than of intellect. A keen glance of inquiry from her wonderful eyes at her father was followed by a momentary faraway look, and she remained silent, while Guiteras paused, as if considering something. "They say," he continued, slowly, his features drawn sharply, "that there was loot of Mexican churches on that ship--the jewels of Our Lady of the Rosary at Puebla.... That ship was cursed, I tell you!" he added, scowling darkly. "No one was lost on it, though," I ventured at random. "I suppose you never heard the story of the Antilles?" he inquired, turning swiftly toward me. Then, without stopping: "She had just sailed from San Juan before she was wrecked--on her way to New York from Vera Cruz with several hundred Mexican refugees. Treasure? Yes; perhaps millions, money that belonged to wealthy families in Mexico--and some that had the curse on it. "You asked a moment ago if everybody wasn't rescued. Well, everybody was rescued from the wreck except Captain Driggs. I don't know what happened. No one knows. The fire had got into the engine-room and the ship was sinking fast. Passengers saw him, pale, like a ghost, some said. Others say there was blood streaming from his head. When the last boat-load left they couldn't find him. They had to put off without him. It was a miracle that no one else was lost." "How did the fire start?" inquired Kennedy, much interested. "No one knows that, either," answered Guiteras, shaking his head slowly. "I think it must have been smoldering in the hold for hours before it was discovered. Then the pumps either didn't work properly or it had gained too great headway for them. I've heard many people talk of it and of the treasure. No, sir, you wouldn't get me to touch it. Maybe you'll call it superstition. But I won't have anything to do with it. I wouldn't go with Mr. Everson and I won't go with you. Perhaps you don't understand, but I can't help it." Dolores had stood beside her father while he was speaking, but had said nothing, though all the time she had been regarding us from beneath her long black eyelashes. Arguments with the old pilot had no effect, but I could not help feeling that somehow she was on our side, that whether she shared his fears and prejudices, her heart was really somewhere near the Key of Gold. There seemed to be nothing for us to do but wait until some other way turned up to get out to the expedition, or perhaps Dolores succeeded in changing the captain's mind. We bowed ourselves out, not a little puzzled by the enigma of the obdurate old man and his pretty daughter. Try as I might among the busy shipping of the port, I could find no one else willing at any reasonable price to change his plans to accommodate us. It was early the next morning that a young lady, very much perturbed, called on us at our hotel, scarcely waiting even the introduction of her plainly engraved card bearing the name, Miss Norma Sanford. "Perhaps you know of my sister, Asta Sanford, Mrs. Orrin Everson," she began, speaking very rapidly as if under stress. "We're down here on Asta's honeymoon in Orrin's yacht, the Belle Aventure." Craig and I exchanged glances, but she did not give us a chance to interrupt. "It all seems so sudden, so terrible," she cried, in a burst of wild, incoherent feeling. "Yesterday Bertram Traynor died, and we've put back to San Juan with his body. I'm so worried for Orrin and my sister. I heard you were here, Professor Kennedy, and I couldn't rest until I saw you." She was looking anxiously at Craig. I wondered whether she had heard of our visit to the Guiterases and what she knew about that other woman. "I don't quite understand," interposed Kennedy, with an effort to calm her. "Why do you fear for your sister and Mr. Everson? Was there something--suspicious--about the death of Mr. Traynor?" "Indeed I think there was," she replied, quickly. "None of us has any idea how it happened. Let me tell you about our party. You see, there are three college chums, Orrin and two friends, Bertram Traynor and Donald Gage. They were all on a cruise down here last winter, the year after they graduated. It was in San Juan that Orrin first met Mr. Dominick, who was the purser on the Antilles--you know, that big steamer of the Gulf Line that was burned last year and went down with seven million dollars aboard?" Kennedy nodded to the implied query, and she went on: "Mr. Dominick was among those saved, but Captain Driggs was lost with his ship. Mr. Dominick had been trying to interest some one here in seeking the treasure. They knew about where the Antilles went down, and the first thing he wanted to do was to locate the wreck exactly. After that was done of course Mr. Dominick knew about the location of the ship's strong room and all that." "That, of course, was common knowledge to any one interested enough to find out, though," suggested Kennedy. "Of course," she agreed. "Well, a few months later Orrin met Mr. Dominick again, in New York. In the mean time he had been talking the thing over with various people and had become acquainted with a man who had once been a diver for the Interocean Marine Insurance Company--Owen Kinsale. Anyhow, so the scheme grew. They incorporated a company, the Deep Sea Engineering Company, to search for the treasure. That is how Orrin started. They are using his yacht and Mr. Dominick is really in command, though Mr. Kinsale has the actual technical knowledge." She paused, but again her feelings seemed to get the better of her. "Oh," she cried, "I've been afraid all along, lately. It's dangerous work. And then, the stories that have been told of the ship and the treasure. It seems ill-fated. Professor Kennedy," she appealed, "I wish you would come and see us. We're not on the yacht just now. We came ashore as soon as we arrived back, and Asta and Orrin are at the Palace Hotel now. Perhaps Orrin can tell you more. If you can do nothing more than quiet my fears--" Her eyes finished the sentence. Norma Sanford was one of those girls who impress you as quite capable of taking care of themselves. But in the presence of the tragedy and a danger which she felt but could not seem to define, she felt the need of outside assistance and did not hesitate to ask it. Nor was Kennedy slow in responding. He seemed to welcome a chance to help some one in distress. We found Everson and his young wife at the hotel, quite different now from the care-free adventurers who had set out only a few days before to wrest a fortune from chance. I had often seen portraits of the two Sanford sisters in the society pages of the papers in the States and knew that the courtship of Orrin Everson and Asta Sanford had been a true bit of modern romance. Asta Everson was a unique type of girl. She had begun by running fast motor cars and boats. That had not satisfied her, and she had taken up aviation. Once, even, she had tried deep-sea diving herself. It seemed as if she had been born with the spirit of adventure. To win her, Everson had done about everything from Arctic exploration one summer when he was in college to big-game hunting in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Andes. Odd though the romance might seem to be, one could not help feeling that the young couple were splendidly matched in their tastes. Each had that spirit of restlessness which, at least, sent them out playing at pioneering. Everson had organized the expedition quite as much in the spirit of revolt against a prosaic life of society at home as for gain. It had appealed strongly to Asta. She had insisted that nothing so much as a treasure hunt would be appropriate for their wedding-trip and they had agreed on the unconventional. Accordingly, she and her sister had joined Everson and his party, Norma, though a year younger, being quite like her sister in her taste for excitement. "Of course, you understand," explained Everson, as he hurriedly tried to give us some idea of what had happened, "we knew that the Antilles had sunk somewhere off the Cay d'Or. It was first a question of locating her. That was all that we had been doing when Bertram died. It is terrible, terrible. I can't believe it. I can't understand it." In spite of his iron nerve, the tragedy seemed to have shaken Everson profoundly. "You had done nothing that might have been dangerous?" asked Kennedy, pointedly. "Nothing," emphasized Everson. "You see, we located the wreck in a way somewhat similar to the manner in which they sweep the seas for mines and submarines. It was really very simple, though it took us some time. All we did was to drag a wire at a fixed depth between the yacht and the tug, or rather, I suppose you'd almost call it a trawler, which I chartered from Havana. What we were looking for was to have the wire catch on some obstruction. It did, too, not once, but many times, due to the unevenness of the ocean bed. Once we located a wreck, but it was in shallow water, a small boat, not the one we were looking for." "But you succeeded finally?" "Yes, only day before yesterday we located her. We marked the spot with a buoy and were getting ready for real work. It was just after that that Bertram was taken ill and died so suddenly. We've left Dominick, Kinsale, Gage, and the rest on the trawler there, while I came here with Traynor's body. God! but it was awful to have to send the news back to New York. I don't know what to think or what to do." "How did he die?" asked Kennedy, endeavoring to gain the confidence of young Everson. "Do you recall any of his symptoms?" "It came on him so suddenly," he replied, "that we hadn't much time to think. As nearly as we could make out, it began with a faintness and difficulty in breathing. We asked him how he felt--but it seemed as if he was deaf. I thought it might be the 'bends'--you know, caisson disease--and we started to put him in the medical lock which we had for the divers, but before we could get it ready he was unconscious. It was all so sudden that it stunned us. I can't make it out at all." Neither Asta nor Norma seemed able to tell anything. In fact, the blow had been so swift and unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it had left them thoroughly alarmed. The body of Traynor had already been brought ashore and placed in a local undertaking shop. With Everson, Kennedy and I hastened to visit it. Traynor had been an athlete and powerfully built, which made his sudden death seem all the more strange. Without a word, Craig set to work immediately examining his body, while we stood aside, watching him in anxious silence. Kennedy consumed the greater part of the morning in his careful investigation, and after some time Everson began to get restless, wondering how his wife and sister-in-law were getting on in his absence. To keep him company I returned to the hotel with him, leaving Kennedy to pursue his work alone. There was nothing much that either of us could say or do, but I thought I observed, on closer acquaintance with Norma, that she had something weighing on her mind. Was it a suspicion of which she had not told us? Evidently she was not prepared to say anything yet, but I determined, rather than try to quiz her, to tell Kennedy, in the hope that she might confide in him what she would not breathe to any one else. It was perhaps an hour or more later that we returned to Craig. He was still at work, though from his manner it was evident that his investigations had begun to show something, however slight. "Have you found anything?" asked Everson, eagerly. "I think I have," returned Craig, measuring his words carefully. "Of course you know the dangers of diving and the view now accepted regarding the rapid effervescence of the gases which are absorbed in the body fluids during exposure to pressure. I think you know that experiment has proved that when the pressure is suddenly relieved the gas is liberated in bubbles within the body. That is what seems to do the harm. His symptoms, as you described them, seemed to indicate that. It is like charged water in a bottle. Take out the cork and the gas inside which has been under pressure bubbles up. In the human body, air and particularly the nitrogen in the air, literally form death bubbles." Everson said nothing as he regarded Kennedy's face searchingly, and Craig went on: "Set free in the spinal cord, for instance, such bubbles may cause partial paralysis, or in the heart may lead to stoppage of the circulation. In this case I am quite sure that what I have found indicates air in the arteries, the heart, and the blood vessels of the brain. It must have been a case of air embolism, insufflation." Though Everson seemed all along to have suspected something of the sort, Kennedy's judgment left him quite as much at a loss for an explanation. Kennedy seemed to understand, as he went on: "I have tried to consider all the ways such a thing could have happened," he considered. "It is possible that air might have been introduced into the veins by a hypodermic needle or other instrument. But I find no puncture of the skin or other evidence that would support that theory. I have looked for a lesion of the lungs, but find none. Then how could it have occurred? Had he done any real deep diving?" Everson shook his head slowly. "No," he replied. "As I said, it wouldn't have been so incomprehensible if he had. Besides, if we had been diving, we should have been on the lookout. No, Bertram had only tested the apparatus once, after we located the wreck. He didn't much more than go under the surface--nothing like the practice dives we all made up in Long Island Sound before we came down here. He was only testing the pumps and other things to see whether they had stood the voyage. Why, it was nothing at all! I don't see how it could have given any one the 'bends'--much less a fellow like Traynor. Why, I think he could have stood more than Kinsale with a little practice. Kennedy, I can't get it out of my mind that there's something about this that isn't RIGHT." Craig regarded Everson gravely. "Frankly," he confessed, "I must say that I don't understand it myself--at this distance." "Would you come out to the Key with me?" hastened Everson, as though grasping at a possible solution. "I should be delighted to help you in any manner that I can," returned Craig, heartily. Everson could not find words to express his gratitude as we hurried back to the hotel. In the excitement, I had completely forgotten the despatch from the Star, but now I suddenly realized that here, ready to hand, was the only way of getting out to the Key of Gold and securing the story. Asta Everson and Norma, especially, were overjoyed at the news that Kennedy had consented to accompany them back to the wreck. Evidently they had great faith in him, from what they had heard at home. Accordingly, Everson lost no time in preparing to return to the yacht. Nothing more now could be done for poor Traynor, and delay might mean much in clearing up the mystery, if mystery it should prove. We were well on our way toward the landing place before I realized that we were going over much the same route that Kennedy and I had taken the day before to reach the home of Guiteras. I was just about to say something about it to Kennedy, and of the impression that Norma had made on me, when suddenly a figure darted from around a corner and confronted us. We stopped in surprise. It was no other than Dolores herself--not the quiet, subdued Dolores we had seen the day before, but an almost wild, passionate creature. What it was that had transformed her I could not imagine. It was not ourselves that she seemed to seek, nor yet the Eversons. She did not pause until she had come close to Norma herself. For a moment the two women, so different in type, faced each other, Dolores fiery with the ardent beauty of her race, Norma pulsating with life and vigor, yet always mistress of herself. "I warn you!" cried Dolores, unable to restrain herself. "You thought the other was yours--and he was not. Do not seek revenge. He is mine--MINE, I tell you. Win your own back again. I was only making sport of him. But mine--beware!" For a moment Norma gazed at her, then, without a word, turned aside and walked on. Another instant and Dolores was gone as suddenly as she had appeared. Asta looked inquiringly, but Norma made no attempt at explanation. What did it mean? Had it anything to do with the dispute in the hotel which Kenmore had witnessed? At the landing we parted for a time with Everson, to return to our hotel and get what little we needed, including Kennedy's traveling laboratory, while Everson prepared quarters for our reception on the yacht. "What do you make of that Dolores incident?" I hastened to ask the moment we were alone. "I don't know," he replied, "except that I feel it has an important bearing on the case. There is something that Norma hasn't told us, I fear." While we waited for a wagon to transfer our goods to the dock, Kennedy took a moment to call up Kenmore on the News. As he turned to me from the telephone, I saw that what he had learned had not helped him much in his idea of the case. "It was the Interocean Company which had insured the Antilles," was all he said. Instantly I thought of Kinsale and his former connection. Was he secretly working with them still? Was there a plot to frustrate Everson's plans? At least the best thing to do was to get out to the wreck and answer our many questions at first hand. The Belle Aventure was a trim yacht of perhaps seventy feet, low, slim, and graceful, driven by a powerful gas-engine and capable of going almost anywhere. An hour later we were aboard and settled in a handsomely appointed room, where Craig lost no time in establishing his temporary traveling crime clinic. It was quite late before we were able to start, for Everson had a number of commissions to attend to on this his first visit to port since he had set out so blithely. Finally, however, we had taken aboard all that he needed and we slipped out quietly past the castle on the point guarding the entrance to the harbor. All night we plowed ahead over the brilliant, starry, tropical sea, making splendid time, for the yacht was one of the fastest that had ever been turned out by the builders. Now and then I could see that Kennedy was furtively watching Norma, in the hope that she might betray whatever secret it was she was guarding so jealously. Though she betrayed nothing, I felt sure that it had to do with some member of the expedition and that it was a more than ordinarily complicated affair of the heart. The ladies had retired, leaving us with Everson in the easy wicker chairs on the after-deck. "I can't seem to get out of my mind, Everson, that meeting with the Spanish girl on the street," suddenly remarked Kennedy, in the hope of getting something by surprise. "You see, I had already heard of a little unpleasantness in a hotel cafe, before the expedition started. Somehow I feel that there must be some connection." For a moment Everson regarded Kennedy under the soft rays of the electric light under the awning as it swayed in the gentle air, then looked out over the easy swell of the summer sea. "I don't understand it myself," he remarked, at length, lowering his voice. "When we came down here Dominick knew that girl, Dolores, and of course Kinsale met her right away, too. I thought Gage was head over ears in love with Norma--and I guess he is. Only that night in the cafe I just didn't like the way he proposed a toast to Dolores. He must have met her that day. Maybe he was a bit excited. What she said to-day might mean that it was her fault. I don't know. But since we've been out to the Key I fancy Norma has been pretty interested in Dominick. And Kinsale doesn't hesitate to show that he likes her. It all sets Donald crazy. It's so mixed up. I can't make anything of it. And Norma--well, even Asta can't get anything out of her. I wish to Heaven you could straighten the thing out." We talked for some time, without getting much more light than Everson had been able at first to shed on the affair, and finally we retired, having concluded that only time and events would enable us to get at the truth. It was early in the morning that I was wakened by a change in the motion of the boat. There was very little vibration from the engine, but this motion was different. I looked out of the port-hole which had been very cleverly made to resemble a window and found that we had dropped anchor. The Key of Gold was a beautiful green island, set, like a sparkling gem, in a sea of deepest turquoise. Slender pines with a tuft of green at the top rose gracefully from the wealth of foliage below and contrasted with the immaculate white of the sandy beach that glistened in the morning sun. Romance seemed to breathe from the very atmosphere of the place. We found that the others on the yacht were astir, too, and, dressing hastily, we went out on deck. Across the dancing waves, which seemed to throw a mocking challenge to the treasure-seekers to find what they covered, we could see the trawler. Already a small power-boat had put out from her and was plowing along toward us. It was as the boat came alongside us that we met Gage for the first time. He was a tall, clean-cut fellow, but even at a glance I recognized that his was an unusual type. I fancied that both proctors and professors had worried over him when he was in college. Particularly I tried to discover how he acted when he met Norma. It was easy to see that he was very eager to greet her, but I fancied that there was some restraint on her part. Perhaps she felt that we were watching and was on her guard. Dominick greeted Everson warmly. He was a man of about thirty-five and impressed one as having seen a great deal of the world. His position as purser had brought him into intimate contact with many people, and he seemed to have absorbed much from them. I could imagine that, like many people who had knocked about a great deal, he might prove a very fascinating person to know. Kinsale, on the other hand, was a rather silent fellow and therefore baffling. In his own profession of deep-sea diving he was an expert, but beyond that I do not think he had much except an ambition to get ahead, which might be praiseworthy or not, according as he pursued it. I fancied that next to Everson himself, Norma placed more confidence in Dominick than in any of the others, which seemed to be quite natural, though it noticeably piqued Gage. On the part of all three, Gage, Dominick, and Kinsale, it was apparent that they were overjoyed at the return of Norma, which also was quite natural, for even a treasure-hunt has hours of tedium and there could be nothing tedious when she was about. Asta was undoubtedly the more fascinating, but she was wrapped up in Everson. It was not long before Kennedy and I also fell under the spell of Norma's presence and personality. We hurried through breakfast and lost no time in accepting Everson's invitation to join him, with the rest, in the little power-boat on a visit to the trawler. It was Dominick who took upon himself the task of explaining to us the mysteries of treasure-hunting as we saw them. "You see," he remarked, pointing out to us what looked almost like a strangely developed suit of armor, "we have the most recent deep-sea diving-outfit which will enable us to go from two hundred to three hundred feet down--farther, and establish a record if we had to do it. It won't be necessary, though. The Antilles lies in about two hundred and fifty feet of water, we have found. This armor has to be strong, for, with the air pressure inside, it must resist a pressure of nearly half a pound per square inch for each foot we go--to be exact, something like a hundred and five pounds per square inch at the depth of the wreck. Perhaps if Traynor had been diving we might have thought that that was the trouble." It was the first reference since we arrived to the tragedy. "He had only had the suit on once," went on Dominick, confirming Everson, "and that was merely to test the pumps and valves and joints. Even Kinsale, here, hasn't been down. Still, we haven't been idle. I have something to report. With our instruments we have discovered that the ship has heeled over and that it will be a bit harder job to get into my office and get out the safe than we hoped--but feasible." Kennedy showed more interest in the diving apparatus than he had shown in anything else so far. The trawler was outfitted most completely as a tender, having been anchored over the exact spot at which the descents were to be made, held by four strong cables, with everything in readiness for action. I saw him cast a quick glance at the others. For the moment Dominick, Gage, and Kinsale seemed to have forgotten us in their interest explaining to Norma what had been accomplished in her absence. He seized the occasion to make an even closer examination of the complicated apparatus. So carefully had accident been guarded against that even a device for the purification of the air had been installed in the machine which forced the fresh air down to the diver, compressed. It was this apparatus which I saw Kennedy studying most, especially one part where the air was passed through a small chamber containing a chemical for the removal of carbon dioxide. As he looked up, I saw a peculiar expression on his face. Quickly he removed the chemical, leaving the tube through which the air passed empty. "I think the air will be pure enough without any such treatment," he remarked, glancing about to be sure no one had observed. "How is that?" I inquired, eagerly. "Well, you know air is a mechanical mixture of gases, mainly oxygen and nitrogen. Here's something that gives it an excess of nitrogen and a smaller percentage of oxygen. Nitrogen is the more dangerous gas for one under compressed air. It is the more inert nitrogen that refuses to get out of the blood after one has been under pressure, that forms the bubbles of gas which cause all the trouble, the 'bends,' compressed-air sickness, you know." "Then that is how Traynor died?" I whispered, coming hastily to the conclusion. "Some one placed the wrong salt in there--took out oxygen, added nitrogen, instead of removing carbon dioxide?" Norma had turned toward us. It was too early for Kennedy to accuse anybody, whatever might be his suspicions. He could not yet come from under cover. "I think so," was all he replied. A moment later the group joined us. "No one has been down on the wreck yet?" inquired Craig, at which Everson turned quickly to the three companions he had left in charge, himself anxious to know. "No," replied Kinsale before any one else could answer. "Mr. Dominick thought we'd better wait until you came back." "Then I should like to be the first," cut in Craig, to my utter surprise. Remonstrance had no effect with him. Neither Norma nor Asta could dissuade him. As for the rest of us, our objections seemed rather to confirm him in his purpose. Accordingly, in spite of the danger, which now no one no more than he knew, all the preparations were made for the first dive. With the aid of Kinsale, whom I watched closely, though no more so than Craig, he donned the heavy suit of rubberized reinforced canvas, had the leads placed on his feet and finally was fitted with the metal head and the "bib"--the whole weighing hardly short of three hundred pounds. It was with serious misgiving that I saw him go over the side of the trawler and shoot down into the water with its dark mystery and tragedy. The moments that he was down seemed interminable. Suspiciously I watched every move that the men made, fearful that they might do something. I longed for the technical knowledge that would have enabled me to handle the apparatus. I tried to quiet my fears by reasoning that Craig must have had perfect confidence in the value of his discovery if he were willing to risk his life on it, yet I felt that at least a show of vigilance on my part might bluff any one off from an attempt to tamper again with the air-supply. I stuck about closely. Yet, when there came a hasty signal on the indicator from below, although I felt that he had been down for ages, I knew that it had been only a very short time. Could it be a signal of trouble? Had some one again tampered with the apparatus? Would they never bring him up? It seemed as if they were working fearfully slow. I remembered how quickly he had shot down. What had seemed then only a matter of seconds and minutes now seemed hours. It was only by sheer will power that I restrained myself as I realized that going under the air pressure might be done safely quite fast, that he must come out slowly, by stages, that over the telephone that connected with his helmet he was directing the decompression in accordance with the latest knowledge that medical science had derived of how to avoid the dread caisson disease. I don't know when I have felt more relief than I did at seeing his weird headgear appear at the surface. The danger from the "bends" might not be entirely over yet, but at least it was Craig himself, safe, at last. As he came over the side of the trawler I ran to him. It was like trying to greet a giant in that outlandish suit which was so clumsy out of the water. Craig's back was turned to the others, and when I realized the reason I stood aghast. He had brought up a skull and had handed the gruesome thing to me with a motion of secrecy. Meanwhile he hastened to get out of the cumbersome suit, and, to my delight, showed no evidence yet of any bad effects. That he should have made the descent and returned so successfully I felt must be a surprise to some one. Who was it? I could not help thinking of Kinsale again. Was he working for two masters? Was he still employed by the insurance company? Was this a scheme to capture all the rich salvage of the ship instead of that percentage to which Everson had secured an agreement with the underwriters? Kennedy lost no time in getting back to the Belle Aventure with the skull which I had concealed for him. It was a strange burden and I was not loath to resign it to him. None of the others, apparently, knew that he had brought up anything with him, and to all questions he replied as though he had merely been testing out the apparatus and, except in a most cursory way, had not made an examination of the ship, although what he had observed confirmed the investigations they had already made from the surface. In our cabin, Kennedy set to work immediately after opening his traveling laboratory and taking from it a small kit of tools and some materials that looked almost like those for an actor's make-up. I saw that he wished to be left alone and retired as gracefully as I could, determined to employ the time in watching the others. I found Norma seated in one of the wicker chairs on the after-deck, talking earnestly with Dominick, and, hesitating whether I should interrupt them, I paused between the library and the sumptuously fitted main saloon. I was glad that I did, for just that moment of hesitation was enough for me to surprise a man peering out at them through the curtains of a window, with every evidence of intense dislike of the situation. Looking closer, I saw that it was Gage. Had I expected anything of the sort I should have gone even more cautiously. As it was, though I surprised him, he heard me in time to conceal his real intentions by some trivial action. It seemed as if our arrival had been succeeded by a growth of suspicion among the members of the little party. Each, as far as I could make out, was now on guard, and, remembering that Kennedy had often said that that was a most fruitful time, since it was just under such circumstances that even the cleverest could not help incriminating himself, I hastened back to let Craig know how matters were. He was at work now on a most grotesque labor, and, as he placed on it the finishing touches, he talked abstractedly. "What I am using, Walter," he explained, "might be called a new art. Lately science has perfected the difficult process of reconstructing the faces of human beings of whom only the skull or a few bones, perhaps, are obtainable. "To the unskilled observer a fleshless skull presents little human likeness and certainly conveys no notion of the exact appearance in life of the person to whom it belonged. But by an ingenious system of building up muscles and skin upon the bones of the skull this appearance can be reproduced with scientific accuracy. "The method, I might say, has been worked out independently by Professor von Froriep, in Germany, and by Dr. Henri Martin, in France. Its essential principle consists in ascertaining from the examination of many corpses the normal thickness of flesh that overlies a certain bone in a certain type of face. From these calculations the scientists by elaborate processes build up a face on the skull." I watched him, with an uncontrollable fascination. "For instance," he went on, "a certain type of bone always has nearly the same thickness of muscle over it. A very fine needle with graduations of hundredths of an inch is used in these measurements. As I have done here, a great number of tiny plaster pyramids varying in height according to the measurements obtained by these researches are built up over the skull, representing the thickness of the muscles. The next step will be to connect them together by a layer of clay the surface of which is flush with the tips of the pyramids. Then wax and grease paint and a little hair will complete it. You see, it is really scientific restoration of the face. I must finish it. Meanwhile, I wish you would watch Norma. I'll join you in a short time." Norma was not on deck when I returned, nor did I see any one else for some time. I walked forward, and paused at the door to the little wireless-room on the yacht, intending to ask the operator if he had seen her. "Where's Mr. Kennedy?" he inquired, before I had a chance to put my own question. "Some one has been in this wireless-room this morning and must have been sending messages. Things aren't as I left them. I think he ought to know." Just then Everson himself came up from below, his face almost as white as the paint on the sides of his yacht. Without a word, he drew me aside, looking about fearfully as though he were afraid of being overheard. "I've just discovered half a dozen sticks of dynamite in the hold," he whispered, hoarsely, staring wide-eyed at me. "There was a timing device, set for to-night. I've severed it. Where's Kennedy?" "Your wireless has been tampered with, too," I blurted out, telling what I had just learned. We looked at each other blankly. Clearly some one had plotted to blow up the yacht and all of us on board. Without another word, I took his arm and we walked toward our state-room, where Kennedy was at work. As we entered the narrow passage to it I heard low voices. Some one was there before us. Kennedy had shut the door and was talking in the hall. As we turned the corner I saw that it was Norma, whom I had forgotten in the surprise of the two discoveries that had been so suddenly made. As we approached she glanced significantly at Kennedy as if appealing to him to tell something. Before he could speak, Everson himself interrupted, telling of his discovery of the dynamite and of what the wireless operator had found. There was a low exclamation from Norma. "It's a plot to kidnap me!" she cried, in a smothered voice. "Professor Kennedy--I told you I thought so!" Everson and I could only look our inquiries at the startling new turn of events. "Miss Sanford has just been to her state-room," hastily explained Craig. "There she found that some one had carefully packed up a number of her things and hidden them, as if waiting a chance to get them off safely. I think her intuition is correct. There would be no motive for robbery--here." Vainly I tried to reason it out. As I thought, I recalled that Gage had seemed insanely jealous of both Dominick and Kinsale, whenever he saw either with Norma. Did Gage know more about these mysterious happenings than appeared? Why had he so persistently sought her? Had Norma instinctively fled from his attentions? "Where are the others?" asked Craig, quickly. I turned to Everson. I had not yet had time to find out. "Gone back to the trawler," he replied. "Signal them to come aboard here directly," ordered Craig. It seemed an interminable time as the message was broken out in flags to the trawler, which was not equipped with the wireless. Even the hasty explanation which Kennedy had to give to Asta Everson, as she came out of her cabin, wondering where Orrin had gone, served only to increase the suspense. It was as though we were living over a powder-magazine that threatened to explode at any moment. What did the treachery of one member of the expedition mean? Above all, who was it? We had been so intent watching from the deck the all too slow approach of the little power-boat from the trawler that we had paid no attention to what was on our other quarter. "A tug approaching, sir," reported the man on watch to Everson. "Seems to be heading for us, sir." We turned to look. Who was she, friend or foe? We knew not what to expect. Everson, pale but with a firm grip on his nerves, did not move from the deck as the power-boat came alongside, and Dominick, Gage, and Kinsale swung themselves up the ladder to us. "It's the tug of that pilot, Guiteras, sir," interposed the man who had spoken before. Not a word was spoken, though I fancied that a quiet smile flitted over Kennedy's face as we waited. The tug ranged up alongside us. To my utter astonishment, I saw Dolores, her black eyes eagerly scanning our faces. Was she looking for Gage, I wondered? It was only a moment when the party that had put out from the tug also came tumbling aboard. "I got your message, Kennedy, and brought Guiteras. He wouldn't join the expedition, but he thought more of his daughter than of anything else." It was Kenmore, who had at last achieved his wish to get on the treasure-hunt story. Everson looked inquiringly at Craig. "Message?" repeated Kennedy. "I sent no message." It was Kenmore's turn to stare. Had some one hoaxed him into a wild-goose chase, after all? "Nothing? About Dolores being deserted, and--" "He shall marry my daughter!" boomed a gruff voice as Guiteras shouldered his way through the little group, his hand shooting back to a pocket where bulged a huge Colt. Like a flash Kennedy, who had been watching, caught his wrist. "Just a second, Captain," he shouted, then turned to us, speaking rapidly and excitedly. "This thing has all been carefully, diabolically laid out. All who stood in the way of the whole of the treasure were to be eliminated. One person has sought to get it all--at any cost." In Craig's own hand now gleamed a deadly automatic while with the other he held Guiteras's wrist. "But," he added, tensely, "an insane passion has wrecked the desperate scheme. A woman has been playing a part--leading the man on to his own destruction in order to save the man she really loves." I looked over at Norma. She was pale and agitated, then burning and nervous by turns. It was only by a most heroic effort that she seemed able to restrain herself, her eyes riveted on Kennedy's face, weighing every word to see whether it balanced with a feeling in her own heart. "The Antilles," shot out Kennedy, suddenly, "was burned and sunk, not by accident, but with a purpose. That purpose has run through all the events I have seen--the use of Mr. Everson, his yacht, his money, his influence. Come!" He strode down the passage to our state-room, and we followed in awed silence. "It is a vast, dastardly crime--to get the Mexican millions," he went on, pausing, his hand on the knob of the door while we crowded the narrow passage. "I have brought up from the wreck a skull which I found near a safe, unlocked so that entrance would be easy. The skull shows plainly that the man had been hit on the head by some blunt instrument, crushing him. Had he discovered something that it was inconvenient to know? You have heard the stories of the ill-fated ship--" Craig flung open the door suddenly. We saw a weird face--the head apparently streaming blood from a ghastly wound. There was a shrill cry beside me. "It's his ghost--Captain Driggs! God save me--it's his ghost come to haunt me and claim the treasure!" I turned quickly. Dominick had broken down. "You were--just leading him on--tell me--Norma." I turned again quickly. It was Gage, who had taken Norma's hand, quivering with excitement. "You never cared for her?" she asked, with the anxiety that showed how in her heart she loved him. "Never. It was part of the plot. I sent the message to get her here to show you. I didn't know you were playing a game--" Suddenly the sharp crack of a pistol almost deafened us in the close passageway. As the smoke cleared, I saw Dolores, her eyes blazing with hatred, jealousy, revenge. In her hand was the pistol she had wrenched from her father. On the floor across the door-sill sprawled a figure. Dominick had paid the price of his faithlessness to her also. THE END 
5149	----	THE GOLD OF THE GODS BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER CONTENTS I THE PERUVIAN DAGGER II THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE III THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DETECTIVE IV THE TREASURE HUNTERS V THE WALL STREET PROMOTER VI THE CURSE OF MANSICHE VII THE ARROW POISON VIII THE ANONYMOUS LETTER IX THE PAPER FIBRES X THE X-RAY READER XI THE SHOE-PRINTS XII THE EVIL EYE XIII THE POISONED CIGARETTE XIV THE INTERFEROMETER XV THE WEED OF MADNESS XVI THE EAR IN THE WALL XVII THE VOICE FROM THE AIR XVIII THE ANTIDOTE XIX THE BURGLAR POWDER XX THE PULMOTOR XXI THE TELESCRIBE XXII THE VANISHER XXIII THE ACETYLENE TORCH XXIV THE POLICE DOG XXV THE GOLD OF THE GODS I THE PERUVIAN DAGGER "There's something weird and mysterious about the robbery, Kennedy. They took the very thing I treasure most of all, an ancient Peruvian dagger." Professor Allan Norton was very much excited as he dropped into Craig's laboratory early that forenoon. Norton, I may say, was one of the younger members of the faculty, like Kennedy. Already, however, he had made for himself a place as one of the foremost of South American explorers and archaeologists. "How they got into the South American section of the Museum, though, I don't understand," he hurried on. "But, once in, that they should take the most valuable relic I brought back with me on this last expedition, I think certainly shows that it was a robbery with a deep-laid, premeditated purpose." "Nothing else is gone?" queried Kennedy. "Nothing," returned the professor. "That's the strangest part of it--to me. It was a peculiar dagger, too," he continued reminiscently. "I say that it was valuable, for on the blade were engraved some curious Inca characters. I wasn't able to take the time to decipher them, down there, for the age of the metal made them almost illegible. But now that I have all my stuff unpacked and arranged after my trip, I was just about to try--when along comes a thief and robs me. We can't have the University Museum broken into that way, you know, Kennedy." "I should say not," readily assented Craig. "I'd like to look the place over." "Just what I wanted," exclaimed Norton, heartily delighted, and leading the way. We walked across the campus with him to the Museum, still chatting. Norton was a tall, spare man, wiry, precisely the type one would pick to make an explorer in a tropical climate. His features were sharp, suggesting a clear and penetrating mind and a disposition to make the most of everything, no matter how slight. Indeed that had been his history, I knew. He had come to college a couple of years before Kennedy and myself, almost penniless, and had worked his way through by doing everything from waiting on table to tutoring. To-day he stood forth as a shining example of self-made intellectual man, as cultured as if he had sprung from a race of scholars, as practical as if he had taken to mills rather than museums. We entered a handsome white-marble building in the shape of a rectangle, facing the University Library, a building, by the way, which Norton had persuaded several wealthy trustees and other donors to erect. Kennedy at once began examining the section devoted to Latin America, going over everything very carefully. I looked about, too. There were treasures from Mexico and Peru, from every romantic bit of the wonderful countries south of us--blocks of porphyry with quaint grecques and hieroglyphic painting from Mitla, copper axes and pottery from Cuzco, sculptured stones and mosaics, jugs, cups, vases, little gods and great, sacrificial stones, a treasure house of Aztec and Inca lore--enough to keep one occupied for hours merely to look at. Yet, I reflected, following Norton, in all this mass of material, the thief seemed to have selected one, apparently insignificant, dagger, the thing which Norton prized because, somehow, it bore on its blade something which he had not, as yet, been able to fathom. Though Kennedy looked thoroughly and patiently, it seemed as though there was nothing there to tell any story of the robbery, and he turned his attention at last to other parts of the Museum. As he made his way about slowly, I noted that he was looking particularly into corners, behind cabinets, around angles. What he expected to find I could not even guess. Further along and on the same side of the building we came to the section devoted to Egyptology. Kennedy paused. Standing there, upright against the wall, was a mummy case. To me, even now, the thing had a creepy look. Craig pushed aside the stone lid irreverently and gazed keenly into the uncanny depths of the stone sarcophagus. An instant later he was down on his hands and knees, carefully examining the interior by means of a pocket lens. "I think I have made a start," he remarked, rising to his feet and facing us with an air of satisfaction. We said nothing, and he pointed to some almost undiscernible marks in a thin layer of dust that had collected in the sarcophagus. "If I'm not mistaken," he went on, "your thief got into the Museum during the daytime, and, when no one was looking, hid here. He must have stayed until the place was locked up at night. Then he could rob at his leisure, only taking care to confine his operations to the time between the rather infrequent rounds of the night watchman." Kennedy bent down again. "Look," he indicated. "There are the marks of shoes in the dust, shoes with nails in the heels, of course. I shall have to compare the marks that I have found here with those I have collected, following out the method of the immortal Bertillon. Every make of shoes has its own peculiarities, both in the number and the arrangement of the nails. Offhand, however, I should say that these shoes were American-made--though that, of course, does not necessarily mean that an American wore them. I may even be able to determine which of a number of individual pairs of shoes made the marks. I cannot tell that yet, until I study them. Walter, I wish you'd go over to my laboratory. In the second right-hand drawer of my desk you'll find a package of paper. I'd like to have it." "Don't you think you ought to preserve the marks?" I heard Norton hint, as I left. He had been watching Kennedy in open-eyed amazement and interest. "Exactly what I am sending Walter to do," he returned. "I have some specially prepared paper that will take those dust marks up and give me a perfect replica." I hurried back as fast as I could, and Kennedy bent to the task of preserving the marks. "Have you any idea who might have an object in stealing the dagger?" Kennedy asked, when he had finished. Norton shrugged his shoulders. "I believe some weird superstitions were connected with it," he replied. "It had a three-sided blade, and, as I told you, both the blade and the hilt were covered with peculiar markings." There seemed to be nothing more that could be discovered from a further examination of the Museum. It was plain enough that the thief must have let himself out of a side door which had a spring lock on it and closed itself. Not a mark or scratch was to be found on any of the window or door locks; nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. Evidently the thief had been after that one, to him priceless, object. Having got it, he was content to get away, leaving untouched the other treasures, some of which were even intrinsically valuable for the metal and precious stones in them. The whole affair seemed so strange to me, however, that, somehow, I could not help wondering whether Norton had told us the whole or only half the story as he knew it about the dagger and its history. Still talking with the archaeologist, Kennedy and I returned to his laboratory. We had scarcely reached the door when we heard the telephone ringing insistently. I answered, and it happened to be a call for me. It was the editor of the Star endeavouring to catch me, before I started downtown to the office, in order to give me an assignment. "That's strange," I exclaimed, hanging up the receiver and turning to Craig. "I've got to go out on a murder case--" "An interesting case?" asked Craig, interrupting his own train of investigation with a flash of professional interest. "Why, a man has been murdered in his apartment on Central Park, West, I believe. Luis de Mendoza is the name, and it seems--" "Don Luis de Mendoza?" repeated Norton, with a startled exclamation. "Why, he was an influential Peruvian, a man of affairs in his country, and an accomplished scholar. I--I--if you don't mind, I'd like to go over with you. I know the Mendozas." Kennedy was watching Norton's face keenly. "I think I'll go, too, Walter," he decided. "You won't lack assistants on this story, apparently." "Perhaps you can be of some assistance to them, also," put in Norton to Kennedy, as we left. It was only a short ride downtown, and our cab soon pulled up before a rather ornate entrance of a large apartment in one of the most exclusive sections of the city. We jumped out and entered, succeeding in making our way to the sixth floor, where Mendoza lived, without interference from the hallboy, who had been completely swamped by the rush that followed the excitement of finding one of the tenants murdered. There was no missing the place. The hall had been taken over by the reporters, who had established themselves there, terrible as an army with concealed pads and pencils. From one of the morning men already there I learned that our old friend Dr. Leslie, the coroner, was already in charge. Somehow, whether it was through Kennedy's acquaintance with Dr. Leslie or Norton's acquaintance with the Mendozas and the Spanish tongue, we found ourselves beyond the barrier of the door which shut out my rivals. As we stood for a moment in a handsome and tastefully furnished living room a young lady passed through hurriedly. She paused in the middle of the room as she saw us and eyed us tremulously, as though to ask us why we had intruded. It was a rather awkward situation. Quickly Norton came to the rescue. "I hope you will pardon me, Senorita," he bowed in perfect Spanish, "but--" "Oh, Professor Norton, it is you!" she cried in English, recognizing him. "I'm so nervous that I didn't see you at first." She glanced from him to us, inquiringly. I recollected that my editor had mentioned a daughter who might prove to be an interesting and important figure in the mystery. She spoke in an overwrought, agitated tone. I studied her furtively. Inez de Mendoza was unmistakably beautiful, of the dark Spanish type, with soft brown eyes that appealed to one when she talked, and a figure which at any less tragic moment one might have been pardoned for admiring. Her soft olive skin, masses of dark hair, and lustrous, almost voluptuous, eyes contrasted wonderfully with the finely chiselled lines of her nose, the firm chin, and graceful throat and neck. Here one recognized a girl of character and family in the depths of whose soul smouldered all the passion of a fiery race. "I hope you will pardon me for intruding," Norton repeated. "Believe me, it is not with mere idle curiosity. Let me introduce my friend, Professor Kennedy, the scientific detective, of whom you have heard, no doubt. This is his assistant, Mr. Jameson, of the Star. I thought perhaps they might stand between you and that crowd in the hall," he added, motioning toward the reporters on the other side of the door. "You can trust them absolutely. I'm sure that if there is anything any of us can do to aid you in--in your trouble, you may be sure that we are at your service." She looked about a moment in the presence of three strangers who had invaded the quietness of what had been, at least temporarily, home. She seemed to be seeking some one on whom to lean, as though some support had suddenly been knocked from under her, leaving her dazed at the change. "Oh, madre de Dios!" she cried. "What shall I do? Oh, my father--my poor father!" Inez Mendoza was really a pathetic and appealing figure as she stood there in the room, alone. Quickly she looked us over, as if, by some sort of occult intuition of woman, she were reading our souls. Then, instinctively almost, she turned to Kennedy. Kennedy seemed to recognize her need. Norton and I retired, somewhat more than figuratively. "You--you are a detective?" she queried. "You can read mystery--like a book?" Kennedy smiled encouragingly. "Hardly as my friend Walter here often paints me," he returned. "Still, now and then, we are able to use the vast knowledge of wise men the world over to help those in trouble. Tell me--everything," he soothed, as though knowing that to talk would prove a safety-valve for her pent-up emotions. "Perhaps I can help you." For a moment she did not know what to do. Then, almost before she knew it, apparently, she began to talk to him, forgetting that we were in the room. "Tell me how the thing happened, all that you know, how you found it out," prompted Craig. "Oh, it was midnight, last night; yes, late," she returned wildly. "I was sleeping when my maid, Juanita, wakened me and told me that Mr. Lockwood was in the living room and wanted to see me, must see me. I dressed hurriedly, for it came to me that something must be the matter. I think I must have come out sooner than they expected, for before they knew it I had run across the living room and looked through the door into the den, you call it, over there." She pointed at a heavy door, but did not, evidently could not, let her eyes rest on it. "There was my father, huddled in a chair, and blood had run out from an ugly wound in his side. I screamed and fell on my knees beside him. But," she shuddered, "it was too late. He was cold. He did not answer." Kennedy said nothing, but let her weep into her dainty lace handkerchief, though the impulse was strong to do anything to calm her grief. "Mr. Lockwood had come in to visit him on business, had found the door into the hall open, and entered. No one seemed to be about; but the lights were burning. He went on into the den. There was my father--" She stopped, and could not go on at all for several minutes. "And Mr. Lockwood, who is he?" asked Craig gently. "My father and I, we have been in this country only a short time," she replied, trying to speak in good English in spite of her emotion, "with his partner in a--a mining venture--Mr. Lockwood." She paused again and hesitated, as though in this strange land of the north she had no idea of which way to turn for help. But once started, now, she did not stop again. "Oh," she went on passionately, "I don't know what it was that came over my father. But lately he had been a changed man. Sometimes I thought he was--what you call--mad. I should have gone to see a doctor about him," she added wildly, her feelings getting the better of her. "But it is no longer a case for a doctor. It is a case for a detective--for some one who is more than a detective. You cannot bring him back, but--" She could not go on. Yet her broken sentence spoke volumes, in her pleading, soft, musical voice, which was far more pleasing to the ear than that of the usual Latin-American. I had heard that the women of Lima were famed for their beauty and melodious voices. Senorita Inez surely upheld their reputation. There was an appealing look now in her soft deep-brown eyes, and her thin, delicate lips trembled as she hurried on with her strange story. "I never saw my father in such a state before," she murmured. "For days all he had talked about was the 'big fish,' the peje grande, whatever that might mean--and the curse of Mansiche." The recollection of the past few days seemed to be too much for her. Almost before we knew it, before Norton, who had started to ask her a question, could speak, she excused herself and fled from the room, leaving only the indelible impression of loveliness and the appeal for help that was irresistible. Kennedy turned to Norton. But just then the door to the den opened and we saw our friend Dr. Leslie. He saw us, too, and took a few steps in our direction. "What--you here, Kennedy?" he greeted in surprise as Craig shook hands and introduced Norton. "And Jameson, too? Well, I think you've found a case at last that will baffle you." As we talked he led the way across the living room and into the den from which he had just come. "It is very strange," he said, telling at once all that he had been able to discover. "Senor Mendoza was discovered here about midnight last night by his partner, Mr. Lockwood. There seem to be no clues to how or by whom he was murdered. No locks had been broken. I have examined the hall-boy who was here last night. He seems to be off his post a good deal when it is late. He saw Mr. Lockwood come in, and took him in the elevator up to the sixth floor. After that we can find nothing but the open door into the apartment. It is not at all impossible that some one might have come in when the boy was off his post, have walked up, even have walked down, the stairs again. In fact, it must have been that way. No windows, not even on the fire-escape, have been tampered with. In fact, the murder must have been done by some one admitted to the apartment late by Mendoza himself." We walked over to the couch on which lay the body covered by a sheet. Dr. Leslie drew down the sheet. On the face was a most awful look, a terrible stare and contortion of the features, and a deep, almost purple, discoloration. The muscles were all tense and rigid. I shall never forget that face and its look, half of pain, half of fear, as if of something nameless. Mendoza had been a heavy-set man, whose piercing black eyes beetled forth, in life, from under bushy brows. Even in death, barring that horrible look, he was rather distinguished-looking, and his close-cropped hair and moustache set him off as a man of affairs and consequence in his own country. "Most peculiar, Kennedy," reiterated Dr. Leslie, pointing to the breast. "You see that wound? I can't quite determine whether that was the real cause of death or not. Of course, it's a bad wound, it's true. But there seems to be something else here, too. Look at the pupils of his eyes, how contracted they are. The lungs seem congested, too. He has all the marks of having been asphyxiated. Yet there are no indications on his throat of violence such as would be necessary if that were the case. There could have been no such thing as illuminating gas, nor have we found any trace of any receptacles which might have held poison. I can't seem to make it out." Kennedy bent over the body and looked at it attentively for several minutes, while we stood back of him, scarcely uttering a word in the presence of this terrible thing. Deftly Kennedy managed to extract a few drops of blood from about the wound and transfer them to a very small test-tube which he carried in a little emergency pocket-case in order to preserve material for future study. "You say the dagger was triangular, Norton?" he asked finally, without looking up from his minute examination. "Yes, with another blade that shot out automatically when you knew the secret of pressing the hilt in a certain way. The outside triangular blade separated into three to allow an inner blade to shoot out." Kennedy had risen and, as Norton described the Inca dagger, looked from one to the other of us keenly. "That blade was poisoned," he concluded quietly. "We have a clue to your missing dagger. Mendoza was murdered by it!" II THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE "I should like to have another talk with Senorita Inez," remarked Kennedy, a few minutes later, as with Dr. Leslie and Professor Norton we turned into the living room and closed the door to the den. While Norton volunteered to send one of the servants in to see whether the young lady was able to stand the strain of another interview, Dr. Leslie received a hurry call to another case. "You'll let me know, Kennedy, if you discover anything?" he asked, shaking hands with us. "I shall keep you informed, also, from my end. That poison completely baffles me--so far. You know, we might as well work together." "Assuredly," agreed Craig, as the coroner left. "That," he added to me, as the door closed, "was one word for me and two for himself. I can do the work; he wants to save his official face. He never will know what that poison was--until I tell him." Inez had by this time so far recovered her composure that she was able to meet us again in the living room. "I'm very sorry to have to trouble you again," apologized Kennedy, "but if I am to get anywhere in this case I must have the facts." She looked at him, half-puzzled, and, I fancied, half-frightened, too. "Anything I can tell you--of course, ask me," she said. "Had your father any enemies who might desire his death?" shot out Kennedy, almost without warning. "No," she answered slowly, still watching him carefully, then adding hastily: "Of course, you know, no one who tries to do anything is absolutely without enemies, though." "I mean," repeated Craig, carefully noting a certain hesitation in her tone, "was there any one who, for reasons best known to himself, might have murdered him in a way peculiarly likely under the circumstances, say, with a dagger?" Inez flashed a quick glance at Kennedy, as if to inquire just how much or how little he really knew. I got the impression from it, at least, that she was holding back some suspicion for a reason that perhaps she would not even have admitted to herself. I saw that Norton was also following the line of Kennedy's questioning keenly, though he said nothing. Before Kennedy could take up the lead again, her maid, Juanita, a very pretty girl of Spanish and Indian descent, entered softly. "Mr. Lockwood," she whispered, but not so low that we could not hear. "Won't you ask him to come in, Nita?" she replied. A moment later a young man pushed open the door--a tall, clean-cut young fellow, whose face bore the tan of a sun much stronger than any about New York. As I took his appraisal, I found him unmistakably of the type of American soldier of fortune who has been carried by the wander-spirit down among the romantic republics to the south of our own. "Professor Kennedy," began Senorita Mendoza, presenting us all in turn, "let me introduce Mr. Lockwood, my father's partner in several ventures which brought us to New York." As we shook hands I could not help feeling that the young mining engineer, for such he proved to be by ostensible profession, was something more to her than a mere partner in her father's schemes. "I believe I've met Professor Norton," he remarked, as they shook hands. "Perhaps he remembers when we were in Lima." "Perfectly," replied Norton, returning the penetrating glance in kind. "Also in New York," he added. Lockwood turned abruptly. "Are you quite sure you are able to stand the strain of this interview?" he asked Inez in a low tone. Norton glanced at Kennedy and raised his eyebrows just the fraction of an inch, as if to call attention to the neat manner in which Lockwood had turned the subject. Inez smiled sadly. "I must," she said, in a forced tone. I fancied that Lockwood noted and did not relish an air of restraint in her words. "It was you, I believe, Mr. Lockwood, who found Senor Mendoza last night?" queried Kennedy, as if to read the answer into the record, although he already knew it. "Yes," replied Lockwood, without hesitation, though with a glance at the averted head of Inez, and choosing his words very carefully, as if trying hard not to say more than she could bear. "Yes. I came up here to report on some financial matters which interested both of us, very late, perhaps after midnight. I was about to press the buzzer on the door when I saw that the door was slightly ajar. I opened it and found lights still burning. The rest I think you must already know." Even that tactful reference to the tragedy was too much for Inez. She suppressed a little convulsive sob, but did not, this time, try to flee from the room. "You saw nothing about the den that aroused any suspicions?" pursued Kennedy. "No bottle, no glass? There wasn't the odour of any gas or drug?" Lockwood shook his head slowly, fixing his eyes on Kennedy's face, but not looking at him. "No," he answered; "I have told Dr. Leslie just what I found. If there had been anything else I'm sure I would have noticed it while I was waiting for Miss Inez to come in." His answers seemed perfectly frank and straight-forward. Yet somehow I could not get over the feeling that he, as well as Inez, was not telling quite all he knew--perhaps not about the murder, but about matters that might be related to it. Norton evidently felt the same way. "You saw no weapon--a dagger?" he interrupted suddenly. The young man faced Norton squarely. To me it seemed as if he had been expecting the question. "Not a thing," he said deliberately. "I looked about carefully, too. Whatever weapon was used must have been taken away by the murderer," he added. Juanita entered again, and Inez excused herself to answer the telephone, while we stood in the living room chatting for a few minutes. "What is this 'curse of Mansiche' which the Senorita has mentioned?" asked Kennedy, seeing a chance to open a new line of inquiry with Lockwood. "Oh, I don't know," he returned, impatiently flicking the ashes of a cigarette which he had lighted the moment Inez left the room, as though such stories had no interest for the practical mind of an engineer. "Some old superstition, I suppose." Lockwood seemed to regard Norton with a sort of aversion, if not hostility, and I fancied that Norton, on his part, neglected no opportunity to let the other know that he was watching him. "I don't know much about the story," resumed Lockwood a moment later as no one said anything. "But I do know that there is treasure in that great old Chimu mound near Truxillo. Don Luis has the government concession to bore into the mound, too, and we are raising the capital to carry the scheme through to success." He had come to the end of a sentence. Yet the inflection of his voice showed plainly that it was not the end of the idea that had been in his mind. "If you knew where to dig," suddenly supplied Norton, gazing keenly into the eyes of the soldier of fortune. Lockwood did not answer, though it was evident that that had been the thought unexpressed in his remarks. The return of the Senorita to the room seemed to break the tension. "It was the house telephone," she said, in a quiet voice. "The hall-boy didn't know whether to admit a visitor who comes with his sympathy." Then she turned from us to Lockwood. "You must know him," she said, somewhat embarrassed. "Senor Alfonso de Moche." Lockwood suppressed a frown, but said nothing, for, a moment later, a young man came in. Almost in silence he advanced to Inez and took her hand in a manner that plainly showed his sympathy in her bereavement. "I have just heard," he said simply, "and I hastened around to tell you how much I feel your loss. If there is anything I can do--" He stopped, and did not finish the sentence. It was unnecessary. His eyes finished it for him. Alfonso de Moche was, I thought, a very handsome fellow, though not of the Spanish type at all. His forehead was high, with a shock of straight black hair, his skin rather copper-coloured, nose slightly aquiline, chin and mouth firm; in fact, the whole face was refined and intellectual, though tinged with melancholy. "Thank you," she murmured, then turned to us. "I believe you are acquainted with Mr. de Moche, Professor Norton?" she asked. "You know he is taking post-graduate work at the University." "Slightly," returned Norton, gazing at the young man in a manner that plainly disconcerted him. "I believe I have met his mother in Peru." Senorita Mendoza seemed to colour at the mention of Senora de Moche. It flashed over me that, in his greeting Alfonso had said nothing of his mother. I wondered if there might be a reason for it. Could it be that Senorita Mendoza had some antipathy which did not include the son? Though we did not seem to be making much progress in this way in solving the mystery, still I felt that before we could go ahead we must know the little group about which it centred. There seemed to be currents and cross-currents here which we did not understand, but which must be charted if we were to steer a straight course. "And Professor Kennedy?" she added, turning to us. "I think I have seen Mr. de Moche about the campus," said Craig, as I, too, shook hands with him, "although you are not in any of my classes." "No, Professor," concurred the young man, who was, however, considerably older than the average student taking courses like his. I found it quite enough to watch the faces of those about me just then. Between Lockwood and de Moche it seemed that there existed a latent hostility. The two eyed each other with decided disfavour. As for Norton, he seemed to be alternately watching each of them. An awkward silence followed, and de Moche seemed to take the cue, for after a few more remarks to Inez he withdrew as gracefully as he could, with a parting interchange of frigid formalities with Lockwood. It did not take much of a detective to deduce that both of the young men might have agreed on one thing, though that caused the most serious of differences between them--their estimation of Inez de Mendoza. Inez, on her part, seemed also to be visibly relieved at his departure, though she had been cordial enough to him. I wondered what it all meant. Lockwood, too, seemed to be ill at ease still. But it was a different uneasiness, rather directed at Norton than at us. Once before I had thought he was on the point of excusing himself, but the entrance of de Moche seemed to have decided him to stay at least as long as his rival. "I beg your pardon, Senorita," he now apologized, "but I really must go. There are still some affairs which I must attend to in order to protect the interests we represent." He turned to us. "You will excuse me, I know," he added, "but I have a very important appointment. You know Don Luis and I were assisting in organizing the campaign of Stuart Whitney to interest American manufacturers, and particularly bankers, in the chances in South America which lie at hand, if we are only awake to take advantage of them. I shall be at your service, Senorita, as soon as the meeting is over. I presume I shall see you again?" he nodded to Kennedy. "Quite likely," returned Kennedy drily. "If there is any assistance I can render in clearing up this dreadful thing," went on Lockwood, in a lower tone to us, "you may count on me absolutely." "Thank you," returned Craig, with a significant glance. "I may have to take up that offer." "Do so, by all means," he reiterated, bowing to Norton and backing out of the door. Alone again with Inez Mendoza, Kennedy turned suddenly. "Who is this Senor de Moche?" he asked. "I gather that you must have known him in Peru." "Yes," she agreed. "I knew him in Lima"; then adding, as if by way of confession, "when he was a student at the University." There was something in both her tone and manner that would lead one to believe that she had only the kindliest feelings toward de Moche, whatever might be the case, as it seemed, with his mother. For a moment Kennedy now advanced and took Senorita Inez by the hand. "I must go now," he said simply. "If there is anything which you have not told me, I should like to know." "No--nothing," she answered. He did not take his eyes from hers. "If you should recall anything else," he persisted, "don't hesitate to tell me. I will come here, or you may come to the laboratory, whichever is more convenient." "I shall do so," she replied. "And thank you a thousand times for the trouble you are going to in my behalf. You may be sure that I appreciate it." Norton also bade her farewell, and she thanked him for having brought us over. I noticed also that Norton, though considerably older than any of us, had apparently succumbed to the spell of her wonderful eyes and face. "I also would be glad to help you," he promised. "You can usually find me at the Museum." "Thank you all," she murmured. "You are all so kind to me. An hour ago I felt that I had not a friend in all this big city--except Mr. Lockwood. Now I feel that I am not quite all alone." She said it to Norton, but it was really meant for Kennedy. I know Craig shared my own feelings. It was a rare pleasure to work for her. She seemed most appreciative of anything that was done for her in her defenceless position. As we passed out of the apartment house and sought our cab again, Kennedy was the first to speak, and to Norton. "Do you know anything more about these men, Lockwood and de Moche?" he queried, as we sped uptown. "I don't know a thing," he replied cautiously. "I--I'd much prefer not to talk of suspicions." "But the dagger," insisted Kennedy. "Have you no suspicions of what became of it and who took it?" "I'd prefer not to talk of mere suspicions," he repeated. Little was said as we turned in at the campus and at last drew up before Norton's wing of the Museum. "You will let me know of any development, no matter how trivial?" asked Kennedy, as we parted. "Your dagger seems to have stirred up more trouble than there was any reason to suppose when you came to me first." "I should say so," he agreed. "I don't know how to repay the interest you have shown in its recovery. If anything else materializes, I shall surely get word to you immediately." As we turned to leave, I could not help thinking of the manner of Lockwood and Norton toward each other. The name Stuart Whitney ran through my head. Stuart Whitney was a trustee of the University who had contributed heavily, among other things, to Norton's various expeditions to South America. Was it that Norton felt a peculiar loyalty to Whitney, or was he jealous that any one else should succeed in interesting his patron in things South American? The actions of the two young men, Lockwood and de Moche, recurred to me. "Well," I remarked, as we walked along, "what do you think it is--a romance or a simple crime-hunt?" "Both, I suspect," replied Craig abstractedly. "Only not simple." III THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DETECTIVE "I think I'll go into the University Library," Craig remarked, as we left Norton before his building. "I want to refresh my mind on some of those old Peruvian antiquities and traditions. What the Senorita hinted at may prove to be very important. I suppose you will have to turn in a story to the Star soon?" "Yes," I agreed, "I'll have to turn in something, although I'd prefer to wait." "Try to get an assignment to follow the case to the end," suggested Craig. "I think you'll find it worth while. Anyhow, this will give you a chance for a breathing space, and, if I have this thing doped out right, you won't get another for some time. I'll meet you over in the laboratory in a couple of hours." Craig hurried up the long flight of white-marble steps to the library and disappeared, while I jumped on the subway and ran downtown to the office. It took me, as I knew it would, considerably over a couple of hours to clear things up at the Star, so that I could take advantage of a special arrangement which I had made, so that I could, when a case warranted it, co-operate with Kennedy. My story was necessarily brief, but that was what I wanted just now. I did not propose to have the whole field of special-feature writers camping on my preserve. Uptown I hurried again, afraid that Kennedy had finished and might have been called away. But when I reached the laboratory he was not there, and I found that he had not been. Up and down I paced restlessly. There was nothing else to do but wait. If he was unable to keep his appointment here with me, I knew that he would soon telephone. What was it, I wondered, that kept him delving into the archaeological lore of the library? I had about given him up, when he hurried into the laboratory in a high state of excitement. "What did you find?" I queried. "Has anything happened?" "Let me tell you first what I found in the library," he replied, tilting his hat back on his head and alternately thrusting and withdrawing his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, as if in some way that might help him to piece together some scattered fragments of a story which he had just picked up. "I've been looking up that hint that the Senorita dropped when she used those words peje grande, which mean, literally, 'big fish,'" he resumed. "Walter, it fires the imagination. You have read of the wealth that Pizarro found in Peru, of course." Visions of Prescott flashed through my mind as he spoke. "Well, where are the gold and silver of the conquistadores? Gone to the melting-pot, centuries ago. But is there none left? The Indians in Peru believe so, at any rate. And, Walter, there are persons who would stop at nothing to get at the secret. "It is a matter of history that soon after the conquest a vast fortune was unearthed of which the King of Spain's fifth amounted to five million dollars. That treasure was known as the peje chica--the little fish. One version of the story tells that an Inca ruler, the great Cacique Mansiche, had observed with particular attention the kindness of a young Spaniard toward the people of the conquered race. Also, he had observed that the man was comparatively poor. At any rate, he revealed the secret of the hiding-place of the peje chica, on condition that a part of the wealth should be used to advance the interests of the Indians. "The most valuable article discovered was in the form of a fish of solid gold and so large that the Spaniards considered it a rare prize. But the Cacique assured his young friend that it was only the little fish, that a much greater treasure existed, worth many times the value of this one. "The sequel of the story is that the Spaniard forgot his promise, went off to Spain, and spent all his gold. He was returning for the peje grande, of which he had made great boasts, but before he could get it he was killed. Prescott, I believe, gives another version, in which he says that the Spaniard devoted a large part of his wealth to the relief of the Indians and gave large sums to the Peruvian churches. Other stories deny that it was Mansiche who told the first secret, but that it was another Indian. One may, I suppose, pay his money and take his choice. But the point, as far as we are concerned in this case, is that there is still believed to be the great fish, which no one has found. Who knows? Perhaps, somehow, Mendoza had the secret of the peje grande?" Kennedy paused, and I could feel the tense interest with which his delving into the crumbling past had now endowed this already fascinating case. "And the curse?" I put in. "About that we do not know," he replied. "Except that we do know that Mansiche was the great Cacique or ruler of northern Peru. The natives are believed to have buried a far greater treasure than even that which the Spaniards carried off. Mansiche is said to have left a curse on any native who ever divulged the whereabouts of the treasure, and the curse was also to fall on any Spaniard who might discover it. That is all we know--yet. Gold was used lavishly in the temples. That great hoard is really the Gold of the Gods. Surely, as we have seen it so far in this case, it must be cursed." There was a knock on the laboratory door, and I sprang to open it, expecting to find that it was something for Kennedy. Instead there stood one of the office boys of the Star. "Why, hello, Tommy," I greeted him. "What seems to be the matter now?" "A letter for you, Mr. Jameson," he replied, handing over a plain envelope. "It came just after you left. The Boss thought it might be important--something about that story, I guess. Anyhow, he told me to take it up to you on my way home, sir." I looked at it again. It bore simply my name and the address of the Star, not written, but, strange to say, printed in ungainly, rough characters, as though some one were either not familiar with writing English or desired to conceal his handwriting. "Where did it come from--and how?" I asked, as I tore the envelope open. "I don't know where, sir," replied Tommy. "A boy brought it. Said a man uptown gave him a quarter to deliver it to you." I looked at the contents in blank amazement. There was nothing in the letter except a quarter sheet of ordinary size note paper such as that used in typewritten correspondence. Printed on it, in characters exactly like those on the outside of the envelope, were the startling words: "BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS." Underneath this inscription appeared the rude drawing of a dagger in which some effort had evidently been made to make it appear three-sided. "Well, of all things, what do you think of that?" I cried, tossing the thing over to Kennedy. He took it and read it; his face puckered deeply. "I'm not surprised," he said, a moment later, looking up. "Do you know, I was just about to tell you what happened at the library. I had a feeling all the time I was there of being watched. I don't know why or how, but, somehow, I felt that some one was interested in the books I was reading. It made me uncomfortable. I was late, anyhow, and I decided not to give them the satisfaction of seeing me any more--at least in the library. So I have had a number of the books on Peru which I wanted reserved, and they'll be sent over later, here. No, I'm not surprised that you received this. Would you remember the boy?" he asked of Tommy. "I think so," replied Tommy. "He didn't have on a uniform, though. It wasn't a messenger." There was no use to question him further. He had evidently told all that he knew, and finally we had to let him go, with a parting injunction to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. Kennedy continued to study the note on the quarter sheet of paper long after the boy had gone. "You know," he remarked thoughtfully, after a while, "as nearly as I can make the thing out with the slender information that we have so far, the weirdest superstitions seem to cluster about that dagger which Norton lost. I wouldn't be surprised if it took us far back into the dim past of the barbaric splendour of the lost Inca civilization of Peru." He waved the sheet of paper for emphasis. "You see, some one has used it here as a sign of terror. Perhaps somehow it bore the secret of the big fish--who knows? None of the writers and explorers have ever found it. The most they can say is that it may be handed down from father to son through a long line. At any rate, the secret of the hiding-place seems to have been safely kept. No one has ever found the treasure. It would be strange, wouldn't it, if it remained for some twentieth-century civilized man to unearth the thing and start again the curse that historians say was uttered and seems always to have followed the thing?" "Kennedy, this affair is getting on my nerves already." While Craig was speaking the door of the laboratory had opened without our hearing it, and there stood Norton again. He had waited until Craig had finished before he had spoken. We looked at him, startled, ourselves. "I had some work to do after I left you," went on Norton, without stopping. "In my letter-box were several letters, but I forgot to look at them until just now, when I was leaving. Then I picked them up--and--look at this thing that was among them." Norton laid down on the laboratory table a plain envelope and a quarter sheet of paper on which were printed, except for his own name instead of mine, an almost exact replica of the note which I had received. "BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS." Kennedy and I looked at him. Already, evidently, he had seen that Kennedy held in his hand the note that had come to me. "I can't make anything out of it," went on Norton, evidently much worried. "First I lose the dagger. Next you say it was used to murder Mendoza. Then I get this. Now, if any one can get into the Museum to steal the dagger, they could get in to carry out any threat of revenge, real or fancied." Looked at in that respect, I felt that it was indeed a real cause of worry for Norton. But, then, it flashed over me, was not my own case worse? I was to be responsible for telling the story. Might not some unseen hand strike at me, perhaps sooner than at him? Kennedy had taken the two notes and was scanning them eagerly. Just then an automobile drew up outside, and a moment later we heard a tap at the door which Kennedy had closed after the entrance of Norton. I opened it. "Is Professor Kennedy here?" I heard a voice inquire. "I'm one of the orderlies at the City Hospital, next to the Morgue, where Dr. Leslie has his laboratory. I've a message for Professor Kennedy, if he's in." Kennedy took the envelope, which bore the stamp of Dr. Leslie's department, and tore it open. "My dear Kennedy," he read, in an undertone. "I've been engaged in investigating that poison which probably surrounds the wound in the Mendoza case, but as yet have nothing to report. It is certainly none of the things which we ordinarily run up against. Enclosed you will find a slip of paper and the envelope which it came in--something, I take it, that has been sent me by a crank. Would you treat it seriously or disregard it? Leslie." As Kennedy had unfolded Leslie's own letter a piece of paper had fluttered to the floor. I picked it up mechanically, and only now looked at it, as Craig finished reading. On it was another copy of the threat that had been sent to both Norton and myself! The hospital orderly had scarcely gone when another tap came at the door. "Your books from the library, Professor," announced a student who was employed in the library as part payment of his tuition. "I've signed the slip for them, sir." He deposited the books on a desk, a huge pile of them, which reached from his outstretched arms to his chin. As he did so the pressure of his arms released the pile of books and the column collapsed. From a book entitled "New and Old Peru," which fell with the pile, slipped a plain white envelope. Kennedy saw it before either of us, and seized it. "Here's one for me," he said, tearing it open. Sure enough, in the same rude printing on a quarter sheet were the words: "BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS." We could only stare at each other and at that tell-tale sign of the Inca dagger underneath. What did it mean? Who had sent the warnings? Kennedy alone seemed to regard the affair as if with purely scientific interest. He took the four pieces of paper and laid them down before him on the table. Then he looked up suddenly. "They match perfectly," he said quietly, gathering them up and placing them in a wallet which he carried. "All the indentures of the tearing correspond. Four warnings seem to have been sent to those who are likely to find out something of the secret." Norton seemed to have gained somewhat of his composure now that he had been able to talk to some one. "What are you going to do--give it up?" he asked tensely. "Nothing could have insured my sticking to it harder," answered Craig grimly. "Then we'll all have to stick together," said Norton slowly. "We all seem to be in the same boat." As he rose to go he extended a hand to each of us. "I'll stick," repeated Kennedy, with that peculiar bulldog look of intensity on his face which I had come to know so well. IV THE TREASURE HUNTERS Norton had scarcely gone, and Kennedy was still studying the four pieces of paper on which the warning had been given, when our laboratory door was softly pushed open again. It was Senorita Mendoza, looking more beautiful than ever in her plain black mourning dress, the unnatural pallor of her face heightening the wonderful lustrous eyes that looked about as though half frightened at what she was doing. "I hope nothing has happened," greeted Kennedy, placing an easy-chair for her. "But I'm glad to see that you have confidence enough to trust me." She looked about doubtfully at the vast amount of paraphernalia which Craig had collected in his scientific warfare on crime. Though she did not understand it, it seemed to impress her. "No," she murmured, "nothing new has happened. You told me to call on you if I should think of anything else." She said it with an air as if confessing something. It was apparent that, whatever it was, she had known it all the time and only after a struggle had brought herself to telling it. "Then you have thought of something?" prompted Craig. "Yes," she replied in a low tone. Then with an effort she went on: "I don't know whether you know it or not, but my family is an old one, one of the oldest in Peru." Kennedy nodded encouragingly. "Back in the old days, after Pizarro," she hurried on, no longer able to choose her words, but blurting the thing out directly, "an ancestor of mine was murdered by an Inca dagger." She stopped again and looked about, actually frightened at her own temerity, evidently. Kennedy and his twentieth-century surroundings seemed again to reassure her. "I can't tell you the story," she resumed. "I don't know it. My father knew it. But it was some kind of family secret, for he never told me. Once when I asked him he put me off; told me to wait until I was a little older." "And you think that may have something to do with the case?" asked Kennedy, trying to draw out anything more that she knew. "I don't know," she answered frankly. "But don't you think that it is strange--an ancestor of mine murdered and now, hundreds of years afterward, my father, the last of his line in direct descent, murdered in the same way, by an Inca dagger that has disappeared?" "Then you were listening while I was talking to Professor Norton?" shot out Kennedy, not unkindly, but rather as a surprise test to see what she would say. "You cannot blame me for that," she returned simply. "Hardly," smiled Kennedy. "And I appreciate your reticence--as well as your coming here finally to tell me. Indeed, it is strange. Surely you must have some other suspicions," he persisted, "something that you feel, even though you do not know?" Kennedy was leaning forward, looking deeply into her eyes, as if he would read what was passing in her mind. She met his gaze for a moment, then looked away. "You heard Mr. Lockwood say that he had become associated with a Mr. Whitney, Mr. Stuart Whitney, down in Wall Street?" she ventured. Kennedy did not take his eyes from her face as he sought to extract the reluctant words from her. "Mr. Whitney has been largely interested in Peru, in business and in mining," she went on slowly. "He has given large sums to scholars down there, to Professor Norton's expeditions from New York. I--I'm afraid of that Mr. Whitney!" Her quiet tone had risen to a pitch of tremulous excitement. Her face, which had been pale from the strain of the tragedy, was now full of colour, and her breast rose and fell with suppressed emotion. "Afraid of him--why?" asked Kennedy. There was no more reticence. Once having said so much, she seemed to feel that she must go on and tell her fears. "Because," she went on, "he--he knows a woman--whom my father knew." A sudden flash of fire seemed to light up her dark eyes. "A woman of Truxillo," she continued, "Senora de Moche." "De Moche," repeated Kennedy, recalling the name and a still unexplained incident of our first interview. "Who is this Senora de Moche?" he asked, studying her as if she had been under a lens. "A Peruvian of an old Indian family," she replied, in a low tone, as if the words were forced from her. "She has come to New York with her son, Alfonso. You remember--you met him. He is studying here at the University." Again I noted the different manner in which she spoke the two names of mother and son. Evidently there was some feud, some barrier between her and the elder woman, which did not extend to Alfonso. Kennedy reached for the University catalogue and found the name, "Alfonso de Moche." He was, as he had told us, a post-graduate student in the engineering school and, therefore, not in any of Kennedy's own classes. "You say your father knew the Senora?" asked Kennedy. "Yes," she replied, in a low voice, "he had had some dealings with her. I cannot say just what they were; I do not know. Socially, of course, it was different. They did not belong to the same circle as ours in Lima." From her tone I gathered that there existed a race prejudice between those of old Spanish descent and the descendants of the Indians. That, however, could not account for her attitude. At least with her the prejudice did not extend to Alfonso. "Senora de Moche is a friend of Mr. Whitney?" queried Kennedy. "Yes, I believe she has placed some of her affairs in his hands. The de Moches live at the Prince Edward Albert Hotel, and Mr. Whitney lives there, too. I suppose they see more or less of each other." "H-m," mused Kennedy. "You know Mr. Whitney, I suppose?" "Not very well," she answered. "Of course, I have met him. He has been to visit my father, and my father has been down at his office, with Mr. Lockwood. But I do not know much about him, except that he is what you Americans call a promoter." Apparently, Inez was endeavouring to be frank in telling her suspicions, much more so even than Norton had been. But I could not help feeling that she was trying to shield some one, though not to the extent of consciously putting us on a wrong scent. "I shall try to see Mr. Whitney as soon as possible," said Kennedy, as she rose to go. "And Senora de Moche, too." I fancied that Senorita Inez, although she had not told us much, felt relieved. Again she murmured her thanks as she left and again Kennedy repeated his injunction to tell everything that happened that could possibly have any bearing on the case. "That's a rather peculiar phase," he considered, when we were alone, "this de Moche affair." "Yes," I agreed. "Do you suppose that woman could be using Whitney for some purpose?" "Or Whitney using her," suggested Kennedy. "There's so much to be done at once that I hardly know where to begin. We must see both of them as soon as possible. Meanwhile, that message from Dr. Leslie about the poison interests me. I must at least start my tests of the blood samples that I extracted. Walter, may I ask you to leave me here in the laboratory undisturbed?" I had some writing on my news story to do, and went into the room next to the laboratory, where I was soon busily engaged tapping my typewriter. Suddenly I became conscious of that feeling, which Kennedy had hinted at, of being watched. Perhaps I had heard a footstep outside and was not consciously aware of it. But, at any rate, I had the feeling. I stopped tapping the keys and wheeled unexpectedly about in my chair. I am sure that I caught just a fleeting glimpse of a face dodging back from the window, which was on the first floor. Whose face it was I am not prepared to assert exactly. But there was a face, and the fleeting glimpse of the eyes and forehead was just enough to give me the impression that they were familiar, without enabling me to identify them. At any rate, the occurrence made me feel decidedly uncomfortable, especially after the warning letters that we had all received. I sprang to my feet and ran to the door. But it was too late. The intruder had disappeared. Still, the more I thought about it, the more determined I was to try to verify an indistinct suspicion, if possible. I put on my hat and walked hurriedly over to the office of the registrar. Sure enough, I found that Alfonso de Moche had been at the University that day, must have attended a lecture an hour or so before. Having nothing else to do, I hunted up some of his professors and tried to quiz them about him. As I had expected, they told me that he was an excellent student, though very quiet and reserved. His mind seemed to run along the line of engineering, and particularly mining. I could not help coming to the conclusion that undoubtedly he, too, was infected by the furore for treasure hunting, in spite of his Indian ancestry. Yet there seemed to be surprisingly little known about him outside of the lecture room and laboratory. The professors knew that he lived with his mother at a hotel downtown. He seemed to have little or nothing to do with the other students outside of class work. Altogether he was an enigma, as far as the social life of the University went. It looked very much as though he had come to New York quietly to prepare himself for the search for the buried treasure. Had the Gold of the Gods lured him into its net, too? Reflecting on the tangle of events, the strange actions of Lockwood and the ambitions of Whitney, I retraced my steps in the direction of the laboratory, convinced that de Moche had employed at least a part of his time lately in spying on us. Perhaps he had seen Inez going in and out. Suddenly it flashed over me that the interchange of glances between de Moche and Lockwood indicated that she was more to him than a mere acquaintance. Perhaps it had been jealousy as well as treasure hunting that had prompted his eavesdropping. Still reflecting, I decided to turn in at the Museum and have a chat with Norton. I found him nervously pacing up and down the little office that had been accorded him in his section of the building. "I can't rid my mind of that warning," he remarked anxiously, pausing in his measured tread. "It seems inconceivable to me that any one would take the trouble to send four such warnings unless he meant it." "Quite so," I agreed, relating to him what had just happened. "I thought of something like that," he acquiesced, "and I have already taken some precautions." Norton waved his hand at the windows, which I had not noticed before. Though they were some distance above the ground, I saw now that he had closed and barred them at the expense of ventilation. The warnings seemed to have made more of an impression on him than on any of the rest of us. "One never can tell where or when a blow will fall with these people," he explained. "You see, I've lived among them. They are a hot-blooded race. Besides, as you perhaps have read, they have some queer poisons down in South America. I mean to run no unnecessary chances." "I suppose you suspected all along that the dagger had something to do with the Gold of the Gods, did you not?" I hinted. Norton paused before answering, as though to weigh his words. "Suspected--yes," he replied. "But, as I told you, I have had no chance to read the inscription on it. I can't say that I took it very seriously--until now." "It's not possible that Stuart Whitney, who, I understand, is deeply interested in South America, may have had some inkling of the value of the dagger, is it?" I asked thoughtfully. For a full minute Norton gazed at me. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted at length. "That's a new idea to me." Yet somehow I knew that Norton had thought of it, though he had not yet spoken about it. Was it through loyalty to the man who had contributed to financing his expeditions to South America? "Do you know Senora de Moche well?" I ventured, a moment later. "Fairly well," he replied. "Why?" "What do you think of her?" "Rather a clever woman," he replied noncommittally. "I suppose all the people in New York who were interested in Peru knew her," I pursued, adding, "Mr. Whitney, Mendoza, Lockwood." Norton hesitated, as though he was afraid of saying too much. While I could not help admiring his caution, I found that it was most exasperating. Still, I was determined to get at his point of view, if possible. "Alfonso seems to be a worthy son, then," I remarked. "I can't quite make out, though, why the Senorita should have such an obvious prejudice against her. It doesn't seem to extend to him." "I believe," replied Norton reluctantly, "that Mendoza had been on rather intimate terms with her. At least, I think you'll find the woman very ambitious for her son. I don't think she would have stopped at much to advance his interests. You must have noticed how much Alfonso thinks of the Senorita. But I don't think there was anything that could have overcome the old Castilian's prejudice. You know they pride themselves on never intermarrying. With Lockwood it would have been different." I thought I began to get some glimmering of how things were. "Whitney knows her pretty well now, doesn't he?" I shot out. Norton shrugged his shoulders. But he could not have acquiesced better than by his very manner. "Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney know best what they are doing," he remarked, at length. "Why don't you and Kennedy try to see Senora de Moche? I'm a scientist, you know. I dislike talking about speculations. I'd prefer only to express opinions about things that are certainties." Perhaps Norton wished to convey the impression that the subjects I had broached were worth looking into. At least it was the impression I derived. "Still," he continued slowly, "I think I am justified in saying this much: I myself have been interested in watching both Alfonso de Moche and Lockwood when it comes to the case of the Senorita. All's fair, they say, in love and war. If I am any judge, there are both in this case, somewhere. I think you had better see the Senora and judge for yourself. She's a clever woman, I know. But I'm sure that Kennedy could make her out, even if the rest of us can't." I thanked Norton for the hint that he had given, and after chatting a few moments more left him alone in his office. In my room again, I went back to finish my writing. Nothing further occurred, however, to excite my suspicions, and at last I managed to finish it. I was correcting what I had written when the door opened from the laboratory and Craig entered. He had thrown off his old, acid-stained laboratory smock and was now dressed to venture forth. "Have you found out anything about the poison?" I asked. "Nothing definite yet," he replied. "That will take some time now. It's a strange poison--an alkaloid, I'm sure, but not one that one ordinarily encounters. Still, I've made a good beginning. It won't take long to determine it now." Craig listened with deep interest, though without comment, when I related what had happened, both Norton's conversation and about the strange visitor whom we had had peering into our windows. "Some one seems to be very much interested in what we are doing, Walter," he concluded simply. "I think we'd better do a little more outside work now, while we have a chance. If you are ready, so am I. I want to see what sort of treasure hunter this Stuart Whitney is. I'd like to know whether he is in on this secret of the Gold of the Gods, too." V THE WALL STREET PROMOTER Lockwood, as we now knew, had become allied in some way with a group of Wall Street capitalists, headed by Stuart Whitney. Already I had heard something of Whitney. In the Street he was well known as an intensely practical man, though far above the average exploiter both in cleverness and education. As a matter of fact, Whitney had been far-sighted enough to see that scholarship could be capitalized, not only as an advertisement, but in more direct manners. Just at present one of his pet schemes was promoting trade through the canal between the east coast of North America and the west coast of South America. He had spent a good deal of money promoting friendship between men of affairs and wealth in both New York and Lima. It was a good chance, he figured, for his investments down in Peru were large, and anything that popularized the country in New York could not but make them more valuable. "Norton seemed rather averse to talking about Whitney," I ventured to Craig, as we rode downtown. "That may be part of Whitney's cleverness," he returned thoughtfully. "As a patron of art and letters, you know, a man can carry through a good many things that otherwise would be more critically examined." Kennedy did not say it in a way that implied that he knew anything very bad about Whitney. Still, I reflected, it was astute in the man to insure the cooperation of such people as Norton. A few thousand dollars judiciously spent on archaeology might cover up a multitude of sins of high finance. Nothing more was said by either of us, and at last we reached the financial district. We entered a tall skyscraper on Wall Street just around the corner from Broadway and shot up in the elevator to the floor where Whitney and his associates had a really palatial suite of offices. As we opened the door we saw that Lockwood was still there. He greeted us with a rather stiff bow. "Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," he said simply, introducing us to Whitney, "friends of Professor Norton, I believe. I met them to-day up at Mendoza's." "That is a most incomprehensible affair," returned Whitney, shaking hands with us. "What do you make out of it?" Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and turned the remark aside without committing himself. Stuart Whitney was a typical promoter, a large, full-blooded man, with a face red and inclined to be puffy from the congested veins. His voice alone commanded respect, whether he said anything worth while or not. In fact, he had but to say that it was a warm day and you felt that he had scored a telling point in the conversation. "Professor Norton has asked me to look into the loss of an old Peruvian dagger which he brought back from his last expedition," explained Kennedy, endeavouring to lead the conversation in channels which might arrive somewhere. "Yes, yes," remarked Whitney, with a nod of interest. "He has told me of it. Very strange, very strange. When he came back he told me that he had it, along with a lot of other important finds. But I had no idea he set such a value on it--or, rather, that any one else might do so. It would have been easy to have safeguarded it here, if we had known," he added, with a wave of his hand in the direction of a huge chrome steel safe of latest design in the outer office. Lockwood, I noted, was listening intently, quite in contrast with his former cavalier manner of dismissing all consideration of ancient Inca lore as academic or unpractical. Did he know something of the dagger? "I'm very much interested in old Peruvian antiquities myself," remarked Kennedy, a few minutes later, "though not, of course, a scholar like our friend Norton." "Indeed?" returned Whitney; and I noticed for the first time that his eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement. They were prominent eyes, a trifle staring, and I could not help studying them. "Then," he exclaimed, rising, "you must know of the ruins of Chan-Chan, of Chima--those wonderful places?" Kennedy nodded. "And of Truxillo and the legend of the great fish and the little fish," he put in. Whitney seemed extraordinarily pleased that any one should be willing to discuss his hobby with him. His eyes by this time were apparently starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris. "We must sit down and talk about Peru," he continued, reaching for a large box of cigarettes in the top drawer of his big desk. Lockwood seemed to sense a long discussion of archaeology. He rose and mumbled an excuse about having something to do in the outer office. "Oh, it is a wonderful country, Professor Kennedy," went on Whitney, throwing himself back in his chair. "I am deeply interested in it--its mines, its railroads, as well as its history. Let me show you a map of our interests down there." He rose and passed into the next room to get the map. The moment his back was turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the stenographer, who had gone. He took two thin second sheets of paper and a new carbon sheet. A hasty dab or two of the library paste completed his work. Carefully Craig laid the prepared paper on the floor just a few inches from the door into the outer office and scattered a few other sheets about, as though the wind had blown them off the desk. As Whitney returned, a big map unrolled in his hands, I saw his foot fall on the double sheet that Craig had laid by the door. Kennedy bent down and began picking up the papers. "Oh, that's all right," remarked Whitney brusquely. "Never mind that. Here's where some of our interests lie, in the north." I don't think I paid much more attention to the map than did Kennedy as we three bent over it. His real attention was on the paper which he had placed on the floor, as though fixing in his mind the exact spot on which Whitney had stepped. As Whitney talked rapidly about the country, we lighted the cigarettes. They seemed to be of a special brand. I puffed mine for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about it, however, which I did not exactly like. In fact, I think that the Latin-American cigarettes do not seem to appeal to most Americans very much, anyhow. While we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and, after a puff or two, I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort, I drew one of my own from my case as soon as I could do so politely, and laid the stub of the other in an ash-tray on Whitney's desk. "Mr. Lockwood and Senor Mendoza had some joint interests in the country, too, didn't they?" queried Kennedy, his eye still on the pieces of paper near the door. "Yes," returned Whitney. "Lockwood!" "What is it?" came Lockwood's voice from outside. "Show Professor Kennedy where you and Mendoza have those concessions." The young engineer strode into the room, and I saw a smile of gratification cross Kennedy's face as his foot, also, fell on the paper by the door. Unlike Whitney, however, Lockwood bent over to gather up the sheets. But before he could actually do so Kennedy reached down and swept them just out of his reach. "Quite breezy," Kennedy covered up his action, turning to restore the paper to the desk. Craig had his back to them, but not to me, and I saw him fumble for an instant with the papers. Quickly he pressed his thumb-nail on one side, as though making a rough "W," while on the other side he made what might be an "L." Then he shoved the two sheets and the carbon into his pocket. I glanced up hastily. Fortunately, neither Whitney nor Lockwood had noted his action. For the first time, now, I noticed as I watched him that Lockwood's eyes, too, were a trifle stary, though not so noticeable as Whitney's. "Let me see," continued Whitney, "your concessions are all about here, in the north, aren't they?" Lockwood drew a pencil from his pocket and made several cross-marks over the names of some towns on the large map. "Those are the points that we had proposed to work," he said simply, "before this terrible tragedy to Mendoza." "Mining, you understand," explained Whitney. Then, after a pause, he resumed quickly. "Of course, you know that much has been said about the chances for mining investments and about the opportunities for fortunes for persons in South America. Peru has been the Mecca for fortune hunters since the days of Pizarro. But where one person has been successful thousands have failed because they don't know the game. Why, I know of one investment of hundreds of thousands that hasn't yielded a cent of profit just because of that." Lockwood said nothing, evidently not caring to waste time or breath on any one who was not a possible investor. But Whitney had the true promoter's instinct of booming his scheme on the chance that the interest inspired might be carried to some third party. "American financiers, it is true," he went on excitedly, taking out a beautifully chased gold cigarette case, "have lost millions in mining in Peru. But that is not the scheme that our group, including Mr. Lockwood now, has. We are going to make more millions than they ever dreamed of--because we are simply going to mine for the products of centuries of labour already done--for the great treasure of Truxillo." One could not help becoming infected by Whitney's enthusiasm. Kennedy was following him closely, while a frown of disapproval spread over Lockwood's face. "Then you know the secret of the hiding-place of the treasure?" queried Kennedy abruptly. Whitney shook his head in the negative. "It is my idea that we don't have to know it," he answered. "With the hints that we have collected from the natives, I think we can locate it with the expenditure of comparatively little time and money. Senor Mendoza has obtained the concession from the government to hunt for it on a large scale in the big mounds about Truxillo. We know it is there. Is not that enough?" If it had been any one less than Whitney, we should probably have said it was not. But it took more than that to deny anything he asserted. Lockwood's face was a study. I cannot say that it betrayed anything except disapproval of the mere discussion of the subject. In fact, it left me in doubt as to whether Whitney himself might not have been bluffing, in the certainty of finding the treasure--perhaps had already the secret he denied having and was preparing to cover it up by stumbling on it, apparently, in some other way. I recognized in Stuart Whitney as smooth an individual as ever we had encountered. His was all the sincerity of a crook. Yet he contrived to leave the whole matter in doubt. Perhaps in this case he actually knew what he was talking about. The telephone rang and Lockwood answered it. Though he did not mention her name, I knew from his very tone and manner that it was Senorita de Mendoza who was calling up. Evidently his continued absence had worried her. "There's absolutely nothing to worry about," we heard him say. "Nothing has changed. I shall be up to see you as soon as I can get away from the office." There was an air of restraint about Lockwood's remarks, not as though he were keeping anything from the Senorita, but as though he were reluctant for us to overhear anything about his affairs. Lockwood had been smoking, too, and he added the stubs of his cigarettes to the pile in the ash-tray on Whitney's desk. Once I saw Craig cast a quick glance at the tray, and I understood that in some way he was anxious to have a chance to investigate those cigarettes. "You saw the dagger which Norton brought back, did you not?" asked Kennedy of Whitney. "Only as I saw the rest of the stuff after it was unpacked," he replied easily. "He brought back a great many interesting objects on this last trip." It was apparent that whether he actually knew anything about the secret of the Inca dagger or not, Whitney was not to be trapped into betraying it. I had an idea that Lockwood was interested in knowing that fact, too. At any rate, one could not be sure whether these two were perfectly frank with each other, or were playing a game for high stakes between themselves. Lockwood seemed eager to get away and, with a hasty glance at his watch, rose. "If you wish to find me, I shall be with Senorita de Mendoza," he said, taking his hat and stick, and bowing to us. Whitney rose and accompanied him to the door in the outer office, his arm on his shoulder, conversing in a low tone that was inaudible to us. No sooner, however, had the two passed through the door, with their backs toward us, than Kennedy reached over quickly and swept the contents of the ash-tray, cigarette stubs, ashes, and all, into an empty envelope which was lying with some papers. Then he sealed it and shoved it into his pocket, with a sidelong glance of satisfaction at me. "Evidently Mr. Lockwood and the Senorita are on intimate terms," hazarded Kennedy, as Whitney rejoined us. "Poor little girl," soliloquized the promoter. "Yes, indeed. And Lockwood is a lucky dog, too. Such eyes, such a figure--did you ever see a more beautiful woman?" One could not help recognizing that whatever else Whitney might have said that did not ring true his admiration for the unfortunate girl was genuine. That was not so remarkable, however. It could hardly have been otherwise. "You are acquainted, I suppose, with a Senora de Moche?" ventured Kennedy again, taking a chance shot. Whitney looked at him keenly. "Yes," he agreed, "I have had some dealings with her. She was an acquaintance of old Mendoza's--a woman of the world, clever, shrewd. I think she has but one ambition--her son. You have met her?" "Not the Senora," admitted Craig, "but her son is a student at the University." "Oh, yes, to be sure," said Whitney. "A fine fellow--but not of the type of Lockwood." Why he should have coupled the names was not clear for the moment. But he had risen, and was moving deliberately up and down the office, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, as though he were thinking of something very perplexing. "If I were younger," he remarked finally, of a sudden, "I would give both of them a race for that girl. She is the greatest treasure that has ever come out of the country. Ah, well--as it is, I would not place my money on young de Moche!" Kennedy had risen to go. "I trust you will be able to unearth some clue regarding that dagger," said Whitney, as we moved toward the door. "It seems to have worried Norton considerably, especially since you told him that Mendoza was undoubtedly murdered with it." Evidently Norton kept in close touch with his patron, but Kennedy did not appear to be surprised at it. "I am doing my best," he returned. "I suppose I may count on your help as the case develops?" "Absolutely," replied Whitney, accompanying us out into the hall to the elevator. "I shall back Norton in anything he wants to keep the Peruvian collection intact and protected." Our questions were as yet unanswered. Not only had we no inkling as to the whereabouts of the dagger, but the source of the four warnings that had been sent us was still as much shrouded in mystery. Kennedy beckoned to a passing taxicab. "The Prince Edward Albert," he directed briefly. VI THE CURSE OF MANSICHE We entered the Prince Edward Albert a few minutes later, one of the new and beautiful family hotels uptown. Before making any inquiries, Craig gave a hasty look about the lobby. Suddenly I felt him take my arm and draw me over to a little alcove on one side. I followed the direction of his eyes. There I could see young Alfonso de Moche talking to a woman much older than himself. "That must be his mother," whispered Craig. "You can see the resemblance. Let's sit here awhile behind these palms and watch." They seemed to be engaged in an earnest conversation about something. Even as they talked, though we could not guess what it was about, it was evident that Alfonso was dearer than life to the woman and that the young man was a model son. Though I felt that I must admire them each for it, still, I reflected, that was no reason why we should not suspect them--perhaps rather a reason for suspecting. Senora de Moche was a woman of well-preserved middle age, a large woman, with dark hair and contrasting full, red lips. Her face, in marked contradiction to her Parisian costume and refined manners, had a slight copper swarthiness about it which spoke eloquently of her ancestry. But it was her eyes that arrested and held one's attention most. Whether it was in the eyes themselves or in the way that she used them, there could be no mistake about the almost hypnotic power that their owner possessed. I could not help wondering whether she might not have exercised it on Don Luis, perhaps was using it in some way to influence Whitney. Was that the reason why the Senorita so evidently feared her? Fortunately, from our vantage point, we could see without being in any danger of being seen. "There's Whitney," I heard Craig mutter under his breath. I looked up and saw the promoter enter from his car. At almost the same instant the roving eyes of the Senora seemed to catch sight of him. He came over and spoke to the de Moches, standing with them several minutes. I fancied that not for an instant did she allow the gaze of any one else to distract her in the projection of whatever weird ocular power nature had endowed her with. If it were a battle of eyes, I recollected the strange look that I had noted about those of both Whitney and Lockwood. That, however, was different from the impression one got of the Senora's. I felt that she would have to be pretty clever to match the subtlety of Whitney. Whatever it was they were talking about, one could see that Whitney and Senora de Moche were on very familiar terms. At the same time, young de Moche appeared to be ill at ease. Perhaps he did not approve of the intimacy with Whitney. At any rate, he seemed visibly relieved when the promoter excused himself and walked over to the desk to get his mail and then out into the cafe. "I'd like to get a better view of her," remarked Kennedy, rising. "Let us take a turn or two along the corridor and pass them." We sauntered forth from our alcove and strolled down among the various knots of people chatting and laughing. As we passed the woman and her son, I was conscious again of that strange feeling, which psychologists tell us, however, has no real foundation, of being stared at from behind. At the lower end of the lobby Kennedy turned suddenly and we started to retrace our steps. Alfonso's back was toward us now. Again we passed them, just in time to catch the words, in a low tone, from the young man, "Yes, I have seen him at the University. Every one there knows that he is--" The rest of the sentence was lost. But it was not difficult to reconstruct. It referred undoubtedly to the activities of Kennedy in unravelling mysteries. "It's quite evident," I suggested, "that they know that we are interested in them now." "Yes," he agreed. "There wasn't any use of watching them further from under cover. I wanted them to see me, just to find out what they would do." Kennedy was right. Indeed, even before we turned again, we found that the Senora and Alfonso had risen and were making their way slowly to the elevators, still talking earnestly. The lifts were around an angle, and before we could place ourselves so that we could observe them again they were gone. "I wish there was some way of adding Alfonso's shoe-prints to my collection," observed Craig. "The marks that I found in the dust of the sarcophagus in the Museum were those of a man's shoes. However, I suppose I must wait to get them." He walked over to the desk and made inquiries about the de Moches and Whitney. Each had a suite on the eighth floor, though on opposite sides and at opposite ends of the hall. "There's no use wasting time trying to conceal our identity now," remarked Kennedy finally, drawing a card from his case. "Besides, we came here to see them, anyhow." He handed the card to the clerk. "Senora de Moche, please," he said. The clerk took the card and telephoned up to the de Moche suite. I must say that it was somewhat to my surprise that the Senora telephoned down to say that she would receive us in her own sitting room. "That's very kind," commented Craig, as I followed him into the elevator. "It saves planning some roundabout way of meeting her and comes directly to the point." The elevator whisked us up directly to the eighth floor and we stepped out into the heavily carpeted hallway, passing down to Room 810, which was the number of her suite. Further on, in 825, was Whitney's. Alfonso was not there. Evidently he had not ridden up with his mother, after all, but had gone out through another entrance on the ground floor. The Senora was alone. "I hope that you will pardon me for intruding," began Craig, with as plausible an explanation as he could muster, "but I have become interested in an opportunity to invest in a Peruvian venture, and I have heard that you are a Peruvian. Your son, Alfonso, I have already met, once. I thought that perhaps you might be able to give me some advice." She looked at us keenly, but said nothing. I fancied that she detected the subterfuge. Yet she had not tried, and did not try now to avoid us. Either she had no connection with the case we were investigating or she was an adept actress. On closer view, her eyes were really even more remarkable than I had imagined at a distance. They were those of a woman endowed with an abundance of health and energy, eyes that were full of what the old character readers used to call "amativeness," denoting a nature capable of intense passion, whether of love or hate. Yet I confess that I could not find anything especially abnormal about them, as I had about the eyes of Lockwood and Whitney. It was some time before she replied, and I gave a hasty glance about the apartment. Of course, it had been rented furnished, but she had rearranged it, adding some touches of her own which gave it quite a Peruvian appearance, due perhaps more to the pictures and the ornaments which she had introduced rather than anything else. "I suppose," she replied, at length, slowly, and looking at us as if she would bore right through into our minds, "I suppose you mean the schemes of Mr. Lockwood--and Mr. Whitney." Kennedy was not to be taken by surprise. "I have heard of their schemes, too," he replied noncommittally. "Peru seems to be a veritable storehouse of tales of buried treasure." "Let me tell you about it," she hastened, nodding at the very words "buried treasure." "I suppose you know that the old Chimu tribes in the north were the wealthiest at the time of the coming of the Spaniards?" Craig nodded, and a moment later she resumed, as if trying to marshal her thoughts in a logical order. "They had a custom then of burying with their dead all their movable property. Graves were not dug separately. Therefore, you see, sometimes a common grave, or huaca, as it is called, would be given to many. That huaca would become a cache of treasure in time. It was sacred to the dead, and hence it was wicked to touch it." The Senora's face betrayed the fact that, whatever modern civilization had done for her, it had not yet quite succeeded in eliminating the old ideas. "Back in the early part of the seventeenth century," she continued, leaning forward in her chair eagerly as she talked, "a Spaniard opened a Chimu huaca and found gold that is said to have been worth more than a million dollars. An Indian told him about it. Who the Indian was does not matter. But the Spaniard was an ancestor of Don Luis de Mendoza, who was found murdered to-day." She stopped short, seeming to enjoy the surprised look on our faces at finding that she was willing to discuss the matter so intimately. "After the Indian had shown the Spaniard the treasure in the mound," she pursued, "the Indian told the Spaniard that he had given him only the little fish, the peje chica, but that some day he would give him the big fish, the peje grande. I see that you already know at least a part of the story, anyhow." "Yes," admitted Kennedy, "I do know something of it. But I should rather get it more accurately from your lips than from the hearsay of any one else." She smiled quietly to herself. "I don't believe," she added, "that you know that the _peje grande_ was not ordinary treasure. It was the temple gold. Why, some of the temples were literally plated over heavily with pure gold. That gold, as well as what had been buried in the huacas, was sacred. Mansiche, the supreme ruler, laid a curse on it, on any Indian who would tell of it, on any Spaniard who might learn of it. A curse lies on the finding--yes, even on the searching for the sacred Gold of the Gods. It is one of the most awful curses that have ever been uttered, that curse of Mansiche." Even as she spoke of it she lowered her voice. I felt that no matter how much education she had, there lurked back in her brain some of the primitive impulses, as well as beliefs. Either the curse of Mansiche on the treasure was as real to her as if its mere touch were poisonous, or else she was going out of her way to create that impression with us. "Somehow," she continued, in a low tone, "that Spaniard, the ancestor of Don Luis Mendoza, obtained some idea of the secret. He died," she said solemnly, flashing a glance at Craig from her wonderful eyes to stamp the idea indelibly. "He was stabbed by one of the members of the tribe. On the dagger, so I have heard, was marked the secret of the treasure." I felt that in a bygone age she might have made a great priestess of the heathen gods. Now, was she more than a clever actress? She paused, then added, "That is my tribe--my family." Again she paused. "For centuries the big fish was a secret, is still a secret--or, at least, was until some one got it from my brother down in Peru. The tradition and the dagger had been intrusted to him. I don't know how it happened. Somehow he seemed to grow crazy--until he talked. The dagger was stolen from him. How it happened, how it came into Professor Norton's hands, I do not know. "But, at any rate," she continued, in the same solemn tone, "the curse has followed it. After my brother had told the secret of the dagger and lost it, his mind left him. He threw himself one day into Lake Titicaca." Her voice broke dramatically in her passionate outpouring of the tragedies that had followed the hidden treasure and the Inca dagger. "Now, here in New York, comes this awful death of Senor Mendoza," she cried. "I don't know, no one knows, whether he had obtained the secret of the gold or not. At any rate, he must have thought he had it. He has been killed suddenly, in his own home. That is my answer to your inquiry about the treasure-hunting company you mentioned, whatever it may be. I need say no more of the curse of Mansiche. Is the Gold of the Gods worth it?" There could be no denying that it was real to her, whatever we might think of the story. I recollected the roughly printed warnings that had been sent to Norton, Leslie, Kennedy, and myself. Had they, then, some significance? I had not been able to convince myself that they were the work of a crank, alone. There must be some one to whom the execution of vengeance of the gods was an imperative duty. Unsuperstitious as I was, I saw here a real danger. If some one, either to preserve the secret for himself or else called by divine mandate to revenge, should take a notion to carry out the threats in the four notes, what might not happen? "I cannot tell you much more of fact than you probably already know," she remarked, watching our faces intently and noting the effect of every word. "You know, I suppose, that the treasure has always been believed to be in a large mound, a tumulus I think you call it, visible from our town of Truxillo. Many people have tried to open it, but the mass of sand pours down on them and they have been discouraged." "No one has ever stumbled on the secret?" queried Kennedy. She shook her head. "There have been those who have sought, there are even those who are seeking, the point just where to bore into the mounds. If they could find it, they plan to construct a well-timbered tunnel to keep back the sand and to drive it at the right point to obtain this fabulous wealth." She vouchsafed the last information with a sort of quiet assurance that conveyed the idea, without her saying it directly, that any such venture was somehow doomed to failure, that desecrators were merely toying with fate. All through her story one could see that she felt deeply the downfall and betrayal of her brother, followed by the tragedy to him after the age-old secret had slipped from his grasp. Was there still to be vengeance for his downfall? Surely, I thought to myself, Don Luis de Mendoza could not have been in possession of the secret, unless he had arrived at it, with Lockwood, in some other way than by deciphering the almost illegible marks of the dagger. I thought of Whitney. Had he perhaps had something to do with the nasty business? I happened to glance at a huge pile of works on mining engineering on the table, the property of Alfonso. She saw me looking at them, and her eyes assumed a far-away, dreamy impression as she murmured something. "You must know that we real Peruvians have been so educated that we never explore ruins for hidden treasure, not even if we have the knowledge of engineering to do so. It is a sort of sacrilege to us to do that. The gold was not our gold, you see. Some of it belongs to the spirits of the departed. But the big treasure belonged to the gods themselves. It was the gold which lay in sheets over the temple walls, sacred. No, we would not touch it." I wondered cynically what would happen if some one at that moment had appeared with the authenticated secret. She continued to gaze at the books. "There are plenty of rare chances for a young mining engineer in Peru without that." Apparently she was thinking of her son and his studies at the University as they affected his future career. One could follow her thoughts, even, as they flitted from the treasure, to the books, to her son, and, finally, to the pretty girl for whom both he and Lockwood were struggling. "We are a peculiar race," she ruminated. "We seldom intermarry with other races. We are as proud as Senor Mendoza was of his Castilian descent, as proud of our unmixed lineage as any descendant of a 'belted earl.'" Senora de Moche made the remarks with a quiet dignity which left no doubt in my mind that the race feeling cut deeply. She had risen now, and in place of the awesome fear of the curse and tragedy of the treasure her face was burning and her eyes flashed. "Old Don Luis thought I was good enough to amuse his idle hours," she cried. "But when he saw that Alfonso was in love with his daughter, that she might return that love, then I found out bitterly that he placed us in another class, another caste." Kennedy had been following her closely, and I could see now that the cross-currents of superstition, avarice, and race hatred in the case presented a tangle that challenged him. There was nothing more that we could extract from her just then. She had remained standing, as a gentle reminder that the interview had already been long. Kennedy took the hint. "I wish to thank you for the trouble you have gone to," he bowed, after we, too, had risen. "You have told me quite enough to make me think seriously before I join in any such undertaking." She smiled enigmatically. Whether it was that she had enjoyed penetrating our rather clumsy excuse for seeing her, or that she felt that the horror of the curse had impressed us, she seemed well content. We bowed ourselves out, and, after waiting a few moments about the hotel without seeing Whitney anywhere, Craig called a car. "They were right," was his only comment. "A most baffling woman, indeed." VII THE ARROW POISON Back again in the laboratory, Kennedy threw off his coat and plunged again into his investigation of the blood sample he had taken from the wound in Mendoza's body. We had scarcely been back half an hour before the door opened and Dr. Leslie's perplexed face looked in on us. He was carrying a large jar, in which he had taken away the materials which he wished to examine. "Well," asked Kennedy, pausing with a test-tube poised over a Bunsen burner, "have you found anything yet? I haven't had time to get very far with my own tests yet." "Not a blessed thing," returned the coroner. "I'm desperate. One of the chemists suggested cyanide, another carbon monoxide. But there is no trace of either. Then he suggested nux vomica. It wasn't nux vomica; but my tests show that it must have been something very much like it. I've looked for all the ordinary known poisons and some of the little-known alkaloids, but, Kennedy, I always get back to the same point. There must have been a poison there. He did not die primarily of the wound. It was asphyxia due to a poison that really killed him, though the wound might have done so, but not quite so quickly." I could tell by the look that crossed Kennedy's face that at last a ray of light had pierced the darkness. He reached for a bottle on the shelf labelled spirits of turpentine. Then he poured a little of the blood sample from the jar which the coroner had brought into a clean tube and added a few drops of the spirits of turpentine. A cloudy, dark precipitate formed. He smiled quietly, and said, half to himself, "I thought so." "What is it?" asked the coroner eagerly, "nux vomica?" Craig shook his head as he stared at the black precipitate. "You were perfectly right about the asphyxiation, Doctor," he remarked slowly, "but wrong as to the cause. It was a poison--one you would never dream of." "What is it?" Leslie and I asked simultaneously. "Let me take all these samples and make some further tests," he said. "I am quite sure of it, but it is new to me. By the way, may I trouble you and Leslie to go over to the Museum of Natural History with a letter?" It was evident that he wanted to work uninterrupted, and we agreed readily, especially because by going we might also be of some use in solving the mystery of the poison. He sat down and wrote a hasty note to the director of the Museum, and a few moments later we were speeding over in Leslie's car. At the big building we had no trouble in finding the director and presenting the note. He was a close friend of Kennedy's and more than willing to aid him in any way. "You will excuse me a moment?" he apologized. "I will get from the South American exhibit just what he wants." We waited several minutes in the office until finally he returned carrying a gourd, incrusted on its hollow inside surface with a kind of blackish substance. "That is what he wants, I think," the director remarked, wrapping it up carefully in a box. "I don't need to ask you to tell Professor Kennedy to watch out how he handles the thing. He understands all about it." We thanked the director and hurried out into the car again, carrying the package, after his warning, as though it were so much dynamite. Altogether, I don't suppose that we could have been gone more than an hour. We burst into the laboratory, but, to my surprise, I did not see Kennedy at his table. I stopped short and looked around. There he was over in the corner, sprawled out in a chair, a tank of oxygen beside him, from which he was inhaling laboriously copious draughts. He rose as he saw us and walked unsteadily toward the table. "Why--what's the matter?" I cried, certain that m our absence an attempt had been made on his life, perhaps to carry out the threat of the curse. "N-nothing," he gasped, with an attempt at a smile. "Only I--think I was right--about the poison." I did not like the way he looked. His hand was unsteady and his eyes looked badly. But he seemed quite put out when I suggested that he was working too hard over the case and had better take a turn outdoors with us and have a bite to eat. "You--you got it?" he asked, seizing the package that contained the gourd and unwrapping it nervously. He laid the gourd on the table, on which were also several jars of various liquids and a number of other chemicals. At the end of the table was a large, square package, from which sounds issued, as if it contained something alive. "Tell me," I persisted, "what has happened. Has any one been here since we have been gone?" "Not a soul," he answered, working his arms and shoulders as if to get rid of some heavy weight that oppressed his chest. "Then what has happened that makes you use the oxygen?" I repeated, determined to get some kind of answer from him. He turned to Leslie. "It was no ordinary asphyxiation, Doctor," he said quickly. Leslie nodded. "I could see that," he admitted. "We have to deal in this case," continued Kennedy, his will-power overcoming his weakness, "with a poison which is apparently among the most subtle known. A particle of matter so minute as to be hardly distinguishable by the naked eye, on the point of a lancet or needle, a prick of the skin not anything like that wound of Mendoza's, were necessary. But, fortunately, more of the poison was used, making it just that much easier to trace, though for the time the wound, which might itself easily have been fatal, threw us off the scent. But given these things, not all the power in the world--unless one was fully prepared--could save the life of the person in whose flesh the wound was made." Craig paused a moment, and we listened breathlessly. "This poison, I find, acts on the so-called endplates of the muscles and nerves. It produces complete paralysis, but not loss of consciousness, sensation, circulation, or respiration until the end approaches. It seems to be one of the most powerful agents of which I have ever heard. When introduced in even a minute quantity it produces death finally by asphyxiation--by paralyzing the muscles of respiration. This asphyxia is what puzzled you, Leslie." He reached over and took a white mouse from the huge box on the corner of the table. "Let me show you what I have found," he said. "I am now going to inject a little of the blood serum of the murdered man into this white mouse." He took a needle and injected some of a liquid which he had isolated. The mouse did not even wince, so lightly did he touch it. But as we watched, its life seemed gently to ebb away, without pain, without struggle. Its breath simply seemed to stop. Next he took the gourd which we had brought and with a knife scraped off just the minutest particle of the black, licorice-like stuff that incrusted it. He dissolved the particle in some alcohol, and with a sterilized needle repeated his experiment on a second mouse. The effect was precisely similar to that produced by the blood on the first. I was intent on what Craig was doing when Dr. Leslie broke in with a question. "May I ask," he queried, "whether, admitting that the first mouse died at least apparently in the same manner as the second, you have proved that the poison is the same in both cases? And if it is the same, can you show that it affects human beings in the same way, that enough of it has been discovered in the blood of Mendoza to have caused his death? In other words, I want the last doubt set aside." If ever Craig startled me, it was by his quiet reply: "I've isolated it in his blood, extracted it, sterilized it, and I've tried it on myself." In breathless amazement, with eyes riveted on him, we listened. "Then that was what was the matter?" I blurted out. "You had been trying the poison on YOURSELF?" He nodded unconcernedly. "Altogether," he explained, as Leslie and I listened, speechless, "I was able to recover from both blood samples six centigrams of the poison. It is almost unknown. I could only be sure of what I discovered by testing the physiological effects. I was very careful. What else was there to do? I couldn't ask you fellows to try it, if I was afraid." "Good heavens!" gasped Leslie, "and alone, too." "You wouldn't have let me do it, if I hadn't got rid of you," he smiled quietly. Leslie shook his head. "Tried it on the dog and made himself the dog!" exclaimed Leslie. "I need the credit of a successful case--but I'll not take this one." Kennedy laughed. "Starting with two centigrams of the stuff as a moderate dose," he pursued, while I listened, stunned at his daring, "I injected it into my right arm subcutaneously. Then I slowly worked my way up to three and then four centigrams. You see what I had recovered was far from the real thing. They did not seem at first to produce any very appreciable results other than to cause some dizziness, slight vertigo, a considerable degree of lassitude, and an extremely painful headache of rather unusual duration." "Good night!" I exclaimed. "Didn't that satisfy you?" "Five centigrams considerably improved on it," he continued, paying no attention to me. "It caused a degree of lassitude and vertigo that was most distressing, and six centigrams, the whole amount which I had recovered from the samples of blood, gave me the fright of my life right here in this laboratory a few minutes before you came in." Leslie and I looked at each other and shook our heads. "Perhaps I was not wise in giving myself so large an injection on a day when I was overheated and below par otherwise, because of the strain I have been under in handling this case, as well as other work. However that may be, the added centigram produced so much more on top of the five centigrams I had previously taken that for a time I had reason to fear that that additional centigram was just the amount needed to bring my experiments to a permanent close. "Within three minutes of the time of injection the dizziness and vertigo had become so great as to make walking seem impossible. In another minute the lassitude rapidly crept over me, and the serious disturbance of my breathing made it apparent to me that walking, waving my arms, anything, was imperative. My lungs felt glued up, and the muscles of my chest refused to work. Everything swam before my eyes, and I was soon reduced to walking up and down the laboratory floor with halting steps, only preventing falling on the floor by holding fast to the edge of the table. "I thought of the tank of oxygen, and managed to crawl over and turn it on. I gulped at it. It seemed to me that I spent hours gasping for breath. It reminded me of what I once experienced in the Cave of the Winds of Niagara, where water is more abundant in the atmosphere than air. Yet my watch afterward indicated only about twenty minutes of extreme distress. But that twenty minutes is one period I shall never forget. I advise you, Leslie, if you are ever so foolish as to try the experiment, to remain below the five-centigram limit." "Believe me, I'd rather lose my job," returned Leslie. "How much of the stuff was administered to Mendoza," went on Kennedy, "I cannot say. But it must have been a good deal more than I took. Six centigrams which I recovered from these small samples are only nine-tenths of a grain. You see what effect that much had. I trust that answers your question?" Dr. Leslie was too overwhelmed to reply. "What is this deadly poison that was used on Mendoza?" I managed to ask. "You have been fortunate enough to obtain a sample of it from the Museum of Natural History," returned Craig. "It comes in a little gourd, or often a calabash. This is in a gourd. It is a blackish, brittle stuff, incrusting the sides of the gourd just as if it was poured in in the liquid state and left to dry. Indeed, that is just what has been done by those who manufacture it after a lengthy and somewhat secret process." He placed the gourd on the edge of the table, where we could see it closely. I was almost afraid even to look at it. "The famous traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgk, first brought it into Europe, and Darwin has described it. It is now an article of commerce, and is to be found in the United States Pharmacoepia as a medicine, though, of course, it is used in only very minute quantities, as a heart stimulant." Craig opened a book to a place he had marked. "Here's an account of it," he said. "Two natives were one day hunting. They were armed with blow-pipes and quivers full of poisoned darts made of thin, charred pieces of bamboo, tipped with this stuff. One of them aimed a dart. It missed the object overhead, glanced off the tree, and fell down on the hunter himself. This is how the other native reported the result: "'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts it in his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his blow-pipe for his little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife and the village. Then he lies down. His tongue talks no longer. No sight in his eyes. He folds his arms. He rolls over slowly. His mouth moves without sound. I feel his heart. It goes fast and then slow. It stops. Quacca has shot his last woorali dart.'" Leslie and I looked at Kennedy, and the horror of the thing sank deep into our minds. Woorali. What was it? "Woorali, or curare," explained Craig slowly, "is the well-known poison with which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco tip their arrows. Its principal ingredient is derived from the Strychnos toxifera tree, which yields also the drug nux vomica, which you, Dr. Leslie, have mentioned. On the tip of that Inca dagger must have been a large dose of the dread curare, this fatal South American Indian arrow poison." "Say," ejaculated Leslie, "this thing begins to look eerie to me. How about that piece of paper that I sent to you with the warning about the curse of Mansiche and the Gold of the Gods. What if there should be something in it? I'd rather not be a victim of this curare, if it's all the same to you, Kennedy." Kennedy was thinking deeply. Who could have sent the messages to us all? Who was likely to have known of curare? I confess that I had not even an idea. All of them, any of them, might have known. The deeper we got into it, the more dastardly the crime against Mendoza seemed. Involuntarily, I thought of the beautiful little Senorita, about whom these terrible events centred. Though I had no reason for it, I could not forget the fear that she had for Senora de Moche, and the woman as she had been revealed to us in our late interview. "I suppose a Peruvian of average intelligence might know of the arrow poison of Indians of another country," I ventured to Craig. "Quite possible," he returned, catching immediately the drift of my thoughts. "But the shoe-prints indicated that it was a man who stole the dagger from the Museum. It may be that it was already poisoned, too. In that case the thief would not have had to know anything of curare, would not have needed to stab so deeply if he had known." I must confess that I was little further along in the solution of the mystery than I had been when I first saw Mendoza's body. Kennedy, however, did not seem to be worried. Leslie had long since given up trying to form an opinion and, now that the nature of the poison was finally established, was glad to leave the case in our hands. As for me, I was inclined to agree with Dr. Leslie, and, long after he had left, there kept recurring to my mind those words: BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS. VIII THE ANONYMOUS LETTER "I think I will drop in to see Senorita Mendoza," considered Kennedy, as he cleared up the materials which he had been using in his investigation of the arrow poison. "She is a study to me--in fact, the reticence of all these people is hard to combat." As we entered the apartment where the Mendozas lived, it was difficult to realize that only a few hours had elapsed since we had first been introduced to this strange affair. In the hall, however, were still some reporters waiting in the vain hope that some fragment of a story might turn up. "Let's have a talk with the boys," suggested Craig, before we entered the Mendoza suite. "After all, the newspaper men are the best detectives I know. If it wasn't for them, half our murder cases wouldn't ever be solved. As a matter of fact, 'yellow journals' are more useful to a city than half the detective force." Most of the newspaper men knew Craig intimately, and liked him, possibly because he was one of the few people to-day who realized the very important part these young men played in modern life. They crowded about, eager to interview him. But Craig was clever. In the rapid fire of conversation it was really he who interviewed them. "Lockwood has been here a long time," volunteered one of the men. "He seems to have constituted himself the guardian of Inez. No one gets a look at her while he's around." "Well, you can hardly blame him for that," smiled Craig. "Jealousy isn't a crime in that case." "Say," put in another, "there'd be an interesting quarter of an hour if he were here now. That other fellow--de Mooch--whatever his name is, is here." "De Moche--with her, now?" queried Kennedy, wheeling suddenly. The reporter smiled. "He's a queer duck. I was coming up to relieve our other man, when I saw him down on the street, hanging about the corner, his eyes riveted on the entrance to the apartment. I suppose that was his way of making love. He's daffy over her, all right. I stopped to watch him. Of course, he didn't know me. Just then Lockwood left. The Spaniard dived into the drug store on the corner as though the devil was after him. You should have seen his eyes. If looks were bullets, I wouldn't give much for Lockwood's life. With two such fellows about, you wouldn't catch me making goo-goo eyes at that chicken--not on your life." Kennedy passed over the flippant manner in view of the importance of the observation. "What do you think of Lockwood?" he asked. "Pretty slick," replied another of the men. "He's the goods, all right." "Why, what has he done?" asked Kennedy. "Nothing in particular. But he came out to see us once. You can't blame him for being a bit sore at us fellows hanging about. But he didn't show it. Instead he almost begged us to be careful of how we asked questions of the girl. Of course, all of us could see how completely broken up she is. We haven't bothered her. In fact, we'd do anything we could for her. But Lockwood talks straight from the shoulder. You can see he's used to handling all kinds of situations." "But did he say anything, has he done anything?" persisted Kennedy. "N-no," admitted the reporter. "I can't say he has." Craig frowned a bit. "I thought not," he remarked. "These people aren't giving away any hints, if they can help it." "It's my idea," ventured another of the men, "that when this case breaks, it will break all of a sudden. I shouldn't wonder if we are in for one of the sensations of the year, when it comes." Kennedy looked at him inquiringly. "Why?" he asked simply. "No particular reason," confessed the man. "Only the regular detectives act so chesty. They haven't got a thing, and they know it, only they won't admit it to us. O'Connor was here." "What did he say?" "Nothing. He went through all the motions--'Now, pens lifted, boys,' and all that--talked a lot--and after it was all over he might have been sure no one would publish a line of his confidences. There wasn't a stick of copy in the whole thing." Kennedy laughed. "O'Connor's all right," he replied. "We may need him sorely before we get through. After all, nothing can take the place of the organization the police have built up. You say de Moche is in there yet?" "Yes. He seemed very anxious to see her. We never get a word out of him. I've been thinking what would happen if we tried to get him mad. Maybe he'd talk." "More likely he'd pull a gun," cautioned another. "Excuse ME." Kennedy said nothing, evidently content to let the newspaper men go their own sweet way. He nodded to them, and pressed the buzzer at the Mendoza door. "Tell Senorita Mendoza that it is Professor Kennedy," he said to Juanita, who opened the door, keeping it on the chain, to be sure it was no unwelcome intruder. Evidently she had had orders to admit us, for a second later we found ourselves again in the little reception room. We sat down, and I saw that Craig's attention had at once been fixed on something. I listened intently, too. On the other side of the heavy portieres that cut us off from the living room I could distinguish low voices. It was de Moche and Inez. Whatever the ethics of it, we could not help listening. Besides there was more at stake than ethics. Evidently the young man was urging her to do something that she did not agree with. "No," we heard her say finally, in a quiet tone, "I cannot believe it, Alfonso. Mr. Whitney is Mr. Lockwood's associate now. My father and Mr. Lockwood approved of him. Why should I do otherwise?" De Moche was talking earnestly but in a very muffled voice. We could not make out anything except a few scattered phrases which told us nothing. Once I fancied he mentioned his mother. Whatever it was that he was urging, Inez was firm. "No, Alfonso," she repeated, her voice a little higher and excited. "It cannot be. You must be mistaken." She had risen, and now moved toward the hall door, evidently forgetting that the folding doors behind the portieres were open. "Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson are here," she said. "Would you care to meet them?" He replied in the negative. Yet as he passed the reception room he could not help seeing us. As Inez greeted us, I saw that Alfonso was making a desperate effort to control his expression. He seemed to be concealing a bitter disappointment. Seeing us, he bowed stiffly, and, with just the murmur of a greeting, excused himself. He had no sooner closed the door to run the gauntlet of the sharp eyes in the hall than the Senorita faced us fully. She was pale and nervous. Evidently something that he had said to her had greatly agitated her. Yet with all her woman's skill she managed to hide all outward traces of emotion that might indicate what it was that racked her mind. "You have something to report?" she asked, a trifle anxiously. "Nothing of any great importance," admitted Craig. Was it actually a look of relief that crossed her face? Try as I could, it seemed to me to be an anomalous situation. She wanted the murderer of her father caught, naturally. Yet she did not seem to be offering us the natural assistance that was to be expected. Could it be that she suspected some one perhaps near and dear to her of having some knowledge, which, now that the deed was done, would do more harm than good if revealed? It was the only conclusion to which I could come. I was surprised at Kennedy's next question. Was the same idea in his mind, also? "We have seen Mr. Whitney," he ventured. "Just what are Mr. Lockwood's relations with him--and yours?" "Merely that Mr. Lockwood and my father were partners," she answered hastily. "They had decided that their interests would be more valuable by some arrangement with Mr. Whitney, who controls so much down in Peru." "Do you think that Senora de Moche exercises a very great influence on Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, purposely introducing the name of the Indian woman to see what effect it might have on her. "Oh," she cried, with a little exclamation of alarm, "I hope not." Yet it was evident that she feared so. "Why is it that you fear it?" insisted Kennedy. "What has she done to make you fear it?" "I don't like her," returned Inez, with a frown. "My father knew her--too well. She is a schemer, an adventuress. Once she has a hold on a man, one cannot say--" She paused, then went on in a different tone. "But I would rather not talk about the woman. I am afraid of her. Never does she talk to me that she does not get something out of me that I do not wish to tell her. She is uncanny." Personally, I could not blame Inez for her opinion. I could understand it. Those often baleful eyes had a penetrating power that one might easily fall a victim to. "But you can trust Mr. Lockwood," he returned. "Surely he is proof against her, against any woman." Inez flushed. It was evident that of all the men who were interested in the little beauty, Lockwood was first in her mind. Yet when Kennedy put the question thus she hesitated. "Yes," she replied, "of course, I trust him. It is not that woman whom I fear with him." She said it with an air almost of defiance. There was some kind of struggle going on in her mind, and she was too proud to let us into the secret. Kennedy rose and bowed. For the present he had come to the conclusion that if she would not let us help her openly the only thing to do was to help her blindly. Half an hour later we were at Norton's apartment, not far from the University campus. He listened intently as Kennedy told such parts of what we had done as he chose. At the mention of the arrow poison, he seemed startled beyond measure. "You are sure of it?" he asked anxiously. "Positive, now," reiterated Kennedy. Norton's face was drawn in deep lines. "If some one has the secret," he cried hastily, "who knows when and on whom next he may employ it?" Coming from him so soon after the same idea had been hinted at by the coroner, I could not but be impressed by it. "The very novelty of the thing is our best protection," asserted Kennedy confidently. "Once having discovered it, if Walter gives the thing its proper value in the Star, I think the criminal will be unlikely to try it again. If you had had as much experience in crime as I have had, you would see that it is not necessarily the unusual that is baffling. That may be the surest way to trace it. Often it is because a thing is so natural that it may be attributed to any person among several, equally well." Norton eyed us keenly, and shook his head. "You may be right," he said doubtfully. "Only I had rather that this person, whoever he may be, had fewer weapons." "Speaking of weapons," broke in Kennedy, "you have had no further idea of why the dagger might have been taken?" "There seems to have been so much about it that I did not know," he returned, "that I am almost afraid to have an opinion. I knew that its three-sided sheath inclosed a sharp blade, yet who would have dreamed that that blade was poisoned?" "You are lucky not to have scratched yourself with it by accident while you were studying it." "Possibly I might have done it, if I had had it in my possession longer. It was only lately that I had leisure to study it." "You knew that it might offer some clue to the hidden treasure of Truxillo?" suggested Kennedy. "Have you any recollection of what the inscriptions on it said?" "Yes," returned Norton, "I had heard the rumours about it. But Peru is a land of tales of buried treasure. No, I can't say that I paid much more attention to it than you might have done if some one asserted that he had another story of the treasure of Captain Kidd. I must confess that only when the thing was stolen did I begin to wonder whether, after all, there might not be something in it. Now it is too late to find out. From the moment when I found that it was missing from my collection I have heard no more about it than you have found out. It is all like a dream to me. I cannot believe even yet that a mere bit of archaeological and ethnological specimen could have played so important a part in the practical events of real life." "It does seem impossible," agreed Kennedy. "But it is even more remarkable than that. It has disappeared without leaving a trace, after having played its part." "If it had been a mere robbery," considered Norton, "one might look for its reappearance, I suppose, in the curio shops. For to-day thieves have a keen appreciation of the value of such objects. But, now that you have unearthed its use against Mendoza--and in such a terrible way--it is not likely that that will be what will happen to it. No, we must look elsewhere." "I thought I would tell you," concluded Kennedy, rising to go. "Perhaps after you have considered it over night some idea may occur to you." "Perhaps," said Norton doubtfully. "But I haven't your brilliant faculty of scientific analysis, Kennedy. No, I shall have to lean on you, in that, not you on me." We left Norton, apparently now more at sea than ever. At the laboratory Kennedy plunged into some microphotographic work that the case had suggested to him, while I dashed off, under his supervision, an account of the discovery of curare, and telephoned it down to the Star in time to catch the first morning edition, in the hope that it might have some effect in apprising the criminal that we were hard on his trail, which he had considered covered. I scanned the other papers eagerly in the morning for Kennedy, hoping to glean at least some hints that others who were working on the case might have gathered. But there was nothing, and, after a hasty bite of breakfast, we hurried back to take up the thread of the investigation where we had laid it down. To our surprise, on the steps of the Chemistry Building, as we approached, we saw Inez Mendoza already waiting for us in a high state of agitation. Her face was pale, and her voice trembled as she greeted us. "Such a dreadful thing has come to me," she cried, even before Kennedy could ask her what the trouble was. From her handbag she drew out a crumpled, dirty piece of paper in an envelope. "It came in the first mail," she explained. "I could not wait to send it to you. I brought it myself. What can it mean?" Kennedy unfolded the paper. Printed in large characters, in every way similar to the four warnings that had been sent to us, was just one ominous line. We read: "Beware the man who professes to be a friend of your father." I glanced from the note to Kennedy, then to Inez. One name was in my mind, and before I knew it I had spoken it. "Lockwood?" I queried inadvertently. Her eyes met mine in sharp defiance. "Impossible," she exclaimed. "It is some one trying to injure him with me. Beware of Mr. Lockwood? How absurd!" Yet it must have meant Lockwood. No one else could have been meant. It was he, most of all, who might be called a friend of her father. She seemed to see the implication without a word from us. I could not help sympathizing with the brave girl in her struggle between the attack against Lockwood and her love and confidence in him. It did not need words to tell me that evidence must be overwhelming to convince her that her lover might be involved in any manner. IX THE PAPER FIBRES Kennedy examined the anonymous letter carefully for several minutes, while we watched him in silence. "Too clever to use a typewriter," he remarked, still regarding the note through the lens of a hand-glass. "Almost any one would have used a machine. That would have been due to the erroneous idea that typewriting cannot be detected. The fact is that the typewriter is perhaps a worse means of concealing identity than is disguised handwriting, especially printing like this. It doesn't afford the effective protection to the criminal that one supposes. On the contrary, the typewriting of such a note may be the direct means by which it can be traced to its source. We can determine what kind of machine it was done with, then what particular machine was used can be identified." He paused and indicated a number of little instruments which he had taken from a drawer and laid on the table, as he tore off a bit of the corner of the sheet of paper and examined it. "There is one thing I can do now, though," he continued. "I can study the quality of the paper in this sheet. If it were only torn like those warnings we have already received, it might perhaps be mated with another piece as accurately as if the act had been performed before our eyes." He picked up a little instrument with a small curved arm and a finely threaded screw that brought the two flat surfaces of the arm and the end of the screw together. "There is no such good fortune in this case, however," he resumed, placing the paper between the two small arms. "But by measurements made by this vernier micrometer caliper I can find the precise thickness of the paper as compared to the other samples." He turned to a microscope and placed the corner of the paper under it. Then he drew from the drawer the four scraps of paper which had already been sent to us, as well as a pile of photographs. "Under ordinary circumstances," he explained, "I should think that what I am doing would be utterly valueless as a clue to anything. But we are reduced to the minutiae in this affair. And to-day science is not ready to let anything pass as valueless." He continued to look at the various pieces of paper under the microscope. "I find under microscopic examination," he went on, addressing Inez, but not looking up from the eye-piece as he shifted the papers, "that the note you have received, Senorita Mendoza, is written on a rather uncommon linen bond paper. Later I shall take a number of microphotographs of it. I have here, also, about a hundred microphotographs of the fibres in other kinds of paper, many of them bonds. These I have accumulated from time to time in my study of the subject. None of them, as you can see, shows fibres resembling this one in question, so that we may conclude that it is of uncommon quality. "Here I have the fibres, also, of four pieces of paper that have already figured in the case. These four correspond, as well as the indentures of the torn edges. As for the fibres, lest you should question the accuracy of the method, I may say that I know of a case where a man in Germany was arrested, charged with stealing a government bond. He was not searched until later. There was no evidence, save that after the arrest a large number of spitballs were found around the courtyard under his cell window. This method of comparing the fibres of the regular government paper was used, and by it the man was convicted of stealing the bond. I think it is unnecessary to add that in the present case I can see definitely that not only the four pieces of paper that bore warnings to us were the same kind, but that this whole sheet, with its anonymous warning to you, is also the same." Inez Mendoza looked at Kennedy as though he possessed some weird power. Her face, which had already been startled into an expression of fear at his mention of Lockwood, now was pale. "Other warnings?" she repeated tremulously. Quickly Kennedy explained what had already happened to us, watching the effect on her as he read of the curse of Mansiche and the Gold of the Gods. "Oh," she cried, mastering her emotion with a heroic effort, "I wish my father had never become mixed up in the business. Ever since I was a little girl I have heard these vague stories of the big fish and the little fish, the treasure, and the curse. But I never thought they were anything but fairy tales. You remember, when I first saw you, I did not even tell them to you." "Yes," returned Kennedy. "I remember. But had you no other reason? Did you, down in your heart, think them really fairy tales?" She shuddered. "Perhaps not," she murmured. "But I have heard enough of you detectives to know that you do not think a woman's fears exactly evidence." "Still they might lead to evidence," suggested Kennedy. She looked at him, more startled than ever, for already he had given her a slight exhibition of his powers. "Mr. Kennedy," she exclaimed, "I am positively afraid of you, afraid that every little thing I do may lead to something I don't intend." There was a frankness about the remark that would have been flattering from a man, but from her excited sympathy. "No," she went on, "I have nothing tangible--only my feelings. I fear I must admit that my father had enemies, though who they are I cannot tell you. No, it is all in my heart--not in my head. There are those whom I dislike--and there are those whom I like and trust. You may call me foolish, but I cannot help trusting--Mr. Lockwood." She had not meant to say his name, and Kennedy and I looked at her in surprise. "You see?" she continued. "Every time I talk I say something, convey some impression that is the opposite of what I wish. Oh--what shall I do? Have I no one to trust?" She was crying. "You may trust me, Senorita," said Kennedy, in a low tone, pausing before her. "At least I have no other interest than finding the truth and helping you. There--there. We have had enough to-day. I cannot ask you to try to forget what has happened. That would be impossible. But I can ask you, Senorita, to have faith--faith that it will all turn out better, if you will only trust me. When you feel stronger--then come to me. Tell me your fears--or not--whichever does you the most good. Only keep your mind from brooding. Face it all as you know your father would have you do." Kennedy's words were soothing. He seemed to know that tears were the safety-valve she needed. "Mr. Jameson will see that you get home safely in a taxicab," he continued. "You can trust him as you would myself." I can imagine circumstances under which I would have enjoyed escorting Inez to her home, but today was not one of the times. Yet she seemed so helpless, so grateful for everything we did for her that I did not need even the pressure of her little hand as she hurried into the apartment from the car with a hasty word of thanks. "You will tell Mr. Kennedy--you will both be--so careful?" she hesitated before leaving me. I assured her that we would, wondering what she might fear for us, as I drove away again. There did not happen to be any of the newspaper men about at the time, and I did not stop. Back in the laboratory, I found Kennedy arranging something under the rug at the door as I came up the hall. "Don't step there, Walter," he cautioned. "Step over the rug. I'm expecting visitors. How was she when she arrived home?" I told him of her parting injunction. "Not bad advice," he remarked. "I think there's a surprise back of those warnings. They weren't sent just for effect." He had closed the door, and we were standing by the table, looking at the letters, when we heard a noise at the door. It was Norton again. "I've been thinking of what you told me last night," he explained, before Kennedy had a chance to tell him to step over the rug. "Has anything else happened?" Kennedy tossed over the anonymous letter, and Norton read it eagerly. "Whom does it mean?" he asked, quickly glancing up, then adding, "It might mean any of us who are trying to help her." "Exactly," returned Kennedy. "Or it might be Lockwood, or even de Moche. By the way, you know the young man pretty well, don't you? I wonder if you could find him anywhere about the University this morning and persuade him to visit me?" "I will try," agreed Norton. "But these people are so very suspicious just now that I can't promise." Norton went out a few minutes later to see what he could do to locate Alfonso, and Kennedy replaced another blank sheet of paper for that under the rug on which Norton had stepped before we could warn him. No sooner had he gone than Kennedy reached for the telephone and called Whitney's office. Lockwood was there, as he had hoped, and, after a short talk, promised to drop in on us later in the morning. It was fully half an hour before Norton returned, having finally found Alfonso. De Moche entered the laboratory with a suspicious glance about, as though he thought something might have been planted there for him. "I had a most interesting talk with your mother yesterday," began Kennedy, endeavouring by frankness to put the young man at ease. "And this morning, already, Senorita Mendoza has called on me." De Moche was all attention at the words. But before he could say anything Kennedy handed him the anonymous letter. He read it, and his face clouded as he handed it back. "You have no idea who could have sent such a note?" queried Craig, "or to whom it might refer?" He glanced at Norton, then at us. It was clear that some sort of suspicion had flashed over him. "No," he said quickly, "I know no one who could have sent it." "But whom does it mean?" asked Kennedy, holding him to the part that he avoided. The young man shrugged his shoulders. "She has many friends," he answered simply. "Yes," persisted Kennedy, "but few against whom she might be warned in this way. You do not think it is Professor Norton, for instance--or myself?" "Oh, no, no--hardly," he replied, then stopped, realizing that he had eliminated all but Lockwood, Whitney, and himself. "It could not be Mr. Lockwood?" demanded Craig. "Who sent it?" he asked, looking up. "No--whom it warns against." De Moche had known what Kennedy meant, but had preferred to postpone the answer. It was native never to come to the point unless he was forced to do so. He met our eyes squarely. He had not the penetrating power that his mother possessed, yet his was a sharp faculty of observation. "Mr. Lockwood is very friendly with her," he admitted, then seemed to think something else necessary to round out the idea. "Mr. Kennedy, I might have told her the same myself. Senorita Mendoza has been a very dear friend--for a long time." I had been so used to having him evasive that now I did not exactly know what to make of such a burst of confidence. It was susceptible of at least two interpretations. Was he implying that it was sent to cast suspicion on him, because he felt that way himself or because he himself was her friend? "There have been other warnings," pursued Kennedy, "both to myself and Mr. Jameson, as well as Professor Norton and Dr. Leslie. Surely you must have some idea of the source." De Moche shook his head. "None that I can think of," he replied. "Have you asked my mother?" "Not yet," admitted Kennedy. De Moche glanced at his watch. "I have a lecture at this hour," he remarked, evidently glad of an excuse to terminate the interview. As he left, Kennedy accompanied him to the door, careful himself to step over the mat. "Hello, what's new?" we heard a voice in the hall. It was Lockwood, who had come up from downtown. Catching sight of de Moche, however, he stopped short. The two young men met face to face. Between them passed a glance of unconcealed hostility, then each nodded stiffly. De Moche turned to Kennedy as he passed down the hall. "Perhaps it may have been sent to divert suspicion--who can tell?" he whispered. Kennedy nodded appreciatively, noting the change. At the sound of Lockwood's voice both Norton and I had taken a step further after them out into the hall, Norton somewhat in advance. As de Moche disappeared for his lecture, Kennedy turned to me from Lockwood and caught my eye. I read in his glance that fell from me to the mat that he wished me quietly to abstract the piece of paper which he had placed under it. I bent down and did so without Lockwood seeing me. "Why was he here?" demanded Lockwood, with just a trace of defiance in his voice, as though he fancied the meeting had been framed. "I have been showing this to every one who might help me," returned Kennedy, going back into the laboratory after giving me an opportunity to dispose of the shoe-prints. He handed the anonymous letter and the other warnings to the young soldier of fortune, with a brief explanation. "Why don't they come out into the open, whoever they are?" commented Lockwood, laying the papers down carelessly again on the table. "I'll meet them--if they mean me." "Who?" asked Kennedy. Lockwood faced Norton and ourselves. "I'm not a mind reader," he said significantly. "But it doesn't take much to see that some one wants to throw a brick at me. When I have anything to say I say it openly. Inez Mendoza without friends just now would be a mark, wouldn't she?" His strong face and powerful jaw were set in a menacing scowl. He would be a bold man who would have come between Lockwood and the lady under the circumstances. "You are confident of Mr. Whitney?" inquired Kennedy. "Ask Norton," replied Lockwood briefly. "He knew him long before I did." Norton smiled quietly. "Mr. Kennedy should know what my opinion of Mr. Whitney is, I think," replied Norton confidently. "I trust that you will succeed in running these blackmailers down," pursued Lockwood, still standing. "If I did not have more than I can attend to already since the murder of Mendoza I'd like to take a hand myself. It begins to look to me, after reading that letter, as though there was nothing too low for them to attempt. I shall keep this latest matter in mind. If either Mr. Whitney or myself get any hint, we'll turn it over to you." Norton left shortly after Lockwood, and Kennedy again picked up the letter and scanned it. "I could learn something, I suppose, if I analyzed this printing," he considered, "but it is a tedious process. Let me see that envelope again. H-m, postmarked by the uptown sub-station, mailed late last night. Whoever sent it must have done so not very far from us here. Lockwood seemed to take it as though it applied to himself very readily, didn't he? Much more so than de Moche. Only for the fact that the fibres show it to be on paper similar to the first warnings, I might have been inclined to doubt whether this was bona fide. At least, the sender must realize now that it has produced no appreciable effect--if any was intended." Kennedy's last remark set me thinking. Could some one have sent the letter not to produce the effect apparently intended, but with the ultimate object of diverting suspicion from himself? Lockwood, at least, had not seemed to take the letter very seriously. X THE X-RAY READER "I think I'll pay another visit to Whitney, in spite of all that Norton and Lockwood say about him," remarked Kennedy, considering the next step he would take in his investigation. Accordingly, half an hour later we entered his Wall Street office, where we were met by a clerk, who seemed to remember us. "Mr. Whitney is out just at present," he said, "but if you will be seated I think I can reach him by telephone." As we sat in the outer office while the clerk telephoned from Whitney's own room the door opened and the postman entered and laid some letters on a table near us. Kennedy could not help seeing the letter on top of the pile, and noticed that it bore a stamp from Peru. He picked it up and read the postmark, "Lima," and the date some weeks previous. 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 with a nod of his head to himself, as though settling some qualm of conscience, shoved the letter into his pocket. A moment later the clerk returned. "I've just had Mr. Whitney on the wire," he reported. "I don't think he'll be back at least for an hour." "Is he at the Prince Edward Albert?" asked Craig. "I don't know," returned the clerk, oblivious to the fact that we must have seen that in order to know the telephone number he must have known whether Mr. Whitney was there or elsewhere. "I shall come in again," rejoined Kennedy, as we bowed ourselves out. Then to me he added, "If he is with Senora de Moche and they are at the Edward Albert, I think I can beat him back with this letter if we hurry." A few minutes later, in his laboratory, Kennedy set to work quickly over an X-ray apparatus. As I watched him, I saw that 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 several minutes, then took the letter out and handed it to me. "Now, Walter," he said brusquely, "if you will just hurry back down there to Whitney's office 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. At least I can postpone seeing Whitney himself for a while." I made the trip down again as rapidly as I could. Whitney was not back when I arrived, but the clerk was there, and I could not very well just leave the letter on the table again. "Mr. Kennedy would like to know when he can see Mr. Whitney," I said, on the spur of the moment. "Can't you call him up again?" The clerk, as I had anticipated, went into Whitney's office to telephone. Instead of laying the letter on the table, which might have excited suspicion, I stuck it in the letter slot of the door, thinking that perhaps they might imagine that it had caught there when the postman made his rounds. A moment later the clerk returned. "Mr. Whitney is on his way down now," he reported. I thanked him, and said that Kennedy would call him up when he arrived, congratulating myself on the good luck I had had in returning the letter. "What is it?" I asked, a few minutes later, when I had rejoined Craig in the laboratory. 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, Dr. 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 easily radiographed." I looked carefully as he traced out something on the queer negative. On it, 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. "It seems incredible," I exclaimed, scarcely believing what I actually saw. "It is almost like second sight." Kennedy smiled. "Any letter written with ink having a mineral base can be radiographed," he added. "Even when the sheet is folded in the usual way, it is possible, by taking a radiograph, as I have done, stereoscopically. Then every detail can be seen 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 continued, "here's something interesting." Together we managed to trace out the contents of several paragraphs laboriously, the gist of which I give here: "LIMA, PERU. "DEAR WHITNEY: "Matters are progressing very favorably here, considering the stoppage of business due to the war. I am doing everything in my power to conserve our interests, and now and then, owing to the scarcity of money, am able to pick up a concession cheaply, which will be of immense value to us later. "However, it is not so much of business that I wish to write you at the present time. You know that my friend Senora de Moche, with her son, Alfonso, is at present in New York. Doubtless she has already called on you and tried to interest you in her own properties here. I need not advise you to be very careful in dealing with her. "The other day I heard a rumour that may prove interesting to you, regarding Norton and his work here on his last trip. As we know, he has succeeded in finding and getting out of the country an Inca dagger which, I believe, bears a very important inscription. I do not know anything definite about it, as these people are very reticent. But no doubt he has told you all about it by this time. If it should prove of value, I depend on you to let me know, so that I may act at this end accordingly. "What I am getting at is this: I understand that from rumours and remarks of the Senora she believes that Norton took an unfair advantage during her absence. What the inscription is I don't know, but from the way these people down here act one would think that they all had a proprietary interest in the relic. What it is all about I don't know. But you will find the Senora both a keen business woman and an accomplished antiquarian, if you have not already discovered it. "In regard to Lockwood and Mendoza, if we can get them in on our side, it ought to prove a winning combination. There are stories here of how de Moche has been playing on Mendoza's passions--she's thoroughly unscrupulous and Don Luis is somewhat of a Don Juan. I write this to put you on guard. Her son, Alfonso, whom you perhaps have met also, is of another type, though I have heard it said that he laid siege to Inez Mendoza in the hope of becoming allied with one of the oldest families. "Such, at least, is the gossip down here. I cannot presume to keep you posted at such a distance, but thought I had better write what is in every one's mouth. As for the inscribed dagger which Norton has taken with him, I rely on you to inform me. There seems to be a great deal of mystery connected with it, and I am unable even to hazard a guess as to its nature. Fortunately, you are on the spot "Very sincerely yours, "HAGGERTY." "So," remarked Kennedy, as he read over the translation of the skiagraph which he had jotted down as we picked out the letters and words, "that's how the land lies. Everybody seems to have appreciated the importance of the dagger." "Except Norton," I could not help putting in in disgust. "And now it's gone," he continued, "just as though some one had dropped it overboard. I believe I will keep that appointment you made for me with Whitney, after all." Thus it happened that I found myself a third time entering Whitney's building. I was about to step into the elevator, when Kennedy tugged at my arm and pulled me back. "Hello, Norton," I heard him say, as I turned and caught sight of the archaeologist just leaving an elevator that had come down. Norton's face plainly showed that he was worried. "What the matter?" asked Kennedy, putting the circumstances together. "What has Whitney been doing?" Norton seemed reluctant to talk, but having no alternative motioned to us to step aside in the corridor. "It's the first time I've talked with him since the dagger was stolen--that is, about the loss," he said nervously. "He called me up half an hour ago and asked me to come down." I looked at Kennedy significantly. Evidently it must have been just after his return to the office and receipt of the letter which I had stuck in the letter slot. "He was very angry over something," continued Norton. "I'm sure it was not my fault if the dagger was stolen, and I'm sure that managing an expedition in that God-forsaken country doesn't give you time to read every inscription, especially when it is almost illegible, right on the spot. There was work enough for months that I brought back, along with that. Sometimes Whitney's unreasonable." "You don't think he could have known something about the dagger all along?" ventured Craig. Norton puckered his eyes. "He never said anything," he replied. "If he had asked me to drop other things for that, why, of course, I would have done so. We can't afford to lose him as a contributor to the exploration fund. Confound it--I'm afraid I've put my foot in it this time." Kennedy said nothing, and Norton continued, growing more excited: "Everybody's been talking to Whitney, telling him all kinds of things--Lockwood, the de Moches, heaven knows who else. Why don't they come out and face me? I've a notion to try to carry on my work independently. Nothing plays hob with scholarship like money. You'd think he owned me body and soul, and the collection, too, if you heard him talk. Why, he accused me of carelessness in running the Museum, and heaven knows I'm not the curator--I'm not even the janitor!" Norton was excited, but I could not help feeling that he was also relieved. "I've been preparing for the time when I'd have to cut loose," he went on finally. "Now, I suppose it is coming. Ah, well, perhaps it will be better--who can tell? I may not do so much, but it will all be mine, with no strings attached. Perhaps, after all, it is for the best." Talking over his troubles seemed to do Norton some good, for I am sure that he left us in a better frame of mind than we had found him. Kennedy wished him good-luck, and we again entered the lift. We found Whitney in an even greater state of excitement than Norton had been. I am sure that if it had been any one else than Kennedy he would have thrown him out, but he seemed to feel that he must control himself in our presence. "What do you know about that fellow Norton, up at your place?" he demanded, almost before we had seated ourselves. "A very hard-working, ambitious man his colleagues tell me," returned Kennedy, purposely I thought, as if it had been a red rag flaunted before a bull. "Hard-working--yes," bellowed Whitney. "He has worked me hard. I send him down to Peru--yes, I put up most of the money. Then what does he do? Just kids me along, makes me think he's accomplishing a whole lot--when he's actually so careless as to let himself be robbed of what he gets with my money. I tell you, you can't trust anybody. They all double-cross you. I swear, I think Lockwood and I ought to go it alone. I'm glad I found that fellow out. Let himself be robbed--a fine piece of work! Why, that fellow couldn't see through a barn door--after the horse was stolen," he concluded, mixing his metaphors in his anger. "Evidently some one has been telling you something," remarked Kennedy. "We tried to see you twice this morning, but couldn't find you." His tone was one calculated to impress Whitney with the fact that he had been watching and had some idea of where he really was. Whitney shot a sharp glance at Craig, whose face betrayed nothing. "Ambitious--I should say so," repeated Whitney, reverting to Norton to cover up this new change of the subject. "Well--let him be ambitious. We can get along without him. I tell you, Kennedy, no one is indispensable. There is always some way to get along--if you can't get over an obstacle, you can get around it. I'll dispense with Mr. Norton. He's an expensive luxury, anyhow. I'm just as well satisfied." There was real vexation in Whitney's voice, yet as he talked he, too, seemed to cool down. I could not help thinking that both Norton and Whitney were perhaps just a bit glad at the break. Had both of them got out of each other all that they wanted--Norton his reputation and Whitney--what? He cooled down so rapidly now that almost I began to wonder whether his anger had been genuine. Did he know more about the dagger than appeared? Was this his cover--to disown Norton? "It seems to me that Senora de Moche is ambitious for her son, too," remarked Kennedy, tenaciously trying to force the conversation into the channel he chose. "How's that?" demanded Whitney, narrowing his eyes down into a squint at Kennedy's face, a proceeding that served by contrast to emphasize the abnormal condition of the pupils which I had already noticed both in his eyes and Lockwood's. "I don't think she'd object to having him marry into one of the leading families in Peru," ventured Kennedy, paraphrasing what we had already read in the letter. "Perhaps Senorita Mendoza herself can be trusted to see to that," Whitney replied with a quick laugh. "To say nothing of Mr. Lockwood," suggested Craig. Whitney looked at him quizzically, as though in doubt just how much this man knew. "Senora de Moche puzzles me," went on Kennedy. "I often wonder whether superstition or greed would rule her if it came to the point in this matter of the Gold of the Gods, as they all seem to call the buried treasure at Truxillo. She's a fascinating woman, but I can't help feeling that with her one is always playing with fire." Whitney eyed us knowingly. I had long ago taken his measure as a man quite susceptible to a pretty face, especially if accompanied by a well-turned ankle. "I never discuss politics during business hours," he laughed, with a self-satisfied air. "You will excuse me? I have some rather important letters that I must get off." Kennedy rose, and Whitney walked to the door with us, to call his stenographer. We had scarcely said good-bye and were about to open the outer door when it was pushed open from outside, and Lockwood bustled in. "No more anonymous letters, I hope?" he queried, in a tone which I could not determine whether serious or sarcastic. Kennedy answered in the negative. "Not unless you have one." "I? I rather think the ready letter-writers know better than to waste time on me. That little billet doux seems to have quite upset the Senorita, though. I don't know how many times she has called me up to see if I was all right. I begin to think that whoever wrote it has done me a good turn, after all." Lockwood did not say it in a boastful way, but one could see that he was greatly pleased at the solicitude of Inez. "She thinks it referred to you, then?" asked Kennedy. "Evidently," he replied; then added, "I won't say but that I have taken it seriously, too." He slapped his hip pocket. Under the tail of his coat bulged a blue-steel automatic. "You still have no idea who could have sent it, or why?" Lockwood shook his head. "Whoever he is, I'm ready," he replied grimly, bowing us out. XI THE SHOE-PRINTS "I'm afraid we've neglected the Senorita a bit, in our efforts to follow up what clues we have in the case," remarked Kennedy, as we rode uptown again. "She needs all the protection we can give her. I think we'd better drop around there, now that she is pretty likely to be left alone." Accordingly, instead of going back to the laboratory, we dropped off near the apartment of the Mendozas and walked over from the subway. As we turned the corner, far down the long block I could see the entrance to the apartment. "There she is now," I said to Kennedy, catching sight of her familiar figure, clad in sombre black, as she came down the steps. "I wonder where she can be going." She turned at the foot of the steps and, as chance would have it, started in the opposite direction from us. "Let us see," answered Kennedy, quickening his pace. She had not gone very far before a man seemed to spring up from nowhere and meet her. He bowed, and walked along beside her. "De Moche," recognized Kennedy. Alfonso had evidently been waiting in the shadow of an entrance down the street, perhaps hoping to see her, perhaps as our newspaper friend had seen before, to watch whether Lockwood was among her callers. As we walked along, we could see the little drama with practically no fear of being seen, so earnestly were they talking. Even during the few minutes that the Senorita was talking with him no one would have needed to be told that she really had a great deal of regard for him, whatever might be her feelings toward Lockwood. "I should say that she wants to see him, yet does not want to see him," observed Kennedy, as we came closer. She seemed now to have become restive and impatient, eager to cut the conversation short. It was quite evident at the same time that Alfonso was deeply in love with her, that though she tried to put him off he was persistent. I wondered whether, after all, some of the trouble had not been that during his lifetime the proud old Castilian Don Luis could never have consented to the marriage of his daughter to one of Indian blood. Had he left a legacy of fear of a love forbidden by race prejudice? In any event, the manner of Alfonso's actions about the Mendoza apartment was such that one could easily imagine his feelings toward Lockwood, whom he saw carrying off the prize under his very eyes. As for his mother, the Senora, we had already seen that Peruvians of her caste were also a proud old race. Her son was the apple of her eye. Might not some of her feelings be readily accounted for? Who were these to scorn her race, her family? We had walked along at a pace that finally brought us up with them. As Kennedy and I bowed, Alfonso seemed at first to resent our intrusion, while Inez seemed rather to welcome it as a diversion. "Can we not expect you?" the young man repeated. "It will be only for a few minutes this afternoon, and my mother has something of very great importance to tell." He was half pleading, half apologizing. Inez glanced hastily around at Kennedy, uncertain what to say, and hoping that he might indicate some course. Surreptitiously, Kennedy nodded an affirmative. "Very well, then," she replied reluctantly, not to seem to change what had been her past refusal too suddenly. "I may ask Professor Kennedy, too?" He could scarcely refuse before us. "Of course," he agreed, quickly turning to us. "We were speaking about meeting this afternoon at four in the tea room of the Prince Edward. You can come?" Though the invitation was not over-gracious, Kennedy replied, "We should be delighted to accompany Miss Inez, I am sure. We happened to be passing this way and thought we would stop in to see if anything new had happened. Just as we turned the corner we saw you disappearing down the street, and followed. I trust everything is all right?" "Nothing more has happened since this morning," she returned, with a look that indicated she understood that Kennedy referred to the anonymous letter. "I had a little shopping to do. If you will excuse me, I think I will take a car. This afternoon--at four." She nodded brightly as we assisted her into a taxicab and left us three standing there on the curb. For a moment it was rather awkward. To Alfonso her leaving was somewhat as though the sun had passed under a cloud. "Are you going up toward the University?" inquired Kennedy. "Yes," responded the young man reluctantly. "Then suppose we walk. It would take only a few more minutes," suggested Kennedy. Alfonso could not very well refuse, but started off at a brisk pace. "I suppose these troubles interfere seriously with your work," pursued Craig, as we fell into his stride. "Yes," he admitted, "although much of my work just now is only polishing off what I have already learned--getting your American point of view and methods. You see, I have had an idea that the canal will bring both countries into much closer relations than before. And if you will not learn of us, we must learn of you." "It is too bad we Americans don't take more interest in the countries south of us," admitted Craig. "I think you have the right idea, though. Such men as Mr. Whitney are doing their best to bring the two nations closer together." I watched the effect of the mention of Whitney's name. It seemed distasteful, only in a lesser degree than Lockwood's. "We do not need to be exploited," he ventured. "My belief is that we should not attract capital in order to take things out of the country. If we might keep our own earnings and transform them into capital, it would be better. That is why I am doing what I am at the University." I could not believe that it explained the whole reason for his presence in New York. Without a doubt the girl who had just left us weighed largely in his mind, as well as his and his mother's ambitions, both personal and for Peru. "Quite reasonable," accepted Kennedy. "Peru for the Peruvians. Yet there seems to be such untold wealth in the country that taking out even quite large sums would not begin to exhaust the natural resources." "But they are ours, they belong to us," hastened de Moche, then caught the drift of Kennedy's remarks, and was on his guard. "Buried treasure, like that which you call the Gold of the Gods, is always fascinating," continued Kennedy. "The trouble with such easy money, however, is that it tends to corrupt. In the early days history records its taint. And I doubt whether human nature has changed much under the veneer of modern civilization. The treasure seems to leave its trail even as far away as New York. It has at least one murder to its credit already." "There has been nothing but murder and robbery from the time that the peje chica was discovered," asserted the young man sadly. "You are quite right." "Truly it would seem to have been cursed," added Craig. "The spirit of Mansiche must, indeed, watch over it. I suppose you know of the loss of the old Inca dagger from the University Museum and that it was that with which Don Luis was murdered?" It was the first time Kennedy had broached the subject to de Moche, and I watched closely to see what was its effect. "Perhaps it was a warning," commented Alfonso, in a solemn tone, that left me in doubt whether it was purely superstitious dread or in the nature of a prophecy of what might be expected from some quarter of which we were ignorant. "You have known of the existence of the dagger always, I presume," continued Kennedy. "Have you or any one you know ever sought to discover its secret and search it out?" "I think my mother told you we never dig for treasure," he answered. "It would be sacrilegious. Besides, there is more treasure buried by nature than that dedicated to the gods. There is only one trouble that may hurt our natural resources--the get-rich-quick promoter. I would advise looking out for him. He flourishes in a newly opened country like Peru. That curse, I suppose, is much better understood by Americans than the curse of Mansiche. But as for me, you must remember that the curse is part of my religion, as it were." We had reached the campus by this time, and parted at the gate, each to go his way. "You will drop in on me if you hear anything?" invited Craig. "Yes," promised Alfonso. "We shall see you at four." With this parting reminder he turned toward the School of Mines while we debouched off toward the Chemistry Building. "The de Moches are nobody's tools," I remarked. "That young man seems to have a pretty definite idea of what he wants to do." "At least he puts it so before us," was all that Kennedy would grant. "He seems to be as well informed of what passed at that visit to the Senora as though he had been there too." We had scarcely opened the laboratory door when the ringing of the telephone told us that some one had been trying to get in touch for some time. "It was Norton," said Kennedy, hanging up the receiver. "I imagine he wants to know what happened after we left him and went up to see Whitney." That was, in fact, just what Norton wanted, as well as to make clear to us how he felt on the subject. "Really, Kennedy," he remarked, "it must be fine to feel that your chair in the University is endowed rather than subsidized. You saw how Whitney acted, you say. Why, he makes me feel as if I were his hired man, instead of head of the University's expedition. I'm glad it's over. Still, if you could find that dagger and have it returned it might look better for me. You have no clue, I suppose?" "I'm getting closer to one," replied Craig confidently, though on what he could base any optimism I could not see. The same idea seemed to be in Norton's mind. "You think you will have something tangible soon?" he asked eagerly. "I've had more slender threads than these to work on," reassured Kennedy. "Besides, I'm getting very little help from any of you. You yourself, Norton, at the start left me a good deal in the dark over the history of the dagger." "I couldn't do otherwise," he defended. "You understand now, I guess, how I have always been tied, hand and foot, by the Whitney influence. You'll find that I can be of more service, now." "Just how did you get possession of the dagger?" asked Kennedy, and there flashed over me the recollection of the story told by the Senora, as well as the letter which we had purloined. "Just picked it up from an Indian who had an abnormal dislike to work. They said he was crazy, and I guess perhaps he was. At any rate, he later drowned himself in the lake, I have heard." "Could he have been made insane, do you think?" ruminated Craig. "It's possible that he was the victim of somebody, I understand. The insanity might have been real enough without the cause being natural." "That's an interesting story," returned Norton. "Offhand, I can't seem to recall much about the fellow, although some one else might have known him very well." Evidently he either did not know the tale as well as the Senora, or was not prepared to take us entirely into his confidence. "Who is Haggerty?" asked Craig, thinking of the name signed to the letter we had read. "An agent of Whitney and his associates, who manages things in Lima," explained Norton. "Why?" "Nothing--only I have heard the name and wondered what his connection might be. I understand better now." Kennedy seemed to be anxious to get to work on something, and, after a few minutes, Norton left us. No sooner had the door closed than he took the glass-bell jar off his microscope and drew from a table drawer several scraps of paper on which I recognized the marks left by the carbon sheets. He set to work on another of those painstaking tasks of examination, and I retired to my typewriter, which I had moved into the next room, in order to leave Kennedy without anything that might distract attention from his work. One after another he examined the sheets which he had marked, starting with a hand-lens and then using one more powerful. At the top of the table lay the specially prepared paper on which he had caught and preserved the marks in the dust of the Egyptian sarcophagus in the Museum. Besides these things, I noticed that he had innumerable photographs, many of which were labelled with the stamp of the bureau in the Paris Palais de Justice, over which Bertillon had presided. One after another he looked at the carbon prints, comparing them point by point with the specially prepared copy of the shoe-prints in the sarcophagus. It was, after all, a comparatively simple job. We had the prints of de Moche and Lockwood, as well as Whitney, all of them crossed by steps from Norton. "Well, what do you think of that?" I heard him mutter. I quit my typewriter, with a piece of paper still in it, and hurried into the main room. "Have you found anything?" "I should say I had," he replied, in a tone that betrayed his own astonishment at the find. "Look at that," he indicated to me, handing over one of the sheets. "Compare it with this Museum foot-print." With his pencil Kennedy rapidly indicated the tell-tale points of similarity on the two shoe-prints. I looked up at him, convinced now of some one's identity. "Who was it?" I asked, unable to restrain myself longer. Kennedy paused a minute, to let the importance of the surprise be understood. "The man who entered the Museum and concealed himself in the sarcophagus in the Egyptian section adjoining Norton's treasures," replied Kennedy slowly, "was Lockwood himself!" XII THE EVIL EYE Completely at sea as a result of the unexpected revelation of the shoe-prints we had found in the Museum, and with suspicions now thoroughly aroused against Lockwood, I accompanied Kennedy to keep our appointment with the Senorita at the Prince Edward Albert. We were purposely a bit early, in order to meet Inez, so that she would not have to be alone with the Senora, and we sat down in the lobby in a little angle from which we could look into the tea room. We had not been sitting there very long when Kennedy called my attention to Whitney, who had just come in. Almost at the same time he caught sight of us, and walked over. "I've been thinking a good deal of your visit to me just now," he began, seating himself beside us. "Perhaps I should not have said what I did about your friend Norton. But I couldn't help it. I guess you know something about that dagger he lost, don't you?" "I have heard of the 'great fish' and the 'little fish' and the 'curse of Mansiche,'" replied Kennedy, "if that is what you mean. Somehow the Inca dagger seems to have been mixed up with them." "Yes--with the peje grande, I believe," went on Whitney. Beneath his exterior of studied calm I could see that he was very much excited. If I had not already noted a peculiar physical condition in him, I might have thought he had stopped in the cafe with some friends too long. But his eyes were not those of a man who has had too much to drink. Just then Senorita Mendoza entered, and Kennedy rose and went forward to greet her. She saw Whitney, and flashed an inquiring glance at us. "We were waiting for Senorita Mendoza," explained Kennedy to both Whitney and her, "when Mr. Whitney happened along. I don't see Senora de Moche in the tea room. Perhaps we may as well sit out here in the corridor until she comes." It was evidently his desire to see how Whitney and Inez would act, for this was the first time we had ever seen them together. "We were talking of the treasure," resumed Whitney, omitting to mention the dagger. "Kennedy, we are not the only ones who have sought the peje grande, or rather are seeking it. But we are, I believe, the only ones who are seeking it in the right place, and," he added, leaning over confidentially, "your father, Senorita, was the only one who could have got the concession, the monopoly, from the government to seek in what I am convinced will be the right place. Others have found the 'little fish.' We shall find the 'big fish.'" He had raised his voice from the whisper, and I caught Inez looking anxiously at Kennedy, as much as to say, "You see? He is like the rest. His mind is full of only one subject." "We shall find it, too," he continued, still speaking in a high-pitched key, "no matter what obstacles man or devil put in our way. It shall be ours--for a simple piece of engineering--ours! The curse of Mansiche--pouf!" He snapped his fingers defiantly as he said it. There was an air of bravado about his manner. I could not help feeling that perhaps in his heart he was not so sure of himself as he would have others think. I watched him closely, and could see that he had suddenly become even more excited than before. It was as though some diabolical force had taken possession of his brain, and he fought it off, but was unable to conquer. Kennedy followed the staring glance of Whitney's eyes, which seemed almost to pop out of his head, as though he were suffering from the disease exophthalmic goitre. I looked also. Senora de Moche had come from the elevator, accompanied by Alfonso, and was walking slowly down the corridor. As she looked to the right and left, she had caught sight of our little group, all except Whitney, with our backs toward her. She was now looking fixedly in our direction, paying no attention to anything else. Whitney was a study. I wondered what could be the relations between these two, the frankly voluptuous woman and the calculating full-blooded man. Whitney, for his part, seemed almost fascinated by her gaze. He rose as she bowed, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his "Imp of the Perverse." For, clearly, one who talked as Whitney had just been talking would have to be on his guard with that woman. Instead, however, he returned her nod and stood still, while Kennedy bowed at a distance and signalled to her that we would be in the tea room directly. I glanced up in time to see the anxious look on the face of Inez change momentarily into a flash of hatred toward the Senora. At the same moment Alfonso, who was on the other side of his mother, turned from looking at a newsstand which had attracted his attention and caught sight of us. There was no mistaking the ardent glance which he directed at the fair Peruvian at my side. I fancied, too, that her face softened a bit. It was only for a moment, and then Inez resumed her normal composure. "I won't detain you any longer," remarked Whitney. "Somehow, when I start to talk about my--our plans down there at Truxillo I could go on all night. It is marvellous, marvellous. We haven't any idea of what the future holds in store. No one else in all this big city has anything like the prospect which is before us. Gradually we are getting everything into shape. When we are ready to go ahead, it will be the sensation of Wall Street--and, believe me, it takes much to arouse the Street." He may have been talking wildly, but it was worth while to listen to him. For, whatever else he was, Whitney was one of the most persuasive promoters of the day. More than that, I could well imagine how any one possessed of an imagination susceptible to the influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering charm of the magic words, peje chica, and feel all the gold-hunter's enthusiasm when Whitney brought him into the atmosphere of the peje grande. As he talked, visions of hidden treasure seemed to throw a glamour over everything. One saw golden. "You will excuse us?" apologized Kennedy, taking Inez by the arm. "If you are about, Mr. Whitney, I shall stop to chat with you again on the way out." "Remember--she is a very remarkable woman," said Whitney, as we left him and started for the tea room. His tone was not exactly one of warning, yet it seemed to have cost him an effort to say it. I could not reconcile it with any other idea than that he was trying to use her in his own plans, but was still in doubt of the outcome. We parted from him and entered the darkened tea room, with its wicker tables and chairs, and soft lights, glowing pinkly, to simulate night in the broad light of afternoon outside. A fountain splashed soothingly in the centre. Everything was done to lend to the place an exotic air of romance. Alfonso and his mother had chosen a far corner, deeper than the rest in the shadows, where two wicker settees were drawn up about a table, effectually cutting off inquisitive eyes and ears. Alfonso rose as we approached and bowed deeply. I could not help watching the two women as they greeted each other. "Won't you be seated?" he asked, pulling around one of the wicker chairs. It was then that I saw how he had contrived to sit next to Inez, while Kennedy manoeuvred to sit on the end, where he could observe them all best. It was a rather delicate situation, and I wondered how Kennedy would handle it, for, although Alfonso had done the inviting, it was really Craig who was responsible for allowing Inez to accept. The Senora seemed to recognize it, also, for, although she talked to Inez, it was plain she had him in mind. "I have heard from Alfonso about the cruel death of your father," she began, in a softened tone, "and I haven't had a chance to tell you how deeply I sympathize with you. Of course, I am a much older woman than you, have seen much more trouble. But I know that never in life do troubles seem keener than when life is young. And yours has been so harsh. I could not let it pass without an opportunity to tell you how deeply I feel." She said it with an air of sincerity that was very convincing, so convincing, in fact, that it shook for the moment the long chain of suspicion that I had been forging both of her and her son. Could she be such a heartless woman as to play on the very heartstrings of one whom she had wronged? I was shaken, moreover, by the late discovery by Kennedy of the foot-prints. The Senorita murmured her thanks for the condolences in a broken voice. It was evident that whatever enmity she bore against the Senora it was not that of suspicion that she was the cause of her father's death. "I can sympathize with you the more deeply," she went on, "because only lately I have lost a very dear brother myself. Already I have told Professor Kennedy something about it. It was a matter of which I felt I must speak to you, for it may concern you, in the venture in which Mr. Lockwood and your father were associated, and into which now Mr. Whitney has entered." Inez said nothing, and Craig bowed, as though he, too, wished her to go on. "It is about the 'big fish' and the concession which your father has obtained from the government to search for it." The Senorita started and grew a bit pale at the reference, but she seemed to realize that it was something she ought to hear, and steeled herself to it. "Yes," she murmured, "I understand." "As you no doubt know," resumed the Senora, "no one has had the secret of the hiding-place. It has been by mere tradition that they were going to dig. That secret, you may know or may not know now, was in reality contained in the inscriptions on an old Inca dagger." Inez shuddered at the mention of the weapon, a shudder that was not lost on the Senora. "I have already told Professor Kennedy that both the tradition and the dagger were handed down in my own family, coming at last to my brother. As I said, I don't know how it happened, but somehow he seemed to be getting crazy, until he talked, and the dagger was stolen from him. It came finally into Professor Norton's hands, from whom it was in turn stolen." She looked at Inez searchingly, as if to discover just what she knew. I wondered whether the Senora suspected the presence of Lockwood's footprints in the sarcophagus in the Museum--what she would do if she did. "After he lost it," she continued reminiscently, "my brother threw himself one day into Lake Titicaca. Everywhere the trail of that dagger, of the secret of the Gold of the Gods has been stained by blood. To-day the world scoffs at curses. But surely that gold must be cursed. It has been cursed for us and ours." She spoke bitterly; yet might she not mean that the loss of the dagger, the secret, was a curse, too? "There is one other thing I wish to say, and then I will be through. Far back, when your ancestors came into the country of mine, an ancestor of your father lost his life over the treasure. It seems as if there were a strange fatality over it, as if the events of to-day were but living over the events of yesterday. It is something that we cannot escape--fate." She paused a moment, then added, "Yet it might be possible that the curse could be removed if somehow we, who were against each other then, might forget and be for each other now." "But Senorita Mendoza has not the dagger," put in Kennedy, watching her face keenly, to read the effect of his remark. "She has no idea where it may be." "Then it is pure tradition on which Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney depend in their search for the treasure?" flashed back the Senora quickly. Kennedy did not know, but he did not confess it. "Until we know differently, we must take their word for it," he evaded. "It was not that that I meant, however," replied Senora de Moche. "I meant that we might stop the curse by ceasing to hunt for the treasure. It has never done any one good; it never will. Why tempt fate, then? Why not pause before it is too late?" I could not quite catch the secondary implication of her plan. Did it mean that the treasure would then be left for her family? Or was she hinting at Inez accepting Alfonso's suit? Somehow I could not take the Senora at her face value. I constantly felt that there was an ulterior motive back of her actions and words. I saw Craig watching the young man's face, and followed his eyes. There was no doubt of how he took the remark. He was gazing ardently at Inez. If there had ever been any doubt of his feelings, which, of course, there had not, this would have settled it. "One thing more," added the Senora, as though she had had an afterthought, "and that is about Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney. Let me ask you to think it over. Suppose they have not the dagger. Then are their chances better than others? And if they have"--she paused to emphasize it--"what does that mean?" Kennedy had turned his attention to the Senorita. It was evident that the dilemma proposed by de Moche was not without weight. She had now coloured a flaming red. The woman had struck her in a vital spot. "Mr. Lockwood is not here to defend himself," Inez said quietly. "I will not have him attacked by innuendo." She had risen. Neither the ardour of Alfonso nor the seeds of doubt of the Senora had shaken her faith. It was a test that Kennedy evidently was glad to have witnessed. For some day she might learn the truth about the foot-prints. He understood her character better. The Senora, too, had learned that if she were to bring pressure on the girl she might break her, but she would not bend. Without another word Inez, scarcely bowing stiffly, moved out of the tea room, and we followed, leaving the mother and son there, baffled. "I hope you will pardon me for allowing you to come here," said Kennedy, in a low voice. "I did it because there are certain things that you ought to hear. It was in fairness to you. I would not have you delude yourself about Mr. Whitney, about--Mr. Lockwood, even. I want you to feel that, no matter what you hear or see, you can come to me and know that I will tell you the truth. It may hurt, but it will be best." I thought he was preparing the way for a revelation about the foot-prints, but he said nothing more. "Oh, that woman!" she exclaimed, as if to change the subject. "I do not know, I cannot say, why she affects me so. I saw a change in my father, when he knew her. I have told you how he was, how sometimes I thought he was mad. Did you notice a change in Mr. Whitney, or haven't you known him long enough? And lately I have fancied that I see the same sort of change beginning in Mr. Lockwood. At times they become so excited, their eyes seem staring, as if some fever were wasting them away. Father seemed to see strange visions, and hear voices, was worse when he was alone than when he was in a crowd. Oh, what is it? I could think of nothing else, not even what she was saying, all the time I was with her." "Then you fear that in some way she may be connected with these strange changes?" asked Kennedy. "I don't know," she temporized; but the tone of her answer was sufficient to convey the impression that in her heart she did suspect something, she knew not what. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried finally, "can't you see it? Sometimes--when she looks out of those eyes of hers--she almost makes people do as she pleases." We had come to the taxicab stand before the hotel, and Kennedy had already beckoned to a cab to take her home. As he handed her in she turned with a little shiver. "Don't please, think me foolish," she added, with bated breath, "but often I fear that it is, as we call it, the mal de ojo--the evil eye!" XIII THE POISONED CIGARETTE There was not a grain of superstition in Kennedy, yet I could see that he was pondering deeply what Inez Mendoza had just said. Was it possible that there might be something in it--not objectively, but subjectively? Might that very fear which the Senorita had of the Senora engender a feeling that would produce the very result that she feared? I knew that there were strange things that modern psychology was discovering. Could there be some scientific explanation of the evil eye? Kennedy turned and went back into the hotel, to keep his appointment with Whitney, and as he did so I reflected that, whatever credence might be given the evil-eye theory, there was something now before us that was a fact--the physical condition which Inez had observed in her father before his death, saw now in Whitney, and foresaw in Lockwood. Surely that in itself constituted enough of a problem. We found Whitney in the cafe, sitting alone in a leather-cushioned booth, and smoking furiously. I observed him narrowly. His eyes had even more than before that peculiar, staring look. By the manner in which his veins stood out I could see that his heart action must be very rapid. "Well," he remarked, as we seated ourselves, "how did you come out in your tete-a-tete?" "About as I expected," answered Kennedy nonchalantly. "I let it go on merely because I wanted Senorita Mendoza to hear certain things, and I thought that the Senora could tell them best. One of them related to the history of that dagger." I thought Whitney's eyes would pop out of his head. "What about it?" he asked. "Well," replied Kennedy briefly, "there was the story of how her brother had it and was driven crazy until he gave it up to somebody, then committed suicide by throwing himself into Titicaca. The other was the tradition that in the days after Pizarro a Mendoza was murdered by it, just as her father has now been murdered." Whitney was listening intently, and seemed to be thinking deeply of something. "Do you know," he said finally, with a nod to indicate that he knew what it was that Kennedy referred to, "I've been thinking of that de Moche woman a good deal since I left you with her. I've had some dealings with her." He looked at Kennedy shrewdly, as though he would have liked to ask whether she had said anything about him, but did not because he knew Kennedy would not tell. He was trying to figure out some other way of finding out. "Sometimes I think she is trying to double-cross me," he said, at length. "I know that when she talks to others about me she says many things that aren't so. Yet when she is with me everything is fine, and she is ready soon to join us, use her influence with influential Peruvians; in fact, there isn't anything she won't do--manana, to-morrow." All that Whitney said we now knew to be true. "She has one interesting dilemma, however, which I do not mind telling you," remarked Kennedy at length. "She cannot expect me to keep secret what she said before all of us. Inez Mendoza would mention it, anyhow." "What was that?" queried Whitney, dissembling his interest. "Why," replied Kennedy slowly, "it was that, with the plans for digging for the treasure which you say you have, suppose you and Lockwood and your associates have not the dagger--how are you better off than previous hunters? And supposing you have it--what does that imply?" Whitney thought a moment over the last proposition of the dilemma. "Imply?" he repeated slowly. Then the significance of it seemed to dawn on him, the possession of the dagger and its implication in regard to the murder of Mendoza. "Well," he answered, "we haven't the dagger. You know that. But, on the other hand, we think our plans for getting at the treasure are better than any one else has ever had, more certain of success." "Yet the possession of the dagger, with its inscription, is the only thing that absolutely insures success," observed Kennedy. "That's true enough," agreed Whitney. "Confound that man Norton. How could he be such a boob as to let the chance slip through his fingers?" "He never told you of it?" asked Kennedy. "Yes, he told me of the dagger, but hadn't read the inscription, he said," answered Whitney. "I was so busy at the time with Lockwood and Mendoza, who had the concession to dig for the treasure, that I didn't pay much attention to what Norton brought back. I thought that could wait until Lockwood had been persuaded to join the interests I represent." "Did Lockwood or Mendoza know about the dagger and its importance?" suggested Craig. "If they did, they never said anything about it," returned Whitney promptly. "Mendoza is dead. Lockwood tells me he knew nothing about it until very lately--since the murder, I suppose." "You suppose?" persisted Kennedy. "Are you sure that he knew nothing about it before?" "No," confessed Whitney, "I'm not sure. Only I say that he told me nothing of it." "Then he might have known?" "Might have. But I don't think it very probable." Whitney seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the little round table before us, rattling the glasses. "Do you know," he exclaimed, "the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Norton ought to be held to account for that loss! He ought to have known. Then the presumption is that he did know. By heaven, I'm going to have that fellow watched. I'm going to do it to-day, too. I don't trust him. He shall not double-cross me--even if that woman does!" I wondered whether Whitney was bluffing. If he was, he was making a lot of fuss over it. He talked more and more wildly, as he grew more excited over his latest idea. "I'll have detectives put on his trail," he blustered. "I'll talk it over with Lockwood. He never liked the man." "What did Lockwood say about Norton?" asked Kennedy casually. Whitney eyed us a moment. "Say," he ejaculated, "it was Norton brought you into this case, wasn't it?" "I cannot deny that," returned Kennedy quietly, meeting his eyes. "But it is Inez Mendoza now that keeps me in it." "So--you're another rival, are you?" purred Whitney sarcastically. "Lockwood and de Moche aren't enough. I have a sneaking suspicion that Norton himself is one of them. Now it's you, too. I suppose Mr. Jameson is another. Well, if I was ten years younger, I'd cut you all out, or know the reason why. Oh, YES, I think I will NOT tell you what Mr. Lockwood suspects." With every sentence the veins of Whitney's forehead stood out further, until now they were like whipcords. His eyes and face were fairly apoplectic. Slowly the conviction was forced on me. The man acted for all the world like one affected by a drug. "Well," he went on, "you may tell Norton for me that I am going to have him watched. That will throw a scare into him." At least it showed that the breach between Whitney and Norton was deep. Kennedy listened without saying much, but I knew that he was gratified. He was playing Lockwood against de Moche, the Senora against Inez. Now if Whitney would play himself against Norton, out of the tangle might emerge just the clues he needed. For when people get fighting among themselves the truth comes out. "Very well," remarked Craig, rising, with a hurried glance at Whitney's apoplectic face, "go as far as you like. I think we understand each other better, now." Whitney said nothing, but, rising also, turned on his heel and walked deliberately out of the cafe into the corridor of the Prince Edward Albert, leaving us standing there. Kennedy leaned over and swept up the ashes of Whitney's cigarettes which lay in the ash-tray, placing them, stubs and all, in an envelope, as he had done before. "We have one sample, already," he said. "Another won't hurt. You can never have too much material to work with. Let us see where he is going." Slowly we followed in the direction which Whitney had taken from the cafe. There was Whitney standing by the cigar-stand, gazing intently down the corridor. Kennedy and I moved over so that we could see what he was gazing at. Just then he started to walk hurriedly in the direction in which he was looking. "Senora de Moche!" exclaimed Craig, drawing me toward a palm. It was indeed she. She had left the tea room and gone to her own room. Now she was alighting from the elevator, and had started toward the main dining-room, when her eyes had rested on Whitney. In spite of all that he had said to us about her, he had received the glance as a signal and was fluttering over to her like a moth to a flame. What was the reason back of it all, I asked, as I thought of those wonderful eyes of hers? Was it a sort of auto-hypnotism? There was, I knew, a form of illusion known as ophthalmophobia--fear of the eye. It ranged from mere aversion at being gazed at all the way to the subjective development of real physical action from an otherwise trivial objective cause. Perhaps Inez was right about the eyes. One might fear them, and that fear might cause the precise thing to happen which the owner of the eyes intended. Still, as I reflected before, there was a much more important problem regarding eyes before us, that of the drug that was evidently being used in the cigarettes. What was it? There was no chance of our gleaning anything now from these two who made such a strange pair. Kennedy turned and went out of the nearest entrance of the hotel. "Central Park, West," he directed a cab driver, as we climbed in his machine; then to me, after giving the number, "I must see Inez Mendoza again before I can go ahead." Inez was not expecting us so soon after leaving her at the hotel, yet I think was just a little glad that we had come. "Did anything happen after I left?" she asked eagerly. "We went back and saw Mr. Whitney," returned Craig. "I believe you are right. He is acting queerly." "Alfonso called me up," she volunteered. "Was it about anything I should know?" queried Craig. "Well," she hesitated, "he said he hoped that nothing that had taken place would change our own relations. That was about all. He was the dutiful son, and made no attempt to explain anything that was said." Kennedy smiled. "You have not seen Mr. Lockwood since, I suppose?" he asked. "You always make me tell what I hadn't intended," she confessed, smiling back. "Yes, I couldn't help it. At least, I didn't see him. I called him up. I wanted to tell him what she had said and that it hadn't made any difference to me." "What did he say?" "I can't remember just how he put it, but I think he meant that it was something very much like that anonymous letter I received. We both feel that there is some one who wants to make trouble between us, and we are not going to let it happen." If she had known of Kennedy's discovery of the shoe-prints, I feel sure that, as far as we were concerned, the case would have ended there. She was in no mood to be convinced by such a thing, would probably have insisted that some one was wearing a second-hand pair of his shoes. Kennedy's eye had been travelling around the room as though searching for something. "May I have a cigarette out of that case over there?" he asked, indicating a box of them on a table. "Why--that is Mr. Lockwood's," she replied. "He left it here the last time he was here and I forgot to send it to him. Wait a minute. Let me get you some of father's." She left the room. The moment the door closed Kennedy reached over and took one from the case. "I have some of Lockwood's already, but another won't matter, as long as I can get it," he said. "I thought it was her father's. When she brings them, smoke one with me, and be careful to save the stub. I want it." A moment later she entered with a metal box that must have held several hundred. Kennedy and I each took one and lighted it, then for several minutes chatted as an excuse for staying. As for myself, I was glad enough to leave a pretty large stub, for I did not like it. These cigarettes, like those Whitney had offered us, had a peculiar flavour which I had not acquired a liking for. "You must let me know whether anything else develops from the meeting in the tea room," said Kennedy finally, rising. "I shall be at the laboratory some time, I think." XIV THE INTERFEROMETER Norton was waiting for us at the laboratory when we returned, evidently having been there some time. "I was on my way to my apartment," he began, "when I thought I'd drop in to see how things are progressing." "Slowly," returned Kennedy, throwing off his street clothes and getting into his laboratory togs. "Have you seen Whitney since I had the break with him?" asked Norton, a trifle anxiously. I wondered whether Kennedy would tell Norton what to expect from Whitney. He did not, however. "Yes," he replied, "just now we had an appointment with Senora de Moche and some others and ran into him at the hotel for a few moments." "What did he say about me?" queried Norton. "He hadn't changed his mind," evaded Kennedy. "Have you heard anything from him?" "Not a syllable. The break is final. Only I was wondering what he was telling people about me. He'll tell them something--his side of the case." "Well," considered Kennedy, as though racking his brain for some remark which he remembered, while Norton watched him eagerly, "I do recall that he was terribly sore about the loss of the dagger, and seemed to think that it was your fault." "I thought so, I knew it," replied Norton bitterly. "I can see it coming. All the trustees will hear of my gross negligence in letting the Museum be robbed. I suppose I ought to sit up there all night. Oh, by the way, there's another thing I wanted to ask you. Have you ever done anything with those shoe-prints you found in the dust of the mummy case?" I glanced at Kennedy, wondering whether he felt that the time had come to reveal what he had discovered. He said nothing for a moment, but reached into a drawer and pulled out the papers, which I recognized. "Here they are," he said, picking out the original impression which he had taken. "Yes," repeated Norton, "but have you been able to do anything toward identifying them?" "I found it rather hard to collect prints of the shoes of all of those I wished to compare. But I have them at last." "And?" demanded Norton, leaning forward tensely. "I find that there is one person whose shoe-prints are precisely the same as those we found in the Museum," went on Kennedy, tossing over the impression he had taken. Norton scanned the two carefully. "I'm not a criminologist," he said excitedly, "but to my untrained eye it does seem as though you had here a replica of the first prints, all right." He laid them down and looked squarely at Kennedy. "Do you mind telling me whose feet made these prints?" "Turn the second over. You will see the name written on it." "Lockwood!" exclaimed Norton in a gasp as he read the name. "No--you don't mean it." "I mean nothing less," repeated Kennedy firmly. "I do not say what happened afterwards, but Lockwood was in the Museum, hiding in the mummy case, that night." Norton's mind was evidently working rapidly. "I wish I had your power of deduction, Kennedy," he said, at length. "I suppose you realize what this means?" "What does it mean to you?" asked Kennedy, changing front. Norton hesitated. "Well," he replied, "it means to me, I suppose, what it means to any one who stops to think. If Lockwood was there, he got the dagger. If he had the dagger--it was he who used it!" The inference was so strong that Craig could not deny it. Whether it was his opinion or not was another matter. "It fits in with other facts, too," continued Norton. "For instance, it was Lockwood who discovered the body of Mendoza." "But the elevator boy took Lockwood up himself," objected Craig, more for the sake of promoting the discussion than to combat Norton. "Yes--when he 'discovered' the thing. But it must have been done long before. Who knows? He may have entered. The deed might have been done. He may have left. No one saw him come or go. What then more likely to cover himself up than to return when he knew that his entrance would be known, and find the thing himself?" Norton's reasoning was clever and plausible. Yet Kennedy scarcely nodded his head, one way or the other. "You were acquainted with Lockwood?" he asked finally. "I mean to say, of course, before this affair." "Yes, I met him in Lima just as I was starting out on my expedition. He was preparing to come to New York." "What did you think of him then?" "Oh, he was all right, I suppose. He wasn't the sort who would care much for an archaeologist. He cared more for a prospector going off into the hills than he did for me. And I--I admit that I am impossible. Archaeology is my life." Norton continued to study the prints. "I can hardly believe my eyes," he murmured; then he looked up suddenly. "Does Whitney know about this--or Lockwood?" Kennedy shook his head negatively. "Because," pursued Norton, "an added inference to that I spoke of would be that the reason why they are so sure that they will find the treasure is that they are not going on tradition, as they say, but on the fact itself." "A fair conclusion," agreed Craig. "I wish the break could have been postponed," continued Norton. "Then I might have been of some service in my relation to Whitney. It's too late for me to be able to help you in that direction now, however." "There is something you can do, though," said Craig. "I shall be delighted," hastened Norton. "What is it?" "You know Senora de Moche and Alfonso?" "Yes." "I wish that you would cultivate their acquaintance. I feel that they are very suspicious of me. Perhaps they may not be so with you." "Is there any special thing you want to find out?" "Yes--only I have slight hopes of doing so. You know that she is on most intimate terms with Whitney." "I'm afraid I can't do much for you, then. She'll fight shy of me. He'll tell her his story." "That will make no difference. She has already warned me against him. He has warned against her. It's a most remarkable situation. He is trying to get her into some kind of deal, yet all the time he is afraid she is double-crossing him. And at the same time he obeys her--well, like Alfonso would Inez if she'd only let him." Norton frowned. "I don't like the way they hover about Inez Mendoza," he remarked. "Perhaps the Senora is after Whitney, while her son is after Inez. Lockwood seems to be impervious to her. Yes, I'll undertake that commission for you, only I can't promise what success I'll have." Kennedy restored the shoe-prints to the drawer. "I think that's gratifying progress," went on Norton. "First we know who stole the dagger. We know that the dagger killed Mendoza. You have even determined what the poison on the blade was. It seems to me that it remains only to determine who struck the actual blow. I tell you, Kennedy, Whitney will regret the day that he ever threw me over on so trivial a pretext." Norton was pacing up and down excitedly now. "My only fear is," he went on, "what the shock of such a thing will be on that poor little girl. First her father, then Lockwood. Why--the blow will be terrible. You must be careful, Kennedy." "Never fear about that," reassured Craig. "Not a word of this has been breathed to her yet. We are a long way from fixing the guilt of the murder; inference is one thing, fact another. We must have facts. And the facts I want, which you may be able to get, relate to the strange actions of the de Moches." Norton scanned Kennedy's face for some hint of what was back of the remark. But there was nothing there. "They will bear watching, all right," he said, as he rose to go. "Old Mendoza was never quite the same after he became so intimate with her. And I think I can see a change in Whitney." "What do you attribute it to?" asked Kennedy, without admitting that it had attracted his attention, too. "I haven't the slightest idea," confessed Norton. "Inez is as afraid of her as any of the rest," remarked Kennedy thoughtfully. "She says it is the evil eye." "Not an uncommon belief among Latin-Americans," commented Norton. "In fact, I suppose there are people among us who believe in the evil eye yet. Still, you can hardly blame that little girl for believing it is almost anything. Well, I won't keep you any longer. I shall let you know of anything I find out from the de Moches. I think you are getting on remarkably." Norton left us, his face much brighter than it had been when we met him at the door. Kennedy, alone at last in the laboratory, went over to a cabinet and took out a peculiar-looking apparatus, which seemed, as nearly as I can describe it, to consist of a sort of triangular prism, set with its edge vertically on a rigid platform attached to a massive stand of brass. "Norton seems to have suddenly become quite solicitous of the welfare of Senorita Mendoza," I hazarded, as he worked over the adjustment of the thing. Kennedy smiled. "Every one seems to be--even Whitney," he returned, twisting a set-screw until he had the alignment of the various parts as he wanted it. The telephone bell rang. "Do you want to answer it?" I asked Craig. "No," he replied, not even looking up from his work. "Find out who it is. Unless it is something very important say I am out on an investigation and that you have heard from me; that I shall not be either at the laboratory or the apartment until tomorrow morning. I must get this done to-night." I took down the receiver. "Hello, is this Professor Kennedy?" I recognized a voice. "No," I replied. "Is there any message I can take?" "This is Mr. Lockwood," came back the information I had already guessed. "When do you expect him?" "It's Lockwood," I whispered to Craig, my hand over the transmitter. "See what he wants," returned Craig. "Tell him what I told you." I repeated Kennedy's message. "Well, that's too bad," replied Lockwood. "I've just seen Mr. Whitney, and he tells me that Kennedy and you are pretty friendly with Norton, Of course, I knew that. I saw you at the Mendozas' together the first time. I'd like to have a talk with him about that man. I suppose he has told you all his side of the story of his relations with Whitney." I am, if anything, a good listener, and so I said nothing, not even that he had better tell it to Kennedy in the morning, for it was such a novelty to have any of these people talk voluntarily that I really didn't much care whether I believed what they said or not. "I used to know him down in Lima, you know," went on Lockwood. "What I want to say has to do with that dagger he says was stolen. I want to tell what I know of how he got it. There was an Indian mixed up in it who committed suicide--well, you tell Kennedy I'll see him in the morning." Lockwood rang off, and I repeated what he had told me, as Kennedy continued to adjust the apparatus. "Say," I exclaimed, as I finished. "That was a harry's of a commission you gave Norton just now, watching the de Moches. Why, they'd eat him alive if they got a chance, and I don't know that all's like a Sunday school on his part. Lockwood doesn't seem to think so." Kennedy smiled quietly. "That was why I asked him to do it," he returned. "I thought that he wouldn't let much escape him. They all seem so down on him, he'll have to watch out. It will keep him busy, too, and that means a chance for us to work." He had finished setting up the machine, and now went over to another drawer, from which he took the envelope of stubs which we had taken down at Whitney's office first. Then from the pocket of his street coat he drew both the second envelope of ashes and stubs, the whole cigarette from Lockwood's case, and the stubs which both of us had saved from the cigarettes that had once belonged to Mendoza. Carefully he separated and labelled them all, so that there would be no chance for them to get mixed up. Then he picked up one of the stubs and lighted it. The smoke curled up in wreaths between a powerful light and the peculiar instrument, while Craig peered through a lens, manipulating the thing with exhaustless patience and skill. I watched him curiously, but said nothing, for he was studying something carefully, and I did not want to interrupt his train of thought. Finally he beckoned me over. "Can you make anything out of that?" he asked. I looked through the eye-piece, also. On a sort of fine grating all I could see was a number of strange lines. "If you want an opinion from me," I said, with a laugh, "you'll have to tell me first what I am looking at." "That," he explained, as I continued to gaze, "is one of the latest forms of the spectroscope, known as the interferometer, with delicately ruled gratings in which power to resolve the straight, close lines in the spectrum is carried to the limit of possibility. A small watch is delicate. But it bears no comparison to the delicacy of these defraction spectroscopes. "Every substance, you know, is, when radiating light, characterized by what at first appears to be almost haphazard sets of spectral bands without relation to one another. But they are related by mathematical laws, and the apparent haphazard character is only the result of our lack of knowledge of how to interpret the results." He resumed his place at the eye-piece to check over his results. "Walter," he said finally, looking up at me with a twinkle in his eye, "I wish that you'd go out and find me a cat." "A cat?" I repeated. "Yes, a cat--felis domesticus, if it sounds better that way--a plain, ordinary cat." I jammed on my hat and, late as it was, sallied forth on this apparently ridiculous mission. Several belated passers-by and a policeman watched me as though I were a house-breaker, and I felt like a fool, but at last, by perseverance and tact, I managed to capture a fairly good specimen of the species, and carried it in my arms to the laboratory with some profanity and many scratches. XV THE WEED OF MADNESS In my absence Craig had set to work on a peculiar apparatus, as though he were distilling something from several of the cigarette stubs which he had been studying by means of the interferometer. "Here's your confounded cat," I ejaculated, as I placed the unhappy feline in a basket and waited patiently until finally he seemed to be rewarded for his patient labours. It was well along toward morning when he obtained in a test-tube a few drops of a colourless, odourless liquid. "My interferometer gave me a clue," he remarked, as he held the tube up with satisfaction. "Without the tell-tale line in the spectrum which I was able to discover by its use I might have been hunting yet for it. It is so rare that no one would ever have thought, offhand, I suppose, to look for it. But here it is, I'm sure, only I wanted to be able to test it." "So you are not going to try it on yourself," I said sarcastically, referring to his last experiment with a poison. "This time you are going to make the cat the dog." "The cat will be better to test it on than a human being," he replied, with a glance that made me wince, for, after his performance with the curare, I felt that once the scientific furore was on him I might be called upon to become an unwilling martyr to science. It was with an air of relief, both for himself and my own peace and safety, that I saw him take the cat out of the basket and hold her in his arms, smoothing her fur gently, to quiet the feelings that I had severely ruffled. Then with a dropper he sucked up a bit of the liquid from the test-tube. I watched him intently as he let a small drop fall into the eye of the cat. The cat blinked a moment, and I bent over to observe it more closely. "It won't hurt the cat," he explained, "and it may help us." As I looked at the cat's eye it seemed to enlarge, even under the glare of a light, shining forth, as it were, like the proverbial cat's eye under a bed. What did it mean? Was there such a thing, I wondered hastily, as the drug of the evil eye? "What have you found?" I queried. "Something very much like the so-called 'weed of madness,' I think," he replied slowly. "The weed of madness?" I repeated. "Yes. It is similar to the Mexican toloache and the Hindu datura, which you must have heard about." I had heard of these weird drugs, but they had always seemed to be so far away and to belong rather to the atmosphere of civilizations different from New York. Yet, I reflected, what was to prevent the appearance of anything in such a cosmopolitan city, especially in a case so unusual as that which had so far baffled even Kennedy's skill? "You know the jimson weed--the Jamestown weed, as it is so often called?" he continued, explaining. "It grows almost everywhere in the world, but most thrivingly in the tropics. All the poisons that I have mentioned are related to it in some way, I believe." "I've seen the thing in lots and fields," I replied, "but I never thought it was of much importance." "Well," he resumed, "the jimson weed on the Pacific coast, in some parts of the Andes, has large white flowers which exhale a faint, repulsive odour. It is a harmless-looking plant, with its thick tangle of leaves, a coarse green growth, with trumpet-shaped flowers. But to one who knows its properties it is quite too dangerously convenient for safety." "But what has that to do with the evil eye?" I asked. "Nothing; but it has much to do with the cigarettes that Whitney is smoking," he went on positively. "Those cigarettes have been doped!" "Doped?" I interrogated, in surprise. "With this weed of madness, as you call it?" "No, it isn't toloache that was used," he corrected. "I think it must be some particularly virulent variety of the jimson weed that was used, though that same weed in Mexico is, I am sure, what there they call toloache. Perhaps its virulence in this case lies in the method of concentration in preparing it. For instance, the seeds of the stramonium, which is the same thing, contain a much higher percentage of poison than the leaves and flowers. Perhaps the seeds were used. I can't say. But, then, that isn't at all necessary. It is the fact of its use that concerns us most now." He took a drop of the liquid which he had isolated and added a drop of nitric acid. Then he evaporated it by gentle heat and it left a residue slightly yellow. Next he took from the shelf over his table a bottle marked "Alcoholic Solution--Potassium Hydrate." He opened it and let a drop fall on the place where the liquid had evaporated. Instantly the residue became a beautiful purple, turning rapidly to violet, then to dark red, and, finally, it disappeared altogether. "Stramonium, all right," he nodded, with satisfaction at the achievement of his night's labours. "That was known as Vitali's test. Yes, there was stramonium in those cigarettes--datura stramonium--perhaps a trace of hyoscyamine." I tried to look wise, but all I could think of was that, whatever his science showed me now, my instinct had been enough to prompt me not to smoke those cigarettes, though, of course, only Kennedy's science could tell what it was that caused that instinctive aversion. "They are all like atropine, mydriatic alkaloids," he proceeded, "so called from the effect they have on the eye. Why, one-one hundred thousandth of a grain will affect the eye of a cat. You saw how it acted on our subject. It is more active in that way than atropine. Better yet, you remember how Whitney's eyes looked, how Inez said her father stared, and how she feared for Lockwood?" "I remember," I said, still not able to detach the evil-eye idea quite from my mind. "How about the Senora's eyes? What makes them so--well, effective?" "Oh," Craig answered quickly, "her pupils were normal enough. Didn't you notice that? It was the difference in Whitney's and the others' that first suggested making some tests." "What is the effect?" I asked, wondering whether it might have contributed to the cause of Mendoza's death. "The concentrated poison which has been used in these cigarettes does not kill--at least not outright. It is worse than that. Slowly it accumulates in the system. It acts on the brain." I was listening, spellbound, as he made his disclosure. No wonder, I thought, even a scientific criminal stood in awe of Craig. "Of all the dangers to be met with in superstitious countries, these mydratic alkaloids are among the worst. They offer a chance for crimes of the most fiendish nature--worse than with the gun or the stiletto. They are worse because there is so little fear of detection. That crime is the production of insanity!" Horrible though the idea, and repulsive, I could not doubt it in the face of Craig's investigations and what I had already seen with my own eyes. In fact, it was necessary for me only to recall the mild sensations I myself had experienced, in order to be convinced of the possible effect intended by the insidious poison contained in the many cigarettes which Whitney, for instance, had smoked. "But don't you suppose they know it?" I wondered. "Can't they tell it?" "I suppose they have gradually become accustomed to it," Craig ventured. "If you have ever smoked one particular brand of cigarette you must have noticed how the manufacturer can gradually substitute a cheaper grade of tobacco without any large number of his patrons knowing anything about it. I imagine it might have been done in some way like that." "But you would think they'd feel the effect and attribute it to smoking." "Perhaps they do feel the effect. But when it comes to tracing causes, some people are loath to admit that tobacco and liquor can be the root of the evil. No, some one is slipping these cigarettes in on them, perhaps substituting the doped brand for those that are ordered. If you will notice, both Whitney and Lockwood have cigarettes that are made especially for them. So had Mendoza. It is a circumstance which some one has turned to account, though how and by whom the substitution has been made I cannot say yet. I wish I had time to follow out this one line, to the exclusion of everything else. But I've got to keep my fingers on every rope at once, else the thing will pull away from me. It is enough for the present that we know what the poison is. I shall take up the tracing of the person who is administering it the moment I get a hint." It was almost daylight before Craig and I left the laboratory after his discovery of the manner of the cigarette poisoning by stramonium. But that was the only way in which he was able to make progress--taking time for each separate point by main force. I was thoroughly tired, though not so much so that my dreams were not haunted by a succession of baleful eyes peering at me from the darkness. I slept late, but was awakened by a knocking on the door. As I rose to answer it I saw through the open door of Kennedy's room that he had been about early and must already be at the laboratory. How he did it I don't know. My own newspaper experience had made me considerable of a nighthawk. But I always paid for it by sleeping the next day. With Kennedy, when he was on a case, even five hours of sleep was more than he seemed able to stand. "Hello, Jameson," greeted a voice, as I opened the door. "Is Kennedy in--oh, he hasn't come back yet?" It was Lockwood, at first eager to see Craig, then naturally crestfallen because he saw that he was not there. "Yes," I replied, rubbing my eyes. "He must be at the laboratory. If you'll wait a minute while I slip on my clothes, I'll walk over there with you." While I completed my hasty toilet, Lockwood sat in our living room, gazing about with fascination at the collection of trophies of the chase of criminals. "This is positively a terrifying array of material, Jameson," he declared, as at last I emerged. "Between what Kennedy has here and what he has stowed away in that laboratory of his, I wonder that any one dares be a crook." I could not help eying him keenly. Could he have spoken so heartily if he had known what it was, damning to himself, that Kennedy had tucked away in the laboratory? If he knew, he must have been a splendid actor, one of those whom only the minute blood-pressure test of the sphygmograph could induce to give up a secret, and then only in spite of himself. "It is wonderful," I agreed. "Are you ready?" We left the apartment and walked along in the bracing morning air toward the campus and the Chemistry Building. Sure enough, as I had expected, Kennedy was in his laboratory. As we entered he was verifying his experiments and checking over his results, carefully endeavouring to isolate any of the other closely related mydriatic alkaloids that might be contained in the noxious fumes of the poisoned tobacco. Though Craig was already convinced of what was going on, I knew that he always considered it a matter of considerable medico-legal importance to be exact, for if the affair ever came to the stage of securing an indictment the charge could be sustained only by specific proof. As we appeared in the door, however, he laid aside his work, and greeted us. "I suppose Jameson has already told you that I called you up last night--and what I said?" began Lockwood. Kennedy nodded. "It was something about Norton, wasn't it?" Lockwood leaned over impressively and almost whispered: "Of course, you are in no position to know, but there are ugly rumours current down in Lima among the natives regarding that dagger." Kennedy did not appear to be particularly impressed. "Is that so?" he said merely. "What are they?" "Well," resumed Lockwood, "I wasn't in Lima at the time. I was up here. But they tell me that there was something crooked about the way that that dagger was got away from an Indian--a brother of Senora de Moche." "Yes," replied Kennedy, "I know something about it. He committed suicide. But what has that to do with Norton?" Lockwood hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "I should think the inference was plain," he insinuated. Then, looking at Craig fixedly, as though to take his measure, he added, "We are not out of touch with what is going on down there, even if we are several thousand miles away." I wondered whether he had any information more than we had already obtained by X-raying the letter to Whitney signed "Haggerty." If he had, it was not his purpose, evidently, yet to disclose it. I felt from his manner that he was not playing a trump-card, but was just feeling us out by this lead. "There was some crooked business about that dagger down there as well as here," he pursued. "There are many interests connected with it. Don't you think that it would be worth while watching Norton?" he paused, then added: "We do--and we're going to do it." "Thank you very much," returned Kennedy quietly. "Mr. Whitney has already told me he intended to do so." Lockwood eyed us critically, as though not quite sure what to make of the cool manner in which Craig took it. "I think if I were you," he said at length, "I'd keep a close watch on the de Moches, both of them, too." "Exactly," agreed Craig, without showing undue interest. Lockwood had risen. "Well," he snapped, "you may not think much of what I am telling you now. But just wait until OUR detectives begin to dig up facts." No sooner had he left than I turned to Craig. "What was that?" I asked. "A plant?" "Perhaps," he returned, clearing up the materials which he had been using. The telephone rang. "Hello, Norton," I heard Craig answer. "What's that? You are shadowed by some one--you think it is by Whitney?" I had been expecting something of the sort, and listened attentively, but it was impossible to gather the drift of the one-sided conversation. As Kennedy hung up the receiver I remarked, "So it was not a bluff, after all." "I think my plan is working," he remarked thoughtfully. "You heard what he said? He guesses right the first time, that it is Whitney. The last thing he said was, 'I'll get even! I'll take some action!' and then he rang off. I think we'll hear something soon." Instead of going out, Kennedy pulled out the several unsigned letters we had collected, and began the laborious process of studying the printing, analyzing it, in the hope that he might discover some new clue. XVI THE EAR IN THE WALL Perhaps an hour later our laboratory door was flung open suddenly, and both Kennedy and I leaped to our feet. There was Inez Mendoza, alone, pale and agitated. "Tell me, Professor Kennedy," she cried, her hands clasped before her in frantic appeal, "tell me--it isn't true--is it? He wasn't there--no--no--no!" She would have fainted if Craig had not sprung forward and caught her in time to place her in our only easy-chair. "Walter," he said, "quick--that bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia over there--the second from the left." I handed it to him, and threw open the window to allow the fresh air to blow in. As I did so one of the papers Kennedy had been studying blew off the table, and, as luck would have it, fell almost before her. She saw it, and in her hypersensitive condition recognized it instantly. "Oh--that anonymous letter!" she cried. "Tell me--you do not think that--the friend of my father's that it warned me to beware of--was--" She did not finish the sentence. She did not need to do so. "Please, Senorita," pleaded and soothed Kennedy, "try to be calm. What has happened? Tell me. What is it?" The ammonia and the fresh air seemed to have done their work, for she managed to brace herself, gripping the arms of the chair tightly and looking up searchingly into Craig's face. "It's about Chester," she managed to gasp; then seemed unable to go on. It was the first time I had ever heard her use Lockwood's first name, and I knew that something had stirred her emotions more deeply than at any time since the death of her father. "Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Go on." "I have heard that you found foot-prints, shoe-prints, in the dust in the Museum after the dagger was stolen," she said, speaking rapidly, suppressing her feelings heroically. "Since then you have been collecting prints of shoes--and I've heard that the shoe-prints that were found are those of--of Mr. Lockwood. Oh, Professor Kennedy, it cannot be--there must be some mistake." For a moment Kennedy did not say anything. He was evidently seeking some way in which to lead up to the revelation of the truth without too much shock. "You remember that time in the tea room when we were sitting with Senora de Moche?" he asked finally. "Yes," she said shortly, as though the very recollection were disagreeable to her. Kennedy, however, had a disagreeable task, and he felt that it must be performed in the kindest manner. "You remember then that she said she had one thing more to say, that it was about Mr. Whitney and Mr. Lockwood." She was about to interrupt, but he hurried on, giving her no chance to do so. "She asked you to think it over. Suppose they did not have the dagger, she said. Then were their chances of finding the treasure any better than any one else had? And if they did have it, she asked what that meant. It is a dilemma, my dear Senorita, which you must meet some time. Why not meet it now?" Her face was set. "You will remember, also, Professor Kennedy," she said, with a great effort controlling her voice, "that I said that Mr. Lockwood was not there to defend himself and I would not have him attacked by innuendo. I meant it to the Senora--I mean it to you!" She had also meant it to defy him; but as she proceeded her voice broke, and before she knew it her nature had triumphed, and she was alternately sobbing and pleading. For a minute or two Kennedy let her give vent to her emotions. "It cannot be. It cannot be," she sobbed over and over. "He could not have been there. He could not have done it." It was a terrible thing to have to disillusion her, but it was something now that had to be done. Kennedy had not sought to do so. He had postponed it in the hope of finding some other way. But now the thing was forced upon him. "Who told you?" he asked finally. "I was trying to read, to keep my mind occupied, as you asked me, when Juanita told me that there was some one in the living room who wanted to see me--a man. I thought it was either you or Mr. Jameson. But it was--Professor Norton--" Kennedy and I exchanged glances. That was the action in revenge to Lockwood and Whitney which he had contemplated over the telephone. It was so cruel and harsh that I could have hated him for it, the more so as I recollected that it was he himself who had cautioned us against doing the very thing which now he had done in the heat of passion. "Oh," she wailed, "he was very kind and considerate about it. He said he felt that it was his duty to tell me, that he would be anything, like an older brother, to me; that he could not see me blinded any longer to what was going on, and everybody knew, but had not love enough for me to tell. It was such a shock. I could not even speak. I simply ran from the room without another word to him, and Juanita found me lying on the bed. Then--I decided--I would come to you." She paused, and her great, deep eyes looked up pathetically. "And you," she added bitterly, "you are going to tell me that he was right, that it is true. You can't prove it. Show me what it is that you have. I defy you!" Somehow, as she rested and relieved her feelings, a new strength seemed to come to her. It was what Kennedy had been waiting for, the reaction that would leave her able for him to go on and plan for the future. He reached into a drawer of a cabinet and pulled out the various shoe-prints which he had already shown Norton, and which he had studied and restudied so carefully. "That is the print of the shoe in the dust of the Egyptian sarcophagus of the Museum," he said quietly. "Some one got in during the daytime and hid there until the place was locked. That is the print of Alfonso de Moche's shoe, that of Mr. Whitney's, and that of Mr. Lockwood's." He said it quickly, as though trying to gloss it over. But she would not have it that way. She felt stronger, and she was going to see just what there was there. She took the prints and studied them, though her hand trembled. Hers was a remarkable mind. It took only seconds to see what others would have seen only in minutes. But it was not the reasoning faculty that was aroused by what she saw. It sank deep into her heart. She flung the papers down. "I don't believe it!" she defied. "There is some mistake. No--it cannot be true!" It was a noble exhibition of faith. I think I have never seen any instant more tense than that in Kennedy's laboratory. There stood the beautiful girl declaring her faith in her lover, rejecting even the implication that it might have been he who had taken the dagger, perhaps murdered her father to insure the possession of her father's share of the treasure as well as the possession of herself. Kennedy did not try to combat it. Instead he treated her very intuitions with respect. In him there was room for both fact and feeling. "Senorita," he said finally, in a voice that was deep and thrilling with feeling, "have I ever been other than a friend to you? Have I ever given you cause to suspect even one little motive of mine?" She faced him, and they looked into each other's eyes an instant. But it was long enough for the man to understand the woman and she to understand him. "No," she murmured, glancing down again. "Then trust me just this once. Do as I ask you." For an instant she struggled with herself. What would he ask? "What is it?" she questioned, raising her eyes to him again. "Have you seen Mr. Lockwood?" "No." "Then, I want you to see him. Surely you wish to have no secrets from him any more than you would wish him to have anything secret from you. See him. Ask him frankly about it all. It is the only fair thing to him--it is only fair to yourself." Senorita Mendoza was no coward. "I--I will," she almost whispered. "Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy in admiration. "I knew that you would. You are not the woman who could do otherwise. May I see that you get home safely? Walter, call a taxicab." Senorita Mendoza was calmer, though pale and still nervous, when I returned. Kennedy handed her into the car and then returned to the laboratory for two rather large packages, which he handed to me. "You must come along with us, Walter," he said. "We shall need you." Scarcely a word was spoken as we jolted over the city pavements and at last reached the apartment. Inez and Craig entered and I followed, carrying just one of the packages as Craig had indicated by dumb show, leaving the other in the car, which was to wait. "I think you had better write him a note," suggested Craig, as we entered the living room. "I don't want you to see him until you feel better--and, by the way, see him here." She nodded with a wan smile, as though thinking how unusual it was for a meeting of lovers to be an ordeal, then excused herself to write the note. She had no sooner disappeared than Kennedy unwrapped the package which I had brought. From it he took a cedar box, oblong, with a sort of black disc fixed to an arm on the top. In the face of the box were two little square holes, with sides of cedar which converged inward into the box, making a pair of little quadrangular pyramidal holes which ended in a small black circle in the interior. He looked about the room quickly. Beside a window that opened out over a house several stories below stood a sectional bookcase. Into this bookcase, back of the books, in the shadow, he shoved the little box, to which he had already attached a spool of twisted wires. Then he opened the window and dropped the spool out, letting it unwind of its own weight until it fell on the roof far below. He shut the window and rejoined me without a word. A moment later she returned with the dainty note which she had written. "Shall I send it by a messenger?" she asked. "Yes, please," answered Kennedy, rising. As he moved a step to the door he held out his hand to her. "Senorita Mendoza," he said simply, in a tone that meant more than words, "you are a wonderful woman." She took his hand without a word, and a moment later we were whisked down in the elevator. "I must get on that roof on some pretext," remarked Kennedy, as we reached the street and he got his bearings. "Let me see, that house which backs up to the apartment is around the corner. Have the man drive us around there." We located the house and mounted the steps. On the wall beside the brownstone door was pasted a little slip of paper, "Furnished Rooms." "Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he read it. "Dismiss the taxi and meet me inside with the other package." By the time I had paid the man and come up the steps again Kennedy had made a dicker with the landlady for a double room on the third floor for both of us, and, by payment of a week's rent, we were to have immediate possession. "Our baggage will follow to-day," he explained, as we mounted the stairs to the room. I thought the landlady would never get through expatiating upon what a select place she ran, and thus leave us alone in our room, but at last even her flood of words was stilled by demands from a servant downstairs who must be instructed if the selectness of the establishment were to be maintained. No sooner were we alone than Kennedy tiptoed into the hall and made sure that we were not watched. It was then the work of only a few seconds to mount a ladder to a scuttle, unhook it, and gain the roof. There, dangling down from the dizzy height above, swayed the twisted wire. He seized it, unrolled it some more, and sent me downstairs to catch it, as he swung it over the edge of the roof to one of our own windows. Then he rejoined me. The other package, which had been heavier, consisted of another of those mysterious boxes, as well as several dry cells. Quickly he attached the wires to the box, placing the dry cells in the circuit. Then he began adjusting the mechanism of the box. So far I had only a vague idea of just what he had in mind, but gradually it began to dawn on me. It was perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, after we had left the Senorita, before, sure that everything was all right with his line and the batteries which he had brought, Kennedy turned a little lever that moved in a semicircle, touching one after another of a series of buttons on the face of the cedar box, meanwhile holding a little black disc from the back of the box to his ear as he adjusted the thing. Nothing seemed to happen, but I could tell by the look of intentness on his face that he was getting along all right and was not worrying. Suddenly the look on his face changed to one of extreme satisfaction. He dropped the disc he was holding to his ear back into its compartment and turned to me. All at once it seemed as if the room in which we were was peopled by spirits. There was the sound of voices, loud, clear, distinct. It was uncanny. "He has just come in," remarked Craig. "Who?" I asked. "Lockwood--can't you recognize his voice? Listen." I did listen intently, and the more my ears became adjusted, the more plainly I could distinguish two voices, that of a man and that of a woman. It was indeed Lockwood and the Senorita, far above us. I would have uttered an exclamation of amazement, but I could not miss what they were saying. "Then you--you believe what he says?" asked Lockwood earnestly. "Professor Kennedy has the prints," replied Inez tremulously. "You saw them?" "Yes." "And you believe what HE says, too?" There was a silence. "What is it?" I asked, tapping the box lightly. "A vocaphone," replied Kennedy. "The little box that hears and talks." "Can they hear us?" I asked, in an awestruck whisper. "Not unless I want them to hear," he replied, indicating a switch. "You remember, of course, the various mechanical and electrical ears, such as the detectaphone, which we have used for eavesdropping in other cases?" I nodded. "Well, this is a new application which has been made of the detectaphone. When I was using that disc from the compartment there, I had really a detectaphone. But this is even better. You see how neat it all is? This is the detective service, and more. We can 'listen in' and we don't have to use ear-pieces, either, for this is a regular loud-speaking telephone--it talks right out in meeting. Those square holes with the converging sides act as a sort of megaphone to the receivers, those little circles back there inside magnifying the sound and throwing it out here in the room, so that we can hear just as well as if we were up there in the room where they are talking. Listen--I think they are talking again." "I suppose you know that Whitney and I have placed detectives on the trail of Norton," we could hear Lockwood say. "You have?" came back the answer in a voice which for the first time sounded cold. Lockwood must have recognized it. He had made a mistake. It was no sufficient answer to anything that he had done to assert that some one else had also done something. "Inez," he said, and we could almost hear his feet as he moved over the floor in her direction in a last desperate appeal, "can't you trust me, when I tell you that everything is all right, that they are trying to ruin me--with you?" There was a silence, during which we could almost hear her quick breath come and go. "Women--not even Peruvian women are like the women of the past, Chester," she said at length. "We are not playthings. Perhaps we have hearts--but we also have heads. We are not to be taken up and put down as you please. We may love--but we also think. Chester, I have been to see Professor Kennedy, and--" She stopped. It hurt too much to repeat what she had seen. "Inez," he implored. There was evidently a great struggle of love and suspicion going on in her, her love of him, her memory of her father, the recollection of what she had heard and seen. No one could have been as we were without wishing to help her. Yet no one could help her. She must work out her own life herself. "Yes," she said finally, the struggle ended. "What is it?" "Do you want me to tell you the truth?" "Yes," she murmured. His voice was low and tense. "I was there--yes--but the dagger was gone!" XVII THE VOICE FROM THE AIR "Do you believe it?" I asked Kennedy, as the voices died away, leaving us with a feeling that some one had gone out of the very room in which we were. He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. But I cannot say that he seemed ill pleased at the result of the interview. "We'll just keep this vocaphone in," he remarked. "It may come in handy some time. Now, I think we had better go back to the laboratory! Things have begun to move." On the way back he stopped to telephone Norton to meet us and a few minutes after we arrived, the archaeologist entered. Kennedy lost no time in coming directly to the point, and Norton could see, in fact seemed to expect and be prepared for what was coming. "Well," exclaimed Kennedy, "you've done it, this time!" "I know what you are going to ask," returned Norton. "You are going to ask me why I did it. And I'm going to tell you. After I left you, the other day, I thought about it a long time. The more I thought, the more of a shame it seemed to me that a girl like that should be made a victim of her feelings. It wasn't so much what they have done to me that made me do it. I would have acted the same if it had been de Moche instead of Lockwood who was playing on her heart. I was afraid, to tell the truth, that you wouldn't tell her until it was too late. And she's too good to throw herself away and allow her fortune to be wasted by a couple of speculators." "Very well," said Craig. "For the sake of argument, let us admit all that. What did you expect to accomplish by it?" "Why--put an end to it, of course." "But do you think she was going to accept as truth what you told her? Would that be natural for one so high-strung?" "Perhaps not--right away. But I supposed she would come to you--as I see she has, for you know about it. After that, it was only a question of time. It may have been a heroic remedy, but the disease was critical." "Suppose," suggested Craig, "that, after all, he told her that he was there in the Museum, but that he did not get the dagger. And suppose that she believed it. What then?" Norton looked up quickly. "Did he tell her that?" "I am supposing that he did," repeated Craig, declining to place himself in a position which might lead to disclosing how he found out. "Then I should say that he was a great deal cleverer than I gave him credit for being," returned Norton. "Well, it's done now, and can't be undone. Have you found out anything about the de Moches?" "Not very much, I must admit. Of course, you know I'm not on the best of terms with them, for some reason or other. But I've been around the Prince Edward Albert a good deal, and I don't think they've been able to do much that I haven't some kind of line on. Alfonso seems to be moping. His professors here tell me that he has been neglecting his work sadly for the past few days. The Senora and Whitney seem to be as friendly as ever. I should say that they were going the pace fast, and it shows on him." I glanced significantly at Kennedy, but he betrayed nothing that might lead one to suppose he had discovered the cause. Evidently he was not ready yet to come out into the open and expected further developments on the poisoned cigarette clue. The telephone rang and Craig took down the receiver. "Yes, this is Kennedy," he answered. "Oh, hello, Lockwood. What's that? You've been trying to get me all day? I just came in. Why, yes, I can see you in about half an hour." "I guess I'd better clear out," said Norton with a bitter laugh, as Kennedy hung up the receiver. "There have been enough crimes committed without adding another murder to the list." "Keep on watching the de Moches," requested Kennedy as Norton made his way to the door. "Yes," agreed Norton. "They will bear it--particularly Alfonso. They are hot-blooded. You never know what they are going to do, and they keep their own counsel. I might hope that Lockwood would forget; but a de Moche--never." I cannot say that I envied him very much, for doubtless what he said was true, though his danger might be mitigated by the fact that the dagger was no longer in his Museum. Still, it would never have left Peru, I reflected, if it had not been for him, and there is, even in the best of us, a smouldering desire for revenge. Lockwood was more than prompt. I had expected that he would burst into the laboratory prepared to clean things out. Instead he came in as though nothing at all had happened. "There's no use mincing words, Kennedy," he began. "You know that I know what has happened. That scoundrel, Norton, has told Inez that you had shoe-prints of some one who was in the Museum the night of the robbery and that those shoe-prints correspond with mine. As a matter of fact, Kennedy, I was there. I was there to get the dagger. But before I could get it, some one else must have done so. It was gone." I wanted to believe Lockwood. As for Craig he said nothing. "Then, when I did have a chance to get away that night," he continued, "I went over to Mendoza's. The rest you know." "You have told Inez that?" asked Kennedy in order to seem properly surprised. "Yes--and I think she believes me. I can't say. Things are strained with her. It will take time. I'm not one of those who can take a girl by main force and make her do what she won't do. I wish I could smooth things over. Let me see the prints." Kennedy handed them over to him. He looked at them, long and closely, then handed back the damning evidence against himself. "I know it would be no use to destroy these," he remarked. "In the first place that would really incriminate me. And in the second I suppose you have copies." Craig smiled blandly. "But I can tell you," he exclaimed, bringing his fist down on the laboratory table with a bang, "that before I lose that girl, somebody will pay for it--and there won't be any mistakes made, either." The scowl on his face and the menacing look in his eye showed that now, with his back up against the wall, he was not bluffing. He seemed to get little satisfaction out of his visit to us, and in fact I think he made it more in a spirit of bravado than anything else. Lockwood had scarcely gone before Kennedy pulled out the University schedule, and ran his finger down it. "Alfonso ought to be at a lecture in the School of Mines," he said finally, folding up the paper. "I wish you'd go over and see if he is there, and, if he is, ask him to step into the laboratory." The lecture was in progress all right, but when I peered into the room it was evident that de Moche was not there. Norton was right. The young man was neglecting his work. Evidently the repeated rebuffs of Inez had worked havoc with him. Nor was he at the hotel, as we found out by calling up. There was only one other place that I could think of where he would be likely to be and that was at the apartment of Inez. Apparently the same idea occurred to Kennedy, for he suggested going back to our observation point in the boarding-house and finding out. All the rest of the day we listened through the vocaphone, but without finding out a thing of interest. Now and then we would try the detective instrument, the little black disc in the back, but with no better success. Then we determined to listen in relays, one listening, while the other went out for dinner. It must have been just a bit after dark that we could hear Inez talking in a low tone with Juanita. A buzzing noise indicated that there was some one at the hall door. "If it's any one for me," we heard Inez say, "tell them that I will be out directly. I'm not fit to be seen now." The door was opened and a voice which we could not place asked for the senorita. A moment later Juanita returned and asked the visitor to be seated a few moments. It was not long before we were suddenly aware that there was another person in the room. We could hear whispers. The faithful little vocaphone even picked them up and shot them down to us. "Is everything all right?" whispered one, a new voice which was somewhat familiar I thought, but disguised beyond recognition. "Yes. She'll be out in a minute." "Now, remember what I told you. If this thing works you get fifty dollars more. I'd better put this mask on--damn it!--the slit's torn. It'll do. I'll hide here as soon as we hear her. That's a pretty nice private ambulance you have down there. Did you tell the elevator boy that she had suddenly been taken ill? That's all fixed, then. I've got the stuff--amyl nitrite--she'll go off like a shot. But we'll have to work quick. It only keeps her under a few minutes. I can't wear this mask down and I'm afraid some one will recognize me. Oh, you brought a beard. Good. I'll give you the signal. There must be no noise. Yes, I saw the stretcher where you left it in the hall." "All right, Doc," returned the first and unfamiliar voice. It all happened so quickly that we were completely bowled over for the moment. Who was the man addressed as "Doc"? There was no time to find out, no time to do anything, apparently, so quickly had the plot been sprung. I looked at Kennedy, aghast, not knowing what to do in this unexpected crisis. A moment later we heard a voice, "I'm sorry to have had to keep you waiting, but what is it that I can do for you?" "Good God!" exclaimed Kennedy. "It is Inez herself!" It was altogether too late to get over there to warn her, perhaps even to rescue her. What could we do? If we could only shout for help. But what good would that do, around a corner and so far away? The vocaphone itself! Quickly Kennedy turned another switch, of a rheostat, which accentuated a whisper to almost a shout. "Don't be alarmed, Senorita," he cried. "This is Kennedy talking. Look under the bookcase by the window. You will find a cedar box. It is a detective vocaphone through which I can hear you and which is talking out to you. I have heard something just there just now--" "Yes, yes. Go on!" "You are threatened. Shout! Shout!" Just then there came a sound of a scuffle and a muffled cry which was not much above a whisper, as though a strong hand was clapped over her mouth. What could we do? "Juanita--Juanita--help!--police!" shouted Craig himself through the vocaphone. An instant later we could hear other screams as Juanita heard and spread the alarm, not a second too soon. "Come on, Walter," shouted Kennedy dashing out of the room, now that he was assured the alarm had been given. We hurried around the corner, and into the apartment. One of the elevators was up, and no one was running the other, but we opened the gates and Kennedy ran it up by himself. In the Mendoza apartment all was a babel of voices, every one talking at once. "Did you get them?" Craig asked, looking about. "No, sir," replied the elevator boy. "One of them came in from the ambulance and told me Miss Mendoza was suddenly taken sick. He rode up with the stretcher. The other one must have walked up." "Do you know him? Has he ever been here before?" "I can't say, sir. I didn't see him. At least, sir, when I heard the screams I ran in from the elevator, which the other one told me to wait with--left the door open. Just as I ran in, they dodged out past me, jumped into the car and rode down. I guess they must have had the engine of the ambulance motor running, sir, if they got away without you seeing them." We were too late to head them from speeding off. But, at least, we had saved the Senorita. She was terribly upset by the attack, much shaken, but really all right. "Have you any idea who it could be?" asked Craig as the faithful Juanita cared for her. "I don't know the man who was waiting and 'Nita never saw him, either," she replied. "The one who jumped out from behind the portieres had on a mask and a false beard. But I didn't recognize anything about him." Sudden as the attack had been and serious as might have been the outcome, we could not but feel happy that it had been frustrated. Yet it seemed that some one ought to be delegated to see that such a thing could not occur again. "We must think up some means of protecting you," soothed Kennedy. "Let me see, Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney seem to be the closest to you. If you don't mind I'll call them up. I wonder if you'd object if we had a little luncheon up here, to-morrow? I have a special reason for asking it. I want to insure your safety and we may as well meet on common ground." "There isn't the slightest objection in the world," she replied, as Kennedy reached for the telephone. We had some little difficulty in locating both Lockwood and Whitney, but finally after a time managed to find them and arrange for the conference on the Senorita's safety for the next day. Outside Kennedy gave instructions to the officer on the beat to watch the apartment particularly, and there was no reason now to fear a repetition of the attempt, at least that night. XVIII THE ANTIDOTE Early the following morning Kennedy left me alone in the laboratory and made a trip downtown, where he visited a South American tobacco dealer and placed a rush order for a couple of hundred cigarettes exactly similar in shape and quality to those which Mendoza had smoked and which the others seemed also to prefer, except, however, that the deadly drug was left out. While he was gone, it occurred to me to take up again the hunt for Alfonso. Norton was not in his little office, nor could I find Alfonso anywhere about the campus. In fact he seemed to have almost dropped out of his University work for the time. Accordingly, I turned my steps toward the Prince Edward Albert Hotel, in the hope that he might be there. Inquiries of the clerk at the desk told me that he had been there, but was out just at that moment. I did not see Whitney around, nor the Senora, so I sat down to wait, having nothing better to do until Kennedy's return. I was about to give it up and go, when I heard a cab drive up to the door and, looking up, I saw Alfonso get out. He saw me about the same time and we bowed. I do not think he even tried to avoid me. "I haven't seen you for some time," I remarked, searching his face, which seemed to me to be paler than it had been. "No," he replied. "I haven't been feeling very well lately and I've been running up into the country now and then to a quiet hotel--a sort of rest cure, I suppose you would call it. How are you? How is Senorita Inez?" "Very well," I replied, wondering whether he had said what he did in the hope of establishing a complete alibi for the events of the night before. Briefly I told him what had happened, omitting reference to the vocaphone and our real part in it. "That is terrible," he exclaimed. "Oh, if she would only allow me to take care of her--I would take her back to our own country, where she would be safe, far away from these people who seek to prey on all of us." He paced up and down nervously, and I could see that my information had added nothing to his peace of mind, though, at the same time, he had betrayed nothing on his part. "I was just passing through," I said finally, looking at my watch, "and happened to see you. I hope your mother is well?" "As well as is to be expected, surrounded by people who watch every act," he replied, I thought with a rap at us for having Norton about and so active, though I could not be sure. We separated, and I hastened back to the laboratory to report to Craig that Alfonso was rusticating for his health. Kennedy, on his part, had had an experience, though it was no more conclusive than my own. After he had left the tobacco district, he had walked up Wall Street to the subway. In the crowd he had seen Senora de Moche, although she had not seen him. He had turned and followed her until she entered the building in which Whitney and his associates had their offices. Whether it indicated that she was still leading them a chase, or they her, was impossible to determine, but it at least showed that they were still on friendly terms with each other. In the laboratory he could always find something to do on the case, either in perfecting his chemical tests of the various drugs we had discovered, or in trying to decipher some similarities in the rough printing of the four warnings and the anonymous letter with the known handwriting of those connected with the case, many specimens of which he bad been quietly collecting. That in itself was a tremendously minute job, entailing not only a vast amount of expert knowledge such as he had collected in his years of studying crime scientifically, but the most exact measurements and careful weighing and balancing of trifles, which to the unscientific conveyed no meanings at all. Still, he seemed to be forging ahead, though he never betrayed what direction the evidence seemed to be taking. The package of cigarettes which he had ordered downtown was delivered about an hour after his return and seemed to be the signal for him to drop work, for the meeting with Lockwood and Whitney had been set early. He stowed the package in his pockets and then went over to a cabinet in which he kept a number of rather uncommon drugs. From it he took a little vial which he shoved into his waistcoat pocket. "Are you ready, Walter?" he asked. "Whenever you are," I said, laying aside my writing. Together we made our way down to the Mendoza apartment which had been the scene of the near-tragedy the night before. Outside, he paused for several moments to make inquiries about any suspicious persons that might have been seen lurking about the neighbourhood. None of the attendants in the apartment remembered having seen any, and they were now very alert after the two events, the murder and the attempted abduction. Not a clue seemed to have been left by the villain who had been called "Doc." "How do you feel after your thrilling experience?" greeted Craig pleasantly, as Juanita admitted us and Inez came forward. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she answered, with a note of sadness in her tone. "It makes me feel so alone in the world. If it were not for 'Nita--and you, I don't know what I should do." "Doesn't Mr. Lockwood count?" asked Kennedy observantly. "Of course--everything," she answered hastily. "But he has to be away so much on business, and--" She paused and sighed. I could not help wondering whether, after all, his explanation of the dagger episode had been enough to satisfy her. Had she really accepted it? Neither Lockwood nor Whitney had arrived, and Kennedy improved the opportunity to have a quiet talk aside with her, at which, I imagine, he was arranging a programme of what was to happen at this meeting and her part in it to co-operate with him. She had left the room for a moment and we were alone. It was evidently a part of his plan, for no sooner was she gone than he opened the package of cigarettes which he had ordered and took out from the box in which Mendoza had kept his cigarettes those that were there, substituting those he had brought. We had not long to wait, now. Lockwood and Whitney came together. I was interested to see the greeting of Inez and her lover. Was it pure fancy, or did I detect a trace of coldness as though there had sprung up something between them? As far as Lockwood was concerned, I felt sure that he was eager to break down any barrier that kept them from being as they had been. Whitney took her hand and held it, in a playful sort of way. "I wish I were a young buck," he smiled. "No one would dare look at you--much less try to carry you off. Yes, we must be more careful of our little beauty, or we shall lose her." They turned to greet us. I felt, as we shook hands, that it was much the same sort of handshake that one sees in the prize ring--to be followed by the clang of a bell, then all going to it, in battle royal, with the devil after the hindmost. There was scarcely a chance for a preliminary bout before luncheon was announced, and we entered the cozy little dining-room to seat ourselves at the daintiest of tables. One could feel the hostess radiating hospitality, even on such a cross-current set of guests as we were, and for the time, I almost felt that it had been Kennedy's purpose to promote a love-feast instead of an armed truce. Nothing was said about the main cause of our being together for some time, and the small talk almost lifted for a time the incubus that had settled down on all our lives since the tragedy in the den at the other end of the suite. But the fact could not be blinked. Tacitly every one seemed to wait on Kennedy to sound the gong. Finally he did so. "Of course," he began, clearing his throat, "there is no use making believe about anything. I think we all understand each other better now than we have ever done before. As for me, I am in this case under a promise to stick to it and fight it to the end. I suppose the rest of you are, also. But that need not prevent us agreeing on one thing. We can work together to protect Senorita Mendoza, at least, from such danger as threatened her last night." "It's a dastardly shame," Lockwood exclaimed angrily, "that a man who would attempt a thing like that should go unpunished." "Show me how to trace him and I'll guarantee the punishment," rejoined Craig drily. "I am not a detective," replied Lockwood. Kennedy forebore to reply in kind, though I knew there was a ready answer on his tongue for the lover. Ever since they had arrived, the Senorita had seen that they were well supplied with cigarettes from the case in which she and they supposed were the genuine South American brand of her father. Kennedy and I smoked them, too, although neither of us liked them very much. The others were smoking furiously. "However," resumed Kennedy, "I do not feel that I want to intrude myself in this matter without being perfectly frank and having the approval of Senorita Mendoza. She has known both of you longer and more intimately than she has known me, although she has seen fit to place certain of her affairs in my hands, for which I trust I shall render a good account of my stewardship. It seems to me, though, that if there is, as we now know there is, some one whom we do not know"--he paused--"who has sunk so low as to wish to carry her off, apparently where she shall be out of the influence of her friends, it is only right that precautions should be taken to prevent it." "What is your suggestion?" demanded Whitney, rather contentiously. "Would there be any objection," asked Kennedy, "if I should ask my old friend,--or any of you may do it,--Deputy Commissioner O'Connor to detail a plainclothesman to watch this house and neighbourhood, especially at night?" We watched the faces of the others. But it was really of no use. "I think that is an excellent plan," decided Inez herself. "I shall feel much safer and surely none of you can be jealous of the city detectives." Kennedy smiled. She had cut the Gordian knot with a blow. Neither Lockwood nor Whitney could object. The purpose of the luncheon was accomplished. In fact he did not wait for further consideration, but excused himself from the table for a moment to call up our old friend O'Connor and tell him how gravely his man was needed. It was a matter of only a few minutes when he returned from the other room. "He will detail Burke for this special service as long as we want him," reported Craig, sitting down again. Inez was delighted, naturally, for the affair had been a terrific shock to her. I could see how relieved she felt, for I was sitting directly next to her. The maid had, meanwhile brought in the coffee and Inez had been waiting to pour until Kennedy returned. She did not do so, now, either, however. It seemed as if she were waiting for some kind of signal from Kennedy. "What a splendid view of the park you get here," remarked Kennedy turning toward the long, low windows that opened on a balustraded balcony. "Just look at that stream of automobiles passing on the west drive." Common politeness dictated that all should turn and look, although there was no novelty in the sight for any of us. As I have said, I was sitting next to Inez. To me she was a far more attractive sight than any view of the park. I barely looked out of the window. Imagine my surprise, then, at seeing her take advantage of the diversion to draw from the folds of her dress a little vial and pour a bit of yellowish, syrupy liquid into the cup of coffee which she was preparing for Whitney. I could not help looking at her quickly. She saw that I had seen her and raised her other hand with a finger to her lips and an explanatory glance at Kennedy who was keeping the others interested. Instantly, I recognized the little vial which Craig had shoved into his waistcoat pocket. That had been the purpose of his whispered conference with her when we arrived. I said nothing, but determined to observe more closely. More coffee and more cigarettes followed, always from the same box which was now on the table. The luncheon developed almost a real conversation. For the time, under the spell of our hostess, we nearly forgot that we were in reality bitter enemies. My real interest, as time passed, centred in Whitney and I could not help watching him closely. Was it a fact, or was it merely my imagination? He seemed quite different. The pupils of his eyes did not seem to be quite so dilated as they had been at other times, or even when he arrived. Even his heart action appeared to be more normal. I think Inez noticed it, too. There was none of the wildness in his conversation, such as there often had been at other times. Our party was prolonged beyond the time we had expected, but, although he had much on his mind, Kennedy made no move to break it up. In fact he did everything to encourage it. At last, however, the others did notice the time, and I think it was with sincere regret that the truce was broken. Even then, no parting shots were indulged in. As we left, Inez thanked Kennedy for his consideration, and I am sure that that in itself was reward enough. We parted from Lockwood, who wished to remain a little while, and rode down in the elevator with Whitney, a changed man. "I'll walk over to the elevated with you," he said. "I was going to my hotel, but I think I'll go down to the office instead." Evidently he had got Senora de Moche out of his mind, at least temporarily, I thought. Then for the first time I recalled that during the whole luncheon there had been no reference to either the Senora or Alfonso, though both must have been in our minds often. "What was it you had Inez drop into Whitney's coffee?" I asked Craig as we parted from him and rode uptown. "You saw that?" he smiled. "It was pilocarpine, jaborandi, a plant found largely in Brazil, one of the antidotes for stramonium poisoning. It doesn't work with every one. But it seems to have done so with him. Besides, the caffeine in the coffee probably aided the pilocarpine. Then, too, I made them smoke cigarettes without the dope that is being fed them. Lockwood's case, for some reason, hasn't gone far. But did you notice how the treatment contracted the pupils of Whitney's eyes almost back to normal again?" I had and said so, adding, "But what was your idea?" "I think I've got at the case from a brand-new angle," he replied. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, when the person who is doing the doping sees that Whitney is getting better--why, I think you all noticed it, Inez and Lockwood as well as you--it will mean another attempt to substitute more cigarettes doped with that drug. I think it's by substitution that it's being done. We'll see." At the laboratory, Kennedy called Norton and described briefly what had happened, especially to Whitney. "Now is your chance, Norton," he added, "to do some real good work. I want some one to watch the Senora, see if she, too, notes the difference in him. Understand?" "Perfectly," returned Norton. "That is something I think I can do." XIX THE BURGLAR POWDER It was not until after dinner that we heard again from Norton. He had evidently spent the time faithfully hanging about the Prince Edward Albert, but Whitney had not come in, although the Senora and Alfonso were about. "I saw them leaving the dining-room," he reported to us in the laboratory directly afterward, "just as Whitney came in. They could not see me. I took good care of that. But, say, there is a change in Whitney, isn't there? I wonder what caused it?" "It's as noticeable as that?" asked Kennedy. "And did she notice it?" "I'm sure of it," replied Norton confidently. "She couldn't help it. Besides, after he left her and went into the dining-room himself she and Alfonso seemed to be discussing something. I'm sure it was that." Kennedy said nothing, except to thank Norton and compliment him on his powers of observation. Norton took the praise with evident satisfaction, and after a moment excused himself, saying that he had some work to do over in the Museum. He had no sooner gone than Kennedy took from a drawer a little packet of powder and an atomizer full of liquid, which he dropped into his pocket. "I think the Prince Edward Albert will be the scene of our operations, to-night, Walter," he announced, reaching for his hat. He seemed to be in a hurry and it was not many minutes before we entered. As he passed the dining-room he glanced in. There was Whitney, not half through a leisurely dinner. Neither of the de Moches seemed to be downstairs. Kennedy sauntered over to the desk and looked over the register. We already knew that Whitney and the Senora had suites on the eighth floor, on opposite sides and at opposite ends of the hall. The de Moche suite was under the number 810. That of Whitney was 825. "Is either 823 or 827 vacant?" asked Kennedy as the clerk came over to us. He turned to look over his list. "Yes, 827 is vacant," he found. "I'd like to have it," said Kennedy, making some excuse about our luggage being delayed, as he paid for it for the night. "Front!" called the clerk, and a moment later we found ourselves in the elevator riding up. The halls were deserted at that time in the evening except for a belated theatre-goer, and in a few minutes there would ensue a period in which there was likely to be no one about. We entered the room next to Whitney's without being observed by any one of whom we cared. The boy left us, and it was a simple matter after that to open a rather heavy door that communicated between the two suites and was not protected by a Yale lock. Instead of switching on the lights, Kennedy first looked about carefully until he was assured that there was no one there. It seemed to me to be an unnecessary caution, for we knew Whitney was down-stairs and would probably be there a long time. But he seemed to think it necessary. Positive that we were alone, he made a hasty survey of the rooms. Then he seemed to select as a starting-point a table in one corner of the sitting-room on which lay a humidor and a heavy metal box for cigarettes. Quickly he sprinkled on the floor, from the hall door to the table on which the case of cigarettes lay, some of the powder which I had seen him wrap up in the laboratory before we left. Then, with the atomizer, he sprayed over it something that had a pungent, familiar odour--walking backwards from the hall door to the table, as he sprayed. "Don't you want more light?" I asked, starting to cross to a window to let the moonlight stream in. "Don't walk on it, Walter," he whispered, pushing me back. "No, I don't need any more light." "What are you doing?" I asked, mystified at his actions. "First I sprinkled some powdered iodine on the floor," he replied, "and then sprayed over just enough ammonia to moisten it. It will evaporate quickly, leaving what I call my anti-burglar powder." "I'm sure I wouldn't be thought one of the fraternity for the world," I observed, stepping aside to give him all the room he wanted in which to operate. He had finished his work by this time and now the evening wind was blowing away the slight fumes that had arisen. For a few moments he left our door into Whitney's room open, in order to insure clearing away the odour. Then he quietly closed it, but did not lock it again. We waited a few minutes, then Craig leaned over to me. "I wish you'd go down and see how near Whitney is through dinner," he said. "If he is through, do something, anything to keep him down there. Only be as careful as you can not to be seen by any one who knows us." I rode down in an empty elevator and cautiously made my way to the dining-room. Whitney had finished much sooner than I had expected and was not there. Much as I wanted not to be seen, I found that it was necessary to make a tour of the hotel to find him and I did so, wondering what expedient I would adopt to keep him down there if I found him. I did not have to adopt any, however. Whitney was almost alone in the writing-room, and a big pile of letters beside him showed me that he would be busy for some time. I rode back to the room to tell Craig, flattering myself that I had not been seen. "Good," he exclaimed. "I don't think we'll have to wait much longer, if anything at all is going to happen." In the darkness we settled ourselves for another vigil that was to last we knew not how long. Neither of us spoke as we half crouched in the shadow of our room, listening. Slowly the time passed. Would any one take advantage of the opportunity to tamper with the box of cigarettes on the table? I fell to speculating. Who could it possibly have been that had conceived this devilish plot? What was back of it all? I wondered whether it were possible that Lockwood, now that Mendoza was out of the way, could desire to remove Whitney, the sole remaining impediment to possessing the whole of the treasure as well as Inez? Then there were the Senora and Alfonso, the one with a deep race and family grievance, the other a rejected suitor. What might not they do with some weird South American poison? Once or twice we heard the elevator door clang and waited expectantly, but nothing happened. I began to wonder whether, even if some one had a pass-key to the suite, we could hear him enter if he was quiet. The outside hall was thickly carpeted, and deadened every footfall if one exercised only reasonable care. The rooms themselves were much the same. "Don't you think we might have the door ajar a little?" I suggested anxiously. "Sh!" was Kennedy's only comment in the negative. I glanced now and then at my watch and by straining my eyes was surprised to see how early it was yet. The minutes were surely leaden-footed. In the darkness, I fell again to reviewing the weird succession of events. I am not by nature superstitious, but in the black silence I could well imagine a staring succession of eyes, beginning with the dilated pupils of Whitney and passing on to the corpse-like expression of Mendoza, but always ending with the remarkable, piercing, black eyes of the Indian woman with the melancholy-visaged son, as they had impressed me the first time I saw them and, in fact, ever since. Was it a freak of my mind, or was there some reason for it? Suddenly I heard in the next room what sounded like a series of little explosions, as though some one were treading on match heads. "My burglar powder works," muttered Craig to me in a hoarse whisper. "Every step, even those of a mouse running across, sets it off!" He rose quickly and threw open the door into Whitney's suite. I sprang after him. There, in the shadows, I saw a dark form, starting back in quick retreat. But we were too late. He was cat-like, too quick for us. In the dim light of the little explosions we could catch a glimpse of the person who had been craftily working with the dread drug to drive Whitney and others insane. But the face was masked! He banged shut the door after him and fled down the hall, making a turn to a flight of steps. We followed, and at the steps paused a moment. "You go up, Walter," shouted Kennedy. "I'll go down." It was fifteen minutes later before we met downstairs, neither of us with a trace of the intruder. He seemed to have vanished like smoke. "Must have had a room, like ourselves," remarked Craig somewhat chagrined at the outcome of his scheme. "And if he was clever enough to have a room, he is clever enough to have a disguise that would fool the elevator boys for a minute. No, he has gone. But I'll wager he won't try any more substitutions of stramonium-poisoned cigarettes for a while. It was too close to be comfortable." We were baffled again, and this time by a mysterious masked man. Could it be the same whom we heard over the vocaphone addressed as "Doc"? Perhaps it was, but that gave us no hint as to his identity. He seemed just as far away as ever. We waited around the elevators for some time, but nothing happened. Kennedy even sought out the manager of the hotel, and after telling who he was, had a search made of the guests who might be suspected. The best we could do was to leave word that the employees might be put on the lookout for anything of a suspicious nature. Whitney, the innocent cause of all this commotion, was still in the writing-room with his letters. "I think I ought to tell him," decided Kennedy as we passed down the lobby. He seemed surprised to see us, as we strolled up to his writing desk, but pushed aside the few letters which he had not finished and asked us to sit down. "I don't know whether you have noticed it," began Craig, "but I wonder how you feel?" Whitney had expected something else rather than his health as the subject of a quiz. "Pretty good now," he answered before he knew it, "although I must admit that for the past few days I have wondered whether I wasn't slowing up a bit--or rather going too fast." "Would you like to know why you feel that way?" asked Craig. Whitney was now genuinely puzzled. It was perfectly evident, as it had been all the time, that he had not the slightest inkling of what was going on. As Craig briefly unfolded what we had discovered and the reason for it, Whitney watched him aghast. "Poisoned cigarettes," he repeated slowly. "Well, who would ever have thought it. You can bet your last jitney I'll be careful what I smoke in the future, if I have to smoke only original packages. And it was that, partly, that ailed Mendoza?" Kennedy nodded. "Don't take any pilocarpine, just because I told you that was what I used. You have given yourself the best prescription, just now. Be careful what you smoke. And, don't get excited if you seem to be stepping on matches up there in your room for a little while, either. It's nothing." Whitney's only known way of thanking anybody was to invite them to adjourn to the cafe, and accordingly we started across the hall, after he had gathered up his correspondence. The information had made more work that night impossible for him. As we crossed from the writing-room, we saw Alfonso de Moche coming in from the street. He saw us and came over to speak. Was it a coincidence, or was it merely a blind? Was he the one who had got away and now calculated to come back and throw us off guard? Whitney asked him where he had been, but he replied quickly that his mother had not been feeling very well after dinner and had gone to bed, while he strolled out and had dropped into a picture show. That, I felt, was at least clever. The intruder had been a man. De Moche excused himself, and we continued our walk to the cafe, where Whitney restored his shattered peace of mind somewhat. "What's the result of your detective work on Norton?" ventured Kennedy at last, seeing that Whitney was in a more expansive frame of mind, and taking a chance. "Oh," returned Whitney, "he's scared, all right. Why, he has been hanging around this hotel--watching me. He thinks I don't know it, I suppose, but I do." Kennedy and I exchanged glances. "But he's slippery," went on Whitney. "He knows that he is being shadowed and the men tell me that they lose him, now and then. To tell the truth I don't trust most of these private detectives. I think their little tissue paper reports are half-faked, anyhow." He seemed to want to say no more on the subject, from which I took it that he had discovered nothing of importance. "One thing, though," he recollected, after a moment. "He has been going to see Inez Mendoza, they tell me." "Yes?" queried Kennedy. "Confound him. He pretty nearly got Lockwood in bad with her, too," said Whitney, then leaning over confidentially added, "Say, Kennedy, honestly, now, you don't believe that shoe-print stuff, do you?" "I see no reason to doubt it," returned Kennedy with diplomatic firmness. "Why?" "Well," continued Whitney, still confidential, "we haven't got the dagger--that's all. There--I never actually asserted that before, though I've given every one to understand that our plans are based on something more than hot-air. We haven't got it, and we never had it." "Then who has it?" asked Kennedy colourlessly. Whitney shook his head. "I don't know," he said merely. "And these attacks on you--this cigarette business--how do you explain that," asked Craig, "if you haven't the dagger?" "Jealousy, pure jealousy," replied Whitney quickly. "They are so afraid that we will find the treasure. That's my dope." "Who is afraid?" "That's a serious matter," he evaded. "I wouldn't say anything that I couldn't back up in a case of that kind. I'd get into trouble." There was nothing to be gained by prolonging the conversation and Kennedy made a move as though to go. "Just give us a square deal," said Whitney as we left. "That's all we want--a square deal." Kennedy and I walked out of the Prince Edward Albert and turned down the block. "Well, have you found out anything more?" asked a voice in the shadow beside us. We turned. It was Norton. "I saw you talking to Whitney in the writing-room," he said, with a laugh, "then in the cafe, and I saw Alfonso come in. He still has those shadows on me. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one of them around in a doorway, now." "No," returned Kennedy, "he didn't say anything that was important. They still say they haven't the dagger." "Of course," said Norton. "You'll wait around a little longer?" asked Kennedy as we came to a corner and stopped. "I think so," returned Norton. "I'll keep you posted." Kennedy and I walked on a bit. "I'm going around to see how Burke, O'Connor's man, is getting on watching the Mendoza apartment, Walter," he said at length. "Then I have two or three other little outside matters to attend to. You look tired. Why don't you go home and take a rest? I shan't be working in the laboratory to-night, either." "I think I will," I agreed, for the strain of the case was beginning to tell on me. XX THE PULMOTOR I went directly to our apartment after Craig left me and for a little while sat up, speculating on the probabilities of the case. Senora de Moche had told us of her ancestor who had been intrusted with the engraved dagger, of how it had been handed down, of the death of her brother; she had told us of the murder of the ancestor of Inez Mendoza, of the curse of Mansiche. Was this, after all, but a reincarnation of the bloody history of the Gold of the Gods? There were the shoe-prints in the mummy case. They were Lockwood's. How about them? Was he telling the truth? Now had come the poisoned cigarettes. All had followed the threats: BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS. Several times I had been forced already to revise my theories of the case. At first I had felt that it pointed straight toward Lockwood. But did it seem to do so now? Suppose Lockwood had stolen the dagger from the Museum, although he denied even that. Did that mean, necessarily that he committed the murder with it, that he now had it? Might he not have lost it? Might not some one else--the Senora, or Alfonso, or both--have obtained it? Might not Mendoza have been murdered with it by some other hand to obtain or to hide the secret on its bloody blade? I went to bed, still thinking, no nearer a conclusion than before, prepared to dream over it. That is the last I remember. When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the bed still, but Craig was bending over me. He had just taken a rubber cap off my face, to which was attached a rubber tube that ran to a box perhaps as large as a suitcase, containing a pump of some kind. I was too weak to notice these things right away, too weak to care much about them, or about anything else. "Are you all right now, old man?" he asked, bending over me. "Y-Yes," I gasped, clutching at the choking sensation in my throat. "What has happened?" Perhaps I had best tell it as though I were not the chief actor; for it came to me in such disjointed fragmentary form, that it was some time before I could piece it together. Craig had seen Burke, and had found that everything was all right. Then he had made the few little investigations that he intended. But he had not been to the laboratory. There had been no light there that night. At last when he arrived home, he had found a peculiar odour in the hall, but had thought nothing of it, until he opened our door. Then there rushed out such a burst of it that he had to retreat, almost fainting, choking and gasping for breath. His first thought was for me; and protecting himself as best he could he struggled through to my room, to find me lying on the bed, motionless, almost cold. He was by this time too weak to carry me. But he managed to reach the window and throw it wide open. As the draught cleared the air, he thought of the telephone and with barely strength enough left called up one of the gas companies and had a pulmotor sent over. Now that the danger was past for me, and he felt all right, his active mind began at once on the reconstruction of what had happened. What was it--man or devil? Could a human fly have scaled the walls, or an aeroplane have dropped an intruder at the window ledge? The lock on the door did not seem to have been tampered with. Nor was there any way by which entrance could have been gained from a fire escape. It was not illuminating gas. Every one agreed on that. No, it was not an accident. It was an attempt at murder. Some one was getting close to us. Every other weapon failing, this was desperation. I had been made comfortable, and he was engaged in one of his characteristic searches, with more than ordinary eagerness, because this was his own apartment, and it was I who had been the victim. I followed him languidly as he went over everything, the furniture, the walls, the windows, the carpets--there looking for finger-prints, there for some trace of the poisonous gas that had filled the room. But he did not have the air of one who was finding anything. I was too tired to reason. This was but another of the baffling mysteries that confronted us. A low exclamation caused me to open my eyes and try to discover what was the cause. He was bending over the lock of the door looking at it intently. "Broken?" I managed to say. "No--corroded," he replied. "You keep still. Save your energy. I've got strength enough for two, for a while." He came over to the bed and bent over me. "I won't hurt you," he encouraged, "but just let me get a drop of your blood." He took a needle and ran it gently into my thumb beside the nail. A drop or two of blood oozed out and he soaked it up with a piece of sterile gauze. "Try to sleep," he said finally. "And you?" I asked. "It's no use. I'm going over to the laboratory. I can't sleep. There's a cop down in front of the house. You're safe enough. By George, if this case goes much further we'll have half the force standing guard. Here--drink that." I had made up my mind not to go to sleep, if he wouldn't, but I slipped up when I obeyed him that time. I thought it was a stimulant but it turned out to be a sedative. I did not wake up until well along in the morning, but when I did I was surprised to find myself so well. Before any one could stop me, I was dressed and had reached the door. A friend of ours who had volunteered to stay with me was dozing on a couch as I came out. "Too late, Johnson," I called, trying hard to be gay, though I felt anything but like it. "Thank you, old man, for staying with me. But I'm afraid to stop. You're stronger than I am this morning--and besides you can run faster. I'm afraid you'll drag me back." He did try to do it, but with a great effort of will-power I persuaded him to let me go. Out in the open air, too, it seemed to do me good. The policeman who had been stationed before the house gazed at me as though he saw a ghost, then grinned encouragingly. Still, I was glad that the laboratory was only a few blocks away, for I was all in by the time I got there, and hadn't even energy enough to reply to Kennedy's scolding. He was working over a microscope, while by his side stood in racks, innumerable test-tubes of various liquids. On the table before him lay the lock of our door which he had cut out after he gave me the sleeping draught. "What was it?" I asked. "I feel as if I had been on a bust, without the recollection of a thing." He shook his head as if to discourage conversation, without taking his eyes off the microscope through which he was squinting. His lips were moving as if he were counting. I waited in impatient silence until he seemed to have finished. Then, still without a word, he took up a test-tube and dropped into it a little liquid from a bottle on a shelf above the table. His face lighted up, and he regarded the reaction attentively for some time. Then he turned to me, still holding the tube. "You have been on a bust," he said with a smile as if the remark of a few minutes before were still fresh. "Only it was a laughing gas jag--nitrous oxide." "Nitrous oxide?" I repeated. "How--what do you mean?" "I mean simply that a test of your blood shows that you were poisoned by nitrous oxide gas. You remember the sample of blood which I squeezed from your thumb? I took it because I knew that a gas--and it has proved to be nitrous oxide--is absorbed through the lungs into the circulation and its presence can be told for a considerable period after administration." He paused a moment, then went on: "To be specific in this case I found by microscopic examination that the number of corpuscles in your blood was vastly above the normal, something like between seven and eight million to a drop that should have had somewhat more than only half that number. You were poisoned by gas that--" "Yes," I interrupted, "but how, with all the doors locked?" "I was coming to that," he said quietly, picking up the lock and looking at it thoughtfully. He had already placed it in a porcelain basin, and in this basin he had poured some liquids. Then he passed the liquids through a fine screen and at last took up a tube containing some of the resulting liquid. "I have already satisfied myself," he explained, "but for your benefit, seeing that you're the chief sufferer, I'll run over a part of the test. You saw the reaction which showed the gas a moment ago. I have proved chemically as well as microscopically that it is present in your blood. Now if I take this test-tube of liquid derived from my treatment of the lock and then test it as you saw me do with the other, isn't that enough for you? See--it gives the same reaction." It did, indeed, but my mind did not react with it. "Nitrous oxide," he continued, "in contact with iron, leaves distinct traces of corrosion, discernible by chemical and microscopic tests quite as well as the marks it leaves in the human blood. Manifestly, if no one could have come in by the windows or doors, the gas must have been administered in some way without any one coming into the room. I found no traces of an intruder." It was a tough one. Never much good at answering his conundrums when I was well, I could not even make a guess now. "The key-hole, of course!" he explained. "I cut away the entire lock, and have submitted it to these tests which you see." "I don't see it all yet," I said. "Some one came to our door in the night, after gaining entrance to the hall--not a difficult thing to do, we know. That person found our door locked, knew it would be locked, knew that I always locked it. Knowing that such was the case, this person came prepared, bringing perhaps, a tank of compressed nitrous oxide, certainly the materials for making the gas expeditiously." I began to understand how it had been done. "Through the keyhole," he resumed, "a stream of the gas was injected. It soon rendered you unconscious, and that would have been all, if the person had been satisfied. A little bit would have been harmless enough. But the person was not satisfied. The intention was not to overcome, but to kill. The stream of gas was kept up until the room was full of it. "Only my return saved you, for the gas was escaping very slowly. Even then, you had been under it so long that we had to resort to the wonderful little pulmotor after trying both the Sylvester and Schaefer methods and all other manual means to induce respiration. At any rate we managed to undo the work of this fiend." I looked at him in surprise, I, who didn't think I had an enemy in the world. "But who could it have been?" I asked. "We are pretty close to that criminal," was the only reply he would give, "providing we do not spread the net in sight of the quarry." "Why should he have wanted to get me?" I repeated. "Don't flatter yourself," replied Craig. "He wanted me, too. There wasn't any light in the laboratory last night. There was a light in our apartment. What more natural than to think that we were both there? You were caught in the trap intended for both of us." I looked at him, startled. Surely this was a most desperate criminal. To cover up one murder--perhaps two--he did not hesitate to attempt a third, a double murder. The attack had been really aimed at Kennedy. It had struck me alone. But it had miscarried and Craig had saved my life. As I reflected bitterly, I had but one satisfaction. Wretched as I felt, I knew that it had spared Craig from slowing up on the case at just the time when he was needed. The news of the attempt spread quickly, for it was a police case and got into the papers. It was not half an hour after I reached the laboratory that the door was pushed open by Inez Mendoza, followed by a boy spilling with fruit and flowers like a cornucopia. "I drove to the apartment," she cried, greatly excited and sympathetic, "but they told me you had gone out. Oh, I was glad to hear it. Then I knew it wasn't so serious. For, somehow, I feel guilty about it. It never would have happened if you hadn't met me." "I'm sure it's worth more than it cost," I replied gallantly. She turned toward Kennedy. "I'm positively frightened," she exclaimed. "First they direct their attacks against my father--then against me--now against you. What will it be next? Oh--it is that curse--it is that curse!" "Never fear," encouraged Kennedy, "we'll get you out--we'll get all of us out, now, I should say. It's just because they are so desperate that we have these things. As long as there is nothing to fear a criminal will lie low. When he gets scared he does things. And it's when he does things that he begins to betray himself." She shuddered. "I feel as though I was surrounded by enemies," she murmured. "It is as if an unseen evil power was watching over me all the time--and mocking me--striking down those I love and trust. Where will it end?" Kennedy tried his best to soothe her, but it was evident that the attack on us could not have had more effect, if it had been levelled direct at her. "Please, Senorita," he pleaded, "stand firm. We are going to win. Don't give in. The Mendozas are not the kind to stop defeated." She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. "It was my father's way," she choked back her emotion. "How could you, a stranger, know?" "I didn't know," returned Kennedy. "I gathered it from his face. It is also his daughter's way." "Yes," she said, straightening up and the fire flashing from her eyes, "we are a proud, old, unbending race. Good-bye. I must not interrupt your work any longer. We are also a race that never forgets a friend." A moment later she was gone. "A wonderful woman," repeated Kennedy absently. Then he turned again to his table of chemicals. The telephone had begun to tinkle almost continuously by this time, as one after another of our friends called us up to know how we were getting on and be assured of our safety. In fact I didn't know that it was possible to resuscitate so many of them with a pulmotor. "By George, I'm glad it wasn't any more serious," came Norton's voice from the doorway a moment later. "I didn't see a paper this morning. The curator of the Museum just told me. How did it happen?" Kennedy tried to pass it off lightly, and I did the same, for as I was up longer I really did feel better. Norton shook his head gravely, however. "No," he said, "there were four of us got warnings. They are a desperate, revengeful people." I looked at him quickly. Did he mean the de Moches? XXI THE TELESCRIBE I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that I had better go slow that day and regain my strength, a fortunate decision, as it turned out. Kennedy, also, spent most of the time in the laboratory, so that, after all, I did not feel that I was missing very much. It was along in the afternoon that the telephone began acting strangely, as it will do sometimes when a long distance connection is being made. Twice Kennedy answered, without getting any response. "Confound that central," he muttered. "What do you suppose is the matter?" Again the bell rang. "Hello," shouted Kennedy, exasperated. "Who's this?" There was a pause. "Just a minute," he replied. Quickly he jammed the receiver down on a little metal base which he had placed near the instrument. Three prongs reaching upward from the base engaged the receiver tightly, fitting closely about it. Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through in place of the regular receiver. "Who is it?" he answered. Apparently the voice at the other end of the wire replied rather peevishly, for Kennedy endeavoured to smooth over the delay. I wondered what was going on, why he was so careful. His face showed that, whatever it was, it was most important. As he restored the telephone to its normal condition, he looked at me puzzled. "I wonder whether that was a frame-up!" he exclaimed, pulling a little cylinder off the instrument into which he had inserted the telephone receiver. "I thought it might be and I have preserved the voice. This is what is known as the telescribe--a recent invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said--both ways--over a telephone wire." "What was it about?" I asked eagerly. He shoved the cylinder on a phonograph and started the instrument. "Professor Kennedy?" called an unfamiliar voice. "Yes," answered a voice that I recognized as Craig's. "This is the detective agency employed by Mr. Whitney. He has instructed us to inform you that he has obtained the Peruvian dagger for which you have been searching. That's all. Good-bye." I looked at Kennedy in blank surprise. "They rang off before I could ask them a question," said Craig. "Central tells me it was a pay station call. There doesn't seem to be any way of tracing it. But, at least I have a record of the voice." "What are you going to do?" I queried. "It may be a fake." "Yes, but I'm going to investigate it. Do you feel strong enough to go down to Whitney's with me?" The startling news had been like a tonic. "Of course," I replied, seizing my hat. Kennedy paused only long enough to call Norton. The archaeologist was out, and we hurried on downtown to Whitney's. Whitney was not there and his clerk was just about to close the office. All the books were put away in the safe and the desks were closed. Now and then there echoed up the hall the clang of an elevator door. "Where is Mr. Whitney?" demanded Craig of the clerk. "I can't say. He went out a couple of hours ago." "Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?" shot out Craig suddenly. The clerk looked up suspiciously at us. "No," he replied defiantly. "Walter--stand by that door," shouted Craig. "Let no one in until they break it down." His blue-steel automatic gleamed a cold menace at the clerk. A downtown office after office hours is not exactly the place to which one can get assistance quickly. The clerk started back. "Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?" "Yes." "What was it about?" The clerk winced. "I don't know," he replied, "honest--I don't." Craig waved the gun for emphasis. "Open the safe," he said. Reluctantly the clerk obeyed. Under the point of the gun he searched every compartment and drawer of the big chrome steel strong-box which Whitney had pointed out as the safest place for the dagger on our first visit to him. But there was absolutely no trace of it. Had we been hoaxed and was all this risk in vain? "Where did Mr. Whitney go?" demanded Craig, as he directed the clerk to shut the door and lock the safe again, baffled. "If I should try to tell you," returned the man, very much frightened, "I would be lying. You would soon find out. Mr. Whitney doesn't make a confidant of me, you know." It was useless. If he had the dagger, at least we knew that it was not at the office. We had learned only one thing. He had had a visit from one of his detectives. As fast as the uptown trend of automobiles and surface cars during the rush hour would permit, Kennedy and I hurried in a taxicab to the Prince Edward Albert in the hope of surprising him there. "It's no use to inquire for him," decided Craig as we entered the hotel. "I still have the key to that room, 827, next to his. We'll ride right up in the elevator boldly and get in." No one said anything to us, as we let ourselves into the room next to Whitney's. A new lock had been placed on the door between the suites, but, aside from the additional time it took to force it, it presented no great difficulty. "He wouldn't leave the dagger here, of course," remarked Kennedy, as at last we stepped into Whitney's suite. "But we may as well satisfy ourselves. Hello--what's this?" The room was all upset, as though some one had already gone through it. For a moment I thought we had been forestalled. "Packed a grip hastily," Craig remarked, pointing to the marks on the bedspread where it had rested while he must literally have thrown things into it. We made a hasty search ourselves, but we knew it was hopeless. Two things we had learned. Whitney had had a visit from his detectives, and he had gone away hurriedly. An anonymous telephone message had been sent to Kennedy. Had it been for the purpose of throwing us off the track? The room telephone rang. Quickly Craig jumped to it and took down the receiver. "Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Whitney." A silence ensued during which, of course, I could not gather any idea of what was going on over the wire. "The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy, working the hook up and down but receiving no response. "The fellow caught on. Something must have happened to Norton, too." "How's that?" I asked. "Why," he replied, "some one just called up Whitney and said that Norton had got away from him." "Perhaps they're trying to keep him out of the way just as they are with us," I suggested. "I think the thing is a plant." Down the hall, Kennedy stopped and tapped lightly at the door of 810, the de Moche suite. I think he was surprised when the Senora's maid opened it. "Tell Senora de Moche it is Professor Kennedy," he said quickly, "and that I must see her." The maid admitted us into the sitting-room where we had had our first interview with her and a moment later she appeared. She was evidently not dressed for dinner, although it was almost time, and I saw Kennedy's eye travel from her to a chair in the corner over which was draped a linen automobile coat and a heavy veil. Had she been preparing to go somewhere, too? The door to Alfonso's room was open and he clearly was not there. What did it all mean? "Have you heard anything of a report that the dagger has been found?" demanded Kennedy abruptly. "Why--no," she replied, greatly surprised, apparently. "You were going out?" asked Kennedy with a significant glance at the coat and veil. "Only for a little ride with Alfonso, who has gone to hire a car," she answered quickly. I felt sure that she had heard something about the dagger. We had no further excuse for staying and on the way out, now that he had satisfied himself that Whitney was not there, Craig inquired at the office for him. They could tell us nothing of his whereabouts, except that he had left in his car late in the afternoon in a great hurry. Kennedy stepped into a telephone booth and called up Lockwood, but no one answered. Inquiry in the garages in the neighbourhood finally located that at which Lockwood kept his car. There, all that they could tell us was that the car had been filled with gas and oil as if for a trip. Lockwood was gone, too. Kennedy hastily ordered a touring car himself and placed it at a corner of the Prince Edward Albert where he could watch two of the entrances, while I waited on the next corner where I could see the entrance on the other street. For some time we waited and still she did not come out. Had she telephoned to Alfonso and had he gone alone? Perhaps she had already been out and had taken this method of detaining us, knowing that we would wait to watch her. It must have been a mixture of both motives, for at length I was rewarded by seeing her come cautiously out of the rear entrance of the hotel alone and start to walk hurriedly up the street. I signalled to Craig who shot down and picked me up. By this time the Senora had reached a public cab stand and had engaged a hack. Sinking back in the shadows of the top, which was up, Craig directed our driver to follow the hack cautiously, keeping a couple of blocks behind. There was some satisfaction, though slight, in it, at least. We felt the possibility of the trail leading somewhere, now. On uptown the hack went, while we kept discreetly in the rear. We had reached a part of the city where it was sparsely populated, when the hack suddenly turned and doubled back on us. There was not time for us to turn and we trusted that by shrinking back in the shadow we might not be observed. As the hack passed us, however, the Senora leaned out until it was perfectly evident that she must recognize us. She said nothing but I fancied I saw a smile of satisfaction as she settled back into the cushions. She was deliberately going back along the very road by which she had led us out. It had been an elaborate means of wasting our time. She did not have the satisfaction, however, of shaking us off, for we followed all the way back to the hotel and saw her go in. Then Kennedy placed the car where we had it before and left the driver with instructions to follow her regardless of time if she should come out again. Surely, I reasoned, there must be something very queer going on, if they were all in it to eliminate us and Norton. What had happened to him? Kennedy hastened back to the campus, late as it was, there to start anew. Norton was not in his quarters and, on the chance that he might have sought to elude Whitney's detectives by doing the unexpected and going to the Museum, Kennedy walked over that way. There was nothing to indicate that anybody had been at the Museum, but, as we passed our laboratory, we could hear the telephone ringing inside, as though some one had been trying to get us for a long time. Kennedy opened the door and switched on the lights. Waiting only long enough to jam the receiver down into place on the telescribe, he answered the call. "The deuce you will!" I heard him exclaim, then apparently whoever was talking rang off and he could not get them back. "Another of those confounded telephone messages," he said, turning to me and taking the cylinder off. "It looks as though the ready-letter writer who used to send warnings had learned his lesson and taken to the telephone as leaving fewer clues than handwriting." He placed the record on the phonograph so that I could hear it. It was brief and to the point, as had been the first. "Hello, is that you, Kennedy? We've got Norton. Next we'll get you. Good-bye." Kennedy repeated the first message. It was evident that both had been spoken by the same voice. "Whose is it?" I asked blankly. "What does it mean?" Before Craig could answer there was a knock at our door and he sprang to open it. XXII THE VANISHER It was Juanita, Inez Mendoza's maid, frantic and almost speechless. "Why, Juanita," encouraged Kennedy, "what's the matter?" "The Senorita!" she gasped, breaking down now and sobbing over and over again. "The Senorita!" "Yes, yes," repeated Kennedy, "but what about her? Is there anything wrong?" "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," sobbed the poor girl, "I don't know. She is gone. I have had no word from her since this afternoon." "Gone!" we exclaimed together. "Where was Burke--that man that the police sent up to protect her?" "He is gone, too--now," replied Juanita in her best English, sadly broken by the excitement. Kennedy and I looked at each other aghast. This was the hardest blow of all. We had thought that, at least, Inez would be safe with a man like Burke, whom we could trust, detailed to watch her. "Tell me," urged Kennedy, "how did it happen? Did they carry her off--as they tried to do the other time?" "No, no," sobbed Juanita. "I do not know. I do not know even whether she is gone. She went out this afternoon for a little walk. But she did not come back. After it grew dark, I was frightened. I remembered that you were here and called up, but you were out. Then I saw that policeman. I told him. He has others working with him now. But I could not find you--until now I saw a light here. Oh, my poor, little girl, what has become of her? Where have they taken her? Oh, MADRE DE DIOS, it is terrible!" Had that been the purpose for which we had been sent on wild-goose chases? Was Inez really kidnapped this time? I knew not what to think. It seemed hardly possible that all of them could have joined in it. If she were kidnapped, it must have been on the street in broad daylight. Such things had happened. It would not be the first disappearance of the kind. Quickly Kennedy called up Deputy O'Connor. It was only too true. Burke had reported that she had disappeared and the police, especially those at the stations and ferries and in the suburbs had been notified to look for her. All this seemed to have taken place in those hours when the mysterious telephone calls had sent us on the wrong trail. Kennedy said nothing, but I could see that he was doing some keen thinking. Just then the telephone rang again. It was from the man whom we had left at the Prince Edward Albert. Senora de Moche had gone out and driven rapidly to the Grand Central. He had not been able to find out what ticket she bought, but the train was just leaving. Kennedy paced up and down, muttering to himself. "Whitney first--then Lockwood--and Alfonso. The Senora takes a train. Suppose the first message were true? Gas and oil for a trip." He seized the telephone book and hastily turned the pages over. At last his finger rested on a name in the suburban section. I read: "Whitney, Stuart. Res. 174-J Rockledge." Quickly he gave central the number, then shoved the receiver again into the telescribe. "Hello, is Mr. Whitney there?" I heard later as he placed the record again in the phonograph for repetition. "No--who is this?" "His head clerk. Tell him I must see him. Kennedy has been to the office and--" "Say--get off the line. We had that story once." "That's it!" exclaimed Craig. "Don't you see--they've all gone up to Whitney's country place. That clerk was faking. He has already telephoned. And listen. Do you see anything peculiar?" He was running all three records which we had on the telescribe. As he did so, I saw unmistakably that it was the same voice on all three. Whitney must have had a servant do the telephoning for him. "Don't fret, Juanita," reassured Kennedy. "We shall find your mistress for you. She will be all right. You had better go back to the apartment and wait. Walter look up the next train to Rockledge while I telephone O'Connor." We had an hour to wait before the next train left and in the meantime we drove Juanita back to the Mendoza apartment. It was a short run to Rockledge by railroad, but it seemed to me that it took hours. Kennedy sat in silence most of the time, his eyes closed, as if he were trying to place himself in the position of the others and figure out what they would do. At last we arrived, the only passengers to get off at the little old station. Which way to turn we had not the slightest idea. We looked about. Even the ticket office was closed. It looked as though we might almost as well have stayed in New York. Down the railroad we could see that a great piece of engineering was in progress, raising the level of the tracks and building a steel viaduct, as well as a new station, and at the same time not interrupting the through traffic, which was heavy. "Surely there must be some one down there," observed Kennedy, as we picked our way across the steel girders, piles of rails, and around huge machines for mixing concrete. We came at last to a little construction house, a sort of general machine-and work-shop, in which seemed to be everything from a file to a pneumatic riveter. "Hello!" shouted Craig. There came a sound from a far corner of a pile of ties and a moment later a night-watchman advanced suspiciously swinging his lantern. "Hello yourself," he growled. "Which way to Stuart Whitney's estate?" asked Craig. My heart sank as he gave the directions. It seemed miles away. Just then the blinding lights of a car flashed on us as it came down the road parallel to the tracks. He waved his light and the car stopped. It was empty, except for a chauffeur evidently returning from a joy ride. "Take these gentlemen as far as Smith's corner, will you?" asked the watchman. "Then show 'em the turn up to Whitney's." The chauffeur was an obliging chap, especially as it cost him nothing to earn a substantial tip with his master's car. However, we were glad enough to ride in anything on wheels, and not over-particular at that hour about the ownership. "Mr. Whitney hasn't been out here much lately," he volunteered as he sped along the beautiful oiled road, and the lights cast shadows on the trees that made driving as easy as in daylight. "No, he has been very busy," returned Craig glad to turn to account the opportunity to talk with a chauffeur, for it is the chauffeur in the country who is the purveyor of all knowledge and gossip. "His car passed us when I was driving up from the city. My boss won't let me speed or I wouldn't have taken his dust. Gee, but he does wear out the engines in his cars, Whitney." "Was he alone?" asked Craig. "Yes--and then I saw him driving back again when I went down, to the station for some new shoes we had expressed up. Just a flying trip, I guess--or does he expect you?" "I don't think he does," returned Craig truthfully. "I saw a couple of other cars go up there. House party?" "Maybe you'd call it that," returned Craig with a twinkle of the eye. "Did you see any ladies?" "No," returned the chauffeur. "Just a man driving his own car and another with a driver." "There wasn't a lady with Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, now rather anxious. "Neither time." I saw what he was driving at. The Senora might have got up there in any fashion without being noticed. But for Inez not to be with Whitney, nor with the two who must evidently have been Lockwood and Alfonso, was indeed strange. Could it be that we were only half right--that they had gathered here but that Inez had really disappeared? The young man set us down at Smith's Corner and it proved to be only about an eighth of a mile up the road and up-hill when Whitney's house burst in sight, silhouetted against the sky. There were lights there and it was evident that several people had gathered for some purpose. We made our way up the path and paused a moment to look through the window before springing the little surprise. There we could see Lockwood, Alfonso, and Senora de Moche, who had arrived, after all and probably been met at the station by her son. They seemed like anything but a happy party. Never on the best of terms, they could not be expected to be happy. But now, if ever, one would have thought they might do more than tolerate each other, assuming that some common purpose had brought them here. Kennedy rang the bell and we could see that all looked surprised, for they had heard no car approach. A servant opened the door and before he knew it, Kennedy had pushed past him, taking no chances at a rebuff after the experience over the wire. "Kennedy!" exclaimed Lockwood and Alfonso together. "Where is Inez Mendoza?" demanded Craig, without returning the greeting. "Inez?" they repeated blankly. Kennedy faced them squarely. "Come, now. Where is she? This is a show-down. You may as well lay your cards on the table. Where is she--what have you done with her?" The de Moches looked at Lockwood and he looked at them, but neither spoke for a moment. "Walter," ordered Kennedy, "there's the telephone. Get the managing editor of the Star and tell him where we are. Every newspaper in the United States, every police officer in every city will have the story, in twelve hours, if you precious rascals don't come across. There--I give you until central gets die Star." "Why--what has happened?" asked Lockwood, who was the first to recover his tongue. "Don't stand there asking me what has happened," cried Kennedy impatiently. "Tickle that hook again, Walter. You know as well as I do that you have planned to get Inez Mendoza away from my influence--to kidnap her, in other words--" "We kidnap her?" gasped Lockwood. "What do you mean, man? I know nothing of this. Is she gone?" He wheeled on the de Moches. "This is some of your work. If anything happens to that girl--there isn't an Indian feud can equal the vengeance I will take!" Alfonso was absolutely speechless. Senora de Moche started to speak, but Kennedy interrupted her. "That will do from you," he cut short. "You have passed beyond the bounds of politeness when you deliberately went out of your way to throw me on a wrong trail while some one was making off with a young and innocent girl. You are a woman of the world. You will take your medicine like a man, too." I don't think I have ever seen Kennedy in a more towering rage than he was at that moment. "When it was only a matter of a paltry poisoned dagger at stake and a fortune that may be mythical or may be like that of Croesus, for all I care, we could play the game according to rules," he exclaimed. "But when you begin to tamper with a life like that of Inez de Mendoza--you have passed the bounds of all consideration. You have the Star? Telephone the story anyhow. We'll arbitrate afterward." I think, as I related the facts to my editor, it sobered us all a great deal. "Kennedy," appealed Lockwood at last, as I hung up the receiver, "will you listen to my story?" "It is what I am here for," replied Craig grimly. "Believe it or not, as far as I am concerned," asserted Lockwood, "this is all news to me. My God--where is she?" "Then how came you here?" demanded Craig. "I can speak only for myself," hastened Lockwood. "If you had asked where Whitney was, I could have understood, but--" "Well, where is he?" "We don't know. Early this afternoon I received a hurried message from him--at least I suppose it was from him--that he had the dagger and was up here. He said--I'll be perfectly frank--he said that he was arranging a conference at which all of us were to be present to decide what to do." "Meanwhile I was to be kept away at any cost," supplied Kennedy sarcastically. "Where did he get it?" "He didn't say." "And you didn't care, as long as he had it," added Craig, then, turning to the de Moches, "And what is your tale?" Senora de Moche did not lose her self-possession for an instant. "We received the same message. When you called, I thought it would be best for Alfonso to go alone, so I telephoned and caught him at the garage and when my train arrived here, he was waiting." "None of you have seen Whitney here?" asked Kennedy, to which all nodded in the negative. "Well, you seem to agree pretty well in your stories, anyhow. Let me take a chance with the servants." It is no easy matter to go into another's household and without any official position quiz and expect to get the truth out of the servants. But Kennedy's very wrath seemed to awe them. They answered in spite of themselves. It seemed clear that as far as they went both guests and servants were telling the truth. Whitney had made the run up from the city earlier in the afternoon, had stayed only a short time, then had gone back, leaving word that he would be there again before his guests arrived. They all professed to be as mystified as ourselves now over the outcome of the whole affair. He had not come back and there had been no word from him. "One thing is certain," remarked Craig, watching the faces before him as he spoke. "Inez is gone. She has been spirited away without even leaving a trace. Her maid Juanita told me that. Now if Whitney is gone, too, it looks as if he had planned to double-cross the whole crowd of you and leave you safely marooned up here with nothing left but your common hatred of me. Much good may it do you." Lockwood clenched his fists savagely, not at Kennedy but at the thought that Craig had suggested. His face set itself in tense lines as he swore vengeance on all jointly and severally if any harm came to Inez. I almost forgot my suspicions of him in admiration. "Nothing like this would ever have happened if she had stayed in Peru," exclaimed Alfonso bitterly. "Oh, why did her father ever bring her here to this land of danger?" The idea seemed novel to me to look on America as a lawless, uncultured country, until I reflected on the usual Latin-American opinion of us as barbarians. Lockwood frowned but said nothing, for a time. Then he turned suddenly to the Senora, "You were intimate enough with him," he said. "Did he tell you any more than he told us?" It was clear that Lockwood felt now that every man's hand was against him. I thought I could discover a suppressed gleam of satisfaction in her wonderful eyes as she answered, "Nothing more. It was only that I carried out what he asked me." Could it be that she was taking a subtle delight in the turn of events--the working out of a curse on the treasure-secret which the fatal dagger bore? I could not say. But it would not have needed much superstition to convince any one that the curse on the Gold of the Gods was as genuine as any that had ever been uttered, as it heaped up crime on crime. We waited in silence, the more hopeless as the singing of the night insects italicized our isolation from the organized instruments of man for the righting of wrong. Here we were, each suspecting the other, in the home of a man whom all mistrusted. "There's no use sitting here doing nothing," exclaimed Lockwood in whose mind was evidently the same thought, "not so long as we have the telephone and the automobiles." These, at least, were our last bonds with the great world that had wrapped a dark night about a darker mystery. "There are many miles of wire--many miles of road. Which way shall we turn?" Senora de Moche seemed to take a fiendish delight in the words as she said them. It was as though she challenged our helplessness in the face of a power that was greater than us all. Lockwood flashed a look of suspicion in her direction. As for myself, I had never been able to make the woman out. To-night she seemed like a sort of dea ex machina, who sat apart, playing on the passions of a group of puppet men whom she set against each other until all should be involved in a common ruin. It was impossible, in the silence of this far-off lonely place in the country, not to feel the weirdness of it all. Once I closed my eyes and was startled by the uncanny vividness of a mind-picture that came unbidden. It was of a scrap of paper on which, in rough capitals was printed: BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS. XXIII THE ACETYLENE TORCH Do you suppose he really had the dagger, or was that a lie?" I asked, with an effort shaking off the fateful feeling that had come over me as if some one were casting a spell. "There is one way to find out," returned Craig, as though glad of the suggestion. Though they hated him, they seemed forced to admit, for the time, his leadership. He rose and the rest followed as he went into Whitney's library. He switched on the lights. There in a corner back of the desk stood a safe. Somehow or other it seemed to defy us, even though its master was gone. I looked at it a moment. It was a most powerful affair, companion to that in the office of which Whitney was so proud, built of layer on layer of chrome steel, with a door that was air tight and soup-proof, bidding defiance to all yeggmen and petermen. Lockwood fingered the combination hopelessly. There were some millions of combinations and permutations that only a mathematician could calculate. Only one was any good. That one was locked in the mind of the man who now seemed to baffle us as did his strong-box. I placed my hand on the cold, defiant surface. It would take hours to drill a safe like that, and even then it might turn the points of the drills. Explosives might sooner wreck the house and bring it down over the head of the man who attacked this monster. "What can we do?" asked Senora de Moche, seeming to mock us, as though the safe itself were an inhuman thing that blocked our path. "Do?" repeated Kennedy decisively, "I'll show you what we can do. If Lockwood will drive me down to the railroad station in his car, I'll show you something that looks like action. Will you do it?" The request was more like a command. Lockwood said nothing, but moved toward the porte-cochere, where he had left his car parked just aside from the broad driveway. "Walter, you will stay here," ordered Kennedy. "Let no one leave. If any one comes, don't let him get away. We shan't be gone long." I sat awkwardly enough, scarcely speaking a word, as Kennedy dashed down to the railroad station. Neither Alfonso nor his mother betrayed either by word or action a hint of what was passing in their minds. Somehow, though I did not understand it, I felt that Lockwood might square himself. But I could not help feeling that these two might very possibly be at the bottom of almost anything. It was with some relief that I heard the car approaching again. I had no idea what Kennedy was after, whether it was dynamite or whether he contemplated a trip to New York. I was surprised to see him, with Lockwood, hurrying up the steps to the porch, each with a huge tank studded with bolts like a boiler. "There," ordered Craig, "set the oxygen there," as he placed his own tank on the opposite side. "That watchman thought I was bluffing when I said I'd get an order from the company, if I had to wake up the president of the road. It was too good a chance to miss. One doesn't find such a complete outfit ready to hand every day." Out of the tanks stout tubes led, with stop-cocks and gauges at the top. From a case under his arm Kennedy produced a curious arrangement like a huge hook, with a curved neck and a sharp beak. Really it consisted of two metal tubes which ran into a sort of cylinder, or mixing chamber, above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran a third separate tube with a second nozzle of its own. Quickly he joined the ends of the tubes from the tanks to the metal hook, the oxygen tank being joined to two of the tubes of the hook, and the second tank being joined to the other. With a match he touched the nozzle gingerly. Instantly a hissing, spitting noise followed, and an intense, blinding needle of flame. "Now we'll see what an oxyacetylene blow-pipe will do to you, old stick-in-the-mud," cried Kennedy, as he advanced toward the safe, addressing it as though it had been a thing of life that stood in his way. "I think this will make short work of you." Almost as he said it, the steel beneath the blow-pipe became incandescent. For some time he laboured to get a starting-point for the flame of the high-pressure torch. It was a brilliant sight. The terrific heat from the first nozzle caused the metal to glow under the torch as if in an open-hearth furnace. From the second nozzle issued a stream of oxygen, under which the hot metal of the door was completely consumed. The force of the blast, as the compressed oxygen and acetylene were expelled, carried a fine spray of the disintegrated metal visibly before it. And yet it was not a big hole that it made--scarcely an eighth of an inch wide, but clean and sharp as if a buzz-saw were eating its way through a plank of white-pine. With tense muscles Kennedy held this terrific engine of destruction and moved it as easily as if it had been a mere pencil of light. He was the calmest of all of us as we crowded about him, but at a respectful distance. "I suppose you know," he remarked hastily, never pausing for a moment in his work, "that acetylene is composed of carbon and hydrogen. As it burns at the end of the nozzle it is broken into carbon and hydrogen--the carbon gives the high temperature and the hydrogen forms a cone that protects the end of the blow-pipe from being itself burnt up." "But isn't it dangerous?" I asked, amazed at the skill with which he handled the blow-pipe. "Not particularly--when you know how to do it. In that tank is a porous asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure. Thus they carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved and the possibility of explosion is minimized. "This mixing chamber, by which I am holding the torch, where the oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such a way as to prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of blow-pipe is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious purposes--like this--to which it can be put." He paused a moment to test what had been burnt. The rest of the safe seemed as firm as ever. "Humph!" I heard one of them, I think it was Alfonso, mutter. I resented it, but Kennedy affected not to hear. "When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet," he resumed, "you see the torch merely heats the steel. I can get a heat of approximately sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch." "Wonderful!" exclaimed Lockwood, who had not heard the suppressed disapproval of Alfonso, and was watching, in undisguised admiration at the thing itself, regardless of consequences. "Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?" "Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig, as he continued to work calmly in the growing excitement. "I first saw it in actual use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile. The cylinder was repaired without being taken out at all. I've seen it weld new teeth and build up worn teeth on gearing, as good as new." He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the flame. "You remember when we were talking to the watchman down there at the station, Walter?" he asked. "I saw this thing in that complete little shop of theirs. It interested me. See. I turn on the oxygen now in the second nozzle. The blow-pipe is no longer an instrument for joining metals together, but for cutting them asunder. "The steel burns just as you, perhaps, have seen a watch-spring burn in a jar of oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized, it all burns just about as fast, and just about as easily under this torch. And it's cheap, too. This attack--aside from what it costs to the safe--may amount to a couple of dollars as far as the blow-pipe is concerned--quite a difference from the thousands of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow a safe like this one." We had nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the torch slowly, inexorably traced a thin line along the edge of the combination. Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blow-pipe cut around the lock. It seemed hours, but really it was minutes. I wondered when he would have cut about the whole lock. He was cutting clear through and around it, severing it as if with a superhuman knife. With something more than half his work done, he paused a moment to rest. "Walter," he directed, mopping his forehead, for it was real work directing that flaming knife, "get New York on the wire. See if O'Connor is at his office. If he has any report, I want to talk to him." It was getting late and the service was slackening up. I had some trouble, especially in getting a good connection, but at last I got headquarters and was overjoyed to hear O'Connor's bluff, Irish voice boom back at me. "Hello, Jameson," he called. "Where on earth are you? I've been trying to get hold of Kennedy for a couple of hours. Rockledge? Well, is Kennedy there? Put him on, will you?" I called Craig and, as I did so, my curiosity got the better of me and I sought out an extension of the wire in a den across the hall from the library, where I could listen in on what was said. "Hello, O'Connor," answered Craig. "Anything from Burke yet?" "Yes," came back the welcome news. "I think he has a clue. We found out from here that she received a long distance message during the afternoon. Where did Jameson say you were--Rockledge?--that's the place. Of course we don't know what the message was, but anyhow she went out to meet some one right after that. The time corresponds with what the maid says." "Anything else?" asked Craig. "Have you found any one who saw her?" "Yes. I think she went over to your laboratory. But you were out." "Confound it!" interrupted Craig. "Some one saw a woman there." "It wasn't the maid?" "No, this was earlier--in the afternoon. She left and walked across the campus to the Museum." "Oh, by the way, any word of Norton?" "I'm coming to that. She inquired for Norton. The curator has given a good description. But he was out--hadn't been there for some time. She seemed to be very much upset over something. She went away. After that we've lost her." "Not another trace?" "Wait a minute. We had this Rockledge call to work on. So we started backward on that. It was Whitney's place, I found out. We could locate the car at the start and at the finish. He left the Prince Edward Albert and went up there first. Then he must have come back to the city again. No one at the hotel saw him the second time. "What then?" hastened Craig. "She may have met him somewhere, though it's not likely she had any intention of going away. All the rest of those people you have up there seem to have gone prepared. We got something on each of them. Also you'll be interested to know I've got a report of your own doings. It was right, Kennedy, I don't blame you. I'd have done the same with Burke on the job. How are you making out? What? You're cracking a crib? With what?" O'Connor whistled as Kennedy related the story of the blow-pipe. "I think you're on the right track," he commended. "There's nothing to show it, but I believe Whitney told her something that changed her mind about going up there. Probably met her in some tea room, although we can't find anything from the tea rooms. Anyhow, Burke's out trailing along the road from New York to Rockledge and I'm getting reports from him whenever he hits a telephone." "I wish you'd ask him to call me, here, if he gets anything." "Sure I will. The last call was from the Chateau Rouge,--that's about halfway. There was a car with a man and a woman who answers her description. Then, there was another car, too." "Another car?" "Yes--that's where Norton crosses the trail again. We searched his apartment. It was upset--like Whitney's. I haven't finished with that. But we have a list of all the private hacking places. I've located one that hired a car to a man answering Norton's description. I think he's on the trail. That's what I meant by another car." "What's he doing?" "Maybe he has a hunch. I'm getting superstitious about this case. You know Luis de Mendoza has thirteen letters in it. Leslie told me something about a threat he had--a curse. You better look out for those two greasers you have up there. They may have another knife for you." Kennedy glanced over at the de Moches, not in fear but in amusement at what they would think if they could hear O'Connor's uncultured opinion. "All right, O'Connor," said Craig, "everything seems to be going as well as we can expect. Don't forget to tell Burke I'm here." "I won't. Just a minute. He's on another wire for me." Kennedy waited impatiently. He wanted to finish his job on the safe before some one came walking in and stopped it, yet there was always a chance that Burke might turn up something. "Hello," called O'Connor a few minutes later. "He's still following the two cars. He thinks the one with the woman in it is Whitney's, all right. But they've got off the main road. They must think they're being followed. "Or else have changed their destination," returned Craig. "Tell him that. Maybe Whitney had no intention of coming up here. He may have done this thing just to throw these people off up here, too. I can't say. I can tell better whether he intended to come back after I've got this safe open. I'll let you know." Kennedy rang off. "Any news of Inez?" asked Lockwood who had been fuming with impatience. "She's probably on her way up here," returned Craig briefly, taking up the blow-pipe again. Alfonso remained silent. The Senora could scarcely hide her excitement. If there were anything in telepathy, I am sure that she read everything that was said over the wire. Quickly Craig resumed his work, biting through the solid steel as if it had been mere pasteboard, the blow-pipe showering on each side a brilliant spray of sparks, a gaudy, pyrotechnic display. Suddenly, with a quick motion, Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The last bolt had been severed, the lock was useless. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely said, "Open sesame." Craig reached in and pulled open a steel drawer directly in front of him. There in the shadow lay the dagger--with its incalculably valuable secret, a poor, unattractive piece of metal, but with a fascination such as no other object, I had ever seen, possessed. There was a sudden cry. The Senora had darted ahead, as if to clasp its handle and unloose the murderous blade that nestled in its three-sided sheath. Before she could reach it, Kennedy had seized her hand in his iron grasp, while with the other he picked up the dagger. They stood there gazing into each other's eyes. Then the Senora burst into a hysterical laugh. "The curse is on all who possess it!" "Thank you," smiled Kennedy quietly, releasing her wrist as he dropped the dagger into his pocket, "I am only the trustee." XXIV THE POLICE DOG Craig faced us, but there was no air of triumph in his manner. I knew what was in his mind. He had the dagger. But he had lost Inez. What were we to do? There seemed to be no way to turn. We knew something of the manner of her disappearance. At first she had, apparently, gone willingly. But it was inconceivable that she stayed willingly, now. I recalled all the remarks that Whitney had ever made about her. Had the truth come out in his jests? Was it Inez, not the dagger, that he really wanted? Or was he merely the instrument of one or all of these people before us, and was this an elaborate plan to throw Kennedy off and prove an alibi for them? He had been the partner of Lockwood, the intimate of de Moche. Which was he working for, now--or was he working for himself alone? No answer came to my questions, and I reflected that none would ever come, if we sat here. Yet there seemed to be no way to turn, without risking putting ourselves in a worse position than before. At least, until we had some better plan of campaign, we occupied a strategic advantage in Whitney's own house. The hours of the night wore on. Midnight came. This inaction was killing. Anything would be better than that. Suddenly the telephone startled us. We had wanted it to ring, yet when it rang we were afraid of it. What was its message? It was with palpitating hearts that we listened, while Craig answered. "Yes, Burke," we heard him reply, "this is Kennedy." There came a pause during which we could scarcely wait. "Where are you now? Cold Stream. That is about twelve miles from Rockledge--not on the New York road--the other road. I see. All right. We'll be there. Yes, wait for us." As Craig hung up the receiver, we crowded forward. "Have they found her?" asked Lockwood hoarsely. "It was from Burke," replied Kennedy deliberately. "He is at a place called Cold Stream, twelve miles from here. He tells me that we can find it easily--on a state road, at a sharp curve that has been widened out, just this side of the town. There has been an accident--Whitney's car is wrecked." Lockwood seized his elbow. "My God," he exclaimed, "tell me--she isn't--hurt, is she? Quick!" "So far Burke has not been able to discover a trace of a thing, except the wrecked car," replied Kennedy. "I told him I would be over directly. Lockwood, you may take Jameson and Alfonso. I will go with the Senora and their driver." I saw instantly why he had divided the party. Neither mother nor son was to have a chance to slip away from us. Surely both Lockwood and I should be a match for Alfonso. Senora de Moche he would trust to none but himself. Eagerly now we prepared for the journey, late though it was. No one now had a thought of rest. There could be no rest with that mystery of Inez challenging us. We were off at last, Lockwood's car leading, for although he did not know the roads exactly, he had driven much about the country. I should have liked to have sat in front with him, but it seemed safer to stay in the back with Alfonso. In fact, I don't think Lockwood would have consented, otherwise, to have his rival back of him. Kennedy and the Senora made a strange pair, the ancient order and the ultra-modern. There was a peculiar light in her eyes that gleamed forth at the mere mention of the words, "wreck." Though she said nothing, I knew that through her mind was running the one tenacious thought. It was the working out of the curse! As for Craig, he was always seeking the plausible, natural reason for what to the rest of us was inexplicable, often supernatural. To him she was a fascinating study. On we sped, for Lockwood was a good driver and now was spurred on by an anxiety that he could not conceal. Yet his hand never faltered at the wheel. He seemed to read the signs at the cross-roads without slackening speed. In spite of all that I knew, I found myself compelled to admire him. Alfonso sat back, for the most part silent. The melancholy in his face seemed to have deepened. He seemed to feel that he was but a toy in the hands of fate. Yet I knew that underneath must smoulder the embers of a bitter resentment. It seemed an interminable ride even at the speed which we were making. Twelve miles in the blackness of a country night can seem like a hundred. At last as we turned a curve, and Lockwood's headlights shone on the white fence that skirted the outer edge of the road as it swung around a hill that rose sharply to our left and dropped off in a sort of ravine at the right beyond the fence, I felt the car tremble as he put on the brakes. A man was waving his arms for us to stop, and as we did, he ran forward. He peered in at us and I recognized Burke. "Whe-where's Kennedy?" he asked, disappointed, for the moment fearing he had made a mistake and signalled the wrong car. "Coming," I replied, as we heard the driver of the other car sounding his horn furiously as he approached the curve. Burke jumped to the safe side of the road and ran on back to signal to stop. It was then for the first time that I paid particular attention to the fence ahead of us on which now both our own and the lights of the other car shone. At one point it was torn and splintered, as though something had gone through it. "Great heavens, you don't mean to say that they went over that?" muttered Lockwood, jumping down and running forward. Kennedy had joined us by this time and we all hurried over. Down in the ravine we could see a lantern which Burke had brought and which was now resting on the overturned chassis of the car. Lockwood was down there ahead of us all, peering under the heavy body fearfully, as if he expected to see two forms of mangled flesh. He straightened up, then took the lantern and flashed it about. There was nothing except cushions and a few parts of the car within the radius of its gleam. "Where are they?" he demanded, turning to us. "It's Whitney's car, all right." Burke shook his head. "I've traced the car so far. They were getting ahead of me, when this happened." Together we managed to right the car which was on a hillock. It sank a little further down the hill, but at least we could look inside it. "Bring the lantern," ordered Kennedy. Minutely, part by part, he went over the car. "Something went wrong," he muttered. "It is too much wrecked to tell what it was. Flash the light over here," he directed, stepping over the seat into the back of the tonneau. A moment later he took the light himself and held it close to the rods that supported the top. I saw him reach down and pull from them a few strands of dark hair that had caught between the rods and had been pulled out or broken. "No need of Bertillon's palette of human hair to identify that," he exclaimed. "There isn't time to study it and if there were it would be unnecessary. She was with him, all right." "Yes," agreed Lockwood. "But where is she now--where is he? Could they have been hurt, picked up by some one and carried where they could get aid?" Burke shook his head. "I inquired at the nearest house ahead. I had to do it in order to telephone. They knew nothing." "But they are gone," persisted Lockwood. "There is the bottom of the bank. You can see that they are not here." Kennedy had taken the light and climbed the bank again and was now going over the road as minutely as if he were searching for a lost diamond. "Look!" he exclaimed. Where the Whitney car had skidded and gone over the bank, the tires had dug deep into the top dressing, making little mounds. Across them now we could see the tracks of other tires that had pressed down the mounds. "Some one else has been here," reconstructed Kennedy. "He passed, then stopped and backed up. Perhaps they were thrown out, unconscious, and he picked them up." It seemed to be the only reasonable supposition. "But they knew nothing at the next house," persisted Burke. "Is there a road leading off before you get to the house?" asked Kennedy. "Yes--it crosses the line into Massachusetts." "It is worth trying--it is the only thing we can do," decided Kennedy. "Drive slowly to the crossroads. Perhaps we can pick out the tire-prints there. They certainly won't show on the road itself. It is too hard." At the crossing we stopped and Kennedy dropped down on his hands and knees again with the light. "There it is," he exclaimed. "The same make of anti-skid tire, at least. There was a cut in the rear tire--just like this. See? It is the finger-print of the motor car. I think we are right. Turn up here and run slowly." On we went slowly, Kennedy riding on the running-board of the car ahead. Suddenly he raised his hand to stop, and jumped down. We gathered about him. Had he found a continuation of the tire-tracks? There were tracks but he was not looking at them. He was looking between them. There ran a thin line. He stuck his finger in it and sniffed. "Not gas," he remarked. "It must have been the radiator, leaking. Perhaps he ran his car into Whitney's--forced it too far to the edge of the road. We can't tell. But he couldn't have gone far with that leak without finding water--or cracked cylinders." With redoubled interest now we resumed the chase. We had mounted a hill and had run down into the shadows of a valley when, following in the second car, we heard a shout from Kennedy in the first. Halfway up the hill across the valley, he had come upon an abandoned car. It had evidently reached its limit, the momentum of the previous hill had carried it so far up the other, then the driver had stopped it and let it back slowly off the road into a clump of bushes that hid a little gully. But that was all. There was not a sign of a person about. Whatever had happened here had happened some hours before. We looked about. All was Cimmerian darkness. Not a house or habitation of man or beast was in sight, though they might not be far away. We beat about the under-brush, but succeeded in stirring up nothing but mosquitoes. What were we to do? We were wasting valuable time. Where should we go? "I doubt whether they would have kept on the road," reasoned Kennedy. "They must have known they would be followed. The hardest place to follow them would be across country." "With a lantern?" I objected. "We can't do it." Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It will be three hours before there is light enough to see anything by," he considered. "They have had at least a couple of hours. Five hours is too good a start. Burke--take one of the cars. Go ahead along the road. We mustn't neglect that. I'll take the other. I want to get back to that house and call O' Connor. Walter, you stay here with the rest." We separated and I felt that, although I was doing nothing, I had my hands full watching these three. Lockwood was restless and could not help beating around in the under-brush, in the hope of turning up something. Now and then he would mutter to himself some threat if anything happened to Inez. I let him occupy himself, for our own, as much as his, peace of mind. Alfonso had joined his mother in the car and they sat there conversing in low tones in Spanish, while I watched them furtively. Of a sudden, I became aware that I missed the sound of Lockwood beating about the under-brush. I called, but there was no answer. Then we all called. There came back nothing but a mocking echo. I could not follow him. If I did, I would lose the de Moches. Had he been laying low, waiting his opportunity to get away? Or was he playing a lone hand? Much as I suspected about him, during the past few hours I had come to admire him. I sent the de Moche driver out to look for him, but he seemed afraid to venture far, and, of course, returned and said that he could not find him. Even in his getaway, Lockwood had been characteristic. He had been strong enough to bide his time, clever enough to throw every one off guard. It put a new aspect on the case for me. Had Whitney intended the capture of Inez for Lockwood? Had our coming so unexpectedly into the case thrown the plans awry and was it the purpose to leave them marooned at Rockledge while we were shunted off in the city? That, too, was plausible. I wished Kennedy would return before anything else happened. It was not long by the clock before Kennedy did return. But it seemed ages to me. He was not alone. With him was a man in a uniform, and a powerful dog, for all the world like a huge wolf. "Down, Searchlight," he ordered, as the dog began to show an uncanny interest in me. "Let me introduce my new dog detective," he chuckled. "She has a wonderful record as a police dog. I got O'Connor out of bed and he telephoned out to the nearest suburban station. That saved a good deal of time in getting her up here." I mustered up courage to tell Kennedy of the defection of Lockwood. He did not seem to mind it especially. "He won't get far, with the dog after him, if we want to take the time," he said. "She's a German sheep dog, a Schaeferhund." Searchlight seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog, which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, upstanding dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed as she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy's control and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience. They took her over to the abandoned car. There they let her get a good whiff of the bottom of the car about the driver's feet, and a moment later she started off. Alfonso and his mother insisted on going with us and that made our progress across country slow. On we went over the rough country, through a field, then skirting a clump of woods until at last we came to a lane. We stopped in the shadow of a thicket. There was an empty summer home. Was there some intruder there? Was it really empty? Now and then we could hear Searchlight scouting about in the under-brush, crouching and hiding, watching and guarding. We paused and waited in the heavily-laden night air, wondering. The soughing of the night wind in the evergreens was mournful. Did it betoken a further tragedy? There was a slight noise from the other side of the house. Craig reached out and drew us back into the shadow of the thicket, deeper. "Some one is prowling about, I think. Leave it to the dog." Searchlight, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too, even before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle tense. Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant later, the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Searchlight kept right on, never stopping a second, except, perhaps, in surprise. "Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no attention to it. "One of the few animals that show no fear of gun-fire," muttered Kennedy, in undisguised admiration. "G-r-r-r," we heard from the police dog. "She has made a leap at the hand that holds the gun," cried Kennedy, now rising and moving rapidly in the same direction. "She has been taught that a man once badly bitten in the hand is nearly out of the fight." We followed also. As we approached we were just in time to see Searchlight running in and out between the legs of a man who had heard us approach and was hastily making tracks away. As he tripped, the officer who brought her blew shrilly on a police whistle just in time to stop a fierce lunge at his back. Reluctantly, Searchlight let go. One could see that with all her canine instinct she wanted to "get" that man. Her jaws were open, as, with longing eyes, she stood over the prostrate form in the grass. The whistle was a signal, and she had been taught to obey unquestioningly. "Don't move until we get to you, or you are a dead man," shouted Kennedy, pulling an automatic as he ran. "Are you hurt?" There was no answer, but, as we approached, the man moved, ever so little, through curiosity to see his pursuers. Searchlight shot forward. Again the whistle sounded and she dropped back. We bent over to seize him, as Kennedy secured the dog. "She's a devil," ground out the prone figure on the grass. "Lockwood!" exclaimed Kennedy. XXV THE GOLD OF THE GODS "What are you doing here?" demanded Craig, astonished. "I couldn't wait for you to get back. I thought I'd do a little detective work on my own account. I kept getting further and further away, knew you'd find me, anyhow. But I didn't think you'd have a brute like that," he added, binding up his hand ruefully. "Is there any trace of Inez?" "Not yet. Why did you pick out this house?" asked Kennedy, still suspicious. "I saw a light here, I thought," answered Lockwood frankly. "But as I approached, it went out. Maybe I imagined it." "Let us see." Kennedy spoke a few words to the man with the dog. He slipped the leash, with a word that we did not catch, and the dog bounded off, around the house, as she was accustomed to do when out on duty with an officer in the city suburbs, circling about the backs of houses as the man on the beat walked the street. She made noise enough about it, too, tumbling over a tin pail that had been standing on the back porch steps. "Bang!" Some one was in the house and was armed. In the darkness he had not been able to tell whether an attack was being made or not, but had taken no chances. At any rate, now we knew that he was desperate. I thought of all the methods Kennedy had adopted to get into houses in which the inmates were desperate. But always they had been about the city where he could call upon the seemingly exhaustless store of apparatus in his laboratory. Here we were faced by the proposition with nothing to rely on but our native wit and a couple of guns. Besides, I did not know whether to count on Lockwood as an ally or not. My estimation of him had been rising and falling like the barometer in a summer shower. I had been convinced that he was against us. But his manner and plausibility now equally convinced me that I had been mistaken. I felt that it would take some supreme action on his part to settle the question. That crisis was coming now. I think all of us would willingly have pushed Alfonso forward. But the relations of the de Moches with Whitney had been so close that I no more trusted him than I did Lockwood. And if I could not make out Lockwood, a man at least of our own race and education, how could I expect to fathom Alfonso? It seemed, then, to rest with Kennedy and myself. At least so Craig appraised the situation. "You have a gun, Walter," he directed, "Lockwood, give yours to Jameson." Lockwood hesitated. Could he trust being unarmed, while Kennedy and I had all the weapons? Craig had not stopped to ask Alfonso. As he laid out the attack he merely tapped the young man's pockets to see whether he was armed or not, and finding nothing faced us again, Lockwood still hesitating. "I want Walter," explained Craig, "to go around back of the house. It is there they must be expecting an attack. He can take up his position behind that oak. It will be safe enough. By firing one gun on each side of the tree he can make enough noise for half a dozen. Then you and I can rush the front of the house." Lockwood had nothing better to suggest. Reluctantly he handed over his revolver. I dropped back from them and skirted the house at a safe distance so as not to be seen, then came up back of the tree. Carefully I aimed at the glass of a window on the first floor, as offering the greatest opportunity for making a racket, which was the object I had in mind. I fired from the right and the glass was shattered in a thousand bits. Another shot from the left broke the light out of another window on the opposite side. The house was a sort of bungalow, with most of the rooms on the first floor, and a small second story or attic window. That went next. Altogether I felt that I was giving a splendid account of myself. From the house came a rapid volley in reply. Whoever was in there was not going to surrender without a fight. One after another I plugged away with my shots, now bent on making the most of them. With the answering shots it made quite a merry little fusillade, and I was glad enough to have the shelter of the staunch oak which two or three times was hit squarely at about the level of my shoulders. I had never before heard the whirr of so many bullets about me, and I cannot say that I enjoyed it. But my attack was what Craig wanted. I heard a noise in the front of the house, as of feet running, and then I knew that in spite of all he had given me the least dangerous part of the attack. I plugged away valiantly with what shots I had left, then leaving just one more in the chamber of each gun, I hurried around in the shadow, my blood up, to help them. With the aid of the officer, they had just forced the light door and Searchlight had been allowed to leap in ahead of them, as I came up. "Here," I said to Lockwood, handing him back his gun, "take it, there is just one shot left." I, at least, had expected to find one, perhaps two desperate men waiting for us. Evidently our ruse had worked. The room was dark, but there seemed to be no one in it, though we could hear sounds as though some one were hastily barricading the door that led from the front to the room at which I had been firing. Lockwood struck a match. "Confound it, don't!" muttered Craig, knocking it from his hand. "They can see us well enough without helping them." "Chester!" We stood transfixed. It was a woman's voice. Where did it come from? Could she be in the room? "Chester--is that you?" "Yes, Inez. Where are you?" "I ran up here--in this attic--when I heard the shots." "Come down, then. All is right, now." She came down a half ladder, half flight of steps. At the foot she paused just a moment and hesitated. Then, like a frightened bird, she flew to the safety of Lockwood's arms. "Mr. Whitney," she sobbed, "called me up and told me that he had something very important to say, a message from you. He said that he had the dagger, in his safe, up in the country. He told me you'd be there and that you expected me to come up with him in his car. I went. We had some trouble with the engine. And then that other car--the one that followed us, came up behind and forced us off the bank. Mr. Whitney and I were both stunned. I don't remember a thing after that, until I woke up here. Where is it?" I listened, with one eye on that door that had been barricaded. Was Lockwood really innocent, after all? I could not think that Inez Mendoza could make such a mistake, if he were not. Lockwood clenched his fists. "Some one shall pay for this," he exclaimed. There was the problem--the inner room. Who would go in? We looked at each other a moment. The room in which we were was a living room, and perhaps, when there were visitors in the little house, was a guest-room. At any rate, on one side was a huge davenport by day which could be transformed into a folding bed at night. Lockwood looked about hastily and his eye fell on the door, then on this folding bed. With a wrench, he opened it and seized the cotton mattress from the inside. With his gun ready he advanced toward the barricaded door, holding the mattress as a shield, for his experience in wild countries had taught him that a cotton mattress is about as good a thing to stop bullets as one could find on the spur of the moment. Kennedy and the officer followed just behind, and the three threw their weights on the door almost before we knew what they were about. "Chester--don't!" cried Inez in alarm, too late. "He'll--kill you!" The excitement had been too much for her. She reeled, fainting, and I caught her. Before I could restore the davenport to something like its original condition so that we could take care of her, the first onslaught was over. Three guns were sticking their blue noses into the darkness of the next room. "Hands up!" shouted Craig, "Drop your gun! Let me hear it fall!" There followed a thud and Kennedy, followed by Lockwood and the officer entered. As they fumbled to strike a light, I managed to open a window and let in some fresh air, while the Senora, for once human, loosened the throat of Inez' dress and fanned her. Through the open door, now, I could hear what was going on in the next room, but could not see. "It was you, Lockwood," I heard a familiar voice accusing, "who was in the Museum the night the dagger disappeared." "Yes," replied Lockwood, a bit disdainfully. "I suspected something crooked about that dagger. I thought that if I made a copy of the inscription on the blade, I might decipher it myself, or get some one to do it for me. I went in and, when a chance came, I hid in the sarcophagus. There I waited until the Museum was closed. Then, when finally I got to the place where I thought the dagger was--it was gone!" "The point is," cut in Craig, interrupting, "who was the mysterious visitor to Mendoza the night of his murder?" He paused. No one seemed to be disposed to answer and he went on, "Who else than the man who sought to sell the secret on its blade, in return for Inez for whom he had a secret passion? I have reasoned it all out--the offer, the quarrel, the stabbing with the dagger itself, and the escape down the stairs, instead of by the elevator." "And I," put in Lockwood, "coming to report to Mendoza my failure to find the dagger, found him dead--and at once was suspected of being the murderer!" Inez had revived and her quick ears had caught her lover's voice and the last words. Weak as she was, she sprang up and fairly ran into the next room. "No--Chester--No!" she cried. "I never suspected--not even when I saw the shoe-prints. No--that is the man,--there--I know it--I know it!" I hurried after her, as she flung herself again between Lockwood and the rest of us, as if to shield him, while Lockwood proudly caressed the stray locks of dark hair that fluttered on his shoulder. I looked in the direction all were looking. Before us stood, unmasked at last, the scientific villain who had been plotting and scheming to capture both the secret and Inez--well knowing that suspicion would rest either on Lockwood, the soldier of fortune, or on the jealous Indian woman whose son had been rejected and whose brother he had himself already, secretly, driven to an insane suicide in his unscrupulous search for the treasure of Truxillo. It was Professor Norton, himself--first thief of the dagger which later he had hidden but which Whitney's detectives had stolen in turn from him; writer of anonymous letters, even to himself to throw others off the trail; maker of stramonium cigarettes with which to confuse the minds of his opponents, Whitney, Mendoza, and the rest; secret lover of Inez whom he demanded as the price of the dagger; and murderer of Don Luis. Senora de Moche and Alfonso, behind me, could only gasp their astonishment. Much as she would have liked to have the affair end in a general vindication of the curse she could not control a single, triumphant thrust. "His blood," she cried, transfixing Norton with her stern eyes, "has cried out of Titicaca for vengeance from that day to this!" "Want any help?" We all turned toward the door as Burke, dust-covered and tired, stamped in, followed by a man whose face was bandaged and bloody. "I heard shots. Is it all over?" But we paid no attention to Burke. There was Whitney, considerably banged up by the fall, but lucky to be alive. "I tried to shake him," he explained, catching sight of Norton. "But he stuck to us, even on our detours. Finally he grew desperate--forced my car off the road. What happened after that, I don't know. He must have carried me some miles, insensible, and dumped me in the bushes again. I was several miles up the hill, tramping along, looking for a road-house, when this gentleman found me and said I had gone too far." Senora de Moche turned from Lockwood and Inez who were standing, oblivious to the rest of us, and stared at Whitney's bruised and battered face. "It is the curse," she muttered. "It will never--" "Just a moment," interrupted Craig, drawing the dagger from his pocket, and turning toward Inez. "It was to your ancestor that the original possessor of the secret promised to give the 'big fish,' when he was killed." He paused and handed the dagger to her. She touched it shuddering, but as though it were a duty. "Take it," he said simply. "The secret is yours. Only love can destroy the curse on the Gold of the Gods." THE END 
56902	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Italics have been transcribed using _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=, and small capitals as ALL CAPITALS. Inconsistencies in punctuation have been silently corrected. A list of other corrections can be found at the end of the document. THE SOUL SCAR [Decoration] BOOKS BY ARTHUR B. REEVE _Craig Kennedy Detective Stories_ THE SOUL SCAR THE PANAMA PLOT THE ADVENTURESS THE TREASURE-TRAIN THE SILENT BULLET THE POISONED PEN THE DREAM DOCTOR THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE THE ROMANCE OF ELAINE THE EAR IN THE WALL THE WAR TERROR GOLD OF THE GODS THE SOCIAL GANGSTER _Other Detective Stories_ GUY GARRICK CONSTANCE DUNLAP HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK [ESTABLISHED 1817] [Illustration: HONORA WILFORD] THE SOUL SCAR A CRAIG KENNEDY SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY NOVEL BY ARTHUR B. REEVE AUTHOR OF _"The Treasure Train" "The Adventuress" "The Panama Plot" and other Craig Kennedy Stories_ [Logo] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON THE SOUL SCAR Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published May, 1919 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I THE DEATH-DREAM 1 II THE MARBLE HEART 17 III THE FREUD THEORY 33 IV THE "HESITATION COMPLEX" 48 V THE PSYCHANALYSIS 63 VI THE "OTHER WOMAN" 78 VII THE CROOK DETECTIVE 93 VIII THE POISONED GLASS 108 IX THE ASSOCIATION TEST 123 X THE ORDEAL BEAN 138 XI THE RASCON REPORTS 153 XII THE "NEW MORALITY" 169 XIII THE MECHANICAL EAR 186 XIV THE "JUNG" METHOD 202 XV THE CONFLICTING CLUES 218 XVI THE FINESSE 234 XVII THE SUPPRESSED DESIRE 247 XVIII THE CONFESSION 261 XIX THE LIE-DETECTOR 274 XX THE SOUL SCAR 287 THE SOUL SCAR I THE DEATH-DREAM "It's the most perplexing case I've been up against, Kennedy, for a long time." Doctor Leslie, now medical adviser to the district attorney, had dropped in at the laboratory, and, to tell the truth, I was glad of the interruption. For from a retort Kennedy was evolving an olfactory offense which was particularly annoying to me, especially as I was struggling with an article on art for _The Star_. The things were incongruous, and the article suffered. "A case?" repeated Kennedy, mechanically. "Here--stick your foot up. That's fine," he added, as he scraped the sole and heel of Leslie's shoe, while Leslie fidgeted impatiently. "This is new." Apparently Leslie's case was forgotten before it was begun. "You know," Craig went on, eagerly, "the use of all these new leather substitutes is opening a new field for detectives in the study of foot marks. I've just been analyzing the composition of some of the products. I'll soon be able to identify them all. A case, you say--eh?" "Yes. You know the lawyer, Vail Wilford? Well, they found him in his office--this morning--dead--the lights on; a suicide--that is, it looked like a suicide at first. I don't know. The thing's a mystery to me." "Oh--a suicide?" Craig frowned, as though such a thing was entirely too trivial to interrupt his analysis of rubber heels. "He left this letter--to his wife," persisted Leslie. We read the note. HONORA [it began]--Don't think I am a coward to do this, but things cannot go on as they have been going. It is no use. I cannot work it out. This is the only way. So I shall drop out. You will find my will in the safe. Good-by forever. VAIL. The peculiarly pungent smell of burning rubber had by this time completely filled the laboratory. It was stifling, sickening. "There--you made me forget that test, with your confounded suicide," reproached Kennedy. "That sample's ruined." "Glad of it," I snorted. "Now I won't need a gas-mask." However, in curiosity I looked at the note again. It was, strangely enough, written on a typewriter. "Hm!" exclaimed Kennedy, with mild interest. "Suicides don't usually write on typewriters. A hasty scrawl--that's what you usually find." "But Wilford was an unusual man," I suggested. "You might look for almost anything from Wilford." I read the note again. And as I did so I asked myself whether it was a suicide note, after all. To me, now, it seemed too calmly composed and written for that, as Kennedy had suggested. I knew Wilford as a lawyer, still comparatively young and well known almost to the point of notoriety, for of late he had taken many society divorce cases. Altogether, his office had become a sort of fashionable court of domestic relations. "Here's the strange thing," hastened Leslie, taking advantage of Kennedy's momentary interest before he could return to another retort laden with some new material. "We found in the office, on the desk, two glasses. In one there seemed to be traces of nothing at all--but in the other I have discovered decided traces of atropin." "That looks promising," remarked Kennedy, his analysis now entirely forgotten. "That's why I decided to call you in. Will you help me?" "Craig," I interrupted, "I don't know much about Vail Wilford, but he has had such an unsavory reputation that--well, I'd hesitate. I've always considered him a sort of society rat." "What difference does that make, Walter?" argued Craig, turning on me suddenly. "If a crime has been committed, I must get at it. It is my duty--even if the man is a 'rat,' as you call him. Besides, this promises to be a very interesting case. Where is the body?" he asked, abruptly, in as matter-of-fact a tone as if it had been a wrecked car towed to a garage. "Removed to his apartment on the Drive," replied Doctor Leslie, now much encouraged and not concealing it. "I've just come from the place. That was where I saw Honora Wilford." "How did Mrs. Wilford take it?" asked Craig. "Has she been told all this yet?" "Not about the atropin, I think. That's just what I wanted to tell you about. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she did not faint or do anything like that." "Then what was it?" hastened Kennedy, impatiently. "When we told her," replied Leslie, "she exclaimed: 'I knew it! I knew it!' She stood at the side of the bed where the body had been placed. 'I felt it!' she cried. 'Only the other night I had such a horrible dream. I dreamed I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled. I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move. Then the scene shifted--like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see as though by a second sight, a face--his face! Oh, it was a warning to me--to him!' "I tried to calm her," went on Leslie. "But it was of no use. She kept crying out: 'It has come true--just as I saw in the dream. I feared it--even when I knew it was only a dream.' Strange, don't you think, Kennedy?" "Why didn't you tell me this before?" asked Craig, impatiently. "Didn't have a chance. You were studying my rubber heels." "Well--what then? Is there anything else?" "I questioned her," went on Leslie. "I asked her about her dreams. 'Yes,' she said, 'often I have had the dream of that funeral procession--and always I saw the same face--Vail's! Oh, it is horrible--horrible!'" Kennedy was studying Leslie now keenly, though he said nothing. "There's another thing, too," added Leslie, eagerly. "Although Mrs. Wilford seems to be perfectly normal, still I have learned that she was suffering from the usual society complaint--nervousness--nervous breakdown. She had been treated for some time by Doctor Lathrop--you know, the society physician they all run to?" Kennedy nodded. "Then, on a sort of docket, or, rather, calendar for private notes by dates, on the desk of Wilford, I discovered this entry, among others, 'Prepare papers in proposed case of Lathrop _vs._ Lathrop.' I turned back the calendar. Several times, on previous days, covering quite a period of time, I found entries like this: 'Vina at four,' 'Vina at six,' and other dates." I glanced over at Kennedy. Vina Lathrop! I knew also of Vina Lathrop, the beautiful wife of the society physician. It was certainly news that a divorce proceeding had even been contemplated. I could imagine how the newspapers would revel in it when they knew. "Then you'll go?" queried Doctor Leslie, anxiously. Kennedy completely ignored my earlier objection. "Certainly I'll go," he replied, pulling off his stained smock. Ten minutes later, with Doctor Leslie, we came to the Wilford apartment, one of those ornate and expensive multiple dwellings that front the river and command a rental that fixes a social station in certain sets. Following him, we rode up in the elevator, and had scarcely been admitted to the Wilford suite when we were greeted familiarly by a voice. It was Doyle, of the detective bureau, a sleuth of the old school, but for all that a capital fellow and one with whom we got along very nicely, so long as we flattered him and allowed him a generous share of credit when the rounding out of a case came about. "What do you really _know_ about her?" he whispered, finally, after a few moments' chat, jerking his thumb ominously as he pointed with it down the hall in the direction of a room where I supposed that Honora Wilford must be. "Very little, it's true," cut in Leslie. "I think our report said that her maiden name was Honora Chappelle, that her father, Honore Chappelle, made quite a fortune as an optician, that she was an only child and inherited--" "I don't mean her pedigree," scorned Doyle. "I mean modern history. Now, I've been making some inquiries, from the neighbors and others, and I've had a couple of men out picking up stray bits of information." Doyle leaned over patronizingly to Kennedy, as much as to say that, with all Craig's science, he couldn't beat the organization of the regular force, a contention Kennedy was always quite willing to admit. "I have just learned," informed Doyle, "that Wilford had been having her shadowed. They tell me, too, that she has been seen once or twice with an old friend of hers, Vance Shattuck, the broker. They tell me that before she married Wilford she was once engaged to Shattuck. Know him?" he asked, turning to me. "I've heard of him," I replied. "I guess he's well known on Wall Street--seems to get his name into the papers often enough, anyhow, in one scandal or another." "Well, I think that dream stuff is all camouflage, just between you and me," nodded Doyle, sagely, drawing a piece of paper from his pocket. "I've been going over things pretty carefully since I've been here. In her desk I found this thing." He held out the paper to Kennedy. It was a page torn out of a book of poetry, an anthology, I imagined, for on the page was printed the title of a sonnet, "Renouncement," and the name of the author, Alice Meynell. On the wide margin of the page was written in ink, in what Doyle assured us was Mrs. Wilford's own handwriting, the notation, "One of the greatest sonnets of pure emotion." We all read it and I am forced to admit that, whatever our opinion might have been of Honora Wilford before, we were convinced that her literary judgment was not at fault. I add the sonnet: I must not think of thee; and tired, yet strong, I shun the love that lurks in all delight-- The love of thee--and in the blue heaven's height And in the dearest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden, yet bright; But must it never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away-- With the first dream that comes, with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. Kennedy folded up the sonnet and its notation, and, without a word, turned from Doyle and looked about the room in which we were, a little reception-room. On the table before Doyle there were two glasses, as well as some other objects which Doyle had either collected or brought with him from the office. "I suppose those are the glasses you found at the office," ventured Kennedy. "In one of them I understand that traces of atropin were found." Doyle nodded. "What's that?" asked Craig, pointing to a cut-glass-stoppered bottle which was standing by the glasses, empty. "That? It was found with a vanity-case and some other things on her dressing-table. It once contained belladonna--atropin, you know. I've had her maid, Celeste, cross-examined. Mrs. Wilford used belladonna to brighten her eyes sometimes, as many society women do." I shot a glance of inquiry at Doyle, who nodded. "So far, we haven't been able to connect Mrs. Wilford directly with the mystery, but we're keeping the evidence," he confirmed. I must admit that both Doyle's information and his general attitude after what we had heard from Leslie came as a shock. Yet, try as I might, I had to admit that even if that were the purpose for which Honora Wilford had the belladonna, it need not have been the only use to which she put it. Doyle was raising a very serious presumption, at least. A poison like belladonna was a dangerous weapon, I reasoned, in the hands of a jealous woman. The mere possession of it and the traces of atropin in the glass did, I confessed, look badly. A moment later, with the physician and the detective, we entered the room where the body lay. Wilford had been a large and rather forceful figure in life. I knew him as a man of unusual ability, though I despised the direction in which his legal talents had been diverted. Perhaps, I thought, unusual talents had brought unusual temptations. For, whatever we may have thought of people in life, our judgments are necessarily softened by death. As I looked at him now, I could not escape the feeling that his peculiar kind of success somehow would afford the basic reason which would prove to be the solution of the mystery before us. At length Kennedy straightened up and turned to us, a peculiar look on his face. "What is it?" I queried, impatiently. "Have you discovered something already?" Without replying for the moment, Kennedy glanced down significantly at the eye of Wilford as he held the lid with his finger. "Atropin, you know, would dilate the pupil," he remarked, simply. We took a step closer and looked. The pupils of both eyes were contracted. "I know," remarked Doyle, wisely, "but there may have been something else. You remember the Buchanan case?" Before any one could answer, he went on: "Remember when the Carlyle Harris case was going on, the testimony showed that Helen Potts's eyes had been contracted to a pin-point? Well, at that time Doctor Buchanan, a dentist down on Staten Island, I think, was talking to a patient. He said that Harris was a fool--that all he needed to have done was to have put some atropin in the capsule with the morphine--and her pupils would have expanded--and thus covered up the morphine clue. Later, when he himself was accused of murder, the patient recollected what the doctor had said, and it was found that he had tried the very thing himself. It was proved against him. Perhaps there is something like that." Kennedy nodded sententiously at Doyle's wisdom, but did not betray what his real opinion was, if indeed he had formed any so soon. "You have examined the contents of the stomach?" asked Craig of Leslie. Doctor Leslie shook his head. "Not yet. I have not had time. Remember, it is only a couple of hours since this case was handed over to me and it has been only a matter of minutes since I learned that there was anything suspicious." "Then I suppose you have no objection to my sharing the examination with you?" "None whatsoever. In fact, I should welcome it. Leave it to me. I will arrange for samples of everything to be sent to you at your laboratory at the very first opportunity." "Very well, then," thanked Kennedy. "Now I should like to see Mrs. Wilford, if she is here." "You bet she's here," ejaculated Doyle. "You don't suppose I'd let her get away, do you?" He led the way down the hall to a sort of drawing-room. Honora Wilford was a tall, perfectly formed woman, a beautiful woman, too. At first glance she gave one an impression of youth, though soon one saw that she was mature. I think that for that very reason she was fascinating. There was something baffling about her. Remembering what Leslie had said about the dream, I was surprised to see she was of anything, apparently, but a hysterical nature. One would not have thought her to be the type subject to hallucinations of any nature. Honora had large, lustrous, gray-blue eyes. From her carefully dressed chestnut hair to her dainty, fashionable foot-gear she was "correct." Her face had what people call "character." Yet, as I studied it and the personality it expressed, I had an indefinable feeling that there was something wanting. It was some time before I was able to catch it, much less express it. But as she talked I realized what it was. Her beauty was that of a splendid piece of sculpture--cold, almost marble. There seemed to be something lacking. I could not at first define it, yet I felt that it was lacking, nevertheless. The very perfection I saw fell short of some quality. It was that elusive thing we call "heart." As we entered with Doyle, Honora seemed to ignore him. Once I saw her covertly eying Kennedy, after our introduction, as though estimating him. Doyle had glossed the introduction over by saying that we were a "couple of scientists." What idea it conveyed to Mrs. Wilford I do not know. It meant nothing to me, except that Doyle suffered from either secret jealously or contempt. "I understand," questioned Doyle, in his best third-degree, hammer-and-tongs method, "that some time ago you had a disagreement with Mr. Wilford and even threatened to leave him." "Yes?" parried Honora, without admitting a syllable. "I didn't leave him, though, did I?" I watched her closely. She did not flinch from the questioning, nor did she betray anything. Her face wore an expression of enforced calmness. Had she steeled herself for this ordeal, as merely the first of many? Try as he might, Doyle could not shake her calmness. Yet all the time he gave the impression that he was holding something in reserve against her. "We shall have to require you to stay here, for the present," added Doyle, ominously, as his man summoned him outside for some message from headquarters. I saw what his idea was. It was a refinement of torture for her--in the hope that, surrounded by things that would keep the tragedy constantly in her mind, she might break down. Honora, on the other hand, did not seem to me to be entirely frank with the detective. Was it that Doyle, by his manner, antagonized her? Or was there some deeper reason? For a moment we were alone with her. If I had expected any appeal to Kennedy, I was mistaken. "I understand that you have been under the care of Doctor Lathrop," hazarded Craig. "Yes," she replied; "I've been so run down and miserable this season in town that I needed some treatment." "I see," considered Kennedy. "Doctor Leslie has told me. He also told me about your dreams." She averted her eyes. "They have made me even more nervous," she murmured, and I now noticed that it was quite true that her apparent placid exterior was merely a matter of will-power. "Do you dream more--or less, lately?" Craig asked. "That is, I mean since you have been consulting Doctor Lathrop. Has his treatment done you any good?" I wondered whether, beneath her nervousness, she was on guard always. "I think I have been getting more and more nervous, instead of less," she answered, in a low tone. "So many dreams of Vail--and always dreams of warning--of death. My dreams are so peculiar, too. Why, last night I dreamed even of Doctor Lathrop. In the dream I seemed to be going along a path. It was narrow, and as I turned a corner there was a lion in the way. I was horribly frightened, of course--so frightened that I woke up. The strange part of it was that, as I recollected the dream, the face of the lion seemed to be that of Doctor Lathrop." "Have you told him? What does he say?" "I haven't had a chance to see him--though by the way I feel after this tragedy I shall need a physician--soon. He tells me that I am run down, that I need a complete change of surroundings." It was evident that, whatever the reason, her nervous condition was quite as she described it. Kennedy evidently considered that nothing was to be gained by questioning her further just at that moment, and we left her. Outside we were joined by Doctor Leslie. "What do you think of it?" he asked. "A most peculiar tangle, to say the least," remarked Kennedy. "Just consider it. Here are two couples--Wilford and Honora, Doctor Lathrop and his wife, Vina. We may suspect, from what you found at the office, something in the relations of Wilford and Vina. As to the doctor and Honora--we don't know. Then, into the case seems to have entered a fifth person, Vance Shattuck. Really, Leslie, I cannot say anything now. It seems as though it might be quite complicated. I shall have to visit them, talk with them, find out. You and Doyle will keep me informed?" "Certainly. And I will let you have the materials for your tests as soon as possible." As we left the apartment, Kennedy appeared preoccupied. "Those dreams were peculiar," he remarked, slowly, almost to himself. I glanced at him quickly. "You don't mean to say that you attach any importance to dreams?" I remarked. Kennedy merely shrugged. But I knew from his actions that he did. II THE MARBLE HEART "I'm going to get acquainted with the people in this case," remarked Kennedy, as he left the Wilford apartment, "and first of all it will be with Vance Shattuck." We found that Shattuck lived in a rather sumptuous bachelor apartment farther up the Drive, to which we were admitted by his Japanese valet, who led the way into a sort of den, then disappeared to summon his master. As we waited in the den I glanced about. It was a most attractive and fascinating place. There were innumerable curios that seemed to have been gathered from all over the world. Nor were they merely thrown together in a jumble. It was artistic, too, with a masculine art. From the manner of the valet, though he had said nothing, I somehow gathered that Shattuck had been waiting for something or somebody. It was no longer early in the morning and I knew that he must have been neglecting his business, that is, if he really had any to neglect. I wondered why he should be doing so. A few minutes later Shattuck himself appeared, a slim, debonair, youngish-old man, with dark hair of the sort that turns iron-gray in spots even in youth. Somehow he gave the impression of being a man of few words, of being on guard even thus early in our meeting. "You have evidently traveled considerably," commented Kennedy, as he entered and we introduced ourselves. "Yes, a great deal, before the war," replied Shattuck, guardedly watching. "In Africa, I see," added Kennedy, who had been examining some striking big-game photographs that hung on a side wall. "Once I was in Africa--yes. But I contracted a fever there. It has left me unable to stand the fatigue I used to stand. However, I'm all right--otherwise--and good for a great many years in this climate--so my doctor tells me." "Doctor Lathrop?" suggested Kennedy, quickly. Shattuck evaded replying. "To what am I indebted for the honor?" he queried, coldly now, still standing and not offering us seats. "I suppose you have heard of the death of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, coming directly to the point. "Yes. I have just learned that he was found dead in his office, the lights turned on, and with a note left by him to his wife. It's very sudden." "You were acquainted with Honora Wilford, I believe?" Shattuck flashed a quick glance sidewise. "We went to school together." "And were engaged once, were you not?" Shattuck looked at Kennedy keenly. "Yes," he replied, hastily. "But what business of yours--or anybody's, for that matter--is that?" A moment later he caught himself. "That is," he added, "I mean--how did you know that? It was a sort of secret, I thought, between us. She broke it off--not I." "She broke off the engagement?" "Yes--a story about an escapade of mine, and all that sort of thing, that kind mutual friends do so well for one in repeating--but! by Jove, I like your nerve, sir, to talk about it--to me. The fact of the matter is, I prefer not to talk about it. There are some incidents in a man's life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that are a closed book." He said it with a mixture of defiance and finality. "Quite true," hastened Kennedy, briskly, "but a murder has been committed. The police have been called in. Everything must be gone over carefully. We can't stand on any ceremony now, you know--" At that moment the telephone rang and Shattuck turned quickly toward the hall as his valet padded in after having answered it softly. "You will excuse me a moment?" he begged. Was this call what he had been waiting for? I looked about, but there was no chance to get into the hall or near enough in the den to overhear. While Shattuck was at the telephone, Kennedy paced across the room to a bookcase. There he paused a moment and ran his eye over the titles of some of the books. They were of a most curious miscellaneous selection, showing that the reader had been interested in pretty nearly every serious subject and somewhat more than a mere dabbler. Kennedy bent down closer to be sure of one title, and from where I was standing behind him I could catch sight of it. It was a book on dreams translated from the works of Dr. Sigmund Freud. Kennedy continued to pace up and down. Out in the hall Shattuck was still at the telephone and we could just make out that he was talking in a very low tone, inaudible to us at a distance. I wondered with whom it might be. From his manner, which was about all we could observe, I gathered that it was a lady with whom he talked. Few of us ever get over the feeling that in some way we are in the presence of the person on the other end of the wire. Could it have been with Honora Wilford herself that he was talking? A few moments later Shattuck returned from the telephone. "Have you met Mrs. Wilford recently?" asked Kennedy, picking up the conversation where he had been interrupted by the call. Shattuck eyed Kennedy with hostility and grunted a surly negative. I felt that it was a lie. "I suppose you know that she has been suffering from nervous trouble for some time?" he continued, calmly ignoring Shattuck's answer, then adding, sarcastically, "I trust you won't consider it an impertinence, Mr. Shattuck, if I ask you whether you were aware that Doctor Lathrop was Mrs. Wilford's physician?" "Yes, I am aware of it," returned Shattuck. "What of it?" "He is yours, too, is he not?" asked Kennedy, pointedly. Shattuck was plainly nettled by the question, especially as he could not seem to follow whither Kennedy was drifting. "He was once," he answered, testily. "But I gave him up." "You gave him up?" It has always been a source of enjoyment to me to watch Kennedy badgering an unwilling and hostile witness. Shattuck was suddenly finding himself to be far from the man of few words he thought himself. It was not so much in what Kennedy asked as the manner in which he asked it. Shattuck was immediately placed on the defensive, much to his chagrin. "Yes. I most strenuously object to being the subject of--what shall I call it--perhaps--this mental vivisection, I suppose," he snapped, vexed at himself for answering at all, yet finding himself under the necessity of finishing what he had unwillingly begun under the lash of Kennedy's quizzing. Kennedy did not hesitate. "Why?" he asked. "Do you think that he sometimes oversteps his mark in trying to find out about the mental life of his patients?" Shattuck managed to control a sharp reply that was trembling on his tongue. "I would rather say nothing about it," he shrugged. "I see you are a student of Freud yourself," switched Kennedy, quickly, with a nod toward the bookcase. "And of many other things," retorted Shattuck. "You'll find about a ton of literature in that bookcase." "But it was about her dreams," persisted Kennedy, "that she consulted Doctor Lathrop, I believe. Are you acquainted with the nature of the dreams?" Shattuck eyed him in silence. It was evident that he realized that the only refuge from the quizzing lay in that direction. "Really, sir," he said, at last, "I don't care to discuss a thing I know nothing about any further." He turned, as though only by a studied insult could he find escape. I expected Kennedy to flare up, but he did not. Instead, he was ominously polite. "Thank you," he said, with a mocking sarcasm that angered Shattuck the more. "I suppose I may reach you at your place of business, later, if I need?" Shattuck nodded, but I knew there was a mental reservation back of it and that his switchboard operator would be given instructions to scrutinize every call carefully, and that, should we call up, Mr. Shattuck would have "just stepped out." As for Kennedy's tone, I was sure that it boded no good for Shattuck himself. Perhaps Kennedy reasoned that there would be plenty of other interviews later and that it was not worth while fighting on the first. On his part Shattuck could do no less than assume an equal politeness as he bowed us out, though I know that inwardly he was ready to consign us to the infernal regions. Kennedy was no sooner in the street than he hastened to a near-by telephone-booth. Evidently the same thought had been in his mind as had been in mine. He called up Doyle at the Wilford apartment immediately and inquired whether Honora Wilford had made any telephone calls recently. To my surprise, though I will not say to his own, he found out that she had not. "Then who was it called Shattuck?" I queried. "I could have sworn from his manner that he was talking to a woman. Could it have been to the maid?" He shook his head. "Celeste is watched, too, you know. No, it was not Celeste that called up. He would never have talked that long nor as deferentially to her. Never mind. We shall see." Back on the Drive again, we walked hastily up-town a few squares until we came to another apartment, where, in a first-floor window, I saw a little sign in black letters on white, "Dr. Irvin Lathrop." Fortunately it was at a time when Lathrop was just finishing his office hours, and we had not long to wait until the last patient had left after a consultation. As we waited I could see that even his waiting-room was handsomely furnished and I knew that it must be expensive, for our own small apartment, a little farther up-town and around the corner from the Drive, cost quite enough, though Kennedy insisted on keeping it because it was so close to the university where he had his laboratory and his class work. As Lathrop flung the door to his inner office open I saw that he was a tall and commanding-looking man with a Vandyke beard. One would instinctively have picked him out anywhere as a physician. Lathrop, I knew, was not only well known as a specialist in nervous diseases, but also as a man about town. In spite of his large and lucrative practice, he always seemed to have time enough to visit the many clubs to which he belonged and to hold a prominent place in the social life of the city. Not only was he well known as a club-man, but he was very popular with the ladies. In fact, it was probably due to the very life that he led that his practice as a physician to the many ills of society had grown. "I suppose you know of the suicide of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, as he explained briefly, without telling too much, our connection with the case. Doctor Lathrop signified that he did know, but, like Shattuck, I could see that he was inclined to be cautious about it. "I've just been talking to Honora Wilford," went on Craig, when we were settled in the doctor's inner office. "I believe she was a patient of yours?" "Yes," he admitted, with some reluctance. "And that she had been greatly troubled by nervousness--insomnia--her dreams--and that sort of thing." The doctor nodded, but did not volunteer any information. However, his was not the hostility of Shattuck. I set it down to professional reticence and, as such, perhaps hard to overcome. "I understand, also," pursued Kennedy, affecting not to notice anything lacking in the readiness of the answer, "that Vance Shattuck was friendly with her." The doctor looked at him a moment, as though studying him. "What do you mean?" he asked, evasively. "What makes you say that?" "But he was, wasn't he? At least, she was friendly with him?" Kennedy repeated, reversing the form of the question to see what effect it might have. "I shouldn't say so," returned the doctor, slowly, though not frankly. Kennedy reached into his pocket and drew forth the sonnet which he had taken from Doyle back at the Wilford apartment. "You will recognize the handwriting in that notation on the margin," he remarked, quietly. "It is Mrs. Wilford's. Her sentiment, taken from the poem, is interesting." Lathrop read it and then reread it to gain time, for it was some moments before he could look up, as though he had to make up his mind just what to say. "Very pretty thought." He nodded, scarcely committing himself. Lathrop seemed a trifle uneasy. "I thought it a rather strange coincidence, taken with the bit I learned of her dreams," remarked Kennedy. Lathrop's glance at Kennedy was one of estimation, but I saw that Kennedy was carefully concealing just how much, or rather at present how little, he actually knew. "Ordinarily," remarked Lathrop, clearing his throat, "professional ethics would seal my lips, but in this instance, since you seem to think that you know so much, I will tell you--something. I don't like to talk about my patients, and I won't, but, in justice to Mrs. Wilford, I cannot let this pass." He cleared his throat again and leaned back in his chair, regarding Kennedy watchfully through his glasses as he spoke. "Some time ago," he resumed, slowly, "Mrs. Wilford came to me to be treated. She said that she suffered from sleeplessness--and then when she slept that her rest was broken by such horrible fantasies." Kennedy nodded, as though fully conversant already with what the doctor had said. "There were dreams of her husband," he continued, "morbid fears. One very frequent dream was of him engaged in what seemed to be a terrific struggle, although she has never been able to tell me just with what or whom he seemed to struggle. She told me she always had a feeling of powerlessness when in that dream, as though unable to run to him and help him. Then there were other dreams that she had, especially the dreams of a funeral procession, and always in the coffin she saw his face." Kennedy nodded again. "Yes, I know of those dreams," he remarked, casually. "And of some others." For a moment Kennedy's manner seemed to take the doctor off his professional guard--or did he intend it to seem so? "Only the other day," Lathrop went on, a moment later, "she told me of another dream. In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull. She fled from it, but as it pursued her it seemed to gain on her, and she said she could even feel its hot breath--it was so close. Then, in her dream, in fright, as she ran over the field, hoping to gain a clump of woods, she stumbled and almost fell. She caught herself and ran on. She expected momentarily to be gored by the bull, but, strangely enough, the dream went no farther. It changed. She seemed, she said, to be in the midst of a crowd and in place of the bull pursuing her was now a serpent. It crept over the ground after her and hissed, seemed to fascinate her, and she trembled so that she could no longer run. Her terror, by this time, was so great that she awoke. She tells me that as often as she dreamed them she never finished either dream." "Very peculiar," commented Kennedy. "You have records of what she has told you?" "Yes. I may say that I have asked her to make a record of her dreams, as well as other data which I thought might be of use in the diagnosis and treatment of her nervous troubles." "Might I see them?" Lathrop shook his head emphatically. "By no means. I consider that they are privileged, confidential communications between patient and physician--not only illegal, but absolutely unethical to divulge. There's one strange thing, though, that I may be at liberty to add, since you know something already. Always, she says, these animals in the dreams seemed to be endowed with a sort of human personality. Both the bull and the serpent seemed to have human faces." Kennedy nodded at the surprising information. If I had expected him to refer to the dream of Doctor Lathrop which she herself had told, I was mistaken. "What do you think is the trouble?" asked Kennedy, at length, quite as though he had no idea what to make of it. "Trouble? Nervousness, of course. I readily surmised that not the dreams were the cause of her nervousness, but that her nervousness was the cause of her dreams. As for the dreams, they are perfectly simple, I think you will agree. Her nervousness brought back into her recollection something that had once worried her. By careful questioning I think I discovered what was back of her dreams, at least in part. It's nothing you won't discover soon, if you haven't already discovered it. It was an engagement broken before her marriage to Wilford." "I see," nodded Kennedy. "In the dreams, you remember, she saw a half-human face on the animals. It was the face of Vance Shattuck." "I gathered as much," prompted Kennedy. "It seems that she was once engaged to him--that she broke the engagement because of reports she heard about his escapades. I do not say this to disparage Mr. Shattuck. Far from that. He is a fine fellow--an intimate friend of mine, fellow-clubmate, and all that sort of thing. That was all before he made his trips abroad--hunting, mostly, everywhere from the Arctic to Africa. The fact of the matter is, as I happen to know, that since he traveled abroad he has greatly settled down in his habits. And then, who of us has not sown his wild oats?" The doctor smiled indulgently at the easy-going doctrine that is now so rapidly passing, especially among medical men. "Well," he concluded, "that is the story. Make the most of it you can." "Very strange--very," remarked Kennedy, then, changing the angle of the subject, asked, "You are acquainted with the recent work and the rather remarkable dream theories of Doctor Freud?" Doctor Lathrop nodded. "Yes," he replied, slowly, "I am acquainted with them--and I dissent vigorously from most of Freud's conclusions." Kennedy was about to reply to this rather sweeping categorical manner of settling the question, when, as we talked, it became evident that there was some one just outside the partly open doors of the inner office. I had seen a woman anxiously hovering about, but had said nothing. "Is that you, Vina?" called Doctor Lathrop, also catching sight of her in the hall. "Yes," she replied, parting the portières and nodding to us. "I beg pardon for interrupting. I was waiting for you to get through, Irvin, but I've an appointment down-town. I'm sure you won't mind?" Vina Lathrop was indeed a striking woman; dark of hair, perhaps a bit artificial, but of the sort which is the more fascinating to study just because of that artificiality; perhaps not the type of woman most men might think of marrying, but one whom few would fail to be interested in. She seemed to be more of a man's woman than a woman's woman. "You will excuse me a moment?" begged the doctor, rising. "So, you see," he finished with us, "when you asked me whether she was friendly with Shattuck, it is quite the opposite, I should--" "You're talking of Honora?" interrupted the doctor's wife. Doctor Lathrop introduced us, as there seemed to be nothing else to do, but I do not think he was quite at ease. "I don't think I would have said that," she hastened, almost ignoring, except by an inclination of the head, the introduction in the eagerness to express an idea his words had suggested. "I don't think Honora is capable of either deep love or even deep hate." "A sort of marble woman?" suggested the doctor, at first biting his lips at having her in the conversation, then affecting to be amused, as though at one woman's spontaneous estimate of another. Vina shrugged her prettily rounded shoulders, but said no more on the subject. "I sha'n't be gone long," she nodded back. "Just a bit of business." She was gone before the doctor could say a word. Had the remark in some way been a shot at the doctor? All did not appear to be as serene between this couple as they might outwardly have us believe. I saw that the interruption had not been lost on Kennedy. Had it been really an interest in our visit that had prompted it? Somehow, I wondered whether it might not have been this woman who had called up Shattuck while we were there. But why? We left the doctor a few minutes later, more than ever convinced that the mystery in the strange death of Vail Wilford was not so simple as it seemed. III THE FREUD THEORY "Until I receive those materials from Doctor Leslie to make the poison tests," considered Kennedy, as we walked slowly the few blocks to the laboratory, "I can't see that there is much I can do but wait." In his laboratory, he paused before his well-stocked shelves with their miscellaneous collection of books on almost every conceivable subject. Absently he selected a volume. I could see that it was one of the latest translated treatises on this new psychology from the pen of the eminent scientist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, and that it bore the significant title, _The Interpretation of Dreams_. Craig glanced through it mechanically, then laid it aside. For a few moments he sat at his desk, hunched forward, staring straight ahead and drumming his fingers thoughtfully. I leaned over and my eye happened to fall on the following paragraphs: "To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings the dream accords what has been denied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being and happiness; so the insane, too, see the bright pictures of happiness, greatness, sublimity, and riches. The supposed possession of estates and the imaginary fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which has just served as the psychic cause of the insanity, often form the main content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved child, in her delirium experiences maternal joys; the man who has suffered reverses of fortune sees himself immensely wealthy, and the jilted girl pictures herself in the bliss of tender love." The above passage from Radestock reveals with the greatest clearness the wish-fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination, common to the dream and the psychosis. It is easy to show that the character of wish-fulfilment in dreams is often undisguised and recognizable, so that one may wonder why the language of dreams has not long since been understood. I read this and more, but, as I merely skimmed it, I could not say that I understood it. I turned to Kennedy, still abstracted. "Then you really regard the dreams as important?" I asked, all thought of finishing my own article on art abandoned for the present in the fascination of the mysterious possibilities opened up by the Wilford case. "Important?" he repeated. "Immensely so--indispensable, as a matter of fact." I could only stare at him. The mere thought that anything so freakish, so uncontrollable as a dream might have a serious importance in a murder case had never entered my mind. "If I can get at the truth of the case," he explained, "it must be through these dreams." "But how are you going to do that?" I asked, voicing the thought that had been forming. "To me, dreams seem to be just disconnected phantasmagoria of ideas--arising nowhere and getting nowhere, as far as I can see--interesting, perhaps, but--still, well, just chaotic." "Quite the contrary, Walter," he corrected. "If you had kept abreast with the best recent work in psychology, you wouldn't say that." "Well, what is this wonderful Freud theory, anyhow?" I asked, a bit nettled at his positive tone. "What do we know now that we didn't know before?" "Very much," he replied, thoughtfully. "There's just this to be said about dreams to-day. A few years ago they were all but inexplicable. The accepted explanations, then, were positively misleading and productive of all sorts of misapprehension and downright charlatanry." "All right," I argued. "That's just my idea of dreams. Tell me what it is that the modern dream-books have to say about them, then." "Don't be frivolous, Walter," Craig frowned. "Dreams used to be treated very seriously, it is true, by the ancients. But, as I just said, until recently modern scientists, rejecting the beliefs of the dark ages, as they thought, scouted dreams as senseless jumbles of ideas, uncontrolled, in sleep. That's your class, Walter," he replied, witheringly, "with the scientists who thought that they had the last word, just because it was, to them, the latest." Though I resented his correction, I said nothing, for I saw that he was serious. Mindful of many previous encounters with Craig in his own fields in which I had come off a bad second, I waited prudently. "To-day, however," he continued, "we study dreams really scientifically. We believe that whatever is has a reason. Many students had had the idea that dreams meant something in mental life that was not just pure fake and nonsense. But until Freud came along with his theories little progress had been made in the scientific study of dreams." "Granted," I replied, now rather interested. "Then what is his theory?" "Not very difficult to explain, if you will listen carefully a moment," Craig went on. "Dreams, says Freud, are very important, instead of being mere nonsense. They give us the most reliable information concerning the individual. But that is possible only if the patient is in entire rapport with the investigator. Later, I may be able to give you a demonstration of what I mean by that. Now, however, I want you to understand just what it is that I am seeking to discover and the method it is my purpose to adopt to attain it." The farther Kennedy proceeded, the more I found myself interested, in spite of my assumption of skepticism. In fact, I had assumed the part more because I wanted to learn from him than for any other reason. "But how do you think dreams arise in the first place?" I asked, more sympathetically. "Surely, if they have a meaning that can be discovered by a scientist like yourself, they must come in some logical way--and that is the thing I can't understand, first of all." "Not so difficult. The dream is not an absurd and senseless jumble, as you seem to think. Really, when it is properly understood, it is a perfect mechanism and has definite meaning in penetrating the mind." He was drawing thoughtfully on a piece of paper, as he often did when his mind was working actively. "It is as though we had two streams of thought," he explained, "one of which we allow to flow freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back into the subconscious or the unconscious, as you will. This matter of the evolution of our individual mental life is much too long a story for me to go into just at present. "But the resistances, as they are called, the psychic censors of our ideas, so to speak, are always active, except in sleep. It is then that the repressed material comes to the surface. Yet these resistances never entirely lose their power. The dream, therefore, shows the material distorted. "Seldom does one recognize his own repressed thoughts or unattained wishes. The dream is really the guardian of sleep, to satisfy the activity of the unconscious and repressed mental processes that would otherwise disturb sleep by keeping the censor busy. That's why we don't recognize the distortions. In the case of a nightmare the watchman, or censor, is aroused, finds himself over-powered, as it were, and calls for help. Consciousness must often come to the rescue--and we wake up." "Very neat," I admitted, now more than half convinced. "But what sort of dreams are there? I don't see how you can classify them, study them." "Easily enough. I should say that there are three kinds of dreams--those which represent an unrepressed wish as fulfilled, those that represent the realization of a repressed wish in an entirely concealed form, and those that represent the realization of a repressed wish, but in a form insufficiently or only partially concealed." "But what about these dream doctors who profess to be able to tell you what is going to happen--the clairvoyants?" Kennedy shrugged. "Cruel fakers, almost invariably," he replied. "This is something entirely different, on an entirely different plane. Dreams are not really of the future, even though they may seem to be. They are of the past--that is, their roots are in the past. Of course, they are of the future in the sense that they show striving after unfulfilled wishes. Whatever may be denied in reality, we can nevertheless realize in another way--in our dreams. It's a rather pretty thought." He paused a moment. "Perhaps the dream doctors were not so fundamentally wrong as we think, even about the future," he added, thoughtfully, "though for a different reason than they thought and a natural one. Probably more of our daily life, conduct, moods, beliefs, than we think could be traced to preceding dreams." I began vaguely now to see what he was driving at and to feel the fascination of the idea. "Then you think that you will be able to find out from Mrs. Wilford's dreams more than she'll ever tell you or any one else about the case?" "Exactly." "Well, that doesn't seem so unreasonable, after all," I admitted, going back in my mind over what we had learned so far. "Why did Doctor Lathrop say he dissented from the theory?" Kennedy smiled. "Many doctors do that. There's a side of it all that is distasteful to them, I suppose. It grates on minds of a certain type." "What's that?" "The sex aspect. Sex life possesses, according to Freud, a far higher significance in our mental household than traditional psychology is willing to admit. And I don't know as I would say I'd go the whole distance with Freud, either." He paused contemplatively. "Yet there is much that is true about his sex theories. Take an example. There's much about married life that can be learned from dreams. Thus, why John Doe doesn't get along with his wife has always been a matter of absorbing interest to the neighborhood. Conversation is taken up by it; yellow journalism is founded on it. Now, psychology--and mainly dream analysis--can solve the question--often right things for both John and Jane Doe and set the neighborhood tongues at rest. Sex and sex relations play a big rôle in life, whether we like to admit it or not." "I see," I nodded. "Then you think that that's what Lathrop meant when he said he strongly disagreed with the theory?" "Without a doubt. That is perhaps the part of the theory from which he reacted--or said he did. You see, Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, he says, the best indication of abnormality would be its absence. "Sex is one of the strongest of human impulses," Craig continued, as impersonally as if he were classifying butterflies, "yet the one impulse subjected to the greatest repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural development. However, if everything is natural there ought to be no trouble. In a normal life, says Freud, there are no neuroses." "But how does that all apply in this case?" I asked. "You must mean that we have to deal with a life that is not normal, here in the Wilford case." He nodded. "I was convinced of it, the moment Leslie called on me here. That was why I was interested. Before that I thought it was just an ordinary case that had stumped him and I was not going to pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him. But what he said put it in a different light. So did what Doyle told me, especially that sonnet he found. They didn't know it--don't know it yet--won't know it until I tell them. That doesn't alter the fact that it promises to be a unique case." He paced the floor a few moments, as though trying to piece together the fragments he possessed. "Let me proceed now with a preliminary psychanalysis, as the Freudians call it," he resumed, still pacing thoughtfully, "the soul analysis of Honora Wilford, as it were. I do not claim that it is final. It is not. But on such information and belief, as the lawyers say, as we have already, we are warranted in drawing some preliminary conclusions. They will help us to go on. If any of them are wrong, all we need to do is throw them overboard. Later, I shall add to that stock of information, in one way or another, and it may very greatly modify those conclusions. But, until then, let's adopt them as a working hypothesis." I could only wonder at him. It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science of dreams might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it by applying it directly to a concrete case which I had seen. "You recall what Leslie told us, what Mrs. Wilford told us, and what Doctor Lathrop later confirmed--her dream of fear?" Craig went on. "At present, I should say that it was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams of fear are always important. Just consider fear for a moment. Fear in such a dream as this nearly always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. Their gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consequently, in her dream, she feared the death of her husband because, unconsciously, she wished it." I was startled, to say the least. "But, Craig," I remonstrated, "the very idea is repulsive. I don't believe for a moment she is that kind of woman. It's impossible." "Take this idea of dream-death of one who is living," ignored Kennedy. "If there is sorrow felt, then there is some other cause for the dream. But if there is no sorrow felt, then the dreamer really desires the death or absence of the person dreamed about. Perhaps I did put it a little too sweepingly," he modified; "but when all the circumstances are considered, as I have considered them in this case already, I feel sure that the rule will apply here." "Better not tell that to Doyle," I remarked. "Judging by his attitude toward Honora Wilford, he'd arrest her on sight, if he knew what you just said." "I shall not tell Doyle. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing to Doyle. I haven't indicted her--yet." Turning the thing over in my mind, I found it even more and more distasteful, and I could not resist expressing myself rather strongly to that effect. "I expected to have you quarrel with that conclusion," smiled Kennedy, calmly. "People always do, until they understand. Let me explain more fully what I mean. Remember, first, that in childhood death is synonymous with being away. And many of our dreams are only survivals of childhood, like the falling dreams. Take the night-shirt dream. I suppose that, in common with some other millions of mortals, you have dreamed of traveling on the Subway, we'll say, lightly clad. No one noticed it." "Yes," I laughed. "Only, finally I knew it--and how I have sneaked back home by deserted streets, afraid to be seen. Yet, when I met any one, as you say, the person didn't seem to be embarrassed--not a tenth as much as I." "It speaks well for you," nodded Kennedy, with mock gravity. "If you had felt that others saw and knew your shame, it would mean something entirely different. As it is, it is simply one of those survivals of childhood in which there is no sense of shame over nakedness. Other people don't show it, either. But, later in life, you learned shame. That's where your psychic censor comes in and makes you sneak home by the byways and hedges. And, still, others don't feel as you do about it in the dream. If they did, I'm afraid it might show your moral sense a bit perverted. However, that's just an illustration of what I mean when I say that the death-dream may often be a childhood survival." I listened without comment, for Craig was interesting, now. "To get back to the case we have," he resumed. "Take, for example, a girl who sees in her dream that her mother is dead. It may mean many things. But perhaps it means only that she wishes her mother away so that she may enjoy some pleasure that her strict parent by her presence denies. That's a more or less parallel case, you see." Even though I was now more willing than before to admit the interpretation as applied to Honora Wilford, I was not prepared to admit the theory. Though I said nothing about it, I was afraid that such dream analysis was pointing too strongly to Honora herself as one who unconsciously wished her husband out of the way. The idea repelled me at the same time that it fascinated. I realized what wide possibilities it opened. "Of all dreams," continued Kennedy, "anxiety-dreams are among the most interesting and important. Anxiety may originate in psychosexual excitement--the repressed libido, or desire, as the Freudians call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in sexual life and corresponds to a libido, or desire, which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied." "That may be true," I admitted, "but don't you think it's a bit raw to accuse Honora of desiring the death of Vail Wilford just because she didn't love him? I'd hate to be a juryman in a case like that!" "Raw? Is it?" repeated Kennedy. "That is, is it in a dream? Just dissociate dreams from facts, Walter. Take the case. You see, that fits splendidly so far with what we know of her--her secret regard for Shattuck surviving after the broken engagement; her apparent coldness; her very real lack of feeling for her husband; the superficiality of it all; love not really felt, but shown because the world must see and it was the proper thing for her to show--even if in her heart she did not feel it." "I know all that," I insisted. "But, perhaps, after all, Lathrop may have some right on his side. Must one incriminate oneself by dreams?" Kennedy shook his head. "Often dreams that are apparently most harmless turn out to be sinister, if we take the pains to interpret them. All have the mark of the beast. For instance, practically all so-called day dreams of women are erotic in their inception. Those of men may be so, but quite as often are likely to be dreams of ambition more than of love. One cannot say that this distinction will always be. It is hard to predict what may happen in the future. Perhaps modern social conditions may change the very nature of woman--perhaps her ambition for a 'career' may submerge her emotional life. But--well, I doubt it. A few years don't wipe out the evolution and instincts of countless ages. Besides, Nature can be trusted to take care of herself. Sexless women won't have children--then after whom will the next generation after them take?" "But is that all there is to the dream theory?" I asked, nodding agreement on Kennedy's prediction. "Not a bit of it. Even those brief dreams that she has told will bear hours of study and analysis. Building up her true, inward character is like laying mosaic. You add here a bit, there a bit, here a stone of one color, there of another. It takes patience and study. When the pieces are all fitted together the picture will be very different from what even an intimate friend thinks; yes, different from what she herself in her own inmost heart thinks herself to be." He paused a moment, as though turning the dreams over in his mind to see whither they led. "There's another feature of her dream I want to call your attention to," he went on, "and that is the crowd as she fled from the bull. Crowds in dreams usually denote a secret. Whatever her true feelings toward Shattuck, she believes them to be locked in her own heart. Again, when she was pursued across the field she said she could feel the hot breath of the beast as he pursued her. From that I would assume at least that she knows that Shattuck loves her. Then she stumbled and almost fell. That can have but one meaning--her fear of becoming a fallen woman. But she caught herself and ran on, in the dream. She escaped." "What of the dream about Lathrop?" I asked. "We'll take that up later and try to interpret it. I am not sure of that one, myself. As for the others, I don't mean to say that I've put a final interpretation on them, either. Some things, such as I've told you, I know. But there are others still to be discovered. Just now the important thing is to get an understanding of Honora herself." He took a turn up and down the floor of the laboratory. "Honora Wilford," he said, slowly, at last, "is what the specialists would call a consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate woman." He paused significantly, then went on: "I suppose there have been many cases where an intellectual woman has found herself attracted almost without reason toward a purely physical man. You find it in literature continually--in the caveman school of fiction, you know. As an intellectual woman, Honora may suppress her nature. But sometimes, we believe, Nature will and does assert herself." Kennedy considered the laboratory impatiently. "No package from Leslie yet. I hardly know what to do--unless--yes--that is the thing, now that I have had time to think this all out. I must see Mrs. Wilford again--and alone." IV THE "HESITATION COMPLEX" Honora Wilford was still in the apartment where we had left her under the watchful care of one of Doyle's men. Undoubtedly she felt no disposition to stir out, for if she went out it was certain that she would have gone under the most galling espionage. It must have been maddening to a woman of her temperament and station in life to find herself so hedged about by restriction. Doubtless it was just that that Doyle had intended, in the hope that the strain to which he subjected her by it would shake her poise. Nevertheless, she received us with at least outward graciousness. Perhaps it was that she recognized some difference in the treatment which Kennedy accorded her over that from those whom Doyle had seen fit to place in charge of the apartment where once she had been mistress. At any rate, I thought she acted a bit weary and I felt genuinely sorry for her as she received us and questioned us with her eyes. "I've been very much interested in those dreams of yours," remarked Kennedy, endeavoring not to betray too much of the source of his information, for obvious reasons. "Doctor Leslie has told me of some of them--and I tried to get Doctor Lathrop to tell me of the others." "Indeed?" she queried merely, her large eyes bent on Kennedy in doubt, although she did not betray any trepidation about the subject. "I wonder whether you would mind writing them down for me?" Craig asked, quickly. "I've already done so once for Doctor Lathrop," she answered, as though trying to avoid it. "Yes," agreed Kennedy, quickly; "but I can hardly expect him to let me see them--professional ethics and all that sort of thing, you know, forbid." "I suppose so," she replied, with a little nervous smile. "Oh, if you really want me to do so, I suppose I can write them out again, of course--write them the best I can recollect." "It would be of great assistance indeed, I can assure you," encouraged Kennedy. Honora, without another demur, walked over to a little writing-desk which seemed to be her own. Kennedy followed and placed a chair for her. Then he stepped back, though not so far but that he could watch her. A moment she paused, toying with her fountain-pen, then began to write. "My most frequent dream is a horrible one," she began, writing in a firm hand, although she knew that she was observed and was weighing every word and action. "I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled." At this point she seemed to hesitate and pause. I saw that Kennedy was carefully noting it and every mood and action she exhibited. Then, after a moment, gathering herself together again, she wrote on: "I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move." Again she paused, then very slowly began to write on another line. "Then the scene shifted like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail." As she finished, she seemed now to be struggling with her emotions. The more I saw of Honora Wilford, the more I was unable to resist the fascination of studying her. She was a woman well worth study--a woman of baffling temperament, high-strung, of keen perception, yet always in the face of even such circumstances as these keeping herself under seemingly perfect control. Always I found myself going back again to my original impression of her. Somehow, indefinably, I felt that there was something lacking in this woman's life. Was it, as I had believed at first, "heart"? I wondered whether, after all, there had been lacking in this woman's life some big experience, whether ever she had really loved. I knew well what would have been the answer one might have received if she had been questioned. She would have pointed immediately to her married life as proof that she had loved--at least once upon a time. And yet, was it proof? Had she loved Vail Wilford deeply? The fact was that I did not, could not feel entirely unsympathetic toward her. Somehow, I felt, it could not have been entirely her fault, that she must have been the victim of circumstances or prejudices over which she had no control. At any rate, I determined that whatever lay at the bottom of it all was well worth our study and discovery. I hoped that the case would last. I wanted to see its development, and, if by any chance it was possible, the development of Honora herself, for I felt that once the gap, whatever it was and however it had arisen in her life, was closed she would be a most wonderful woman. At times when I thought of the manner of Doyle and his men toward her, it made me boil over. As for Kennedy, it was different. I did not understand Craig in this matter. Yet I knew him better than perhaps any one else. Whatever lay back of Craig's actions, always I knew there was sympathy. Some may have thought him cold, but I knew better. Kennedy had always represented to me science with a heart. As for Doyle--he was neither. Kennedy's voice recalled me to the matter of immediate importance before us. "There was also that dream of Doctor Lathrop about which you told me, in which he appeared as a lion," suggested Kennedy, as she stopped writing and handed him what she had written. "This is very good--just what I want, as a matter of fact. Won't you write that other dream for me, also?" With an air of resignation, as though she felt she was in our hands and had determined that her acts would be above criticism, she turned again to her desk, picked up the pen she had laid down, and wrote on a fresh sheet of paper: "In the dream I seemed to be going along a rocky path. It was narrow, and as I turned a bend there was a bearded lion in the way. I was terribly frightened. I woke up." She began a new line and added: "The lion seemed to have a human face. It seemed to resemble Doctor Lathrop." I contrasted the writing of this dream with the other. At least there had been no hesitation in writing this, I observed, whatever that might mean. Already I was coming to have some respect for the dream theory which I would have ridiculed only a few hours before Kennedy began to convince me. Honora laid down the pen and glanced up rather wearily as Kennedy ran his eye over what she had written. Much as it all aroused her curiosity, plainly the whole proceeding on the part of Craig was a sealed book to her. "There's just another dream, or, rather, two dreams," he said, in a moment, "that interested me almost as much when I heard of them. Doctor Lathrop happened to mention them without telling them and I'd like to get them from you." She glanced at him covertly, as much as to say, "So, then, you have been talking about me to him?" but she controlled whatever remark was on her tongue and said nothing. Instead, obediently again, she picked up the pen and wrote, while we waited and the minutes passed. Only now it seemed that she was writing more carefully, both taking more time over the actual legibility and the choice of words. "I seemed to be attacked by a bull," she detailed. "It was in a great field and I fled from it over the field. But it pursued me. It seemed to gain on me." It was evident that she was not writing this dream with the facility with which she had set down the others. She paused as she came to the chase by the bull and seemed to think about what next to say. Then she wrote: "It was very close. Then, in my dream, in fright, I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on. I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream--with me running and the bull gaining on me." She did not pause, however, except to skip a line, but began writing again: "Then the dream changed. I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd. In the place of the bull pursuing me there was now a serpent. It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed. It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My terror was so great that I awoke." She was about to lay the pen down again, as though glad of the opportunity, when Kennedy asked, with no intention of stopping so soon, "Were there not faces on these animals?" "The faces seemed to be human," she murmured, evasively, still looking at what she had written for him, and making no effort to amend or correct it. "Human?" repeated Kennedy. "Did they bear a resemblance to any one you know?" She looked up from the writing and met his eyes directly in a perfectly innocent stare. "The faces seemed to be human," she repeated, "but I did not recognize them." What did it mean? I knew she was not telling the truth. Kennedy knew it. Did she know that he knew it? If she did, it had no outward effect on her. "It is all very hazy to me," she insisted. I wondered what had been the reason of her hesitation and her final decision not to tell us what she had evidently told Doctor Lathrop on the first telling of the dream. Surely, I reasoned, there must be some reason back of this concealment. I was forced to be content to wait in order to question Kennedy to learn what his own impressions were. Any betrayal now, before her, might entirely upset his nicely laid plans, whatever they were. She seemed to expect a further quizzing and to steel herself in preparation for it. Evidently Doyle's manner and methods had taught her that. "Are those all the dreams you can remember?" Craig asked. I fancied that there was an air of relief in her manner, though she would not, for the world, have betrayed it before us. For a moment she thought, as if glad to get away from something that had troubled her greatly. When she spoke her voice and manner were subdued. "There is one other," she replied. "Will you write it?" asked Kennedy, before she had time to change her mind. "If you really care to have it." "Very much," he urged. Again she turned as though escaping something and wrote: "I seemed to be walking through a forest with Vail. I don't know where we were going, but I seemed to have difficulty in getting there. Vail was helping me along. It was up-hill. Finally, when we got almost to the top of the hill, I stopped. I did not go any farther, though he did." Here again she hesitated, then wrote slowly, "Then I seemed to meet--" and stopped. Honora glanced up, saw Kennedy watching her, and turned hurriedly, adding, "--a woman." She did not pause after that, but wrote: "Just then she cried that there was a fire. I turned around and looked. There was a big explosion and everybody ran out of the houses, shrieking." "You say you saw a woman?" asked Craig, almost before she had finished writing. "Who was she?" "I do not know who she was--a--just a woman." By this time I, too, was narrowly watching Mrs. Wilford. She seemed to have a most remarkable composure, except for an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation now and then. In fact, the hesitation would have passed unnoticed had not one been on the lookout. I think it was now that she realized that there was something going on in Kennedy's mind and in his method of questioning her that she did not understand. It was as though in taking refuge from answering one question--about the faces on the bull and the serpent--she had run directly into another question which she was equally averse to answering frankly. I was now convinced that a large part of her frankness with us was mere pose, that she knew Kennedy had penetrated it, and that the discovery alarmed her. Kennedy also saw that she had understood. It was as though it had been a cue. Instantly he threw off the mask. "Are you sure that it was not Vina Lathrop?" he shot out quickly. For just a fraction of a second she was startled, almost disconcerted. But instantly she regained her control. "Yes," she answered, positively. "I am sure it was not. It was no one I know." Yet I was somehow more than ever convinced that she meant Vina Lathrop, after all--Vina, who was of quite a different type from herself. What it all meant was another question. I knew that we should have taken a long step toward the discovery if we could only have got her to admit it. But she was keenly on guard now. There was not a chance of a direct admission strong enough, though the indirect admission was. "No one?" pressed Kennedy. "Think!" "No, no one! Oh, why must I be badgered and hounded this way?" she burst forth. "What have I done? Am I not grief-stricken enough as it is?--I hate--you--all!" It was the first time that she had let this undercurrent of her feelings leap to the surface, beyond control. She seemed to realize it, and instantly to repress it, as she stood there, her great, lustrous eyes fixed upon us--with defiance mixed with fear and doubt. It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps merciless--this dissecting of the soul of the handsome woman before us. But it had come to a point where it was absolutely necessary to get at the truth. At least Kennedy seemed convinced that locked in her heart was the key to the mystery. Honora, hitherto almost pallid, was now flushed and indignant. For the first time we saw a flash of real feeling and I knew that underneath her conventional exterior a woman existed--very real, capable of the heights of feeling and passion when once aroused. It made me more than ever sympathetic toward her. I longed to help her, yet there seemed no way to do so. Only Honora might work out Honora's salvation. It was then and later that I realized that the very manner of her indignation showed the truth of the new psychology of dreams, for, as I later learned, people often become indignant when the analyst strikes what is called by the new psychologists the "main complex" of ideas. Kennedy evidently concluded that his examination had gone far enough, that to pursue it would be only to antagonize her unnecessarily. That would never do so early in the case. Accordingly he apologized as gracefully as an inquisitor could, and we excused ourselves, though Honora's gaze followed him defiantly to the door. "Well--we're in bad with her now," I whispered, as we gained the outside, in the private hallway. "That's most unfortunate," he agreed, though it did not seem to worry him much. "But you know by this time, Walter, that man-hunting is not a popular occupation--and woman-hunting is even less so." He stopped a moment, looked back, sighed, and added, "It is the penalty I must pay." In the hall, Craig stopped a moment to speak to Doyle's man, McCabe, a thick-necked fellow, square-jawed and square-toed, of the "flatty" type. "Mr. Doyle isn't here, I suppose?" "No, sir. Gone down to Mr. Wilford's office. Telephone call that there's something new there." "I see. Is the maid, Celeste, here?" "Yes, sir. Queer girl--pretty--French--but I can't seem to 'make' her." Kennedy passed over the impertinence of the slang. Evidently McCabe considered flirtations with maids his prerogative. "I'd like to see her." McCabe led us down the hall, and soon we found Celeste, a young and remarkably beautiful girl. One could see traces of sorrow on her face, which was exceedingly, though not unpleasingly, pale. She was dressed in black, which heightened the pallor of her face and excited a feeling of mingled respect and interest. There was, however, a restless brilliancy of her eyes and a nervousness which was expressed by the constant motion of her slender fingers. She shrank from McCabe, and her confidence was not restored even after Kennedy had ordered him to leave us alone with her so that we might question her. "Oh, these horrible detectives!" she murmured. "It is terrible. They will drive me crazy. _Pauvre, pauvre madame!_" Kennedy had sought this opportunity to question her about Vail Wilford alone. But, as he plied her with questions, she had little to say either about him or about her mistress. She was evidently well trained. "Did you ever see Mr. Wilford or Mrs. Wilford with Mrs. Vina Lathrop?" asked Kennedy, suddenly. Celeste shook her head with a naïve stare. "Nevair." "But, madame--did she not know her?" Celeste merely shrugged. "Wasn't she jealous of Mr. Wilford--and some one?" Celeste regarded him a moment. Her quick mind seemed to race ahead toward the implication of the remark. "No--no--no!" cried Celeste, vehemently. "She was not jealous. She would never have done such a thing. She might have left monsieur--but--violence--nevair!" Kennedy continued with a few inconsequential questions. Then from a table in the room he picked up a magazine. As he ran over the pages he stopped before a picture of a dinner in a fashionable restaurant, such as delights the heart of the modern magazine illustrator to portray. He turned the picture around and held it before Celeste for just a few instants, perhaps ten seconds. Then he closed the magazine quickly. It seemed to me to be a purposeless action, but I was not surprised when Kennedy added, "Now tell me what you saw." Celeste by this time was quite overwhelming in her desire to please on anything but the quizzing about her mistress. Quickly she enumerated the objects, gradually slowing down as the number became exhausted. "Were there any flowers?" asked Kennedy. "Oh yes--and favors, too, you call them?" I could see no reason at all in the proceeding, yet I knew Kennedy too well to suppose that he had not some purpose. The questioning thus strangely over, Kennedy withdrew, leaving Celeste more mystified than ever. "Well," I exclaimed, "what was all that kindergarten stuff?" "That?" he explained. "It is known to criminologists as the 'Aussage test.' Just try it sometime when you get a chance. If there are, say, fifty objects in a picture, normally a person may recall perhaps twenty of them." "I see," I nodded. "A test of memory." "More than that," he replied. "You remember that, at the end, I suggested that she might have overlooked something? I mentioned an object--the flowers--likely to have been on the table. They were not there, as you might have observed if you had had the picture before you. That was a test of the susceptibility to suggestion of Celeste." By this time we were on the street and walking slowly back to the laboratory. "She may not mean to lie deliberately," concluded Kennedy, "but I'm afraid we'll have to get along without her in getting to the bottom of this case. There were no flowers there, yet in her anxiety to please she said there were, and even went farther and added favors, which were not there. You see, before we go any farther, we know that Celeste is unreliable, to say the least." V THE PSYCHANALYSIS Back at the laboratory again, we found that not even yet had the materials arrived from Doctor Leslie with which to make the examination that Craig desired. It seemed to me that Leslie was very slow, but it didn't worry Craig. Evidently there were other and even more absorbing problems on his mind, problems that pressed for solution even above the discovery of the poison. "What was your idea in having her write those dreams out again?" I asked. "Well"--he smiled--"I wanted to see whether she would make any changes. Changes in the telling of dreams over again are often very significant. They indicate what the psychanalysts call the 'complexes,' the root ideas, often hidden away, out of which many actions and feelings spring." "I see--and did you find anything?" "A great deal. There are some important changes, some variations between what she told and what she wrote which are very significant. Don't you see? It is one thing to tell a dream in conversation--quite another when you calmly sit down to write it on paper. The words take on an added weight. Now the next problem is to figure out in my psychanalysis just what it is that these changes may mean." He drew forth the writing she had done and began studying over it carefully for several minutes. Finally, with an air of satisfaction, he looked over at me. "First of all," he said, "I want to consider that dream of the death of her husband. Just recall for the moment how she told that dream to Leslie." He took the paper in his hand and began reading. "Just listen. 'My most frequent dream is a horrible one. I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled.' If you remember, it was at this point that she hesitated in writing. Why did she? "'I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move.' Why was she unable to go to him? What held her back? There is something strange about it. Could it have been because she did not really want to go to him? Could it have been because she did not love him?" I said nothing. It had been the thought in my own mind, yet I had not cared to express it. "At that point," he went on, "she paused again. 'Then the scene shifted, like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail.' There was no hesitation, practically no change in that. I noted that she exhibited considerable emotion--that is, considerable emotion for her. She did not hesitate, because she does not understand the dream. If she did, I think she would hesitate--even refuse to tell it. I think with that dream alone one might get a pretty good inkling of the state of affairs." I was about to interrupt, but Craig hurried right on and gave me no chance. "More important, perhaps, take that dream of the bull and the serpent. If you recall, she wrote that more slowly and carefully than the other dream, choosing her words. There's something significant about that fact in itself. Now, let's see. "'I seemed to be attacked by a bull. It was in a great field and I fled from it over the field. But it pursued me. It seemed to gain on me.' That's where the first hesitation came, and right there we come to a very important 'complex,' I think. There was practically no change until we come to this part where the bull chases her. Did you get that?" I was forced to confess that I had not understood. It made no difference to Kennedy. Very patiently he proceeded to enlighten me, as if I were one of his pupils. "She omitted something that may be very important. Don't you remember when Lathrop told us she had told him that the bull was so close to her that she could feel its hot breath?" "I remember now. What of it?" "Very much. For some reason--perhaps unknown to herself--she omits all mention of it in writing it for us. I think you'll understand better as we go on with the dream. 'It was very close,' he read, rapidly. 'Then in my dream, in fright I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran, I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on.' "I think we discussed that ourselves, once, the fear of being a fallen woman. We need not go over it again, except to point out that her dream shows that, perhaps unconsciously, something restrained her. 'I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream,' and so forth. "Now, the next part. 'I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd.' We discussed that, too--about the crowd denoting a secret. Then comes the serpent. 'It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed.' That's a bit different, there, from the way she told it. 'It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My fear was so great that I awoke.' All right. Here's the point--when I questioned her about the faces, the human faces, on those animals. She told Lathrop that the face she saw was that of Shattuck. But to me she absolutely denied it. She said she did not recognize the face. There's the point. Why did she cut out that about the hot breath of the bull? Why did she deny absolutely the face of Shattuck?" He was pacing up and down as though he had either made or confirmed a discovery. "Just consider what I told you about the Freud theory again," he went on. "Fear, as I told you, is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. We threshed that all out over my interpretation of the first dream of all--the death-dream. I hope you are beginning to understand, by this time. "But morbid fear also, as I have said, denotes some sex feeling. Now take the last dreams. In dreams animals are usually symbols. In the two parts of this dream we find both the bull and the serpent. From time immemorial they have been the symbols of the continuing life-force. Such symbolism has been ingrained in literature and thinking, both mystical and otherwise. When she felt the hot breath of the bull, it meant the passion of love in Shattuck, who is pursuing her. Frankly, I do not think he has ever lost his love for her. And she knows it--at least, subconsciously. That's what that means. In her heart she knows it, although she may not openly admit it. Also, she fears it. "More than that. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. One doesn't always realize how easy that is. A thing dreamed of may have happened years ago. But if one could recall all the thoughts immediately preceding sleep, one would be able to trace out some impelling thought, perhaps on the surface quite unrelated, which brought it up. The more unrelated, the more interesting and important the connecting link. There was every chance, in this case, of Shattuck having been suggested to her any day. Besides, she may be thinking a great deal of him--and not realize it--for her moral censorship is always pushing such thoughts back into the subconscious." Kennedy regarded me attentively, then added: "She dreamed of a man's face on those beasts--then denied it to me. What's the explanation?" I suppose Kennedy was handing the explanation to me, but I could not quite understand it, much less express it. "Easy," he answered to his own question. "She thinks that she hates him. Consciously she rejects. Unconsciously, though, she accepts him. Any of the new psychologists who know the intimate connection between love and hate could understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate, nor hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow. A proper understanding of that would explain many of the anomalies of human nature--especially in the relations of men and women which sometimes seem to be inexplicable." Since our previous discussion on the subject, I had turned it over many times in my mind. It was surely a new situation to me which this application of the new psychology was unfolding. Yet, under the exposition of Kennedy, I was not so bitterly hostile to it now as I had been before. Plainly enough, nothing that I had been able to offer to myself had fitted in with what I saw in the character of Honora Wilford. At least this seemed to fit. "You would be surprised to learn how frequently such situations arise," defended Craig. "I suppose, to an analyst, they seem to be common, because it is only such cases that come to his attention. If one treated only red-haired men, one would, no doubt, soon get the idea that the community was composed mainly of the red-haired. That is just as foolish as to go to the other extreme and to deny that there are any red-haired people, just because one has never happened to see one." The remark was obviously intended for me. I said nothing, but I was really alarmed. For I could see that the case was actually growing very much blacker for Honora as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy practically taxing her with loving another man than her husband? Was he not building up motives? "The dreamer," he proceeded, "is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centers about the dreamer intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that concern others primarily, but of matters that concern ourselves, either very directly or at least indirectly. So it has been with these dreams of Honora. They concern her intimately. "Years ago that woman suffered what the new psychologists call a psychic trauma--a soul wound. She was engaged to Shattuck. We know that. But her censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of her fiancé. In pique, perhaps, she married Wilford. It was a wound when she cast aside her first love, a deep wound. "But Nature always does her best to repair a wound--either a physical wound or a psychic wound. That underlies the psychology of forgetting. Honora thought she had found love again, in the advances of Wilford. But she had not, truly. She never lost her real, now subconscious, love for another--Shattuck. Day by day she tells herself that he is nothing to her, never really was, never again can be. She believes it. She lives it. Yet, when that censorship is raised in sleep, it is different. Then he pursues her, in her dreams. In actuality, too, I don't doubt that he pursues her, and she knows it. I'll wager Shattuck does not dream of her except frankly. He frankly thinks of her. He is still in love with her. It is a tough problem for Honora Wilford." "I begin to see it more and more clearly," I admitted. "Dreams are very wonderful experiences, when one understands them rightly." "Her dreams, especially," agreed Craig, fingering the papers. "Now there's that dream of Lathrop. I suspect she thinks of him somewhat as of a social lion. And I suppose he is--popular, a club-man, a lady-killer. Perhaps that is why she dreamed of him as a lion. But it wouldn't explain all. I recall he wore a beard. That may have suggested the tawny mane of a lion, too. The two ideas combined. There is the narrow path, too. A lion stands in the path. I don't quite fathom it yet. But, you see, Walter, of such stuff are dream lions made. This fantasy I must leave open for interpretation until we understand Lathrop himself better." "About Shattuck," I reverted, not quite prepared to pass that point without clearing it as much as possible in my own mind. "Plainly he cares a great deal for her. I remember seeing one of Freud's books in his library. Suppose he knew her dreams. Would he not be able to discover that secretly she cared really very deeply for him and not for Vail?" "He might," admitted Kennedy. "But the problem would be to prove that he did," I supposed, for I was catching at any straw that would save Honora Wilford from the logical outcome of Kennedy's analysis as I saw it. Craig had come to the last sheet of paper. "This is my new prize," he exclaimed, waving it. "I had some inkling of what it betrays, but not the certainty this gives. This is an entirely new dream. We have no hastily spoken description with which to compare it. However, that will make little difference. We'll have to treat it as new. Let's go over it very carefully. It may easily prove most important of all." Slowly he read it. "'I seemed to be walking through a forest with Vail. I don't know where we were going, but I seemed to have difficulty in getting there. Vail was helping me along. It was up-hill. Finally, when we got almost to the top of the hill, I stopped. I did not go any farther, though he did.' That's where her first hesitation-break in writing it occurred. So far, you see, this is a most intimate dream of their relations, as you yourself can interpret readily. "There were several hesitations grouped here. 'Then I seemed to meet'--there was one--'a woman'--there was another. 'Just then she cried there was a fire.' What does that mean, you ask? Ever hear love described as a fire? Well, next: 'I turned around and looked. There was a big explosion and everybody ran out of the houses, shrieking.'" "I recall vividly what took place when we reached that point," I put in. "At the time I thought of Vina Lathrop, of what a quite different type of woman Vina is. Vina is none of your consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate women. Vina Lathrop is throbbing with passion, as one can see who has ever met her or heard of her." "Quite so. In this dream there plainly appears the 'other woman' in the case, the woman who has the passion which Honora herself does not have. Or at least, so she thinks. She seems to recognize in this other woman a woman of a different nature from herself. And yet," added Craig--"and yet, you know, 'The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady--'" "Are not only the same under the skin, to you psychologists," I supplied, "but in the inner consciousness, too." "I suppose so," he laughed. I considered a moment. Was this all confirmation of the rumored relations between Vina Lathrop and Vail Wilford, as Doyle had dug the story up? I recalled the notations that Doctor Leslie had discovered on the desk calendar of Wilford about appointments with Vina and the contemplated divorce. Had a new scandal been brewing and had the sensational press of the city been deprived of it by some untoward circumstance? At least they had no complaint. A greater piece of news had been created to take its place--a murder case which, now, bade fair to become the celebrated case of the season when it "broke," as they say. "The reason I've spent so much time analyzing this new dream," Craig continued, "is that there's another very important thing in it--revealed in the hesitation and the changes, the gaps, and the additions. It helps us to reconstruct her inner life, as we could never have got it from herself, as she could never, even at this moment, construct it for herself. "Into her life--into her dream life, too--there has come 'another woman.' I believe that it is really Vina Lathrop. She betrays it. I hate to admit that either Doyle or Leslie may be right--about anything. But, really, once in a while Doyle does stumble on something--without knowing even remotely how important the thing may be." "I suppose also that that would account for Mrs. Lathrop's interest in us--and the case," I ventured. "When we were in the doctor's office I thought she was keenly alive to what we were doing and saying." Kennedy nodded. "It remains to be proved, however. I knew I was on the right track when we visited Lathrop, as you say, and his wife made that remark about Honora. You see, intuitively she knows Honora. She knows her cold nature. Before we get through we shall have some interesting passages at arms between these two, if I am not mistaken. Already their intuitions have given each an estimate of the other. They are opposing lines--between the two, it is No Man's Land." "Opposites--positive and negative," I tried to express it metaphorically. "And the wires are crossed. Oh, I know this will be a good case--it always is when there is conflict, like this, between two women." "Speaking of crossed wires reminds me of the telephone," exclaimed Kennedy, energetically. "We need not be inactive just because our good friends, Leslie and Doyle, don't feed grist to our mill. I'm going to see that woman again." Kennedy hunted up Doctor Lathrop's number in the book and called it. "The doctor is out just now," answered a woman's voice. "Is there anything I can do?" "Is this Mrs. Lathrop?" Craig asked. I saw that she replied in the affirmative. Kennedy deftly explained who we were and recalled our brief meeting of the morning. "I'm greatly interested in the Wilford case," he hurried on. "I would like to talk to you about it. May I?" There was a bit more of conversation, then he hung up with satisfaction. "She did not welcome it," he reported. "Yet she could scarcely refuse to see us under the circumstances. I have made an appointment to meet her." There was a noise at the door and I opened it upon Doyle, who entered, his face showing great perplexity. "What seems to be on your mind. Doyle?" greeted Craig. "Enough. We've been questioning the night watchman down at the building where Wilford's office is," he informed. "You remember the two glasses on the desk when they found him?" Kennedy nodded. "From them," continued Doyle, "I went on the assumption that somebody else had been there at the time. There _was_ a visitor.... We are convinced of it now. The fact is that the building is an old one, built before elevator days, not tall. One can walk up to the office of Wilford easily. People do. And the confounded watchman, a man they call Pete, confesses that he was off the job, at least part of the time, last night. There was plenty of chance for a visitor to have got in and got away." "Who?" I asked. Doyle shrugged. "We can't find out--at least, we haven't found out." "Was it a man or a woman?" asked Craig. "We don't even know that," confessed Doyle, in despair. "That fellow Pete is a dub." "How about your suspects?" prompted Kennedy. "You must have traces of their movements last night." "I have. I have been questioning Celeste, the maid, for instance. She swears that Mrs. Wilford was at home in the apartment all the evening of the murder. The worst of it is, I can't prove yet that she wasn't. But just give me time--give me time. I'll get something on that maid yet." I glanced significantly at Kennedy. He nodded back. His "Aussage test" had effectually disposed of any reliance that might be placed on what Celeste might say. However, Kennedy said nothing of that to Doyle. To have done so would have been to invite a tirade of laughter. The only way with Doyle was to let him go along his sweet way of being wrong--then let him in when we were right. Yet, I must say that I liked Doyle in his way, even if he was only a plugger. "Another thing," brightened Doyle. "I'm getting a line on that business of Wilford's having his wife watched. You know, he did that. He hired a private detective to watch her. If I can get that fellow I may learn something. But that Celeste is clever. She sticks to it that her mistress wasn't out. We'll see if the detective knows when we find him." "Where were Shattuck and Lathrop last night?" asked Craig, quickly. "Shattuck has given a detailed account of his doings last night. I'll tell you better about him when it's verified. Doctor Lathrop had two cases that night, which kept him out late. I believe they are bona fide. So far there's been no flaw in either story. That's what perplexes me. I thought I was on the trail of something." "And when you find yourself up against it, you come to me?" "Don't get peeved, Kennedy," mollified Doyle, though he himself had winced at the telling thrust of Kennedy. "What about Lathrop's wife, Vina?" asked Craig. "Is she clear for that night?" "I hadn't thought much about her," confessed Doyle. "Want me to find out?" "Never mind. I am going to see her soon. I'll attend to that." VI THE "OTHER WOMAN" Vina Lathrop received us a few moments later with a question in her eyes. Yet she discreetly did not hint at it in anything she said. I have said that she was a woman of quite opposite type from Honora. Like her, however, she was a woman of rare physical attraction. Yet it needed only a glance to see that men interested Vina, and in that respect she gave one a different impression from Honora. And I am quite sure, also, that few men could have withstood the spell of her interest if she chose to bestow it. There was, no doubt, much in her life that that accounted for. "I've been thinking of what you said about Mrs. Wilford this morning," began Kennedy, after a few remarks that explained our interest in the case, without telling her anything that would put her too much on guard. "My remark about Mrs. Wilford?" she repeated, naïvely. "Yes. You remember when you were talking to Doctor Lathrop about the case, you said, 'I don't think that Honora is capable of either deep love or even deep hate'? I've been wondering just what you meant by it." Vina seemed to be careful lest an unwary word might escape. "Why, really," she murmured, as though feeling that the question called for an answer she did not wish to give. "I don't think that Honora--well--understood Vail Wilford, if you get what I mean. He was not difficult to understand. He would have been devoted to her--if only--" She paused and stopped. "If only what?" "You wouldn't understand," she answered, quickly, shaking her head. To me it seemed as though the implication she wished to convey was the usual specious refuge of the "other woman," when cornered, that it was she, not the wife, who really understood the man in the case. "You see, I don't know Honora Wilford well," encouraged Kennedy. "I can't say that I do understand. I guess that's just it. I thought perhaps you might enlighten me." Vina gave a pretty little shrug to her attractive shoulders, then leaned forward, as if suddenly deciding to become confidential with Craig. "It's a long story," she replied. "I don't know how to tell it. Honora was like her father--in fact, her family are all the same--always seeking the main chance. You remember old Honore Chappelle? No? Out of even the business of an oculist he managed to make a tidy fortune. She was ambitious--ambitious in marriage, ambitious to get into 'society,' you know. Don't you see now what I mean? Besides, you know, daughters, they say, inherit from their fathers--and she seems to have been no exception. I think Mr. Wilford came to realize why it was she married him, only, of course, in such cases, it comes too late." I set the remark down as that of a "catty" woman. Yet there was something to think about in it. For, at the time of Wilford's marriage, the young lawyer was already wealthy and in the smart set, while Vance Shattuck had not inherited the fortune of his uncle, who had often threatened to cut him off without a penny as a reward for his numerous escapades. There could be no doubt that, at the time, Wilford was the greater "catch" of the two. As we talked with Vina about the death of Wilford, she spoke with ill-concealed emotion. I could not escape the impression that she seemed to be more deeply affected by it than even Honora herself had been. Was it due to her more emotional nature? I would have thought it strange, even though Kennedy had not already surmised from his psychanalysis of Honora that Vina was the "other woman" in the case. It was apparent that, whatever might be Vina's own story, she reacted sharply against the very type of woman that Honora was. There was plainly some rivalry between them, some point of contact at which there had been friction. It was most assuredly Kennedy's job to find out what that was. "I don't know whether you are aware," he suggested, taking a slightly different angle, "but in Mr. Wilford's office they found evidence that you yourself were preparing a divorce suit." The transition from Honora to herself was sudden. Yet Vina did not seem confused by it. She did not deny it, or even attempt to deny it. Perhaps she realized that it was of no use, that her best defense was, as the lawyers would say, confession and avoidance. "Oh," she replied, airily, "the suit was never started, you know--just talked about." I could not but wonder at her callousness. Evidently this woman was of a type all too common in a certain stratum of society, to whom marriage is a career to be entered into either for the sake of bettering oneself or for the sake of variety. "What, may I ask, were the grounds?" probed Kennedy, growing bolder as he saw how frankly she elected to discuss the subject when cornered. She colored a bit, as she strove to decide whether to get angry or to answer, then chose the latter course. "Incompatibility, I suppose you would call it--at least that's what I call it. I believe every woman should live her own life as she sees fit. I hadn't even decided what state I would acquire residence in, in order to bring the suit, if I decided to go on with it. Nothing was settled, you know." "And now you are going to--?" inquired Kennedy, stopping to let her fill out the answer. "Drop it, of course," she supplied. "I suppose the doctor and I shall continue to agree to disagree." "Had Mrs. Wilford contemplated similar action on her part, do you think?" Vina avoided answering, but Kennedy pressed for a reply, asserting that Vail Wilford must have given some hint of it, either by his words or actions. "I don't know," she repeated, firmly. "Did she know of your--er--acquaintance with Mr. Wilford?" If looks had been poisonous, Kennedy must have been inoculated with venom right there. He paid no attention to her scornful glances as, again, there was no avoidance of an answer, no matter how much she tried. "Why do you think you know so much?" Vina veiled her sarcastic reply. "Mrs. Wilford had been having her husband watched, I learn," prodded Kennedy, with brutal directness. I glanced covertly over at him. Doyle had told us Wilford was watching his wife. But no one, as I recalled, had given us an inkling of a reverse state of affairs. I realized that Kennedy had made it up out of whole cloth. He was trying it out to see its effect. At any rate, there was nothing unreasonable about it. It might have been true, whether it actually was or not. For a moment Vina was sorely tried to hold back a quick reply. Then she shrugged again. "Most women of the sort have to do that," she snapped. It was a mean remark, besides being glaringly untrue, except in the limited ken of certain New-Yorkese women. Moreover, I saw that Kennedy had slipped past her guard. Each sentence she replied betrayed the keen feeling between the two. Kennedy seemed to be observing Vina as he might a strange element in a chemical reaction. On her part she seemed intuitively to recognize that there was a challenge to her in Craig's very personality. Arts which she might have tried with success on another seemed not to impress this man. He seemed to penetrate the defenses which she had against most men. And I could not help seeing that she was piqued by it. While they were fencing in their verbal duel, Craig had casually drawn a pencil from his pocket. A moment later I saw that he had begun scribbling some figures, apparently aimlessly, on a piece of paper. From where I was sitting beside him I could see that he had written something like this: 5183 47395 654726 2964375 47293825 924783651 2146063859 For some time he regarded the figures that he had written as the conversation went on. "Here's a little puzzle," he remarked, offhand, breaking into the chat. "Did you ever try it?" Vina looked at him in surprise at this unexpected turn of the conversation. I am sure that she was in doubt as to the man's sanity. However, there was a certain relief in the new turn of the conversation. At least he was not treading on the dangerous ground which he had trod upon. "Er--no," she answered, doubtfully. "That is--I don't know what you mean. What are the numbers?" "Oh, it's nothing much," he disarmed. "It's simply a matter of seeing whether a person can repeat numbers. I've found it rather interesting at times." Without waiting for either comment or excuse from her he said, quickly: "For instance, take the first one--five, one, eight, three. See if you can repeat that." "Of course--five, one, eight, three," she replied, mechanically. "Fine--four, seven, three, nine, five," came in rapid succession. To it she replied, perhaps a little slower than before, "Why, four, seven, three, nine, five." "Good! Now, six, five, four, seven, two, six." "Er--six, five, four, seven, two, six," she repeated, I thought, with some hesitation. "Again--two, nine, six, four, three, seven, five," he shot out. "Two, nine, six"--she hesitated--"four, three, seven, five." "Try again--four, seven, two, nine, three, eight, two, five," he read. "Four--two--seven," she returned, slowly, then stopped, "three--nine--what was the next one?--er--two--two--" It was evident that she was hopelessly muddled. It was not because she had not tried, for the diversion had come as a welcome relief from the quizzing on delicate subjects and she had seized upon it. She had reached the limit. Kennedy had smiled and was about to go on, although it was evident that it was useless, when there was a noise in the hall, as though some one had been admitted by the maid and had entered. It seemed to be a man's voice that I heard and I wondered whether it was Doctor Lathrop himself. A moment later the door opened and disclosed, to my astonishment, not Lathrop, but Shattuck. If he was embarrassed at finding us there he did not betray it in the least. Quite the contrary. He greeted Vina Lathrop cordially, then turned to us. "Oh, by the way," he began, "you're just the man I wanted to see, Kennedy." I thought that there was a note of indignant protest in his voice as he said it, then, before Kennedy could make reply, went on, rapidly: "About Mrs. Wilford--it's an outrage. Doyle and McCabe and the rest of that precious crew are thugs--thugs. I called there to express my sympathy. Of course she couldn't say much--but I have eyes. I could see much, without being told. There she is, harassed and hounded and practically a prisoner in that place--no one to go to--her husband foully murdered--at least that's what _they_ say. I don't know. She's spied on, listened to--I tell you, it's a shame. They're driving that poor woman insane--nothing short of it." Shattuck was evidently genuinely angry and, indeed, I felt that he was making a good case of it. I looked toward Vina. She merely tossed her head. Evidently she was piqued that Shattuck should think so much of "that woman," as she doubtlessly would have liked to refer to her. I wondered what might have been the connection between Vina and Shattuck, and determined to watch. More than that, I wondered what could be his purpose in bringing up the name of Honora before Vina. Had he a reason? "Did you finally sell the stock?" inquired Vina of him, abruptly, as though wishing to change the subject. "Of course," he returned. "Only to complete the thing you will have to indorse this paper," he added, drawing a document from his pocket for her to sign. I wondered whether this reference to a business transaction was a blind to make us believe their relations were merely those of a broker and client. Shattuck excused himself to us while Vina signed with his fountain-pen and as they talked in a low tone I saw that she was appealing to him with all her feminine arts. Was Shattuck proof? Or was he dissembling so as not to betray anything to us? I remembered the old gossip about Shattuck. Was he still woman-crazy? Had Vail Wilford stood in his way with both women? It was a queer tangle at best. Anything, I felt, might prove to be the case. At any rate, I was sure that the transaction covered their embarrassment at meeting us. More than that, it convinced me that there was some connection between Shattuck and Vina all along. I had wondered whether it had been she who had telephoned to him while we were at his place that morning. I had not thought of the possibility at the time. But now I was sure of it. Kennedy rose to go, and at the same moment Shattuck also excused himself. We departed, leaving Vina, I am positive, still all at sea as to the purpose of our visit. We departed, and at the street corner stood talking for a moment with Shattuck. Again, as though taking the thing up just where he had left it off, he complained about the shame of the persecution of Honora. Kennedy was non-committal, as indeed he was forced to be over Doyle's work, and after promising nothing, we parted. In fact, Craig said very little even to me as we started around the corner for the laboratory. "What was all that rigmarole of the numbers?" I inquired, finally, my curiosity getting the better of me, as we entered the Chemistry Building and Craig turned the key in the lock of his private laboratory, admitting us. "Part of the Binet test," he answered. "It is seeing how many digits one can remember. You're not acquainted with the test? It's used commonly in schools and in many ways. Well, an adult ought to remember eight to ten digits, in any order. A child cannot, ordinarily. Between these, there are all grades. In this case, I do not think we have to deal with a mentality quite up to the intellectual standard." "It's well Vina Lathrop isn't here to hear you say it," I commented. Kennedy smiled. "True, nevertheless, whatever outward looks may show. To tell you the truth, Walter, here we have to deal with two quite opposite types of women. One, intellectual, as we know, does not yet know what love really is. In the other I fancy I see a wild, demi-mondaine instinct that slumbers at the back of her mind, all unknown to herself. She knows well what love is--too well. She has had many experiences and is always seeking others--perhaps the supreme experience." He paused a moment, then added, estimating: "Vina is beautiful, yet without the brain that Honora has. She is all woman--physical woman. That was what probably attracted Wilford, what she meant by saying that I wouldn't understand, although I did. In Wilford's case it may have been the reaction from the intellectual woman. She knows that power which her physical charms give her over men; Honora does not--yet." "But, Craig," I remonstrated, "you do not mean to tell me that you believe that you could sit here in a laboratory and analyze love as if it were a chemical in a test-tube." "Why not?" he replied. "Love is nothing but a scientific fact--after all." "Then explain it." He shrugged. "True, you ask me to explain love and I must tell you that I cannot. For the moment it looks as though you had me beaten. But think a moment. I cannot tell you why a stone falls or a Morse signal flashes over a wire. Still, they do. We know there is a law of gravitation, that electricity exists. We see the effects gravity and electricity produce. We study them. We name them--though we do not understand them. You would not say they were not scientific facts just because I cannot explain them." I nodded, catching his idea. "So with love," he went on. "We know that there is an attraction--that is a scientific fact, isn't it?--which two people feel for each other. Society may have set up certain external standards. But love knows nothing of them. Our education has taught us to respect them. But above this veneer every now and then crop out impulses, the repulsions and attractions which nature, millions of years back, implanted in human hearts as humanity developed. They have been handed down. Yes, Walter, I know nothing more interesting than to put this thing we call love under the microscope, as it were, and dissect it." I regarded Craig with amazement. Was he inhuman? Had he suddenly taken leave of his senses? "You mean it?" I queried. "Really?" "Certainly." "Why, Craig," I exclaimed, "some day you, too, will meet your fate--you, the cold, calm, calculating man of science who sits here so detached, analyzing other people's emotions!" "Perhaps," he nodded, absently. "Like as not she will be some fluffy little creature from the Midnight Frolic," I added, sarcastically. "It would be poetic justice if she were. And what a life she would lead you--with your confounded microscope and your test-tubes!" Kennedy smiled indulgently. "If it should be the case," he replied, coolly, "it would only prove my theory. It's very simple. Two atoms are attracted like the electrically charged pith-balls--or repulsed. In love very often like repels like and attracts unlike--the old law, you know, as you saw it in the physics laboratory. We see it in this case, with these very people. All your fine-spun theories and traditions of society and law do not count for the weight of a spider thread against nature. That is precisely what I mean by my theory. We are concerned with deep fundamental human forces." "You talk as though you had been reading some of the continental writers," I remarked. "Perhaps. It makes no difference. Often much of our own Puritanism in literature covers a multitude of facts, as Puritanism does in life. Here's a case in point. Facts may be ugly things, we may not like them. Just the same they have to be faced. It won't do just cavalierly to reject things as Doctor Lathrop does with the Freud theory, which he does not like, for instance. And who is he that he should set himself up to determine fact and fake? Maybe, if we studied him we'd find he was no different from anybody else. I'll warrant it." "I don't care about him," I hastened. "But it does rather jar on me to have you speak so positively on affairs of the heart," I protested. "You think I can't observe them without experiencing them? I don't have to commit a murder in order to study and understand the murderer, you know. The fact is I am perhaps a better judge of some subjects for the mere fact that I can observe them from the outside, as it were. I am not grinding my own ax." I shook my head at Kennedy's, to me, novel theories of love. In fact, the whole thing, from his dream interpretation down through each step he took in the case, seemed almost revolutionary. Convinced against my will, I was of half, at least, my own opinion still. Yet I did not feel in any position to combat him. The case would ultimately speak for itself, anyhow, I reflected. "Now," he concluded, before I could think of a retort, "to get back to the case. Here are two women who no more understand the impulses that sway them than do the moon and sun in their courses. As I said, fundamental forces of sex are at play here. Perhaps even if you were able to get the truth from the various actors in this little drama they themselves could not tell you. Therefore, it is for me to unravel what is a closed book, even to them. "And, strange as you may think it, Walter," he concluded, "the Freud theory will do it. Already I know more than even you suspect. There remains, however, the working out of the drama to its climax before I can be sure I have the truth, beyond mistake." VII THE CROOK DETECTIVE We were interrupted by the arrival of Doyle at the door. With him was a stranger whom he seemed to be virtually forcing along ahead of him. As they entered, I regarded the man carefully. He seemed to have a sort of hangdog look. Doyle led him over beside the laboratory table, near which Kennedy was standing, and Kennedy glanced at Doyle questioningly. "This is Mr. Rascon, a private detective," growled Doyle, stressing the Mister insultingly, and continuing to push the man forward. "Meet Mr. Kennedy, Rascon." Doyle had evidently the official contempt for the very breed of private detectives. The man bowed stiffly and nervously to Craig, who extended his hand, which the man took rather spiritlessly. Altogether I thought it a very peculiar circumstance. "Meet Mr. Jameson, of _The Star_," added Doyle. "It might be well for you to have a few newspaper friends. They might come in handy some day. They tell me a press agent's job is to keep things _out_ of the papers as well as to get them in." Rascon smiled weakly as he shook my hand, and by the clammy touch of his hand I knew that he was either very nervous or very ill--perhaps both. "Tell Mr. Kennedy what you've been doing, Rascon," commanded Doyle in his best gruff manner. Rascon hesitated, but Doyle repeated his command, and in the repetition there was a thinly veiled threat that at once aroused the interest of both of us. What could be the purpose of bringing the stranger to us now? Rascon cleared his throat. "I've been employed by Mr. Wilford," he remarked a bit huskily, "to watch Mrs. Wilford." "What--to trail her?" asked Kennedy with increased interest. "Yes," admitted the man, reluctantly. As I watched him I could see that he was of the type that is all too common. His shifty eye, never meeting yours for any considerable length of time, made a very unfavorable impression on me. It is not that all private detectives, or perhaps even a considerable number, in view of the many in the profession, are of this class. But there are altogether too many of his type and they are a decided menace to their branch of the profession and to society in general. I refer to the type that euphoniously "furnishes" evidence--but unscrupulously goes to the length, if necessary, of actually manufacturing it. They are to their profession what the yellow journalist is to mine, the quack doctor to the medical profession--pariahs. "Well," prodded Doyle, "tell us what you found." Again there was no answer. "Come--speak up. Tell us. You might as well tell now as to do it later." Still he said nothing. Slowly Rascon drew from his breast pocket a tissue-paper flimsy sheet, a carbon copy of some typewriting, such as some agencies frequently use on which to make their reports to their clients. "Read it!" demanded Doyle. Slowly Rascon read: "June 20. Wilford case. Operative No. 1. "I picked up Mrs. Wilford at the door of the apartment at 11:15 A.M. She took a taxi to the Piccadilly Hotel. "There she went in and I followed her to the telephone. I got into the next booth and tried to listen through the partition, but I was too late. She left immediately. "From the Piccadilly I trailed her to the Plaza, just above Fifty-ninth Street, on Fifth Avenue. There was a touring-car waiting by the curb. In it she met Mr. Shattuck. "I had time to hail a taxi as they were preparing to drive away and followed. They turned and went down-town. I followed through traffic across the Bridge and through Brooklyn. On the Parkway the touring-car pulled away from me, but not before I was convinced it was headed for the Beach. I had the number, 97531, and the description. "At the Beach House I picked the car up again. Located the parties at luncheon. I waited about. They did not start back until four o'clock. I followed and he left her at the Subway at the Grand Central. "She returned to the apartment, about quarter to six. "I waited outside until relieved by operative No. 6." "Was that all that happened?" I asked quickly. "They merely rode down to the beach and had lunch together?" Rascon again did not reply. I could not even catch his eye as I asked the question. "Just a moment, Jameson," interrupted Doyle. Then, leading the detective on, "Now, Rascon, what did your employer, Mr. Wilford, say when that report was presented to him?" Rascon colored at the question, as Doyle had evidently intended that he should. "He never saw it." Doyle glowed with satisfaction, as though he were a lawyer bringing out the facts by cross-examination. He nodded to Kennedy and me as if we were a jury. Doyle was merely getting his facts into the record, as it were. Already he had quizzed Rascon into a state of anger and resentment out of which the truth might be expected to slip unaware. "Never saw it?" thundered Doyle. "What do you mean?" There was only silence from Rascon. Then, as Doyle threatened, he answered, surlily, "Mrs. Wilford paid me for the report--that is, for the copy of it." A moment Doyle regarded him, then his virtuous ire rose into towering wrath, even as though he had just heard the thing now for the first time. "She paid you for it! You dirty hound--that's blackmail!" Kennedy interrupted. "Is it true?" he demanded, tapping the sheet of paper which he had taken and read hastily to make sure that nothing had been omitted in the first reading. "Did she meet Shattuck?" The detective scowled to himself. "Is it true--tell him," shouted Doyle, brandishing a menacing fist in Rascon's face. The detective, himself a bulldozer when he had the chance, was bulldozed, even as a German might be frightened by a taste of his own frightfulness. "N-no," he stammered. "But had you made similar reports to Mr. Wilford?" persisted Kennedy, with some purpose. "Oh yes--but not this one. She paid me for this. I played fair--I did," he almost whined. "Hm! I see," measured Kennedy. "Mr. Wilford got similar reports--and believed them?" Rascon nodded a deprecating acquiescence. "I suppose so. He never kicked or asked questions. I guess it was what he wanted to know--eh?" It was not the flash of the detective's cynical lying that surprised me, but Craig's remark and what might be implied in it by the narrowing of Craig's eyes as he asked it and received the answer that he had apparently expected. I glanced at Craig hastily. What did he mean by the inflection of his voice and by the look? Hastily I tried to make it out. If the report of this Rascon had been true, did it not seem to explain and motivate Honora? But, I reasoned immediately, even if it were untrue and if Wilford believed those reports he received and wanted to believe, was there not just as compelling a situation? The thing was important and dangerous for her, either way one looked at it. A few more questions and it was evident that Rascon, in spite of the baiting that Doyle had given him, was pretty well on guard and in control of himself and would admit nothing unless Doyle had documentary proof or something just as good. Doyle, not wishing to disclose the limit of his information, turned the interview short. "That'll do," dismissed Doyle. "You may go, Rascon. I'll have more from you later." Rascon backed out, sheepishly, eager to get away. "I'll have his license revoked," muttered Doyle, calming down after the stormy quizzing. Doyle's contempt for Rascon knew no bounds. As for Rascon, I knew the method he had adopted. Once Rascon, or any of that breed, had a case involving clients with money, he proceeded to nurse the case along, to play one party to the case against the other. But I had not often run across cases where the crooked detective, who is a pest despised by all honest detectives even more than by other people, had been so brazen about collecting all the traffic would bear from each side, indiscriminately. "Why not ask Mrs. Wilford herself about it?" I suggested, as neither Kennedy nor Doyle said anything. "Better not--yet," objected Doyle, hastily. "I want to watch her a little herself. I particularly bluffed Rascon into not telling her a word of this." "Oh, that's all right," acquiesced Craig. I understood. It was Doyle's clue. He had been honest about it. He had not held back the information from us. But it was his to pursue, he figured. As for Craig, I knew that he would gladly keep his hands off the thing. Besides, there was plenty for us to do in carrying out the line of action which Kennedy had adopted, leaving the less subtle things to Doyle. "How did you find out about this fellow?" asked Craig, after a little while. "You remember Celeste?" answered Doyle, as though he had not yet finished telling us what he had come to tell. "The maid? Yes?" "I saw Rascon hanging about the apartment--trying to see Celeste. I watched. The dirty dog was trying to sell some more of the stuff to Mrs. Wilford, the whole thing--make a final clean-up under threat of handing it over to me if she didn't come across. Well," he laughed, "I got it, anyhow. She ought to thank me. I saved her some money." I did not like his tone toward Honora. "Well," he went on, "as soon as I got the lead I investigated. Now I'm convinced that Celeste was the go-between in the transactions. I've made Celeste confess. She paid him the money for Mrs. Wilford. He handed her copies of the fake reports which he agreed to 'kill' if enough was paid for them. Oh, it was a slick game, taking advantage of a situation." I glanced at Kennedy. "Do you think Celeste can be relied on?" I asked. He saw that I meant the test of her susceptibility to suggestion and her inaccuracy. "Ah, very true, Walter," he remarked. "But the reports themselves are incontrovertible. True or false--they were made. Some of them Wilford must have seen. Others she must have paid for. But the fact remains, no matter what Celeste may be." Doyle had been waiting impatiently for us to finish. Finally he nodded mysteriously, then stepped to the door. He opened it, and there in the hall I saw Celeste herself, with McCabe. The detective and the girl entered. Celeste stared about, not quite knowing what to make of the whole affair. "Celeste," began Doyle, with an easy familiarity which I knew the French maid resented deeply, "you saw that man who was here and went away?" "Yes, sir." "Do you know him?" "I have met the gentleman--two or three times." "What happened on one of these occasions?" Celeste paused. But Doyle was a forceful persuader to those who hesitated. Celeste evidently considered that she had best say something. That I knew was the danger--her readiness to say something, no matter what, to follow out some purpose in her own mind. However, knowing her attachment to Honora, I felt sure, as she went on, that what she was telling us was wrung from her by compulsion and was not said merely as so many words. "Madame she asked me to hand him an envelope." "And what then?" "In return I was to get one." "Did you get one?" "Yes, sir." Celeste was saying no more than necessary. "What was in it?" The girl shrugged in her best Parisian. I may have been convinced that she did know what was in the return envelope. But there was clearly no way to prove it. We were forced to take her word on the matter. Doyle himself realized that handicap. "Now, Celeste," began Doyle again, passing over that uncompleted phase, as though there was much he could have said, only refrained from doing so to go on to the next point, "what about the belladonna?" "She used it to brighten her eyes," returned the maid, as glibly as if she had practised the reply. "I mean--when did she use it last? Be careful. I know more than you think." "Yesterday," she replied, in a low voice, somewhat startled at Doyle's assumption of omniscience. "Why?" "Her eyes were dull." "She had been crying the night before--eh?" There was no answer. "Ah--then there had been a quarrel between Mrs. Wilford and her husband the day before?" Doyle's assurance, like a clairvoyant having struck a profitable lead, overwhelmed Celeste. She said nothing, but it was evident that Doyle had hit upon something at least approximating the truth. "Did she threaten again to leave him?" persisted Doyle, now taking further advantage. "Oh--no--no--no! Madame would not quarrel. She would not leave monsieur--I know it." I glanced again at Kennedy. I saw that he placed no great reliance on what Celeste said, unless it were substantiated in some outside manner. It seemed to be about all we could get out of her, at least at this time. Moreover, following Doyle's wishes, we decided to let him handle both the Rascon affair and such watching and questioning of Celeste as may seem necessary. Kennedy was not unwilling. To tell the truth, the Rascon affair was indeed unsavory and a mess we could afford to let alone. "That's all, my girl, for the present," concluded Doyle. "Oh--by the way--not one syllable of this to Mrs. Wilford. And if you breathe a word I shall know it. It will go hard with you, you understand?" She bowed and McCabe took her away. It had been all right while she was with us. But the moment McCabe loomed up on the scene, it was different. She tossed her head with offended dignity and marched off. For some moments longer Doyle and we discussed the new phase of the case. It was greatly to Doyle's satisfaction that we allowed him to be unhampered in what he had unearthed. It had evidently worried him to think of having us two amateurs dragging across the trail he had uncovered. Finally he left us, satisfied that he had done a great stroke of work. For some moments after he was gone Kennedy was silent and in deep study. "What do you make of it all?" I asked, breaking in on his thoughts, for fear something might interrupt before I could obtain Craig's personal impression. "Very important, perhaps--not for any evidence it may furnish in itself regarding what happened, for Rascon confessed that it was all faked, but important for its effect upon the minds of those concerned." Somehow I was not pleased at Doyle's discovery. In my heart I was hoping for anything that would relieve the load of suspicion on Honora. This did not. "You see," went on Kennedy, "it's not always what people know, the facts, that are important. Quite as important, oftentimes, are the things that they think they know, what they believe. People act on beliefs, you know." Much as I hated to admit it in this instance, I was forced to grant that it was true. "That may be," I confessed, "but why did she pay? Isn't it likely that it was a frame-up against her?" Kennedy smiled as he realized I was defending her. "Quite the case," he argued. "I suppose you know that some of these private detectives are really scandalous in their operations?" "Indeed I do." "Then can't you understand how a woman who knows might be driven desperate by it? Honora was well informed in the ways of the world. She knew that people would say, 'Where there's so much smoke, there's fire.' I'll wager that you've said the same thing, yourself, about articles in your own paper." I nodded reluctantly. It was a fact. "Why, this private-detective evil is so bad," he went on, vehemently, "that judges ordinarily won't take the testimony of a private detective in this kind of case unless it is corroborated. And yet, in spite of that fact, you can always find some one to believe anything, especially in society, provided the tale is told circumstantially. She knew that, as I say. And it must have been exasperating. It must have preyed on her mind. No doubt, if you sift the matter down you'll find that it was just this move on the part of her husband that killed whatever spark of love there might have been glowing in her heart. Suspicion does that." I decided not to pursue my own argument. I felt that the more I attempted to defend or excuse Honora, the more Kennedy bent and twisted the thing to some other purpose of his own. I could only trust that something would come to the surface that would set things in a different light. Doyle had been gone some time and Kennedy was beginning to get a little nervous over what was delaying Doctor Leslie with the materials from the autopsy from which he expected to discover much that would straighten out the tangle of what it really was that had occurred in Wilford's office on that fatal night. We had about decided to take a run over to the city laboratories to find out, when the door opened and a hearty voice greeted us. It was no other than Doctor Leslie himself, with an assistant carrying the materials from the autopsy, as he had promised. The fact was that he had not been so very long. Events had crowded on one another so fast that we had not appreciated the passage of time. As the attendant laid the jars down on Craig's laboratory table, Leslie seemed to have almost forgotten about them himself. "I've made a discovery--I think," he announced, eagerly. "Perhaps it's gossip--but at any rate, it's interesting." "Fire away," encouraged Kennedy, listening, but at the same time preparing impatiently to plunge into the deferred analysis might now be made. "I stopped at the Medical Society," hastened Leslie. "Do you know, it seems to be the gossip of the profession, under cover, about Lathrop and his wife. News spreads fast--especially scandal, like the talk of her knowing Wilford, which, thanks to some of Mr. Jameson's enterprising fraternity, the papers have already printed. Well, from what I hear, I don't believe that she really cared for Vail Wilford at all. It seems that she was using him just because he was a clever lawyer. As nearly as I can make it out, she had set herself to secure the divorce and capture Shattuck--wealthy, fascinating, and all that, you know." "Shattuck--she!" I exclaimed. Kennedy, however, said nothing, but shot a quick glance at me, recalling by it our still fresh meeting with both Vina and Shattuck, as well as the visit from Rascon. I remembered also that it had been evident at our first meeting with Doctor Lathrop that he had shown a keen interest in what his wife was doing. Had it been really jealousy--or was it merely wounded pride? Kennedy still did not venture to comment, but I saw that he was very thoughtful and that his eyes were resting on the book of Freud which we had been discussing some time before. What was passing in his mind I could not guess, but would have hazarded that it had something to do with Honora's dreams. At least the recollection of them flashed over me. Had Doctor Lathrop been the lion in her path, in some way? What had that dream meant? So far it had not been explained. Little more was said, but after a few moments' chat with Doctor Leslie, Craig set determinedly to work, making up for the time that had passed without any laboratory addition to his knowledge of the case. Leslie waited awhile, then excused himself. He had hardly gone when Craig looked up from his work at me. "Walter," he said, briskly, "I wish that you would try to find out more about that story of Leslie's." Seeing that I was merely in the way, as he worked, now, I was delighted at the commission. I left him as he returned to the work of analyzing the materials Leslie had brought. For, I reasoned, here was a new angle of the case--Vina as the cause of all the trouble--and I was determined to find something bearing on it to add as my contribution to the ultimate solution. VIII THE POISONED GLASS I went out, at Craig's suggestion, eager to discover something more of the interesting bit of gossip which Leslie had hinted at about Vina and Doctor Lathrop. In fact, the relations of this pair interested me only slightly less than those of Honora and Vail Wilford. Just where to go I was in some doubt, for I had not an extensive acquaintance in the medical profession of the city, in which both Doctor Lathrop and Doctor Leslie stood high in their respective fields. However, I reasoned that Lathrop's social position offered a more promising approach than even his professional connections. Thus, I determined to reassume the rôle of reporter for _The Star_ which I had often used before with success in ferreting out odd bits of information of use to Kennedy. Accordingly, I soon found that the best point of departure was _The Star_ itself and to the office I went, hoping to find our society reporter, Belle Balcom, whom I knew to be a veritable Social Register and _Town Topics_ combined into one quick-witted personality. "I suppose, Miss Balcom," I began, as I found her finishing a spicy bit of copy in the reporters' room, while I sat on the edge of her typewriter table--"I suppose you're following this Wilford case closely?" She nodded vivaciously. "There hasn't been much to follow yet," she replied, eager to get whatever inside news she might for her society column. "Professor Kennedy is on the case, isn't he? You ought to know more about it than I do." "Yes, he's on it," I replied, trying to head off any inquiry on her part that might be embarrassing. "And already we know that it will be quite involved." "I know it," she asserted, and, as we chatted, I found, to my surprise, that she did know about the people concerned in the case. "You see," she explained, when I ventured to express my astonishment, "it's my business to be acquainted with what passes as 'news' to the readers of the society page. And then, too, you know that scandal and gossip constitute much of the small talk of the social set which figures in the society notes. By the way, I suppose you know about that little affair between Mrs. Wilford and Mrs. Lathrop out at the Brent Rock Country Club?" I was at once interested. It was exactly the sort of thing I had sought. "No," I confessed. "But I can quite appreciate that an encounter between Honora and Vina would be likely to be spirited--and add to our knowledge of the case. What was it?" Belle Balcom smiled breezily. For, whatever she might say about the smart set, she had been writing their gossip so long that she, too, quite appreciated a choice morsel of scandal. I have noticed that none of my profession ever gets so blasé that a new piece of "inside" news loses its charm--and I confess that in that respect I am quite like my fraternity. "It seems," she retailed, "that the Wilfords and the Lathrops were at the club at a Saturday-night dance two or three weeks ago. Of course, you know, the attentions that Mr. Wilford had been paying to Mrs. Lathrop had been noticeable for some time, then, and had been the source of a good deal of discussion and comment among various members of their set." "Of course," I encouraged. "Well, it was just a bit more noticeable that night than at other times. Mr. Wilford was with her practically all the time. Of course, Honora Wilford had noticed it, not only that night, but many times before. This time, though, she overheard one of the other women who didn't know that she was so near, talking about it and laughing with her partner." "That was the last straw," I anticipated. "Exactly. She waited until she saw Vail Wilford for a moment alone. As luck would have it, he was going for a sherbet for Mrs. Lathrop at the time. Mrs. Wilford was cutting. 'I suppose you realize that your wife is present to-night,' she said, icily. 'At least one dance is customary to let the world know that a husband and wife are on speaking terms.'" "What did he say to that?" "Oh, of course he mumbled that he had intended to dance with her next--but he went on and got the sherbet. The next dance he was too late." "Then Hades popped loose," I ventured. "You might say that. In the middle of the dance, Honora Wilford, who had declined more partners during the evening than most of the other women at the club had accepted, rose and deliberately walked across the dancing-floor, ostentatiously bowing good night to every one as she passed. You couldn't help noticing it. Even if any one had missed it, the summoning of her car would have been enough. It pulled up at the door of the club, with the cut-out open. It was scarcely eleven o'clock, too, and no one was thinking of going home at that time. Not a word was said. There was no scene. Yet that dance almost stopped." It was interesting, perhaps important for the case, yet not precisely what I had started out to find. "What of Doctor Lathrop?" I asked. "What did he do?" "He wasn't in the room at the time. He was down in the café. Wilford tried to brazen it out and Vina acted properly surprised. She can be quite an actress, too, when she wants to be. No, Doctor Lathrop didn't pay any attention to it--that is, not so any one saw it. But Vance Shattuck did. I remember him particularly that evening. Of course I know many of the stories back in his life--and a good deal of what they say about him now. He had been one of the partners Honora had persistently refused, but they did sit out a dance together and I'm sure it was she that ended the tête-à-tête, not he. He seemed to have very little interest in any one else there, and I saw him taking in the whole affair. Once he started forward, as if to offer to escort her home, then checked himself. I think he seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at the turn of events in that little affair." "Playing a deep game?" I suggested. Belle Balcom shrugged. "I don't know--perhaps. Really, I thought at the time that this was not a triangle, but the making of a fine quadrangle--that is," she laughed breezily, "if you include Vance Shattuck, I guess you would call it a pentangle." "At any rate, all grist for the society-news mill," I smiled. "Doctor Lathrop really knew of the incident, didn't he?--at least, learned of it afterward?" "I imagine so." "You know the talk about the Lathrops?" I hinted. "I think I do--and I knew it long before this case started people's tongues wagging, too." "I understand it wasn't Wilford, after all, that Vina was interested in--but Shattuck himself." "So they say. Society gets its geometry pretty mixed in some of these angles," she laughed. "But do you think there is anything in the story about them?" I asked. "You're a very persistent interviewer," she returned. "Perhaps--but like the honest Japanese schoolboy, 'I ask to know.' It isn't interviewing for publication, you know. Really, I feel that if you do know anything, it is your duty to tell it. You can never know how valuable it may be to the case." "Of course--if you put it on a high ethical ground, that's different," she temporized. "I do. Listen. A crime has been committed. You have no more right to hold back one fact that may help to clear it up than you would to shield the person who committed it, in law, you know." "You're right. Yes--I'm convinced that it was the case--that she was merely playing with Vail Wilford, using him to get her freedom from the doctor, and that she was convinced that all she needed to do was to set herself to capture Vance Shattuck and he was as good as hers. That might be true of some men--sometimes," she added, "but Mr. Shattuck is too--too sophisticated to fall an easy prey to any one. You know, no woman can pursue him. He is a born pursuer." She paused a minute and nodded frankly at me. "No woman should trust him--yet many have. Some day, I really believe, such men always meet a woman who is more than a game-fish to an angler. Between you and me, I think Vance Shattuck has met her--and that there is nothing he would stop at to get her. But Vina is not that woman--nor can she understand. Yes, you are absolutely right in what you hinted at regarding Vina. I think you'll do well to watch the Lathrops--but mostly watch Vance Shattuck. There--I've said more than I intended to say, already. And remember, this is not a woman's intuition. I've been watching little things, here and there, and putting what I know together. Now--I've some more items to add to my column--it's short to-day." "Really, you ought to be a detective," I thanked her, as I turned from the desk. "You've helped me a great deal." "Flatterer," she returned, picking up a galley proof. "Come back again. If I hear anything more I'll let you know. I like Professor Kennedy." "Then it's to him you've been talking--not to me?" I asked, quizzically. "Or am I like John Alden--not speaking enough for myself, Priscilla?" "Please--I must read this proof. No--you're not talking for Miles Standish. Still, I consider you quite harmless. If you don't go now, I'll make you write the notes to take the place of these turned slugs in the proof." I departed in better humor, as I always was after a verbal encounter with Belle Balcom. More than that, she had given me enough to put some phases of the case in an entirely new light. As I hastened back to the laboratory I realized that the scheming of Vina had given an entirely new twist to the case, one which was beyond my own subtlety to interpret. On the way out of the city room I ran into Brooks, whose assignment was the Police Headquarters. "Great case your friend Kennedy's on now," he paused to comment, and I knew that he was hinting for information. "Yes. By the way," I replied, determined not to give it to him, but to sound him before he had a chance to do the same to me, "what do you fellows up at Headquarters know about the Rascon Detective Agency?" "Rascon?" he answered, quickly, and I could see his mind was working fast and that if we needed any assistance in hounding that gentleman, Brooks would give it voluntarily, hoping to get his own story out of it. "Why, Rascon has a reputation. They say he has pulled some pretty raw deals. The city force doesn't think much of him, I can tell you. Is he mixed up in it?" "Yes--indirectly," I admitted. "I thought perhaps you might keep an eye on him. There may be a story in him. Only, your word on one thing: Not a sentence is to go into _The Star_ about him until you've got my O. K." "I'll promise. What's he done? He does a good deal of shady business, I know." I was not averse to telling Brooks a bit, for I knew I could trust him. Besides, if the truth is to be told, on a big case it is the newspaper men who do quite as much of the digging out the facts as the police do. The most efficient detectives in the world are the newspaper men--and the regular detectives get a great deal of credit for what the newspaper men do. "He has been up to a fine piece of double crossing," I replied. "Now all I can tell you is that Wilford hired him to watch Mrs. Wilford. He faked a good deal--meetings with Vance Shattuck and that sort of thing. She gave up to him to suppress some of the fakes. But--well, I'd like to know more. Doyle, I think, has the fellow right. Now be careful. Don't let either of them know I tipped you off--and remember, your typewriter is broken until I tell you it's all right to go ahead." "Thanks for the tip, Jameson," said Brooks, as I bustled away. "I'll look it up--and let you know." "Have you found anything yet?" I inquired, half an hour later, as I entered the laboratory and found Kennedy still deeply engaged in the study of the materials which had been brought over by Doctor Leslie. As I watched him I saw that he was at work over a quantitative analysis, rather than searching blindly for something as yet unknown. "Yes," he replied, frankly, to my surprise, though, on second thought, I recalled that only when he was in doubt was Kennedy secretive. "I have. What about you?" "The hint from Leslie was right," I replied, and as briefly as I could I repeated what Miss Balcom had told me. Kennedy listened attentively, and when I had finished merely remarked, "That explains some things that I haven't cleared up yet." "Now tell me what you have found," I urged. "I'm very eager to know." "It was as I thought," he replied, slowly, "when I talked first with Leslie and Doyle. Wilford was not killed by atropin." "Then what was it?" I asked, mystified. "You remember, I found his pupils contracted almost to a pin-point?" he asked. "Yes. Was it morphine, as in the cases Doyle cited?" Craig shook his head. "No, it wasn't morphine, either. I had to go at it with practically no other hint. However, in this case the elimination of drugs was comparatively easy. I simply began testing for all I could recall that had the effect of contracting the pupils of the eyes. There was one thing that helped very much. The contraction was so marked in this case that I started off by looking for the drug which occurred to me next after morphine. I don't claim any uncanny intelligence for it, either. That part of it was all just pure luck." "Luck be hanged!" I exclaimed. "It's knowledge, preparedness. Would I ever have hit on it by luck?" "Still, I was as much surprised to find it so soon as you are to hear it." "I'll concede anything," I hastened. "I'm burning with curiosity. What was it?" "Wilford died of physostigmine poisoning," he answered. I suppose my face wrinkled with disappointment, for Craig laughed outright. "And--physostigmine--is what?" I inquired, quite willing to admit my ignorance if by that I might get ahead in understanding the mystery. "What does it do?" "It's a drug used by oculists, just as they use atropin, but for the precisely opposite effect. Atropin dilates the pupils; physostigmine contracts them. Both are pre-eminent in their respective properties." "Used by oculists!" I exclaimed, remembering suddenly that Honora Wilford's father, Honore Chappelle, had been an oculist. Kennedy apparently did not wish to encourage my quick deduction, for he paid no attention. "Yes," he repeated, thoughtfully, "it causes a contraction of the pupils more marked than that produced by any other drug I know. That was why I tried the test for it first--simply because it was at the top of the scale, so to speak." Interested as I was in physostigmine, which, by the way, now came tripping off my tongue like the name of an old friend, I could not forget our first acquaintance with the case. "But what about the atropin in the glass--and in the bottle?" I asked, hesitatingly. "I did not say that I had cleared up the case," cautioned Craig. "It is still a mystery. Atropin has not only the opposite effect on the eye from physostigmine, but there is a further most unusual fact about the relationship of these two drugs. This is one of the few cases where we find drugs mutually antagonistic. And they are antagonistic to a marked degree in this instance, too." He paused a moment and I tried to follow him, but was too bewildered to make an inch of progress. Here was a man killed, we knew, by a drug which Craig had recognized. Yet in the glass on his desk had been found unmistakable traces of another drug. Was it an elaborate camouflage? If so, it seemed to be utterly purposeless, for, even if Kennedy had not discovered the poison, the veriest tyro at the game must have done so comparatively soon. I gave it up. I could see no chance that the atropin might have been put in the glass either to point or to obscure suspicion. It was too clumsy and a brain clever enough to have conceived the whole thing would not have fallen into such an egregious error. It was too easy. But, if the obvious were rejected, what remained? By the grave look on Kennedy's face I was convinced that there was a depth of meaning to this apparent contradiction which even he himself had not fathomed yet. "Atropin is an antidote to physostigmine," he continued. "Three and a half times the quantity almost infallibly counteracts the poisonous dose." "But," I objected, "there was no trace of physostigmine in either glass, was there?" "No," he replied, "the glasses are here. I got them from Doyle's office while you were away. Not a trace in either. In fact, one of the glasses is really free from belladonna traces. The physostigmine I discovered was all in the stomach contents of Wilford--and there is a great deal of it, too. When you come right down to the point, we've taken a step forward--that's all. There's a long way to go yet." "But what of the physostigmine?" I queried. "How do you suppose it was given?" He shook his head in doubt. "I made a close examination. There were no marks on the body such as if a needle had been used. Besides, my investigations showed that a needle need not have been used. There are peculiar starch grains in the stomach associated with the poison. I admit I still have no explanation of that." For some minutes Kennedy worked along thoughtfully over his analysis, though I knew that he was merely endeavoring to determine in his own mind the next important move to make. "I think I'll vary my custom, in this case," he decided, finally. "I'm going to announce what I have discovered as I go along. If you tell it to one you may depend that it will spread to the others eventually. It will be interesting to see what happens. Often when you do that it's the quickest way to have the whole truth come out--especially if some one is trying to conceal it." There was a tap on the laboratory door and I rose to open it, admitting Doyle himself, quite excited. "What's the matter?" greeted Kennedy. "There's the deuce to pay up at the Wilford apartment," replied Doyle. "Shattuck called there to see Mrs. Wilford this afternoon and offer her his sympathy." I glanced over to Kennedy, who nodded to me. It was evidently the visit about which we already knew. "I wasn't there," went on Doyle, "but McCabe was, of course. I don't know just what happened, but McCabe and Shattuck had some kind of run-in--Shattuck protested against the way we're holding Mrs. Wilford, and all that. Some mess!" He shook his head dubiously. "Why?" prompted Kennedy. "What's the trouble?" "Trouble enough. Mrs. Wilford's almost in a state of hysteria. When I tried to smooth things over she ordered me out of the apartment, said she'd receive whom she pleased and when and where she pleased." Kennedy scowled. I could well imagine Doyle "smoothing" anything over. A road-roller would have been tactful by comparison. "I think she's breaking," he pursued. "I know I'm on the right track. I thought you might like to know it. If I don't get a confession--say, I'll eat my shield!" With difficulty I restrained myself. It was not policy to offend Doyle, I reasoned. "Say," pursued Doyle, with a knowing nod, "you remember I found out that some one had been at that office the night Wilford was murdered?" "Yes," agreed Kennedy. "Well--who was it?" demanded Doyle. "Who _must_ it have been? Who wanted her husband out of the way? Isn't it clear?" There was no mistake that he implied Honora. "By the way," interposed Kennedy, "I think I've found the poison that killed him." "Belladonna--eh?" "No. Just the opposite--physostigmine." Doyle stared. Yet he could not dispute. "Maybe it was. But it's a poison just the same--ain't it?" he hastened. Then he added, aggressively, "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to put a dictagraph in that place." Kennedy smiled encouragingly. I knew what his thought was. This was the height to which Doyle's mind reached. Yet, I reasoned, perhaps it was not without its value, after all. IX THE ASSOCIATION TEST "I think I ought to visit Mrs. Wilford, after that," decided Kennedy, the moment Doyle had left. "This case is really resolving itself into a study of that woman, or rather of her hidden personality." Accordingly he doffed his acid-stained smock which he wore about the laboratory, and we set out for the Wilford apartment. When we arrived we were not surprised to find Honora in a highly nervous state, really bordering on hysteria, as we had been told by Doyle. McCabe had taken up a less conspicuous place in which to watch her, from a neighboring apartment in which he had got himself placed. As we met her, it actually seemed as if Honora had turned from Doyle and McCabe to Kennedy. "Were the dreams I wrote for you all right?" she asked, with a rather concealed anxiety. "Perfectly satisfactory," replied Kennedy, reassuringly. "I haven't finished with them yet. I'll tell you about them later. They were all right, but I never have enough of them. I suppose Doctor Lathrop used to say that too?" She nodded. Evidently Craig had won her confidence, in spite of what she must have known about us by this time. "Are there any other dreams that you have thought of since?" he inquired, pressing his advantage. She passed her hand over her forehead wearily and did not answer immediately. "You look tired," Craig remarked, sympathetically. "Why not rest while we talk?" "Thank you," she murmured. As he spoke, Kennedy had been arranging the pillows on a _chaise-longue_. When he finished, she sank into them, resting her head, slightly elevated. Having discussed the various phases of the psychanalysis before with Kennedy, I knew that he was placing her at her ease, so that nothing foreign might distract her from the free association of ideas. Kennedy placed himself near her head and motioned to me to stand farther back where she could not see me. "Avoid all muscular exertion and distraction," he continued. "I want you to concentrate your attention thoroughly. Tell me anything that comes into your mind. Tell all you know of your feelings. Concentrate. Repeat all you think about. Frankly express all the thoughts you have, even though they may be painful and perhaps embarrassing." He said this soothingly and she seemed to understand that much depended upon her answers and the fact that she did not try to force her ideas. "Tell me--of just what you are thinking," he pursued. Dreamily she closed her eyes, as though allowing her thoughts to wander. "I am thinking," she replied, slowly, still with her eyes closed, "of a time just after Vail and I were married." She choked back the trace of a sob in her voice. "It is a dream," she went on. "I seem to be alone, crossing the fields--it is at the country estate where we spent our honeymoon. I see a figure ahead of me. It is Vail. But each time that I get close to him--he has disappeared into the forest that skirts the field." She stopped. "Now--I see the figure--a figure--but--it is not Vail--no, it is another man--I do not know him--with another woman--not myself." She had opened her eyes as though the day-dream was at an end, but before she finished the sentence she had deliberately closed them again. From what I learned of the method of psychanalysis, I recalled that it was the gaps and hesitations which were considered most important in arriving at the truth regarding the cause of any nervous trouble. More than that, as she had said the words, it was easy to read into her remarks the fact that she knew there had been another woman in Wilford's life. It had wounded her deeply, in spite of the fact--as Kennedy had demonstrated by the Freud theory--that she really had not cared as greatly for Wilford as even she herself had thought. Even to me it was plain in this day-dream recollection that the man throughout it was really Vail. She knew it was Vail and she knew that woman with him was Vina. But in her wish that it should not be so, she had unconsciously changed the face on the "figure" she saw. It was her endeavor to preserve what she desired. She had unconsciously striven not to have it her husband, as it was not herself she saw in the vision with him. "Go on," urged Kennedy, gently. "Is there anything else that comes into your mind?" "Yes" she murmured, dreamily. "I am thinking about some of Vail's clients." "About any of them in particular?" hastened Kennedy, eager to catch the fleeting thought before she might either lose or conceal it. "About any one contemplating a suit for divorce?" "Y-yes," she replied before she realized it, her eyes opening as she came out of the half-relaxed state again, recalled by the sound of Kennedy's voice. "What were you thinking about that person?" "That he was devoting entirely too much time to that sort of practice," she answered, quickly, avoiding a direct reply. "I can remember when I first knew him that he was in a fair way to be a very successful corporation lawyer. But the money and the cases seemed to come to him--the divorce cases, I mean." Kennedy ignored the last, explanatory part of the remark, as though he penetrated that it disguised something. He did not wish to put her on guard. "Devoting too much time to the practice?" he queried, "or do you mean you think he was devoting too much time and attention to the particular client?" Honora was thoroughly on guard now, in spite of him. Had she known, she probably would never have allowed herself to be led along until Kennedy struck on such an important "complex." But, quite evidently, she knew nothing of the Freud theory and trusted that her own control of herself was sufficient. And, indeed, it would have been had it not been that the dreams betrayed so much, that even she did not realize, to one who understood the theory. She did not answer. "Who is it that you were thinking about?" persisted Craig, refusing to be turned aside. "Oh, no one in particular," she replied, quickly, with a petulant little shrug. Yet it was plain now that she had been thinking of some one, both in the last remarks and perhaps in the day-dreams she had repeated. She was now trying to hide the name from us. By this time, also, Honora was sitting bolt-up-right on the _chaise-longue_, staring straight at Kennedy, as though amazed at her own frankness and a bit afraid of what it had led her into. "Was it Vina Lathrop?" he asked, suddenly. "No--no!" she denied, emphatically. Yet to me it was evident that it most certainly had been Vina whom she had in mind. The association test of the waking state quite accorded with the results of the dream study which Kennedy had made. Moreover, it was now evident that Honora was holding back something, that she had taken refuge in silence. Vainly Kennedy now strove to restore the relaxed condition, in which she might let her thoughts wander at will. It was of no use. She simply would not let herself go. Deftly he changed his tactics altogether and the conversation drifted off quickly to inconsequential topics, such as would restore any shaken confidence in him. Clearly it was too early to come to an open break with her. Besides, I understood, Kennedy would rather have allowed her to believe that she had come off victor than to have pressed any minor advantage. "Please don't repeat this," he remarked, as we were leaving. "You can readily understand the reason. I quite appreciate the uncomfortable position in which the city detectives have placed you, Mrs. Wilford. Depend on me, I shall use every influence I have with them to mitigate the hardship of their presence. Besides, I know how brutally annoying they can be. You understand--my position is quite different. And if I can be of any assistance to you, no matter in what way, don't fail to command me." I had expected her to be a bit put out by our continued quizzing. On the contrary, however, she seemed to be actually grateful for Kennedy's sympathy, now that he had ceased treading upon dangerous ground. "Thank you," she sighed, as we rose to leave her. "I feel that you are always trying to be fair to me." Kennedy hastened to assure her that we were, and we left before the final good impression could be destroyed. "I consider you an artist, Craig," I complimented, as we left the elevator a few minutes later, after a brief talk with McCabe in which Kennedy urged him to keep a close watch, but to seem not to be watching. "We go to cross-examine; we leave, friends. But I don't yet understand what the idea was of trying the association test on her." "Couldn't you see that when we came there she was in a state verging on hysteria?" he replied. "No doubt, if McCabe had stayed she would have been quite over the verge, too. But it would not have done them any good. They always think that if any one 'blows up,' as they call it, they'll learn the truth. That's not the case with a woman as clever as Honora. If she gave way to hysteria, she would be infinitely more likely to mislead them than to lead them. Besides, in the study of hysteria a good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now." I nodded encouragingly, not so much that I cared about the subject of hysteria, either what was known of it now or long ago, as that I was deeply interested in anything whatever that might advance the case. "Perhaps," he went on, "you are not aware of the fact that Freud's contribution to the study of hysteria and even to insanity is really of greater scientific value than his theories of dreams, taken by themselves. Study of Freud, as you can see, has led us already to a better understanding of this very case." "But what sort of condition did you think her in before you reassured her at the start by the association test?" Kennedy thought a moment. "Here is, I feel, what is known as one of the so-called 'borderline cases,'" he answered, slowly. "It is clearly a case of hysteria--not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly as such, but the condition which scientists to-day know as such. "By psychanalytical study of one sort or another we may trace the impulse from which hysterical conditions arise, penetrate the disguises which these repressed impulses or wishes must assume in order to appear in the consciousness. Such transformed impulses are found in normal people, too, sometimes. The hysteric suffers mostly from reminiscences which, paradoxically, may be completely forgotten. "Thus, obsessions and phobias have their origin, according to Freud, in sexual life. The obsession represents a compensation, a substitute for an unbearable sex idea, and takes its place in consciousness." "That is," I supplied, "in this case you mean that her husband's lack of interest in her was such an unbearable idea to her that in her mind she tried to substitute something to take its place?" "Precisely. In normal sex life, as you recall, the Freudists say that no neurosis is possible. Also recall what I said, that sex is one of the strongest of impulses, yet subject to the greatest repression--and hence is the weakest point in our cultural development. Often sex wishes may be consciously rejected, but unconsciously accepted. Well, now--hysteria arises through the conflict between libido--the uncontrollable desire--and sex repression. So, when they are understood, every hysterical utterance has a reason back of it. Do you catch the idea? There is really method in madness, after all. "Take an example," he continued. "When hysteria in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband, it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place. In a sense it might even be said to be desirable for her. You see, the great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Freud, is that certain symptoms of hysteria disappear when the hidden causes are brought to light and the repressed desires are gratified." "But," I interrupted, "how does this analysis apply to the case of Honora Wilford?" Kennedy considered a moment. "Very neatly," he answered. "Honora is suffering from what the psychanalysts call a psychic trauma--a soul wound, as it were. Recall, for instance, what our dream analysis has already shown us--the old love-affair with Shattuck. To her mind, that was precisely like a wound would have been to the body. It cut deeply. Seemingly it had healed. Yet the old scar remained--a repressed love. It could no more be taken away than could a scar be taken from the face." "Yet was not open and visible like a physical scar," I agreed. "Quite the case. Then," he pursued, "came a new wound--the neglect by her husband whom she thought she loved, and the discovery of Vina Lathrop as the trouble-maker." "I begin to see," I returned. "Those two sets of facts, the old scar and the new wound, are sufficient, you think, to explain much in her life." "At least they explain about the hysteria. In her dream, a wave of recollection swept over her and, so to speak, engulfed her mind. In other words, reason could no longer dominate the cravings for love so long repressed. The unconscious strain was too great. Hence the hysteria--not so much the hysteria and the isolated outburst which Doyle saw, as the condition back of it which must have continued for days, perhaps weeks, previous to the actual murder of Wilford." I frowned and objected inwardly. Was Craig, also, laying a foundation for the ultimate conviction of Honora? Before I could question him there was an interruption at the door and I sprang to open it. "Hello, Jameson!" greeted Doctor Leslie; then catching sight of Kennedy, he entered and asked, "Have you discovered anything yet, Professor?" "Yes," replied Craig, "I should say I have." Leslie was himself quite excited and did not wait for Craig to go on. "So have I," he exclaimed, searching Kennedy's face as he spoke. "Did you find physostigmine in the stomach contents I sent you? I did in what I retained." Kennedy nodded quietly. "What does it mean?" queried Leslie, puzzled. Kennedy shook his head gravely. "I can't say--yet," he replied. "It may mean much before we are through, but for the present I think we had better go slow with our deductions." Leslie evidently had hoped that Kennedy's active mind would have already figured out the explanation. But in cases such as this facts are more important than clever reasoning and Kennedy was not going to commit himself. "Doyle tells me that he has put in a dictagraph in the Wilford apartment," ventured Leslie, changing the subject unwillingly. "Has he learned anything yet?" "No, not yet. It's too soon, I imagine." Leslie paused and glanced about impatiently. Things were evidently not going fast enough to suit him. Yet, without Kennedy, he felt himself helpless. However, there was always one thing about Leslie which I was forced to like. He was no poser. Even when Doyle and the rest did not recognize Kennedy's genius, Leslie quite appreciated it. Although he was a remarkably good physician, he knew that the problems which many cases presented to him were such that only Kennedy could help him out. "You've heard nothing more about the gossip regarding Mrs. Lathrop and Shattuck?" I asked. "No, nothing about that. But there is something else that I have found out," he added, after a moment--"something that leads to Wilford's office." Kennedy was interested in a moment. We had been so occupied with the case that we had not even a chance to go down there yet, although that would have been one of the first things to do, ordinarily, unless, as in this case, we were almost certain that the ransacking of Doyle and Leslie had destroyed those first clues that come only when one is called immediately on a case. "I've been looking about the place," went on Leslie, encouraged by Kennedy's interest. "I knew you'd be busy with other things. Well, I've discovered one of the other tenants in the building who did not leave his office on the same floor until just after seven o'clock last night." "Yes?" inquired Craig. "Did he see or hear anything?" Leslie nodded. "Early in the evening there must have been a woman who visited Wilford," he hastened. "Who was she?" "The tenant doesn't know." "Did he see her?" "No. He remembers hearing a voice on the other side of the door to the hall. He didn't see any one, he says, and it is quite likely. When I asked him if he overheard anything, he replied that he could catch only a word here and there. There was one sentence he caught as he closed his own door." "And that was--?" "Rather loudly, the woman said: 'Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?'" Leslie paused to watch the effect of the sentence on us. I, too, studied Kennedy's face. "Did she leave soon?" asked Craig. Leslie shook his head. "I don't know. The tenant left and that was all I heard." "Well, Wilford was not dead then, we know," considered Craig. "Could she have been there when he died? Of course you don't know." "It's possible," replied Leslie. To myself, I repeated the words: "Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?" A few hours ago I should have been forced to conclude that only Vina might have said it, knowing as she did the peculiar nature of Honora and the relations between Wilford and his wife. But now, with the hints discovered by Leslie and amplified by Miss Balcom, I could not be so sure. The remark might have come equally well from Honora herself and have applied to Vina--for Honora, too, might have known that it was not love for Wilford that prompted Vina's interest in her husband, but the desire to make sure of her divorce for the purpose of being free to capture Vance Shattuck. Interesting and important as the discovery was, it did not help us, except that it added to the slender knowledge we had of what had taken place at the office. A woman had been there. Who it was, whether Honora or Vina, we did not know. Nor did we know how long she had stayed, whether she might merely have dropped in and have gone before the crime was committed. "You've told Doyle?" asked Kennedy. "Naturally. I had to tell him. Remember, it was much later that he found that some one else had been at the office, according to the janitor's story." "I do remember. That's just what I have been thinking about. I suppose he'll tell it all around--he usually does use such things in his third-degree manner." Leslie smiled, then sobered. "Quite likely. Does it make any difference?" "Not a bit. I'm rather hoping he does tell it around. I've decided in this case to play the game with the cards on the table. Then some one is sure to make a false move and expose his hand, I feel sure." Quickly I canvassed the situation. All might be involved, in one way or another--either Vina or Honora might have been the early visitor; later it might have been either Shattuck or even Lathrop, or perhaps neither, who had been there, as far as the janitor's vague observation was concerned. "There was something strange that went on at that office the night of the murder," ruminated Kennedy. "Maybe there is some clue down there, after all, that has been overlooked. You've searched, you say. Doyle has searched. The place must have been pretty well gone over. However, I can see nothing left but to search again," he decided, quickly. "We must go down there." X THE ORDEAL BEAN Wilford's office was in an old building of the days when a structure of five or six stories, with a cast-iron, ornamented front, was considered a wonderful engineering achievement. It was down-town, in the heart of the financial district, and had been chosen by Wilford, without a doubt, to convey an impression of solidity and conservatism, a useful camouflage to cover the essential character of his law practice as scandal attorney. We climbed the worn stairs with Leslie, and, as we mounted, I noticed that there was also, down the hall, a back stairway, evidently placed there in case of fire. Hence, it was possible, I reasoned, for a person to have slipped in or out practically unobserved from the front. We knew now that at least one person, probably two, had been there, though who they were we did not know. Nor was there yet any clue, except that certainly a woman had visited Wilford, at least early in the evening. Wilford's office was on the third floor, in the front. We entered and looked about. Past the outer railing and outer office was his own sanctum. It was furnished lavishly with divans and settees in mahogany and dark leather, with elaborate hangings over the windows and on the walls. There were law-books, but only, it seemed, for the purpose of giving a legal flavor to the place. Most of the legal library was outside. The office was rather like a den than a lawyer's office. Reflecting, I could see the reason. Society must be made welcome here, and at ease. Besides, the conservative surroundings were quite valuable in covering up the profession--I had almost said, business--of divorce made easy and pleasant. I recalled Rascon and the crook detectives who made little concealment of their business--"Evidence for divorce furnished." Doubtless many of these gentry had found occupation from this source. What stories these walls might have told! They would have made even Belle Balcom's ears tingle. At once Kennedy began his search of the office, going over everything minutely but quickly, while we waited, apart. "Not even a finger-print has been left unobscured!" he exclaimed, finally, almost ready in disgust to give it up. "It is shameful--shameful," he muttered. "When will they learn to let things alone until some one comes who knows the scientific importance of little things! If only I could have been first on the job." "There's the typewriter," suggested Leslie, trying to divert attention and smooth things over. "Have you the letter?" asked Craig. Leslie drew it eagerly from his pocket and unfolded it. Kennedy took it, spread it out and studied it a moment: HONORA: Don't think I am a coward to do this, but things cannot go on as they have been going. It is no use. I cannot work it out. This is the only way. So I shall drop out. You will find my will in the safe. Good-by forever. VAIL. Then Craig moved over and sat at the typewriter. Quickly he struck several keys, then made a hasty comparison of the note with what he had written. "The 's' and the 'r' are out of alignment, the 'e' battered--in both," he concluded, hurriedly, as though merely confirming what he was already convinced of. "There are enough marks to identify the writing as having been done on this machine, all right. No, there's nothing in this note--except what is back of it, and we do not know that yet. Did Wilford write that letter, or was it written for him? It could hardly have been done voluntarily." "It was in this desk chair that we found him sprawled--so," illustrated Doctor Leslie, dropping into the chair. Then, straightening up, he indicated the big flat-topped desk in the middle of the room. "The two glasses were on this desk--one of them here, the other over there." As he pointed the spots out, one of them near where he was, the other near the outer edge of the desk, Kennedy's eye fell on the desk calendar. "I removed the pages I told you about," supplied Leslie, noticing the direction of Craig's glance. "It's a loose-leaf affair, as you see. Here they are." Leslie drew from his pocket the leaves for the various days, and we looked at them again, with their notations--one reading, "Prepare papers in proposed case of Lathrop _vs._ Lathrop." Others read, "Vina at four," and other dates, with hours attached. There were several of them, more than would seem to have been necessary were the relation merely that of lawyer and client for so brief a time. There were none for the day of the murder however. Kennedy continued the search, now rummaging the papers, now directing either Leslie or myself to bring him objects. He had asked me for a letter-file, and I was turning from a cabinet to hand it to him when my foot kicked some small, soft object lying along the edge of the rug. The thing, whatever it was, flew over and hit the baseboard. Mechanically I reached down and picked the object up, holding it in the palm of my hand. It seemed to be a rough-coated, grayish-brown bean, of irregular, kidney shape, about an inch long and half an inch thick, with two margins, one short and concave, the other long and convex. The surfaces were rounded slightly, but flattened. The coat of the bean was glossy. Kennedy, with quick eye, had noted that I had picked up something and was over at my side in a moment. "What's that?" he asked quickly, taking the thing from my hand as I turned to him. He looked at it critically for a moment. Then he pressed the hard outer coat until it parted slightly, disclosing inside two creamy white cotyledons. He studied them for some time, then pressed the bean back into shape again as it had been before. I was about to ask what he thought it was, and where it came from, when there was a noise in the direction of the door. We turned to see that it was a man in overalls shuffling in, his cap in his hand. "Oh, beggin' your pardon, Doctor," he addressed Leslie, "I heard some one here. I didn't know it was you." It was the night watchman who had been off the job on perhaps the only occasion in years when it would have meant much for him to have been on it, but was making up for his laxity now by excessive vigilance. "Pete," demanded Leslie, sharply, "did you see a woman here that night?" "N-no, sir--that is, sir--I don't know. There was some one here--but Mr. Wilford, he kept such late hours and irregular that I thought nothing of it. I thought it was all right, sir. Later, when I didn't hear any voices, I thought they had gone home. I didn't see the lights burnin'--you wouldn't ha' noticed that, except from the other side of the street. I s'pose that's why they didn't discover the body till mornin'. But a woman here--no, sir, I can't say as I'd say that, sir." Whatever else there might have been said about Pete, it was evident that he was perfectly honest. He even confessed his lack of observation and his inefficiency with utter frankness. There did not seem to be a hope of obtaining anything by questioning Pete. He had told all he really knew. Others might have embellished the story had they been in his place, and so have led us astray. At least he had the merit of not doing that. "So--here you are," exclaimed a deep voice at the door. It was Doyle, flushed and excited. "You may go, Pete," nodded Leslie to the janitor, who backed out of the room, still pulling at his cap. Alone, Doyle turned to us. "Confound Shattuck!" he exclaimed. "That man is the limit. I'll get him, if he doesn't look out. He's a game bird--but he flies funny." "Why, what has he done now?" asked Kennedy. "Done?" fumed Doyle. "Done? Been threatening, I hear, to have me 'broke'--that's all. I don't care about that, not a whoop--even if he had the influence with the administration. What I care about is that he is putting every obstacle in the way of my finding out anything from that woman. She's hard enough to manage, Heaven knows, without his butting in." "What about that bean Jameson picked up here?" asked Leslie, impatiently, as Doyle paused. "Have you any idea what it may be?" "A bean?" inquired Doyle, looking from one of us to the other and not understanding. "A bean? Picked up here? Why, what do you mean?" I was inclined to be vexed at Leslie for having mentioned it, but I soon saw that Kennedy betrayed no traces of annoyance. On the contrary, he seemed rather eager to answer, as he drew the thing from his pocket, where he had placed it when Pete came in. "Just something Jameson happened to find on the very edge of the rug, quite by accident, over by the letter-files," Craig explained, with a certain gusto at showing Doyle a thing that he had overlooked. "Ever see anything like it?" Doyle took the bean, but it was evident that both it and its discovery meant nothing to him. "No," he admitted, reluctantly. "What is it?" "Without a doubt it is one of the famous so-called 'ordeal beans' of Calabar," replied Kennedy, offhand. "Calabar?" I repeated, in surprise. "Why, that's a place on the west coast of Africa, isn't it? What would a Calabar bean be lying on the floor here for?" "What do you mean--ordeal bean?" questioned Doyle, somewhat incredulously, while Leslie maintained a discreet silence. "In the Calabar, where these things grow," explained Kennedy, not put out for an instant, "as you perhaps know, they have a strange form of dueling with these seeds. Two opponents divide a bean. Each eats a half. It is some religious ceremony--voodoo, or some such thing, I suppose--a superstition. Sometimes both die--for the bean contains physostigmine and is the chief source from which this drug is obtained." "You mean they _eat_ it--a poison?" I asked. "Certainly. Over there, the natives believe that God will decide who is guilty and who is innocent, and that he will miraculously spare the innocent. I suppose that sometimes one gets a half a bean that doesn't contain so high a percentage of the poison--or else some people are not so susceptible to its toxin, or something like that. Anyhow, that's one way they use it." "Why," I exclaimed, "that is primitive justice, you might say--the duel by poison!" "Exactly," Craig nodded. Doyle stared, amazed and puzzled. "No worse than some of the things our ancestors did, not many centuries ago," reminded Craig. "They used to have all sorts of ordeals, by fire and water and what not. We haven't progressed so far over the savages, after all. Civilization is only a veneer, and pretty thin, sometimes. Underneath we're quite like the savage--only we substitute mechanical war for brute strength and high finance for highway robbery. The caveman and the cavewoman are in all of us--only we manage either to control them or conceal them--except when something happens that means calling in either Doyle or myself." "What's this--phy--physos--what you call it?" demanded Doyle, forgetting to conceal his ignorance in his curiosity. "A drug," replied Kennedy. "One effect it has is to contract the pupil of the eye. Both Leslie and I have discovered considerable traces of it in Wilford's stomach. In such quantities, it would be very poisonous. By the way, this bean would account also for those starch grains I found, Walter," added Kennedy. "Then you mean you think that Wilford ate one of these things?" queried Leslie. "That there was a--duel by poison?" demanded Doyle, hesitating over the words I had used. "I know he must have eaten one of those beans," asserted Kennedy. "What else could it have been? He certainly didn't eat this one, though. There must have been more. This one must have dropped on the floor in the excitement and have been overlooked. You didn't find any traces of others about, did you?" he added, looking from Doyle to Leslie. Leslie shook his head negatively. Doyle's puzzled face was answer enough from him. I considered a moment as an idea struck me, offering a refuge from an unpleasant implication of Kennedy's remarks which I foresaw and which I knew would occur to Doyle, if not directly, at least very soon. "Shattuck has traveled widely," I remarked, reflectively. "He himself told us, you recall, that he had hunted big game in Africa. Perhaps he has been in the Calabar, too--at any rate somewhere on that continent where he might have learned of these beans and the use to which the natives put them." Kennedy nodded again, cautiously. "A good many such beans are imported for medical purposes to obtain the physostigmine from them," Craig remarked, carefully. "It's the source of the drug. Don't jump too hastily at your conclusions, Walter. Remember, physostigmine is a drug that is known and used by oculists, too, for its effect on the pupil of the eye, the opposite of belladonna." I could have sworn at Kennedy for that. It was just the idea that I had wanted to keep away from Doyle. I had known that he would pounce on it like a hawk. Now I was sure that he would use it against Honora. "Oh--oculists use it, do they?" repeated Doyle, running true to form. "Ah--I see." He looked about, from one to the other of us, knowingly. No one said anything as he continued to gaze with superior slyness at us, regarding us as poor simpletons who were unable to see through a millstone with a hole in it. "I see--I see," he added. "Honora--Chappelle. That was her name before she was married. Her father was a Frenchman, Honore Chappelle--an oculist--well known in the city before he died. Oh, that's very important, then, that about this bean and the physostigmine, or whatever you call it. And, Leslie, you say you've discovered that some one--a woman--was here early in the evening. Can't we put two and two together? She's lying when she says she wasn't out of that house, she is. So is that Celeste, the hussy. Depend on it, she was here. I'm on the right track, all right," Doyle concluded with a cocksure shake of the head that was more irritating than any amount of ignorance on his part would have been. I did not reply. I understood the purport of the broad insinuation that Doyle was making. Also, I saw the real reason of Kennedy's remark to me, cautioning me to make haste slowly in deducing anything from the, as yet, slender facts of the case. I thought a moment. Far from eliminating anybody, the discovery of the Calabar bean left us scarcely a bit ahead of where we had been before. With a keen repulsion against the very idea and its implications as seen by the astute Doyle, I still was forced to admit that Honora Wilford's father had been an oculist and that it was perfectly true that she had every opportunity to have learned of the ordeal bean and its drug. Yet I kept asking myself what, after all, that might mean. Purposely Kennedy reverted to the Calabar bean and the remarks of Doyle that had started the conversation. "If Shattuck gets too brash," hinted Kennedy, "spring this information on him. Perhaps it might interest him." As he said it, I remembered what Craig had said in the laboratory only a short time before--that he was going to tell part of what he had found, as he went along, in the hope that the actions of each suspect who heard it might perhaps betray some thing. There was some crumb of comfort in that, I felt, as far as Honora herself was concerned. Yet I felt uncomfortable and misgiving. We parted from Leslie and Doyle, and as we went up-town again I could not help remarking that somehow the apparent effort of Shattuck to hamper us was suspicious. Kennedy said very little, but when we got off at the station on the Subway just before our own, I saw that he was not yet through. It did not take long to elicit from him the information that, while he felt he could trust Doyle to convey the information about the discovery and the drug to both Shattuck and Honora before long, the case was different as far as Vina and Doctor Lathrop were concerned. As we entered Doctor Lathrop's office, we found that not only was he there, but that his wife was there also. However, it was quite evident that they had been having words, and all was not as serene between them as they would have us wish, by the forced looks on their faces. In short, they had been quarreling. I could have guessed what it was about, but Kennedy affected not to notice that anything was wrong and I fancied that Vina, at least, wore a look of relief as she saw that he was not paying any attention to it. Briefly, Kennedy outlined what we had found--the physostigmine in the stomach, the poison, the bean itself, which he took particular pains to describe along with the circumstances under which it had been found. "Did you ever have any of these ordeal beans?" asked Kennedy, displaying the one we had found. "I have had them," admitted Lathrop. I thought I caught a covert look at his wife, as if to see how she was taking the discovery. As for Vina, I knew that she was far too clever to betray anything, especially before us. "They're comparatively easy to obtain in New York," went on Lathrop, with greater ease. "Drug importers get them in quantities to derive the drug from them. However, now I employ the drug itself, the few times I have any occasion to use it. I suppose I've got some in my medicine-chest." As we talked, I saw that Vina was really listening, keen and silent. If actions for which we had no immediate explanation had bearing on the question of guilt, I felt that her very manner was incriminatory in itself. Why should she try to conceal under a cloak of indifference her real interest in the thing? And yet, even with Vina, I was loath to jump at a conclusion. Somehow or other her preoccupied manner and the stress of her suppressed attention aroused my suspicions most strongly against her, after what other things I knew of her private affairs. As we left them and hurried toward the laboratory, I found myself wondering whether she might not have been the visitor to Wilford whom the tenant had overheard talking in Wilford's office. As for the why of such a visit, I was forced to admit I had no explanation. I reacted against the deduction that perhaps Honora had known of the properties of the Calabar bean and had been able to obtain some of them. Yet it was clearly that that was in Kennedy's mind as we approached his workshop. We had scarcely entered the hall when I saw that there was some one waiting for us near the door. It was Brooks, of _The Star_. Brooks wore a very important air of secrecy, as though he had been doing a bit of gumshoeing and was proud of it. "Something about Rascon?" I asked, jumping to the conclusion, after I had introduced Brooks to Craig. "Yes," he replied, eagerly, "I've got a clue." "A clue? Why, we've got Rascon--at least Doyle can get him whenever we want him. What do you mean?" I asked. "How about those reports?" answered Brooks, pointedly. "You know he did a good deal of work for Wilford and wrote a good many of them. The reports are gone--Doyle told me." "Where are they?" asked Kennedy, quickly appreciating the possible importance of the matter. "Is that what you've found out?" Brooks looked knowing. "Ah--that's just it. You see, I decided to trail the trailers, so to speak. There's one very trusted operative of Rascon's--he calls him Number Six--that's his denomination, I believe, in the Rascon records. Well, that fellow has double-crossed him. He has stolen the reports, I hear. Or perhaps it's part of Rascon's plan to cover himself. I don't know. At any rate, I've traced Number Six to a river-front saloon--you may know of the place, a tough joint called 'The Ship,' on Water Street. Without a doubt there's something there." Brooks was speaking earnestly and I looked questioningly at Kennedy. "I believe it's worth following up," decided Craig, not even stopping to unlock the laboratory door, as we turned away with Brooks. "If we had those records it might point up the case very closely." XI THE RASCON REPORTS We found The Ship Café, which Brooks had already investigated, on a river-front street in the outskirts of the Greenwich Village section of the city. "The Ship" was a disreputable-looking frame building, a tavern of several generations ago, once historically famous, but now, like a decayed man about town, relegated to the company of those whom formerly he would have scorned. Not many months ago it had been a saloon. Now a big sign declared that only soft drinks were sold in it. Even that change did not seem to have done much for the respectability of the place. The neighborhood was still quite as tough and squalid and "The Ship," itself, with a coat of paint, had not become even a whited sepulcher. Kennedy, Brooks, and myself entered and passed into a typical, low-ceilinged back room of the old days. There at a number of greasy, dirty round tables sat a miscellaneous collection of river-rats, some talking and smoking ill-favored pipes, others reading newspapers. I felt sure that they were drinking something other than soft drinks, and wondered whence the stuff had come. Had it been smuggled in on vessels from the near-by wharves? We sat down and for some moments Brooks and I did most of the talking, being careful to cover ourselves and pose neither as detectives nor even as newspaper men, lest the slightest slip might excite suspicion among the evil-looking customers of the den. We had been sitting thus for some time, Kennedy saying very little, when Brooks leaned over toward me and whispered, in reality to Kennedy: "The fellow I discovered--the one they call Number Six--has a room up-stairs. If we could only register here we might get a room--and a chance to search the other rooms." Kennedy nodded non-committally, but made no effort to put the suggestion into execution, and I saw that he was merely waiting for something to turn up. For almost an hour we remained talking at the table, endeavoring to ingratiate ourselves with the waiter of the place, a rather burly fellow, who seemed to regard us with suspicion as strangers. Yet, as long as we did nothing or asked nothing indiscreet our burly waiter seemed unable to do anything else than tolerate us. I was becoming impatient, when a furtive-looking individual entered from what had formerly been the bar. Brooks winked sidewise at us and I gathered that the new-comer was the redoubtable "Number 6," the operative of the Rascon Agency whom Brooks had located. He cast his furtive eyes around and his glance caught Brooks, who nodded, beckoning him over to the table. The former operative sidled over and sat down, eying us suspiciously, in spite of Brooks's effort to handle him with tact. We fell into conversation, beginning on the weather and progressing to the usual topic of the evil times into which prohibition was throwing us. Gradually Brooks led around to more intimate subjects and finally the name of Rascon was mentioned. At once the former operative flew into a towering rage. "Say," he ejaculated, "if I should tell you of all the crooked deals that fellow was in--" He checked himself in spite of his anger, and at once a look of suspicion crossed his face as he glanced doubtfully at us. At least I felt there could be no question that the operative had really double-crossed Rascon. As to whether we might profit by it or not, that was another matter. "Fair enough," interposed Kennedy, trying to reassure the fellow. "Now we're not friends of his exactly. To come right down to brass tacks," he added, lowering his voice, "this gentleman here tells me that you have something to sell. The question is--what do you want and how are you going to deliver the goods--I mean in the way that's safest for you, of course." Kennedy was leaning over frankly toward the fellow. The operative's eyes narrowed and a look of low cunning came over his face. He looked about at the other tables, as though not quite sure of even those about him. "How do I know you come from _her_?" he shot out. "Maybe you're bulls." Kennedy quickly reassured him. "You can arrange the matter any way that's safest to you," he repeated. I had been so intent on our own little affair that I had not noticed that a couple of new-comers had entered from the side door and were at a table not far from us. It had not escaped the shifty eyes of our customer. He gave a perceptible start and in an instant was as dumb as an oyster. Kennedy's cold steel eye seemed to bore right into the gaze of our man now as he leaned forward and whispered to him something I did not hear until, as Craig drew back, I could catch the last of it--"And as sure as the Lord made little apples, I'll shoot if you don't take me up to where you've got the goods. If you do--you get the money." I glanced about hastily and saw that Kennedy's hand was hidden in his pocket, which bulged as if something metallic were held there under cover. The fellow glanced sullenly from us to the new arrivals, as though in a quandary. "You got the money with you?" he asked, rather shakily. "Yes," Kennedy cut short. "'Cause I'll have to beat it the back way--and we got to work fast," he explained, his eyes roving from the burly bartender, who had just gone out to the couple at the other table, apparently oblivious to us. "The faster the better. You can make your get-away with the coin as soon as those reports are in my hands." "All right," he agreed, nervously, then added to me, "and if you fellows see any one try to follow us--you stop 'em. See?" I nodded for both myself and Brooks. "Come on," indicated the former crook detective to Kennedy. "Quick!" Kennedy rose and followed the fellow to a door to a hallway that looked as if it led up-stairs. No sooner had the two risen than our strangers at the other table were alert. I swung around in my chair suddenly toward them, and as I did so my hand went to my hip pocket, as though in search of a gun. For just an instant they paused in their attention to Kennedy. Out of the tail of my eye I caught sight of Kennedy and the operative at the hall door. Framed in the doorway now stood our burly waiter, snarling some remark. "What do youse want?" growled the waiter. Before there was a change for a reply a shot rang out from the other side of the room and the place was instantly in Cimmerian darkness as the bullet smashed the one light in the room. There was a rush and a scuffle. I flung one fellow off, only to be tackled in the blackness by some one else. Swiftly thoughts crowded through my mind as the place was in an uproar. Had we been followed here? Was it a trap? Was Rascon ready to risk anything rather than to have those reports pass into unfriendly hands? The moment the light winked out, Kennedy had swung on the burly waiter and had sprung back toward us as we fought our way toward where we had last seen him. I did not know whether my second assailant was one of the two strangers at the other table or not. Over and over we rolled, knocking down tables and chairs, the air torrid with oaths from all sides. What had become of Kennedy and Brooks I didn't know. I am sure that I would have mastered the situation in my own private little fight if, at that moment, there had not been the crash of glass from another door, followed by a shrill cry. "The bulls!" I heard some harsh voice growl. It seemed as if new men were coming from all directions. My man squirmed out from my grasp and before I knew it, in the darkness, I found myself in the anomalous position of being held firmly by the collar by a policeman, while all about I could hear the impact of billies on crass skulls, resounding in a manner that was awe-inspiring. My own captor needed only a word to bring his own club down on my head, and, needless to say, I was not going to say that word. An instant later some one found a wall light and turned it on. In the half-light, I could hear a laugh behind me. I turned. It was Doyle! "How did you come here?" I gasped, breathlessly, as Doyle released my collar and I stretched my neck to remove the kinks, in so doing catching sight of Kennedy standing over the unconscious form of the waiter in the doorway as he held the redoubtable No. 6 by the collar. "Kennedy thought it was a trap--tipped me off," laughed Doyle, swinging his club as he shouted orders to his men to dive into command of each door or window exit. "Did you locate Rascon?" panted Kennedy, twisting just a bit tighter the collar of the operative whom he was holding. "Sure," returned Doyle, already beginning to line up his prisoners against a blank wall on one side. "He'll be here in a minute. But don't wait for him, if that's your man. Search the place--and, see here, you," he menaced the former operative, "no monkey-shines. You give Mr. Kennedy them papers--or--" Doyle trailed off in one of his picturesque oaths. While Doyle's men completed the line-up against the wall, Kennedy led the now quaking No. 6 into the hall, followed by Doyle, Brooks, and myself. We mounted the stairs, looking into every closet and cranny. Hundreds of cases of "wet" goods must have been concealed in the place, which later we discovered was more than a "speak-easy," for it proved to be a veritable moonshine still almost in the heart of the city. Our search was not long. The stress of threat and circumstance broke down the former crook detective, who now was as keen to clear himself, gratis, and hang something on Rascon, as before he had been to collect his graft and get away with it. Directed by him, in a hall bedroom, under the worn carpet, we loosened a board of the floor and took from the lath and plaster of the ceiling below a flat packet done up in oiled silk. At last we had the purloined Rascon letters. Doyle's eyes widened at the sight of what Craig had uncovered. Here was a whole set of reports such as that which we had already obtained, only of far greater value. Kennedy was immersed in reading them already. "What's in them?" asked Doyle, reaching eagerly for the sheaf of precious tissue-paper carbon copies. Kennedy did not stop reading, but merely motioned to be let alone, as, quickly, he ran his eye over one after another. "Honora had evidently been trailed all over the city," he commented, as he read. It was a few moments later that Kennedy's eyes narrowed as he reached another of the reports. "Here's one that is very interesting," he muttered, half to himself. We crowded around and read the report that was rather lengthy, while Kennedy turned the pages slowly. I shall not attempt to quote it, but rather give the gist of it. "Starts out as though it were a report on Vina and Shattuck," commented Kennedy, "but as you read on, it seems more as though it were a report on Honora." It seemed that the events had happened, or were alleged to have happened, in a resort in Greenwich Village, known as the Orange and Blue Tea-room. As we read the name, Brooks nodded wisely. "I know the place," he remarked, "run by a young lady of very advanced ideas--Zona Dare." However, none of us paid much attention to the interruption at the time, but kept on reading. For, it seemed that one night, scarcely a fortnight before, Vina Lathrop had arrived at the Orange and Blue, according to Rascon's operative, when shortly afterward Shattuck had dropped in, saw her, and wandered over to her table. Later Honora Wilford came in, observed them, but did not sit with them. Instead, she remained alone at another table watching the couple very jealously. "There's a queer break in the report at this point," remarked Kennedy, turning the page. "Nothing further is said about this meeting, but see how it resumes." Apparently, Honora, as she watched, had become more and more nervous, for Rascon went on to detail a stormy meeting between the two women, in which Honora faced Vina with biting sarcasm and at which Vina replied in a manner usually described as "catty." Shattuck had tried to act as peacemaker and to smooth things over. But evidently explanations were useless and only made matters worse. It seemed that whatever it was he said pleased neither woman, and finally, after Honora, with a parting shot at Vina, had swept out of the tea-room, Shattuck very apologetically placed Vina in a cab, then took another himself, and all three had departed in separate ways. "Who is this Zona Dare, did you say?" asked Kennedy of Brooks, when we had all finished reading. "One of the well-known Villagers," returned Brooks. "I believe she has some reputation as an interpreter of Freud--you know, the dream doctor? They put on a one-act play down there last winter that she wrote." "Indeed?" returned Kennedy, interested, but non-committal. I could not help but think that we had struck pay dirt in this report, knowing, as I did, Washington Square and its fondness for whatever is "new," like Freud. Had Vina and Shattuck, as well, been dabbling in the new dream philosophy? I felt sure that Honora knew next to nothing about it. At least, so far, her actions had betrayed little knowledge and less suspicion. Or, it suddenly occurred to me, was Honora deeper than I suspected, and was her seeming ignorance only a pose? Did she know that Kennedy knew, know that to Doyle and the rest Freud was not even a name, and that she must play a clever game to match wits with Kennedy in this matter? Above all, was the report true? If so, judged by Village standards, was it a hint, a strange example of the so-called "new morality"? On the one side was Shattuck, seeking to break up the relations between Honora and her husband. At the same time was he playing a game with Vina Lathrop? As for Vina, her own relations with her husband were strained. Had she known of Shattuck's regard for Honora and had that aroused in her a desire to break it up, for her own advantage? To cap it all, what of Honora? Was this the jealous soul mate pursuing her affinity and finding him false? What, indeed, was the viewpoint--according to the "new morality"? I could not but reflect on what a tangle things had been brought into--once the old morality was thrown overboard and the old immorality renamed. Suddenly there flashed over my mind the recollection of some of the conversation that had been overheard in Wilford's office with the unknown woman visitor. "Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?" Had it been said by Vina of Honora--or by Honora of Vina? Either of them, according to her own philosophy of life, might have said it of the other. In the "new morality" there was surely scope for the play of mysterious excuses for passions. "It's easy to see," I remarked, "that Wilford, through these Rascon reports and in other ways, had been laying a foundation not only for Vina's divorce, but his own." Kennedy nodded sententiously. "But why did he have Vina shadowed here to the tea-room--that is, if that is the case? Had he some inkling that Vina was merely using him? And what's the reason for that break in the report? I believe there's something more in that three-cornered meeting than appears." These reports, I reflected, as now we awaited the arrival of Rascon himself, were giving quite another side to the characters of the people concerned in the case from that which had been exhibited hitherto. Were we getting down at last under the surface of their private life and finding it of the same sort as that of the "smart set" and the fringe that apes the smart set? There was a commotion in the hallway and a moment later Rascon himself entered, accompanied, in answer to the summons of Kennedy through Doyle, by one of Doyle's own men. At once Doyle took the affair in hand, and Kennedy did not interfere, deeming it best, apparently, to let Rascon gain the impression that the whole matter had originated with Doyle. Question after question Doyle flung at Rascon without getting an answer that was truly enlightening. Finally, exasperated, as Doyle always became when his rasping third degree did not produce results, Doyle picked up the tissue-paper, typewritten reports and shook them in Rascon's face. "Then you swear that these reports are true?" Doyle demanded. "Don't stop. The devil with how this fellow Number Six got away with them and we learned they were here. Are they true?" Rascon was sullenly silent. "Are they true? Come now, you'll have to answer that sometime, Rascon." "Yes," replied the crook detective, defiantly. Doyle turned to us with an air of triumph, as though he had gained a great admission, though I could not see, for the life of me, why he should be so elated at having merely begun. "I've just read this one," remarked Kennedy, quietly, picking up the report we had all glanced through. "It's true--you say--but it isn't the whole truth, Rascon." Rascon maintained his sullen silence, but there was a furtive cast in his glance that had not been present in the defiance of Doyle. Evidently in his mind was running the thought, "Just what is it that this man, Kennedy, may know, and how am I going to keep from being too clever and tripping myself up?" I knew it to be a situation in which Kennedy frankly reveled, this interplay of wits. "There's a break here," prompted Kennedy, with a positiveness that was palpably disconcerting to Rascon. Kennedy fixed his gaze on Rascon, who fidgeted and finally weakened. "Well, you see," he admitted, "Mr. Wilford came in at that point--said to watch them--and left. I didn't think that it was necessary to put that in the report--to him." "Did Mrs. Wilford see him there?" demanded Kennedy, quickly. "No--I don't think so." "Well--which were you following?" cut in Doyle, to the vexation of Kennedy, who, until then, had had things going pretty much his own way. "Was it Mrs. Lathrop or Shattuck--or--was it Mrs. Wilford herself?" Doyle modulated his voice in his craftiest manner, the manner which I hated, for it was so evident that he tended toward hanging the crime ultimately on Honora. "Why, it was Mr. Shattuck I was following," snapped Rascon, "Mr. Shattuck and Mr. Wilford's wife." The answer was indeed an answer. I felt that Doyle had furnished Rascon with what was, to the crook detective, a neat way to let himself out of a tight position, and I could see that it had given Rascon a relief from Kennedy's more subtle grilling. "We'll take that matter up later," was all Kennedy ventured, hiding his chagrin at the interruption of Doyle. On his part, Doyle seemed to insist on making it evident that he had scored. "Rascon," he added, extending his fist menacingly at the detective, who by this time seemed to have recovered some of his lost equilibrium as he realized the extent of our "find," due to the unexpected treachery of his operative--"Rascon, did you offer to sell these reports to Mrs. Wilford? I know about that Beach House report. Is that why you left Mr. Wilford's name out? Come--you might as well admit it." "No--I didn't try to sell them to Mrs. Wilford," defied Rascon, with assurance. "Why should I? Mr. Wilford paid me a bonus for that particular report--not to me, of course, but to the operative I had assigned to the case." Kennedy, by this time, had given up the further quizzing of Rascon at this time as hopeless, and was preparing to leave. As for myself, I cannot say that I was entirely uninfluenced by Doyle's apparent estimate of Honora Wilford, in the light of Rascon's report and his ready explanation. Though I would not have admitted it to any one else, I began to wonder whether, if the reports were true and Rascon's explanation held, I had been correct in my estimate of Honora. A word from Kennedy would have set me right. Why had he not spoken it? Moreover, had my own interpretation of his Freudian analysis of her been correct? Was she the marble woman he had made me think her? The more I thought of it, the more I felt that the "new morality" down-town was pretty much the same as the old immorality up-town. I began to wonder whether Honora, in her doubt of the lack of feeling for Wilford, had succeeded in keeping herself from being smirched by either standard. I was frankly at sea. We left alone, leaving Doyle to handle the product of his raid, including the now intractable Rascon. Craig thanked Brooks for his help and Brooks had scarcely left us. I was about to ask Kennedy his frank opinion of the case for Honora, when he himself forestalled me briskly. "Walter, I've an angle of this thing I want to go into immediately. Besides, I have some work I must get through at the laboratory. Suppose that, in the mean time, you trace down what truth there may be in that tea-room incident. I think you and your friend, Belle Balcom, could do that." XII THE "NEW MORALITY" I was rather glad of the commission Kennedy had given me. Belle Balcom had a keen and sprightly mind. She was the typical newspaper woman, it is true, who often would sacrifice accuracy to cleverness. Yet there was not much to condemn her in that, for she was so undeniably clever. Contact with her was stimulating. Besides, it was just on such a quest as this that a girl of her type was invaluable. Accordingly, I set out immediately down-town for _The Star_. Fortunately, I found Belle finishing her stint of society gossip for the day. I made a quick explanation of what Kennedy wanted and was pleased to see that she was interested. "I think it's a good idea to visit the tea-room," I explained, then added, doubtfully, "but how are you going to find out whether our people are remembered there--if they don't happen to be remembered by name?" "Nothing simpler," Belle replied. "Some one there will surely remember faces. We'll settle that in the art department." Thus, armed with photographs of Shattuck, Vina, Honora, and Wilford which _The Star_ already possessed in its files, Belle and I set out on our quest. The Orange and Blue Tea-room was not easy to find by one unfamiliar with the Village and its queer twists of streets. But Belle knew it well and I had some slight recollection of it. It was originally a low-ceilinged basement in an old house not far from Washington Square. The upper floors were now "studios." In the former basement, almost a cellar, were three rows of tables extending the length of the place and overrunning out into the little back yard where one dined in summer _al fresco_. At the far end, on one side, was a little raised platform, and on it was a piano strummed by a blind player. Opposite was the entrance to the kitchen, which was subterranean. Belle and I entered, and immediately the highbrow hold-up began, just as up-town, with a coat-and-hat check-boy. We made our way to one of the tables along the wall and seated ourselves. Everywhere orange and blue decorations, true to the name, smote the eye, on walls, on ceiling, on chintzes, on the floor, on everything, it seemed, but the table-cloths and the silverware. "You know, orange stands for temperament," chatted Belle, as she saw me marveling at the color riot. "New art, I guess." "Insanity art," I replied, with a smile. "Don't mistake me, I enjoy it, though. It's atmosphere--especially when that kitchen door is open." Belle looked about, as a woman will, at once attentive to our conversation, taking in whatever was happening within the range of two ordinary men's vision, now and then nodding to some acquaintance, sweeping a glance at the menu and tucking in a stray wisp of black hair, all at once and each without in the least interfering with the other. "I suppose the 'Villagers' are here in force," I suggested, noting as best I could all her simultaneous actions and probably missing the other half which I have not recorded. Belle smiled. "Villagers don't come here much. The place is too well known. Besides, there are not so many 'Villagers' as you would think. No doubt most of them are up-town. No, most of these people are skirmishers from the highbrow and curious up-town and out-of-town. You see, there's a sort of reciprocity about it." However that might have been, there was enough that was picturesque and one felt sure that one was really in an environment of the bobbed hair and maiden names for wives--that is, assuming that the words maiden and wives were still in the vocabulary. "All parlor socialists?" I inquired, looking about. "Have your little joke," frowned Belle. "We all have to, I suppose. But really, down here, after all, there are people who think, who _do_ things." I had been waiting for that expression, "do things." They all "do things" down in Greenwich Village, even if it is only to compose music for the zither or publish one's own amateur magazine on butcher paper from hand-set type. Evidently Belle took the Village more or less seriously, after all. "Besides," she faltered, "there are no parlor socialists, any more, anyhow. That belongs to the old muck-raking magazine days." "I see--limousine liberals now--or boudoir Bolsheviki." "Maybe you'd better eat," suggested Belle, sarcastically. "It's a tea-room," I parried, glancing down at the menu. "I suppose it's orange pekoe--although they don't seem to be drinking it. Perhaps they're all smoking it. Now that we're all supposed to be so good, I hear that tobacco will be replaced by dried powdered tea leaves and coffee grounds. They say a caffein jag or a thein jag has merits. Passing by the paraldehyde cocktail, what's good?" Belle's good humor was restored, and with her help I managed to order everything from soup to nuts--and I am sure that there were a good many fugitives from the squirrels in the room, whether from up or down town. I was really enjoying myself, so much so that for the moment I almost forgot the purpose of our visit, when it was recalled to me by Belle, who spoke in French to the waiter, rather gross and greasy but answering to the compensating name of Hyacinthe. "_Où est Ma'm'selle Zona?_" she asked. The waiter actually understood, and, though it would have been so much easier in English, Belle conveyed the idea that she would like to talk to Miss Dare and the waiter agreed to get her, though I felt he restrained himself with difficulty from replying in good Manhattanite, "Sure, miss, I'll dig her up"--meaning from the olfactory Hades beneath us. Zona Dare proved to be a slender youngish lady, with the conventional shock of dark bobbed hair--with a dilettante exterior but a very practical secret self, I am sure. Even a mere introduction to her told me she was a member of that curious "third sex" that evolution is giving us. I can't exactly describe it. It is not "she" or "he" exactly, neither he-woman nor she-man. Certainly it is not neuter. Maybe when nature, or whatever it is that is operating, gets through we may be able to classify it. Belle knew her, of course. Belle knew everybody. In fact she knew her so well that Zona, on urging, consented to sit down with us awhile and actually ordered tea--in a pot, too, though whether Russian, English or Scotch or Rye I am not sure. At any rate, it seemed to promote conversation and confidence and I covered my raillery with protective coloring. What I enjoyed was the utter freedom of the conversation. We had soon progressed to bolshevism and the government ownership and operation of women. Finally the conversation put into the ultimate port of the "new morality." "One must live one's life," seemed to be the burden of the philosophy, and I did not quarrel with the 1919 model of hedonism, for by this time I began to see a ray of hope that finally I might learn something about those whom Kennedy and I had been studying. I recalled Vina's remark to us over her contemplated divorce, "I believe every woman should live her own life as she sees fit." Doubtless she had absorbed it here. It was evident, however, that there could only be so many triangles a week--and besides, "the eternal triangle" was in itself condemned by its mere ancient origin. What next? I guessed right--bolshevism, of course. I found I had dropped right into the intelligenzia--the very sovietment of society, where _The Nation_ and _The New Republic_ were considered hide-bound conservatives. I did not quarrel even at the addition of red to the orange-and-blue color scheme, though I adopted the attitude of one mildly seeking the truth. "Perhaps Freud can explain," I suggested, after one passage at arms with Zona, ably seconded by Belle, "why it is that a prosperous aristocratic feminist should enjoy contemplating casting her rope of pearls before the proletariat. What do these comfortable nibblers at anarchy expect to get out of it?" There was an answer. I have forgotten it, but it was clever and convincing. It always is, just as glib sophistry and specious phrases are. The gist was that all psychology, science, the history of the human race, had been superseded by some quite indefinite idea originated in a land with problems about as much related to us as the dredging of Martian canals would relate to Suez and Panama. However, the purpose was accomplished, and Belle, with her human point of view, which one gets from seeing this corrupt old world from a newspaper office, saw it. Gradually, the conversation had drifted about to Freud. I was glad that I had learned so much about him from Kennedy, for I was surprised at the knowledge that Zona really had of him. Was it superficial--as so much of that little world into which Kennedy had plunged me? I am not sure. At least, Zona posed as a Freudian interpreter. I was sorry Kennedy was not present, for I was inclined to accept her as such. The fact was that it set me thinking that perhaps she had educated in the theory many to whom a little knowledge is dynamite. Belle's keen mind seemed to read my thoughts, even to leap ahead of me. She reached into her bag and drew forth some photographs. "Oh, Zona, by the way," she rattled on, "that reminds me. Did you ever see this man here--or this woman?" Zona took the photographs of Shattuck and Vina, and with just a glance answered, "Indeed I have!" "Do you recall a night when there was a scene here--another woman?" went on Belle, producing the photograph of Honora. "Yes--I remember her. I know them all. They're in this case that's in the papers now. The lawyer who was killed was that woman's husband," she added, pointing to Honora. "Why? Are you writing them into your column?" "Yes," confessed Belle. "That is, if I can get a good enough story out of the incident here." At once Zona's keen, practical mind leaped to the bait of publicity held out by Belle. What could be better advertising than for the celebrated case in the news to be connected with the tea-room? It would crowd the place. "What is it you want to know?" "Just what happened." "I didn't see it all. As nearly as I can recall that man--Mr. Shattuck, his name is--was at a table with Mrs. Lathrop when Mrs. Wilford approached. You see, I knew them all slightly. I know so many people who come here from up-town. It flatters them--and I have a good memory for names. I had seen Mrs. Wilford here several times before with Mr. Shattuck--and once I think with Mr. Wilford--I'm not sure. Anyhow, I knew her--I think I sold her a box for our Freud play last year--I'm not sure. I'd have to look that up. Well, there was quite a scene when Mrs. Wilford stopped and faced Mrs. Lathrop at her table. But here's the strange part of it. I don't know whether you know it or not. But just before that, while Mrs. Wilford was sitting at the table just back of us--the two were down there near the piano--Mr. Wilford himself came in. He was about to give his hat and stick to the check-boy when he caught sight of the back of his wife's head. She was alone--right there--then. He spoke a few words to a man near the street door. I don't know _him_. He never came here before and I haven't seen him since. But, at any rate, Mr. Wilford spoke to him, then turned and left in a great hurry. I wasn't here through it all. Just a moment, Pedro!" she called to a waiter who was passing at the moment. Pedro completed his service at another table, then came over to Zona. "Did you ever see these people here?" asked Zona, turning over the photographs of Vina and Shattuck. Pedro was at first suspicious, and, in fact, I do not believe that he would have told us a thing had it not been Zona herself who questioned him. "Yes," he admitted, finally, "I remember one night they were here." "Did you serve them?" asked Zona. "Yes," he replied, apparently reluctant to be drawn into anything. "Do you remember anything that happened?" "I was very busy," he evaded. "The woman came in first alone, I remember, and said she was waiting for a friend. Then the man came in. I thought she was surprised to see him--but I thought it was all right. She had said she was going to meet a friend." I shot a quick glance at Belle, who nodded. It was evident that Vina had not expected to meet this friend. "Do you remember anything that was said?" I ventured. Pedro looked at me suspiciously. "I was too busy serving," he replied. "It was the busy time." "What seems to be the trouble?" I asked, not cross-questioningly, but more as if merely for information. "You don't seem to want to answer. Are you afraid of something?" Pedro regarded me a moment, then looked at Zona. "It's all right," she reassured. "Well--you see--once I was in a divorce suit--in court--I lose t'ree, four days' pay--the boss he fire me. Are you detective?" I smiled and evaded the question, under cover of Zona's presence, and again reassured him. "There was another woman came in, wasn't there?" I asked, as Belle produced the photograph of Honora. "Yes--that's her." "She didn't sit with them," I prompted. "No," he replied, "over there," pointing to the table Zona had already indicated. "Did you wait on her?" "No--Louis." "But you saw her?" "But yes--every one did--one could not help. She came in as though she was looking for some one." "And then what?" "I was serving the fish. This woman, she get up quickly and come down to the table. Oh--but she was angry--at the man--at the woman." "Did she make a scene--I mean did every one see it?" "I should say! I had just left the table--but every one see it--yes--and hear, too, I think." "What did you hear?" "I? Nothing. I was by that time at the door to the kitchen. But she was angry--the color in her cheeks--the voice. I think she must be the wife of the man--she seem so angry at him, also." Discreet Pedro, I reflected. He was making everything as indefinite as possible to render himself less liable to be called to court in case of trouble. However, he was telling me just what I wanted to know. It was already sufficiently evident that Vina had actually had the appointment first with Wilford himself, that she had got there early, that he had been late, perhaps purposely, due to some suspicion, or perhaps to make sure of covering himself, for he must have provided for Rascon's operative in case of trouble. Piecing the thing together, I was convinced that, in some way, Honora had learned of the appointment and that Shattuck had learned of it, too--though it must have been independent, else why their encounter? Shattuck had come--perhaps to face Wilford. At any rate, he had been sitting with Honora when Wilford's wife, of all persons, came in and saw him with Vina. There my deductions broke down. What were her emotions? Was she jealous of Shattuck paying attentions to the woman who had so fascinated her own husband? How far was she piqued at the thought of not having hold enough over Shattuck, also, to keep him from Vina? As for Shattuck, was he really fascinated by Vina, after all? I did not try to pursue that line of analysis farther, yet. At any rate, Honora had seen them and in turn had herself been seen by her own husband, who had stopped only just long enough to give his detective instructions, then had departed unobserved by the other three as he entered. Whatever Shattuck's attempt at explanation, when faced by Honora, it had not been convincing, at least to her. They had left together, parted at the door. But I knew that the misunderstanding must have been patched up later, for they had been together since that time. A few more questions showed that Pedro had nothing to add, and I let him go. Zona told me what little she had observed. From the other waiter, Louis, I learned one thing, however, about Honora and her actions before she rose and made the little scene at the other table. She had come in rather pale and agitated. As she sat there, having ordered, but with her food untouched, she had seemed to get much calmer, though her face became more and more flushed and her eyes animated as she missed no movement of the other couple. It was that very absorption that probably had been the cause of her missing the very man she sought, her husband. But it meant more than that. It told me something of her nature, that this woman was of the sort that, when a crisis approached, instead of going to pieces, like many others, was able to keep such a grip on herself that she swept ahead through the crisis coolly and clearly, in spite of the suppressed excitement. That spoke volumes. No doubt when the relaxation came she was on the verge of collapse. But as long as the need lasted she had complete control. Did that mean that at the present moment, as she faced Kennedy, she was repeating the same performance? Louis had gone, and Zona turned to Belle and myself as if to ask whether there was anything else she might do for us, at the same time looking at her watch and fingering her cup as a hint that she was a busy woman and must get away. "Why did Shattuck meet her here?" I thought aloud, wondering if, perhaps, Zona herself might not know them and betray something. She shrugged, and I was morally certain that she did know them both, and well. But evidently, as to bringing herself personally or her theories directly into the case, there was a barrier. "Mr. Shattuck seemed to be interested--but--you can never tell. He is one of those men who have the faculty of making every woman think she is the only woman." "Did he ever discuss things with you--I mean Freud--current topics of conversation?" I ventured, covering my interest as best I could. "Oh yes, in a general way. Almost everybody who comes here does. They all know my hobbies. That's why they come here, I guess. Isn't it, Belle?" "To see you, dear--yes. I know _I_ do. Without Zona--there are a dozen places one might go. They lack something." "He seemed interested in Freud?" I pursued. "Y-yes--but so are we all down here, just now." Evidently Zona was hedging. I gathered that Shattuck's interest had been rather more than ordinary. "And Vina Lathrop--was she interested, too? You must have known her." "Yes, I knew her. Vina _was_ interested--of course. But, then, who is not, just now? A few years ago only a few had read Freud. Even after he was translated, still there were only a few. But now--since my play--we have other plays, books, stories, articles--even Freud doctors, who before were unknown to the public, have come outside of the medical press with their names and work. Of course Vina Lathrop was interested. All women are interested in Freud. Don't you think it concerns us--just a bit more intimately than it does men?" For the moment Zona had forgotten her haste to get away and was leaning forward earnestly over the empty tea-caddy. "Most assuredly," I agreed, realizing suddenly one reason why Freud is taken up so readily in a circle such as that which I was now tangent to. He offers an easy, scientific highroad to the discussion of intimate sex--and that is, after all, under the veneer, the middle name of Greenwich Village, as it is of all "highbrows" when one comes to get under their skins and truly understand what secretly is back of their "uplifts" and "reforms" in social evils and hygiene. "But what of Honora?" I asked, loath to lose the piquant assistance of Zona, once I had it. "Why was she here? Had she come to watch Shattuck? Or was it to watch Vina? Or was it really to watch her husband? Her husband or Shattuck--I wonder which?" "Suppose it was either?" shrugged Zona, nonchalantly. "What of it?" Evidently the spell of her interest in the Freud discussion had broken when she finished her last sentence. "In the former case she is merely old-fashioned," added Zona, "in the latter merely foolish." With this typical meaningless cleverness that in reality hides the shallowness of our advanced "thinkers" Zona bade us adieu. Belle and I chatted a few moments, when she suddenly discovered she was half an hour late for an engagement. I settled the check, and we tipped our way out and into a cab that whirled us up-town, while Belle poked fun at my benighted conservatism, which I did not mind in the least. I left her at her hotel, with hearty thanks for the great help she had been in the case, and sincerely happy, in addition to that, for a pleasant couple of hours at dinner with a girl with whom one might disagree yet still regard highly. A few minutes later I was at the laboratory, full of a new-born theory that Shattuck, down in the Village, had studied Freud more than we had suspected merely from finding Freud's books in his library--that he must have known Honora's dreams, interpreted them, and found out secretly she still loved him, as her open jealousy had, perhaps, showed in the incident I had unearthed. Craig was already there, and at work. He listened attentively and without comment to what I had to report. "What have _you_ found?" I asked, finally, when I had finished with my own facts and theories. "Oh, I've been down to Shattuck's office in Wall Street," he answered, rather absently. "And you saw him? How did he take it?" "He was very angry. Asked me if I was going to try my case in the newspapers--was very sarcastic. I was just about leaving when I met Doctor Lathrop coming in." "Doctor Lathrop--coming in!" I exclaimed. "How was that? How was Lathrop--and why there?" "I saw him alone first. He was very much upstage with me. I thought there was something brewing, so I stayed--that is, went back with him. I'm glad I did. I think I narrowly averted a fight. Lathrop threatened Shattuck--that is, I mean, all in a very polite way--but it practically amounted to telling him to stop seeing his wife, to have no more business relations with her, and all that. It was in the nature of serving notice. Shattuck is very high-spirited. I think if I had not been there there would have been trouble. But Lathrop was very suave and diplomatic." "I'm wondering about this man Shattuck," I put in. "Is he woman-crazy?" The laboratory door was suddenly flung open and Doyle burst in. "_Some_ news!" he exclaimed, excitedly. "The dictagraph works." "I should expect it to do so," calmed Kennedy. "It has never failed me yet, when properly used, like all science and invention, at the right time and place." "Say--you're a cold shower. Listen--I'm getting closer to her!" XIII THE MECHANICAL EAR "Then it was Honora you overheard over the dictagraph?" I asked, quickly. "Not at first," replied Doyle. "I'll come to that later. Let me give it all to you first." He pulled from his pocket a set of typewritten notes and excitedly began to condense what McCabe had just heard over the dictagraph in the Wilford apartment, sometimes giving it to us from memory, then refreshing his mind from what McCabe had transcribed. "It seems that the maid, Celeste, had a visitor," began Doyle. "Who was it?" hastened Kennedy, impatiently. "A man named Chase." "Who's he?" "Another detective." "Like Rascon?" Doyle nodded doubtfully. "I don't seem to know him," he remarked, sententiously, though in a tone that was prejudiced. To Doyle all private detective agencies were as the scum of the earth. I know Kennedy made mental note to look the man up, unprejudiced. "What do you know about him?" asked Craig. "Very little--except that from what Celeste said Mrs. Wilford herself must have employed him at one time or another--perhaps even now. I guess that woman knew more about what was going on than we think." I glanced from Doyle to Kennedy. Could it be possible that we ourselves, in turn, were being watched by her? And was Honora not the simple, unsophisticated woman I had thought? "Evidently," went on Doyle, "Celeste was trying to fasten the crime on Vina Lathrop." "How's that?" queried Kennedy, sharply. "Well," returned Doyle, running his eye over the transcribed conversation to pick out that part which substantiated the statement, "it seems as though Celeste was trying to tell Chase something that Chase didn't accept. Here it is. Chase's remark was lost--but it must have been about Mrs. Wilford's actions that night of the murder. "'No, no, no--she was not out of this apartment that night.' That was what Celeste said in answer to him. "'Come, come, now,' Chase said, 'what's the use of that? You might tell that to Doyle--but why tell me? Where was she?' "You see, they're all trying to put it over on me," interjected Doyle, apoplectically. "She might have been out--and still not have been near Mr. Wilford or his office," I returned. Doyle gave me a withering glance and did not even deign to reply to a mere reporter. "Here's the other thing, Kennedy," ignored Doyle. "I mean about trying to put it on Vina Lathrop--to save Mrs. Wilford. "'Wasn't _she_ at Mr. Wilford's office?' That's a return question from Celeste to Chase to divert attention, I tell you." "What was Chase's answer?" Doyle ran his eye down the page. "'I've traced pretty nearly everything Mrs. Lathrop did that night--except for a couple of hours after she left the Gorham Hotel, where she had dinner. If I could locate the driver of the cab that took her away, I'd get a clue. But it was a passing taxi the doorman hailed, and there doesn't seem to be any trace of him--yet.' There--don't you see? They're trying to get something on Mrs. Lathrop. It's plain. I ask you--why?" Doyle leaned back and regarded us with an air of conscious triumph. "Cost what it will," he added, "it's apparent that Celeste is devoted and loyal to Honora Wilford, too. I tell you they're covering up something," he emphasized, waving the notes, "and I intend to uncover it." However, Kennedy did not seem to attach much importance to what either Celeste or Chase had said. Evidently he had a pretty clear idea already of what had happened. I recalled Celeste and the "Aussage test." Was Celeste to be trusted--even over a dictagraph? Doyle seemed to read in Kennedy's face what I had already seen, and hastened on to new points in his arguments from the notes. "That's all very well about Celeste," he continued, excitedly, "but here's the real news, after all. The most important thing was what happened an hour or so later, after Chase had gone. McCabe picked up the voice of a woman. It was Mrs. Lathrop herself calling on Mrs. Wilford. How about that?" "What!" I exclaimed, involuntarily, I suppose, because of Kennedy's continued silence. "Vina called on Honora Wilford? Why, man, I should have thought the wires would have fused!" "Well, that's what she did," asserted Doyle, "and you'll be more surprised when I tell you what happened." Doyle was enjoying the suspense he himself had created. Still Kennedy said nothing, not so much, I think, because he would not give Doyle the satisfaction of observing his interest as because his mind was at work piecing into his own theories the new facts that were being brought out. For that has always been Kennedy's method--the gathering of facts, fitting them together, like a mosaic, with fragments missing, and then with endless patience fitting the new fragments as they are discovered into the whole picture of a crime until the case was completed and he was ready to act with relentless and unerring precision. As for myself, I listened to what Doyle had to reveal with amazement. Here was a meeting, separated only by hours, if not merely by minutes, from another in which Vina's own husband had called on Shattuck. "As nearly as I can make out from McCabe's notes," began Doyle, "Mrs. Lathrop must have been seeking this meeting and Mrs. Wilford avoiding it for some time. You see, the interview was so passionate that often the voices were indistinct and his notes are fragmentary in spots. However, there's enough to show what it was all about." Doyle turned a page. "It started with Mrs. Lathrop accusing Mrs. Wilford of avoiding seeing her. When Mrs. Wilford pleaded the tragedy and the surveillance she is under, Mrs. Lathrop hinted that she was using these things to shield herself. "Here's where Mrs. Lathrop began to let something out. 'Your maid, Celeste, I hear, has been talking about me. And I know, also, Honora, that you've had a private detective, a man named Chase. You've had him following me!' "McCabe tells me that the tone of this was very accusing, and that Mrs. Wilford did not make any attempt to answer. I only wish we had something like a dictagraph--detectavue, I'd call it--that would let us look at the faces of some of these people as we hear them over this mechanical ear--a mechanical eye, understand? I'll wager Mrs. Wilford's face was a study. She's a match for any man. But I'd like to see her matched against a woman like Mrs. Lathrop. She's clever, Kennedy, clever." Kennedy nodded, but without enthusiasm over the proposition. Rather it was an invitation to Doyle to go on. "There's a lot more," continued Doyle, hurriedly. "Here's what I want. Listen to this. If it's true, we've got something. Mrs. Wilford hadn't said much and it seemed to arouse Mrs. Lathrop to go farther. Listen. 'I hadn't intended to say this, Honora,' she burst out, 'but you were at his office--that night. Come--own up, dear.' Get that 'dear' at the end? I don't know where Mrs. Lathrop got her information. I wish I did. But at least she seems to me to know something." "Or else she's very clever at fishing for information," I interrupted, for I was not able to restrain it. Doyle was so cocksure of his deductions that it antagonized me. On his part, I am sure, while he may not have had much respect for my profession, he had a wholesome fear of it, as many detectives have. For, after all, we newspaper men have the key that unlocks the door to everything. On the other hand, I must admit that I was not at all positive in my own mind. Was Vina fishing--or did she really know something? Was that why Honora was silent? Or was Honora contemptuous of a woman of Vina's type and was silence without any admission her sweetest revenge? What was the purpose that lay back of this visit? For one thing, the silence of Honora, whether it spelled guilt or mere contempt, had its effect on Vina and made her more daring. "'Then this Professor Kennedy,' continued Doyle, reading from the notes. 'With that Mr. Jameson he has been finding out things at the Orange and Blue Tea-room and other places. They've got a woman working for them, too, I imagine. I tell you, Honora, _they know_.' "'Know what?' Honora answered, and McCabe thought she wasn't quite as cold and calm as usual. "Then Mrs. Lathrop went a little bit farther--oh, I'll say that these women are clever--both of them. On the whole, now I'm not so sure which of them carried off the honors. Come to think of it, Mrs. Wilford was clever, too. She has to be. Anyhow, Mrs. Lathrop went a step farther. 'They know about the Greenwich Village stuff, now.' What's that, Kennedy? You never told me that." There was something reproachful in Doyle's voice, assumed, no doubt, but still there, as much as to say that he was taking Kennedy into his confidence and expected a return. Kennedy stole a glance at me and I understood. It was just this that had impelled Doyle to come to us. He had not understood it himself and, in order to keep up with us, was obliged to take us into his own confidence. Briefly Kennedy related, with an occasional word from me, what had happened since the river-front-saloon raid. "Oh, I see," remarked Doyle, though any one could tell that he really did not see. "That's what she meant when she went on and said, 'About Freud and all that, Honora. Zona Dare told me, over the 'phone. That's why I came over.' "'Indeed, Vina, you needn't have troubled yourself,' was Mrs. Wilford's reply. 'It's a matter of perfect indifference to me how much or how little Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson know or find out.' "McCabe says she was very cutting in her remarks there. But he also says he thought she was weakening. Anyhow, it had its effect on Mrs. Lathrop. She flared right up. "'Don't care?' she cried. 'You don't care if Kennedy finds out about your interest in the play, about your life, about Freud, the "soul scar" theory, and all that? I may not know much about science and especially this new psychology, but I'm blessed, Honora, if I'd want any one raking up the past.' "'I should say not--Vina.' Pretty pointed, wasn't it? These two love each other like a German and a Frenchman." Doyle paused, then went on reading and summarizing. It was as I had been suspecting for several moments. In an instant the two women were on the dangerous ground of Honora's early engagement to Shattuck. What they said did not seem so very important and I omit this part of it. However, I knew it would lead to something. "'You broke off the engagement, Honora, because of his escapades,' finally hinted Mrs. Lathrop, with claws behind the velvety tone of the remark. 'And yet--' "Mrs. Wilford interrupted here. 'It is a far more important thing, Vina, that a woman should keep herself clean than for a man--far more important for the race. Not that I would excuse things in _any_ man.' McCabe says that remark went right home to Mrs. Lathrop. She flared up. "'Oh, tush, Honora--more of your highbrow philosophy. _You_ talking about the race! Where are _your_ children? I've been studying you, Honora. You may think you're a highbrow. I guess you are. They all--you--are like the rest of us, with the same passions--no better, no worse. Remember--it's you have the soul scar--you!'" "The cat," I could not help but mutter. Again, recalling Kennedy's instructions, I wondered whether consciously Honora had rejected Shattuck while at the same time she unconsciously accepted him as a lover? Evidently now each was accusing the other--and over Shattuck. I recalled Honora's dreams which she had told willingly. There was the dream of the bull and the serpent. That was sex. Again I recalled the dream of the forest and the hill she had been struggling to get up. In this dream I recalled the fire, the climbing, the explosion, and her dream of the other woman, with her unwillingness to admit to us that the other woman might be no other than Vina. Then there was the unexplained dream she had about Doctor Lathrop, the lion in the path. Evidently Honora had been betrayed into some dangerous admissions in her dreams, I thought. "What's next?" came Kennedy's voice. "I get the drift of what was really back of it all. Let's go on." Doyle eyed Kennedy quizzically for a moment. Kennedy's explanation of the psychology of the thing had been much over Doyle's head and had left him in doubt. He turned back to McCabe's notes. "It's Mrs. Lathrop speaking next, and she was very angry. 'If you don't leave him alone, Honora--I'll tell Kennedy all that I know.'" Doyle shot a glance of inquiry. "She hasn't told it yet," answered Kennedy. "What next?" "I guess it got under Mrs. Wilford's skin. 'I don't understand men,' she cried. 'But I understand you. It is revenge--revenge on me that you want, Vina.'" "She got back a thrust at Mrs. Lathrop, anyhow," I commented. Yet I wondered what Vina's motive might be. Was it merely due to her insane infatuation for Shattuck? As for Honora, was she, I kept wondering, after all, the consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate woman? At least, she was a most perplexing "complex." Doyle had closed his note-book with the remark that his little mechanical eavesdropper had made an excellent start, and now was looking inquiringly at Kennedy. "Where is Chase?" asked Kennedy. "Have you any idea?" "McCabe looked up the name and finds that there is a Chase agency on Forty-second Street. You might try it." Accordingly, we set out for the address of the detective which McCabe had located and found that it was a small office in a building near Fifth Avenue. Chase himself proved to be a rather frank-faced, energetic young fellow, not at all typical of the private detective. In fact, he had had some experience as an operative for one of the big agencies, and, having some money, had achieved the dream of every such operative--an agency of his own, small, but at least his own. It did not take much questioning to get the main facts out of Chase, who kept repeating that neither he nor Mrs. Wilford had anything to conceal. Anyhow, the mystery of Chase was solved. Chase was a detective whom Mrs. Wilford had retained for her own protection against the unprincipled operatives of her husband. He proved to be apparently honest and straightforward. Though he could shed very little light on the deeper problems that confronted us, there were many things we had already unearthed which his reports corroborated. It was apparent that Honora was perfectly aware of what had been going on between her husband and Vina Lathrop. Chase had kept her informed of that. Yet, no matter how accurate his reports, I reflected, it did not absolve Honora. In fact, the more she knew, the more likely Doyle was to say that the information constituted a motive that would have caused her to act. "What do you know about Mrs. Wilford's whereabouts on the night Mr. Wilford was killed?" questioned Kennedy, coming finally to the most important point that had been revealed by McCabe's dictagraph records. Chase looked him straight in the eye and considered a moment before answering. "It's true, I don't know much. That is one thing I'd rather not talk about until I do." "But she's your client. Hasn't she told you?" "There are some communications that are privileged," was Chase's enigmatical answer. "But can't you see that it's placing her in a wrong light--supposing everything she did that night was innocent? She ought to tell for her own sake--don't you think?" Chase shrugged. "Perhaps," he added, non-committally. Kennedy, I thought, had some respect for the young man who was not to be betrayed into dangerous admissions. "Then this other woman, Mrs. Lathrop," pursued Kennedy, shifting the subject. "There's a hiatus in the accounts of her doings that night, also." Chase was more disposed to talk. "Yes," he answered. "I've been trying to trace that out. Haven't succeeded--but have hopes. I tell you what I'll do. If I can reconstruct what _both_--see? _both_--of these women did, well, I was going to say I'd give it to you. But I'd have to ask Mrs. Wilford's permission. She's my client, after all." I tried to reason out what Chase was doing. Did he know something about his client that he must shield her from, or was he just a bit vexed at her himself for a certain lack of frankness? As far as Vina was concerned, I knew he would have no scruples in telling us everything he discovered. Evidently, Chase saw that he was losing his first good impression with Kennedy. To re-establish himself, he opened a locked steel compartment in his desk and pulled out a small box. "Here's something that might interest you," he remarked, handing the box to Kennedy. "Ever see one of those?" Kennedy opened the box. Inside reposed a single Calabar bean! Craig looked up quickly. "Yes. Where did you get it?" "If you'll promise to ask me no more--just yet--I'll tell you." Kennedy nodded and Chase took it as a gentleman. "I found it, with some other African souvenirs, in a little cabinet-museum in Mr. Shattuck's apartment. Now don't ask me why I was there or what else I found." Kennedy smiled, thanked him and handed back the box. It was a perplexing piece of information. If Shattuck was known to have had in his possession some of the fatal Calabar beans, what interpretation could be placed on it? Or was it that Chase was working to protect his client and save her--at any cost and in spite of her own wishes? We left Chase, and Kennedy hastened back to the laboratory, where at once he set to work with a paper and pencil, writing words that seemed utterly disconnected, while I stood about self-consciously, watching him. "Please, Walter," he exclaimed at length, a little bit nervously, "you are distracting me. You see," he added, briskly, "that interview with Chase has reminded me of something. Why was he in Shattuck's apartment? For what? When? I don't need his help, of course. But he has made me think that I can't afford to let Mrs. Wilford get out of my sight too long. If I ever get at the bottom of this thing, it must be through study of her, first. I think I shall be ready soon to visit her again. And this time, I'm sure, I shall find out what I want. I've a new plan. Don't disturb me for a few minutes." I turned my back and pretended to be busy over some work of my own, though out of the corner of my eye I watched him. Craig was at work over a sheet of paper and I saw him writing down one word after another, changing them, adding to them, taking away words and substituting others. Altogether, it was a strange performance and I had not the faintest idea what it was all about until he was willing to reveal it to me. Meanwhile a thousand ideas whirled through my head. Chase's revelation had put a new face on matters. One by one, we were finding out that each of our suspects knew first of all more about the Freud theory of dreams than we anticipated. Now it would appear that each was more or less familiar with the Calabar bean, or at least with its derivative, physostigmine. Even Vina, being a doctor's wife, might have known. Though we were getting more facts, they were not, so far as I could interpret them, pointing more definitely in any one direction. When Craig had finished, he copied the words off on my typewriter, in a long column, one word on each line, and, after the long vertical list, he left two columns blank: 1 2 3 foot gray dream struggle ship bean lion book false voyage money sad quarrel marry bull sleep foolish despise finger friend serpent face chair bottle glass "Now," he remarked, as he finished and saw my questioning look, "let me get my delicate split-second watch from this cabinet, and I'm ready for a new and final test of Honora Wilford. Let's go." XIV THE "JUNG" METHOD On the way to the Wilford apartment, which was not very far away, Craig explained briefly what it was that he wanted me to do for him. "You saw that list of words?" he asked. "Yes, and the columns opposite." "Precisely. I want you to write in them the answers that I get. You will understand as we go on. I'll hold this watch and note the time--and then we can put the two together, the answers and the reaction time." It seemed simple enough and we chatted about other things connected with the case as we walked along to the apartment. Honora Wilford showed some surprise at seeing us again, yet I fancied she was in a better mood than previously, since the obnoxious McCabe was no longer so much in evidence. "What is it that I can do for you now?" she asked, rather abruptly, though her manner showed that her surprise was, after all, very mild. Evidently Doyle had accustomed her to being quizzed and watched. It was not a pleasant situation, even to be watched and quizzed by Kennedy, yet she seemed to realize that he was making it as easy as possible. "Just another little psychological experiment," Craig explained, trying to gloss it over. "I thought you wouldn't mind." Honora looked at him a moment doubtfully. "Just why are you so interested in studying me, Professor Kennedy?" she asked, pointedly, yet without hostility in her tone. It was a rather difficult question to answer, and I must admit that I could scarcely have met it adequately myself. However, it took more than that to give Kennedy a poser. "Oh," he replied, quickly, with an engaging airiness, "as a psychologist I'm interested in all sorts of queer things--things that must often seem strange to other people. Perhaps it's highbrow stuff. But for a long time--and not in connection with you at all, Mrs. Wilford--I've been interested in dreams." He paused a moment, moving a chair for her, and I could see that he was observing the effect of the statement on her. She did not seem to show any emotion at all over it, and Kennedy went on. "Often I've studied my own dreams. I find that if, when I wake in the morning, I immediately try to recollect whether I have dreamed anything the night before or not, I invariably find that I have. But if I do something else--even as simple a thing as take a bath or shave--unless the dreams were especially vivid, they are all gone when I try to recollect them. I'm almost convinced that we dream continuously in sleep, that more often we don't recollect the dreams than we do. Your dreams interested me at the very start. I guess that was why Doctor Leslie repeated them to me. He knew that I was a crank, if you may call it that, on dreams. As for detective work of the old kind--that sort of thing Doyle does and--well--I leave that to Doyle." He shrugged. As Kennedy rattled on, I could see or fancy that Honora was becoming more reassured. "What is it you want me to do now?" she asked, her reluctance disappearing. "Nothing very difficult--for you," he flattered. "You see, I have here a list of words, selected at random. I don't suppose it will mean anything. Yet there are lots of things these strange people, the modern experimental psychologists, do that seem perfectly foolish until you understand them. If we can once get at the bottom of your dreams, find out what causes them, I mean, I feel sure that we can make that nervousness of yours vanish as a prestidigitator will cause a card to vanish into thin air." She nodded. At least on the surface, she seemed satisfied, though I could not be sure but that beneath the surface it was really that she was shrewdly convinced that it was necessary to make the best of a bad situation. "You see," Craig pursued, seizing whatever advantage he might have, "as I read off from the list of words, I wish that you would repeat the first word, anything," he emphasized, "that comes into your mind, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. Perhaps it is not so trivial, after all, as you think. It may be just the thing that will lead to helping you." She nodded dutifully, but her attitude did not seem to please Kennedy thoroughly. "Don't force yourself to think," he hastened. "Let your ideas flow naturally. It depends altogether on your paying attention to the words, undivided attention, and answering as quickly as you can. Remember--the first word that comes into your mind. Don't change it--no matter what it is, even if it seems trivial and of no consequence. It's very easy to do and it won't take long. Call it a game if you will. But take it seriously." "Suppose I refuse to do it?" she suggested. Kennedy merely shrugged. "I hardly think you will do that," he smiled quietly. "Besides, it will be over soon." She leaned back in the easy-chair in which she had been sitting, and Kennedy took it as a tacit consent to the test. From the paper, as I placed myself at a table, with the list of words and the blank columns before me, he read the first word, quickly and incisively, "Foot." "Shoe," countered Honora quickly, then gazed at him to see whether she had caught the idea of what it was he wanted her to do. "Very good," nodded Kennedy, reassuringly. "That's the thing." I wrote down the word and when I had finished I could see from the corner of my eye that Kennedy also had noted the time, marking down "2-5," which I took to mean two-fifths of a second. "Gray," he repeated next. "Black." Again I noted the answering word in the second column, while again I saw him put down another "2-5." I began to see dimly what his method was. Evidently Kennedy had chosen colorless words at the start to reassure her. And the fact was that they did reassure. She saw immediately that there was nothing very terrifying about what he wanted her to do. "Dream," Craig added, from the list. Flashed through my mind, as I prepared to write, the thought that he was now coming to the words more significant. "Lathrop," she answered. I saw that Kennedy had noted a longer reaction time by some fifths of a second than before. Was it because she had checked a first thought suggested by the word and had taken extra time to substitute something for it? And why had she made the substitution that she did? It was a natural thing to mention the doctor's name in that connection. Had she rejected one word to cast about for another equally natural? I scarcely think it necessary to follow the whole thing through, question and answer, word by word. Instead I have appended a list of the words and the answering words as we got them first, and suggest that they will bear careful study: 1 2 3 foot shoe gray black dream Lathrop struggle escape ship ocean bean baked lion path book newspaper false true voyage Europe money poor sad myself quarrel Vail marry Vail bull breath sleep dream foolish wise despise love finger hand friend none serpent hiss face man chair sit bottle stopper glass empty Kennedy finished and glanced hastily over the list of words that I had written, as well as the fractions of seconds which he had jotted down on his own sheet of paper. Honora, unable to make out quite what was the reason back of all these enigmatical proceedings, watched his face narrowly. "Did I do all right?" she asked, with just a trace of anxiety in her tone. "Very fine, thank you," assured Kennedy. "It wasn't such a terrible thing, after all, was it?" "N-no," she admitted, reluctantly. Craig continued to look over the list, talking about all sorts of perfectly unrelated subjects with her, as though to remove from her mind as much is possible the memory of what had been said and done. "There is just one other thing I want," he added, as he picked up the list again and handed it to me, his finger significantly on the third column that he had laid out. "It won't take long, Mrs. Wilford, now that you understand the game. Walter, take that other column. I am merely going through the list rapidly again. Don't try to recollect the answers you gave--but then, on the other hand, don't try to make them different. Do you get what I mean? Don't force your ideas. Just remain relaxed, easy, natural. Let me have just what comes into your mind, the moment it occurs to you--please don't try to change it." "I see," she murmured, but I thought in a manner that showed she was just a little bit on her guard, and determined, if she made any slips before, not to repeat them. In quick staccato Kennedy repeated the words from the list, beginning with "foot," to which again, almost mechanically, she responded with "shoe." I noted the answering words, as before, while he recorded the time. It did not take me long to see that what Kennedy was after was to discover whether, on the second trial, she would make any very significant changes in the words. Nor was he giving her a chance to cover up. The words came so fast that even I had no time to dwell on them. I shall not pause to do so here, for later Kennedy analyzed them carefully. Here is our third list, complete: 1 2 3 foot shoe shoe gray black black dream Lathrop Lathrop struggle escape escape ship ocean ocean bean baked white lion path beard book newspaper newspaper false true true voyage Europe Europe money poor poor sad myself myself quarrel Vail words marry Vail Vail bull breath field sleep dream dream foolish wise wise despise love like finger hand hand friend none none serpent hiss crowd face man stranger chair sit sit bottle stopper stopper glass empty empty Even as I was going along under Kennedy's high pressure, I mentally noted that there were some remarkable similarities in the answers that Honora gave, but, more particularly, that there were also some significant changes, although neither so far conveyed much information to me. I knew that even to Kennedy the process would most likely require analysis in the quiet of the laboratory and I refrained absolutely from comment, though I could see that Honora would have liked to appeal to me, had it not been for the restraining presence of Kennedy. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Wilford," said Kennedy, when he had finished with both his words and reaction times and was putting away the papers in his pocket. "Is that all?" she asked. "I think so." A look of relief passed over her face. Quite naturally, she was growing tired of always being forced to play a part, whether before Doyle and McCabe or before us. I had rather expected that Kennedy would take the occasion to make some reference to the recent discoveries we had made both in Greenwich Village and over the dictagraph, more especially as they concerned Shattuck and herself. But he did not. Nor did she show any anxiety or make any inquiry herself. It seemed to me that, perhaps, Honora and Kennedy were themselves playing a game, a war of wills, as it were. At any rate, the test over, there was a truce. Some time later we returned to the laboratory and there Kennedy set to work carefully comparing the lists of words and his own records of time. "What was that test?" I asked, at length, seeing that a question would not disturb him. "What do you call it and what was it really for?" "That," he explained, "was the Jung association word test. Doctor Jung, who developed it, was, I think, a Swiss. You'll notice that on the words of little or no significance there was no hesitation, and the second time practically no change, either. But when the significant words came out she took just a fraction of a second longer before she answered. I find that her average reaction time for the innocuous words was somewhere about two-fifths of a second. She answered very quickly. "But, take her reply when I said the word 'bean.' It was nearly a second--to be exact, four-fifths, or twice her average on the words of no consequence. Don't you think that significant?" I nodded reluctantly. "Y-yes. I suppose she knows--something." "The same thing was the case," he continued, "on such words as 'bull,' 'serpent,' and 'face,' all of which, you recollect from her dreams, were significant words. Even on the words which she did not change the second time there was frequently a marked hesitation. Thus, on the word 'dream' the first time she hesitated a fraction of a second before answering 'Lathrop,' whose name evidently was suggested to her by his treatment of her nervous troubles and asking her about her dreams. But the second time there was no hesitation when she answered 'Lathrop' to the word 'dream.' The same thing was true of other words which she did not change. She hesitated the first time, but not the second. They were such groups as 'money-poor-poor,' 'friend-none-none,' 'bottle-stopper-stopper,' and 'glass-empty-empty.'" "What do you think it indicates?" I asked. "From some you can draw your own conclusions," he replied. "They are perfectly evident. She feels alone, friendless, and almost penniless. As to the bean sequence, I am inclined to think she knows much about the Calabar bean--both before and after the use in this case. Perhaps even she knows of the drug from it. But whether that knowledge is such that it has given her a first-hand direct acquaintance with the use of it--well, that is another question. "So, also, she was guarded in her reply to the words 'bottle' and 'glass.' She remembered the belladonna bottle and eagerly seized on the innocuous word, 'stopper,' referring to the ground-glass stopper, no doubt. As to the glass, or glasses, found on Wilford's desk, which must have been in her mind, because by the words I was planting and leading up to that, she was equally guarded. To reply 'empty,' could certainly not be construed as anything but innocuous, she probably thought." "How about the changes?" I questioned. "Do they show anything that is evidential?" Craig considered a moment. "They are, of course, the most important of all, those changes," he replied, taking the list and checking off the words at the third column. "She actually changed her answers seven times, and there was hesitation each time, both on the original answer and the change in this third column." Kennedy studied the list before him for some minutes. "Let's run down this list," he said, finally. "Take the first--'foot-shoe-shoe.' Nothing there, of course. Wasn't intended to be. Here--'dream-Lathrop-Lathrop.' We have already discussed that. Consciously, she refuses to tell me anything in 'struggle-escape-escape' with reference to that dream of hers of her husband. 'Ship-ocean-ocean'--I put that word in for camouflage and she seizes it eagerly, falling over herself to answer in her best reaction time, thus helping me to locate her hesitations. "Now we come to the crucial word, 'bean.' She hesitated, and in that moment of hesitation she probably reasoned something like this: 'I must just get as far from the Calabar bean which they tell me he has discovered as I can.' So she answered 'baked.' Yet that did not satisfy her. It wasn't definite enough. Any bean could be baked. So to make it absolutely explicit she corrected that to 'white bean.' She knows, all right." I said nothing, and Kennedy resumed. "'Book' was also to disarm her and she quickly replied in both cases, 'newspaper.' But 'lion' was different. I'll wager she thought first of Doctor Lathrop, for she went right back to the dream and answered 'path'--then, the second time, perhaps before she knew it, she answered 'beard'--which Lathrop has--when in fact I'll bet that if we tried it over again the answer she would give to cover it up would be 'mane.' "'False-true-true' and 'voyage-Europe-Europe' need not be discussed. 'Money-poor-poor' we've already touched on and 'sad-myself-myself' falls into the same class--showing her despondency. With 'quarrel-Vail-words' her mind shows all is still fresh in her recollection. We know pretty well now what her inner feelings were toward him. However, quite naturally and stereotyped comes the next--'marry-Vail-Vail.' Of course. Consciously she would never think of herself marrying any one else--until there is a new deal, so to speak. "But now we come to the most significant parts of all--the 'bull' sequence. The moment she heard that she hesitated, realized that she must not hesitate, and in a sort of mental panic answered the thing that came crowding into her mind, the pursuit by the bull and its hot 'breath,' which, you remember, we have already discussed. She must have regretted allowing herself to say it. That was one reason why I wanted to try the test over. Sure enough, the second time she corrected it to something quite innocent connected with the dream--'field.' Whether she realized it or not, it confirms what the Freud analysis showed us. "Then," he went on, quite enthusiastic over the progress of his association test, "I reassured her by the next words and did not expect to obtain anything--'sleep-dream-dream' and 'foolish-wise-wise.' The next brings us squarely back to the subject that interests me most in my study of her, her real feelings toward Shattuck. I said 'despise.' At once, instead of associating, she sought the opposite--'love.' Yet that seemed, perhaps unconsciously, a bit strong. So she softened it next to 'like.' She did that for her own benefit. She herself would never betray to the world her own emotions. Therefore 'like' was a better word to use than 'love.' She has been trying to make them synonymous--with poor success." I nodded. Somehow I felt that in her heart of hearts Honora had found love, whether she admitted it to herself or not. But I realized that even if she had, she would be the last to betray it to the outside world if she could help it. "'Finger-hand-hand'--another of the off-guard words," continued Kennedy, quickly. "'Friend-none-none'--we have touched on this idea already. But now we come again to something very important--'serpent.' At once she answered 'hiss.' Then she changed it and the thought uppermost was the recollection of the 'crowd' in her dream. Remember Freud?--a crowd, something secret? "The most important change of all, though, is the next--'face.' She knew that already I had questioned her on that point in the dream--the attributing of human faces to the animals that appeared to her in her dreams. Perhaps she recollected that she had told Doctor Lathrop once that the face in the dream resembled that of Shattuck. But she never would admit that to me. I fenced about with her on that point, both in the spoken and written dream, without getting a bit of satisfaction from her. She simply would not admit a thing. Yet I'm convinced that she told the truth first, that the face was that of Shattuck. However, with that still in her mind, she hesitates in recalling the dream. I'm sure her first thought was 'Shattuck.' But she put that out of her mind in the fifths of a second that elapsed. Instead, she answered just as quickly as she could, in the hope she had betrayed nothing, the colorless, 'man.'" I said nothing. I was always fearful of whither Kennedy's psychanalysis was tending. "Even the general 'man' was not explicit enough for her," he proceeded. "She meant that there should be no mistake as far as I was concerned. 'Man' might include Shattuck. So, on the second questioning she became more particular in her identification of the 'face.' This time it was 'stranger.' Doubtless she felt that it would eliminate both herself and Shattuck from consideration. But she was mistaken," he concluded, triumphantly. "Instead, it really points to Shattuck--and to herself, too. Unconsciously now, she is really trying to eliminate both herself and her lover--and she knows that he is that." Kennedy flipped the list, as he added: "'Bottle-stopper-stopper' and 'glass-empty-empty.' An effort to get away from anything incriminating. Clever, too." I said nothing. What did it mean? Was she, after all, guilty--or at least a party to the crime? The very idea was repugnant to me. I knew it was of no use to quiz Craig. He was still non-committal and impartial. At least I hoped he was still impartial to her. XV THE CONFLICTING CLUES It was early the following morning that Doyle burst in on us, very excited and waving a morning paper. "Have you read the news?" he demanded, slapping the paper down in front of Kennedy. We read at the point where Doyle's forefinger indicated. It was a personal inserted among the advertisements by Doctor Lathrop himself. No longer, it announced, would he be responsible for the debts of Vina Lathrop, his wife. Lathrop had at last definitely broken with her. Kennedy and I exchanged glances. I recalled the quarrel we had interrupted on our last visit to them. Evidently that had been the climax. Nor was I surprised. It had seemed inconceivable to me, since my conversation with Belle Balcom, that ever Lathrop could be the kind of man to sit complacently under the growing gossip about Vina. How he had even waited so long was a mystery, unless to assure himself that what he heard was the truth. For men of Lathrop's stamp are the last to condone anything in a wife, no matter what may be their own standards for themselves. "Well, at any rate," conjectured Doyle, rather heartlessly, I thought, "I don't think people will waste a great deal of sympathy on her. It leaves Vina Lathrop no more than she deserves. The man she tried to use is dead. The man she sought to capture has turned her down cold. Now the husband she had no use for, except as a meal ticket, has left her. I can't see but what that dame had it all coming to her." Kennedy refrained from comment. "Where has she gone?" he asked merely. "Do you know?" Doyle shook his head. "This is the first that I knew that they were separated," he responded. "No, I haven't any idea where she is." "What of Doctor Lathrop?" "He seemed to have taken it very calmly. From what I hear, he hasn't even interrupted his practice. He stays there at the Drive address where he has his office. I suppose she has gone to a hotel, or perhaps out of town. I'll find out for you and have her watched, if you want." Kennedy nodded, but did not say anything, and I know Doyle's attitude had not raised that gentleman any higher in Craig's estimation. It all seemed very strange, and, I felt sure, however, well worth following up. "Of course, you know we haven't neglected the Wilford telephone wire," put in Doyle, sensing that all was not just as it should be, yet not knowing just why. "What did you do?" "Put in a tap. Then I had McCabe and others listening in in relays in another room." "Yes?" "Here's a report of what they got this morning." Doyle pulled out a sheet of thin paper on which had been typed some notes. "There was a call early this morning for her," he said, as he ran his eye down the sheet. "It was from Shattuck--without a doubt. He's suspicious. The first part of the conversation shows that, you see." "Let me read it, if you don't mind?" asked Kennedy. "Not at all," agreed, Doyle, handing the copy to Craig. Together we read it. "Good morning," it began. "Is this you, Honora?" "Oh, good morning," she replied. (It was apparent that Mrs. Wilford recognized the voice, but she was cautious about repeating the name.) "I've something very important to tell you--but--well, not over the telephone. Is anybody listening?" "I don't know. I suppose there is. Everything I do is spied on and watched. I can't write a letter. I can't go out--" "I suppose that's right. If you went out you'd be followed. There's no place that's safe. Probably somebody's getting an earful of this," came back the other voice. "Still, I've something very important to say to you. Hang it! I'm going to drop in and see you, Honora. This isn't an autocracy--yet. They can't prevent me talking to you in your own home. Though, I suppose, even that is an offense. However, I'll call. Keep a stiff upper lip. Don't let them put anything over on you." Mrs. Wilford must have tried to laugh it off, for the operative had drawn a line indicating a laugh and had added merely the repetition of the words, "Good-by." Doyle looked at our faces as we read. "I have a scheme," he announced, craftily. "See what you think of it. There's that dictagraph I put in, you know." Kennedy nodded. Although our opinion of Doyle was not of the highest, it was not impossible that here was a situation that called for no great amount of cleverness to surmount. "Want to use it?" he asked. Kennedy considered. "I put the thing in right. There's a receiver in every room, and I've got a sort of central office there. You can listen in on any room you please by just throwing a switch." Kennedy assumed a flattering manner. "Just the thing, Doyle," he acquiesced. "Now look here. This is the way to work it. You go there first--not to the room, but to the apartment. Stay around there a bit as though you were looking for something, then leave and take care to make it certain that they know you are going away some distance and will be gone some time." "I get you," agreed Doyle. "Then McCabe--" "Confound McCabe!" interrupted Kennedy. "He must clear out, too. He's buzzing around that maid, Celeste. Well, for once it may lead to something. Give McCabe something to do that will take him away, too. Then tell him to let Celeste know. Get it? Make it as plain as day to her that for once you are all off the job. Then she'll think it's safe--unless she's clever," added Kennedy. "Meanwhile Jameson and I will slip into that little listening post of yours. Maybe we'll get something. You can't tell." "It sounds all right," commented Doyle, loosening a key from a ring. "There's the key--it's Apartment K where the dictagraph is." "All right," remarked Kennedy, taking it. "Now go along and get your end of the plant working. Do everything you can to let her believe that you've relaxed. I'll get there in half an hour. We can't put this off too long." Doyle left with alacrity. For once he could understand Kennedy's method and approve it. Half an hour later we entered the Wilford apartment-house, taking care to do so at a time when the elevator was not down at the ground floor. As far as we knew, no one interested had seen us come in. That was the one chance we were forced to take. Its only disadvantage was that it made it necessary for us to walk up eight flights of stairs, and even then to go carefully, lest we meet some one in the hall. However, we found Apartment K at last without any difficulty, opened the door, and admitted ourselves quietly. Doyle had located the dictagraph in this room, two floors below the apartment of the Wilfords', in this vacant suite. As we entered, I saw that in the room were merely a deal table and a couple of chairs. On the table lay the box containing the receiving end of the dictagraph, to which already were fitted the head and ear pieces for listening. The switch on the table was marked, showing the various rooms in which the transmitters had been placed and arranged so that one might follow from one room to another, if necessary. There was paper for notes on the table, too, but otherwise the room was bare. Kennedy adjusted the ear-pieces over his head, much as a wireless operator might have done, and, noting how he did it, I followed suit. Then we waited. I could hear the clicks as he moved the switch past one connection after another, trying out the various rooms to see whether there was any one in them or not. There was no one in the living-room, but as we listened we could hear the striking of a small clock on the mantel. From room to room we went, in imagination, almost as if we had been there, but able to go about unobserved. Had Honora been clever enough to penetrate our ruse? Or had Doyle and McCabe executed their end of the scheme clumsily? We waited impatiently, wondering whether, after all, it was a fools' errand for us. Suddenly I could hear a dull, rhythmical noise above the mild buzzing of the dictagraph. "What's that?" I asked, almost in a whisper, which was involuntary. "Footsteps of some one coming down the hall into the library," replied Kennedy. "I fancied from slight noises which I heard that Honora was in there, alone, reading perhaps. I thought I caught the rustle of paper." I could now make out the vibrations more clearly, then the low, almost inaudible buzz of a voice. "Now it's plainer," I whispered. Kennedy frowned. "They can't hear you," he reminded. "Still--don't forget _I_ can." I took the broad hint and was silent. Kennedy adjusted the machine for loudness and gradually I could hear the lowered voices being caught and played up. It was Honora speaking to her maid, Celeste, who had just entered. "You've been down in Mrs. Smith's apartment?" we heard Honora ask. "Yes, madame." Kennedy shot a glance at me. Two, then, could play at the same game of watching. Evidently the maid had evolved the scheme of visiting some friendly maid in the building, and from that vantage-point watching the watchers. I trusted that she had seen nothing of us. It could hardly be that she had--or at least that they suspected the presence of the dictagraph, or they would not have talked even in whispers, when they might have written and thus have been safe from being overheard. I was beginning to be relieved. "Why did that McCabe tell you he had a day off?" asked Honora, thoughtfully. "Did he really go?" "Yes, madame. And the other man hasn't come in. Mr. Doyle was here, but he didn't stay long. I heard him telephone for a taxicab to take him to the Grand Central. He seemed to be catching a train and looked as if prepared to stay away overnight." "A train?" caught up Honora, eagerly. "Very well, Celeste. When Mr. Shattuck comes, let him in. Watch. Let me know if you see any one watching. It--it seems--I can't understand it." The maid murmured something soothing in French to Honora and departed. For some time--it seemed an hour--we waited in silence. Finally Kennedy reached over and touched my elbow. Again I could hear that low vibration, as of some one walking. "It's Shattuck--I'll bet," Craig cried, excitedly. Sure enough, it was, as we soon found out both by his voice and the conversation. "You've heard about Vina and the doctor?" he asked, almost as soon as he entered. "No," replied Honora. "What about them?" "They've separated. Lathrop has put a notice in the papers that he will no longer be responsible for his wife's debts." Honora uttered a quick exclamation of surprise. "Rather a nasty thing for the doctor to do, though," commented Shattuck, then added, hastily, "I mean the way he did it--publicly, in the papers, and all that sort of thing." "I suppose so," came reluctantly from Honora's lips. Kennedy smiled. It was very human, after all. Nor could one blame Honora for having scant sympathy with the woman who had caused her so much pain and anguish. There was silence for several moments, in which I trusted that Shattuck was duly chastened for having expressed any sympathy for Vina, even in a casual way. "Tell me, Vance," she asked, finally, with just a trace of eagerness showing in her voice in spite of herself. "You never really cared for her--did you?" Shattuck answered quickly. "Why, you poor foolish little girl--don't you understand yet? It was she--set out to capture me--not I who sought her. Ask anybody. They'll tell you. I begin to believe everybody knows it--knew it long before even I saw it. How Lathrop could have missed it so long is beyond me. Don't you see? It placed me in rather an awkward position. I wanted to warn him--yet how could I? Of course I never cared for her. The fact is that I have had to avoid her, even when she tried to make some business deals through me. Why, only yesterday Lathrop came to see me. It must have been just before he put that advertisement in the papers. I had the very deuce of a time to make him see the case. As luck would have it, though, Kennedy was there. I hope he got an eyeful. Once before he saw me with her. It was when she was trying to sell some stock." Honora said nothing, though apparently the explanation was just what she wanted to hear and it satisfied her. I looked over at Craig. If it was true, I felt that it was greatly to the credit of Shattuck, knowing his reputation. But was it true? Was it not what he would have said to Honora, anyway? Might it not be that he was laying the foundations for an alibi in case Kennedy or some one else retailed stories to her? "Are they still just as insolent up here to you?" he asked, solicitously, after another silence, changing the subject to one more intimate. "Oh, Vance, it's awful!" she confessed. "The deuce!" he exclaimed, hotly. "Sometimes I feel as though I could fight the whole crowd of them, Kennedy included. It's an outrage, this constant suspicion of you." "But, Vance," she murmured, "you know you must be careful for yourself, too." "And you, Honora?" he replied. "Have you no need of help, no need of a friend?" It was evident that each feared for the other, recognizing the suspicion under which both labored. More than that, there was genuine regard between them, it was evident, tempered with restraint. "I suppose you've heard that they've found a Calabar bean down in Vail's office, on the floor?" asked Shattuck, hesitating, but finally coming to a remark which evidently had been on his mind and cost him something to make. I was all ears, in hope that he would betray something about having some of the beans in his own possession, or that Honora would betray something about having Chase search Shattuck's apartment, if, indeed, she had ordered the young detective to do it. But neither of them said a word. Was it because they knew nothing, or was there a tacit understanding between them never to mention some mutual secret? "So I've been told," was the simple reply Honora made to Shattuck's inquiry. "Who told you?" "Mr. Doyle, himself," she replied. "Has Kennedy done anything?" he asked, quickly. "I had another visit from him yesterday." "What did he want this time?" "He had a list of words--more of his science. I can't refuse to do what he asks--and yet--I'm afraid. You know these scientists know so many things that aren't so about women." Kennedy nodded over at me. I knew what was passing in his mind. It was surely strange to hear oneself discussed and I recalled the old adage about eavesdroppers hearing nothing good of themselves. Besides, I knew that his Freud theory had struck home. Honora's very anger at the theory was proof enough that it struck home in one of her own "complexes." "Confound him!" muttered Shattuck. "I suppose you are right, though. You know this ordeal bean from the Calabar? Of course you remember the derivative from your father's place--the physostigmine. Well, the beans are used in a queer, primitive sort of dueling by the natives. They cut the beans in half. Each eats a half. It is a sort of a duel by ordeal." "Yes," she answered, quickly. "So I've been told." Kennedy nodded to me. Neither of them said more about it. Was it because they recognized it as a dangerous subject? Or had Honora really discovered the dictagraph in her own home? In that case, this very conversation was being held for our benefit, out of sheer bravado. Nothing more of importance was said and we figuratively followed them out into the hall and over a good-by that was considerably lengthened by Shattuck and threatened to become sentimental. Only Honora restrained it. "What next?" I asked, as we could hear the slam of the door in the Wilford apartment. "I don't think I shall stay and listen here," concluded Kennedy. "I can't see that we've found out a great deal, as it is. There are several things that must be done immediately. First of all, I want to see Lathrop. It may be that we'll find out something from him." We made our way out of the apartment, as we had entered, trusting that with our care we would not be observed. A few minutes later we were at the door of the waiting-room of Lathrop's office. "Evidently he doesn't take the affair any too deeply," commented Craig. I looked about. The office was as full of patients as ever, and he was going about his professional work much as though nothing at all had occurred to disturb his peace of mind. We waited until the last patient had gone and finally were able to see him alone. "I can guess what you are here for," he greeted, without a trace of embarrassment. "I suppose the afternoon papers will be full of it. Already I've had a string of reporters--one from your own paper, Mr. Jameson," he added, significantly--"a Miss Balcom. Do you know her?" "Yes," I answered, as offhand as possible, "she is a very clever writer. Did you--er--tell her any--" "Not a word to say," he interrupted, bruskly, "not a word to say. I refused to make any statement. What's the use? The fact stands for itself." In spite of what he said, it was evident that he would talk, at least a bit. "Then you knew all about--what was going on, all along?" inquired Kennedy. "I had my suspicions," the doctor replied, airily. "I cannot afford to be held up to ridicule. It was a matter of saving my very career. As for the Wilford story--pouf! I don't care a rap about it--that is, I didn't until the gossips added the Shattuck scandal to it." Whatever he might say, it was evident that his lips belied his real feelings. He was really bitter both toward the memory of Wilford and toward Shattuck as well, conceal it as much as he might try. "Then you credit the Shattuck rumors?" demanded Kennedy. "I won't say," snapped the doctor, testily. "Where has Mrs. Lathrop gone?" asked Kennedy, point-blank. "How do I know?" bridled Lathrop. "I've heard her talk about friends at the Sainte-Germaine--perhaps you might find her there. You're a detective," he added, coolly, then suddenly: "That's right. Get her side of the story. Play it up, if you like. You might as well. Yes, by all means. Then perhaps I can set you right on some points. Don't mind _me_. Good morning, gentlemen," he bustled, taking up his black doctor's bag. "I have a very serious case waiting for me." Kennedy did not comment as we left, but beckoned quickly to a vacant taxicab and we were whisked to the Sainte-Germaine. I knew it was of no use to try to see Mrs. Lathrop in the ordinary manner, and, therefore, adopted one of my many newspaper ruses to find out where her room was and then to get to it. As she opened the door to what seemed to be an innocent knock from a chambermaid or bell-hop, she exclaimed in surprise at seeing Kennedy and myself. Almost, I exclaimed also. Vina Lathrop seemed to be a changed woman. "Why have you followed me here?" she demanded. "Did _he_ send you--or was it that woman?" "Neither," returned Kennedy. "It's not so easy to hide away in New York." She did not move from the door, nor did she invite us in. Still, I could see that she was there alone, that the "friends" whom Lathrop had hinted at were either mythical or that she had not gone to them. "I thought that perhaps you might like to tell us what the real reason for the break was," hinted Kennedy. "Of course, Mrs. Lathrop, there's no use for me to beat about the bush. You know and we know just what the world is saying. If I might be of any assistance to you--putting things straight, you know--" He paused, endeavoring to see whether she showed any disposition to talk. For a moment she was silent, biting her lips. "I never want to speak to him again," she burst out, passionately, at length. "You will have to see Doctor Lathrop about that--at present," she added, sullenly. "Does Mr. Shattuck know where you are?" "I suppose every one will know--now," she cried, a look almost of alarm crossing her now pale face. "Really--I have nothing to say. You must see my--my lawyer." "And he is--?" "I shall let that be known--when I get ready," she blazed, turning. "Now, might I ask you to leave me? I don't see how you got past the floor clerk, anyhow. Good-by. I--I don't want to have a scene." She closed the door and we heard the bolt shoot. Somehow I could not help having my suspicions aroused by her very manner, as we turned away. Did she know something--and was she really afraid of us? XVI THE FINESSE "What's the next move?" I inquired of Kennedy as we entered the elevator. He did not answer, and I thought it was because he did not care to do so. "Didn't like to talk, even though we were alone with the elevator boy," he explained, with his usual caution, when we had arrived at the ground floor. "You never can tell who is listening in public places." "No," I answered, dryly. "That was how I found out where she was in the first place." Kennedy smiled. "Very good, Walter. Still, it just goes to prove what I said. Mrs. Lathrop might do the same thing to find out about us." We sauntered along a few steps through the lobby in silence. "I don't suppose Shattuck will be in his own apartment after that talk with Honora," Kennedy considered, glancing at his watch. "Guess we'd better try to see him at his office, if we want to see him anywhere." I saw what he was thinking about--the relations of Vina and Shattuck and the construction that Doctor Lathrop had put on them. "The finding of that Calabar bean in Shattuck's apartment has puzzled me," I confessed. "I've often wondered whether he ever missed it, whether he knows." "Just what I was thinking about," admitted Kennedy. "On the way down-town I'm going to drop in and see Mrs. Wilford's detective, Chase." "Why, Mr. Jameson, you've beaten me to it--and have you got the story?" I turned in surprise at hearing my name spoken by a woman whom I hadn't noticed. It was Belle Balcom, always enterprising and on the alert for a good story for her column of society gossip. "I thought I had a scoop," she pouted. "And I get here only to see you coming out." "Where did you find out?" I asked, in surprise, careful, however, not to admit that I knew what she meant, although I was certain that it must be to see Mrs. Lathrop that she had come. "Never mind," Belle tantalized. "Where did you find out?" "That would be telling," I begged the question, turning and introducing Craig. "Oh, I'm so glad to meet you," she smiled. "Of course I've heard a great deal about you from Mr. Jameson and I've always admired your wonderful work." "Indeed you've helped us a great deal in this case, yourself," returned Craig, ignoring the flattery, as he always did. "I'm so glad," thanked Belle, sincerely. "If there's anything I can do, ever, I hope you'll ask me. It isn't often that I feel that the stuff I do has any real importance. More often people think I'm a prying pest, I imagine. But then without that eternal curiosity, who could write? Isn't that so?" she appealed to me. "Quite," I agreed. "Especially in a woman," thrust Belle. "I'm sure that can't be so," remarked Craig. "Reporters and detectives have much in common. Women make good in both fields--very good." Belle smiled. Sophisticated she might be. Yet no woman can be said exactly to hate flattery of the right sort. "How does Mrs. Lathrop take the affair--with bravado?" inquired Belle. "You see, that expedition down to Greenwich Village with Mr. Jameson has made me look on this case with a sort of proprietary interest." Kennedy smiled seriously. "There, now," he nodded, "you're interviewing _me_." Belle smiled back in turn, taking the hint. "I'm sure you'd be hard to interview, if you didn't want to be interviewed, Professor Kennedy," she said. "How did you find out where she had gone--really?" I asked. "Tell us. It might help--and you remember what you said just a moment ago." Belle considered an instant. "Well," she thought, "I don't know as it would be violating any confidence, after all." Kennedy, always thoughtful, had gradually edged our way into a sort of alcove. "You see," she began, "first I tried to get at Doctor Lathrop himself. But I guess you must have been there first. He was barricaded, so to speak. I posed as a patient, tried to think up all kinds of ailments I could, just to get in. But he had an assistant who interviewed every patient. I think that fellow would make a medical detective. I thought I was clever, but he found me out and I was politely requested to step outside." I glanced at Kennedy. Evidently Lathrop did not intend to talk. Was it wholly natural reticence? "Then," resumed Belle to me, "I thought of our friend, Zona Dare. I remembered that she had been intimate with Vina Lathrop. Zona wouldn't say anything. But I didn't need that. From her I got the cue. I knew she was keeping something from me, just knew it--woman's intuition, I guess. I knew that Zona lived here at the Sainte-Germaine." "But Mrs. Lathrop is alone," I hastened. "Surely. You wouldn't see them together. Trust Zona. She's too clever for that." Again I glanced at Kennedy without getting anything from the expression of his face. Was it a clue? Did it mean anything, this immediate appeal by Vina for help from the Freudian interpreter of the Village? We chatted a few minutes longer, as Kennedy turned away further inquisitorial shafts of the clever reporter. However, somehow I felt that Belle still had something on her mind. "Then you aren't going to write it, after all?" she asked, eagerly, of me, as Kennedy showed signs of leaving. "Of course not," I assured. "It wouldn't look right--at this stage of the case--for me to write, do you think? However, that's no reason why _The Star_ shouldn't have the story." She beamed. "Very well, then. I'll try to get it," she replied, rather relieved at the thought that whatever clever work she had done to get the tip that had located Vina would not go for naught and would be credited to her. We bowed ourselves away, leaving Belle the difficult and unenviable job of getting at Mrs. Lathrop again, something I should not have wanted to do, judging by the fiery glance that had been shot at us from behind the slammed door. "That will be a last straw to Vina Lathrop--when she knows the newspapers have found her out here," I remarked, as we turned toward the street entrance. Kennedy drew me back and we sidled into the protection of the fronds of a thick clump of palms. I looked out cautiously. There was Doyle just coming up the steps of the hotel. Doyle bustled in, and we let him pass, unaccosted. "Where did _he_ get his information?" I wondered. "Not so difficult. If the police drag-net is out, a hotel like the Sainte-Germaine isn't at all safe," replied Craig. "I imagine we can leave Vina to their tender mercies--the police and the press." We left the hotel hurriedly lest we might encounter any one else, and a few minutes later found ourselves again at Chase's detective agency. Chase was in and regarded us inquiringly as we entered. "About this Lathrop case," introduced Kennedy. "You know that she was very intimate with Mr. Shattuck." Chase nodded. "It occurred to me," went on Kennedy, "that since you were working for Mrs. Wilford you might be able to help me. There were several things you told me the other day that I've been thinking about." Chase narrowed his eyes as if trying to fathom what Kennedy was thinking. "I admit breaking into Shattuck's apartment," he said. "Do you mean that?" "Partly. Why did you do it?" "It was to get some letters Mrs. Lathrop had written to him," returned Chase, without quizzing. "Did you get them?" "I did." "Where are they?" Chase balked. "Did you read them?" "Yes," he answered, reluctantly. "What was in them? Shattuck had been pursuing Mrs. Lathrop, hadn't he?" fenced Kennedy, keenly. "No--he had not. She had been pursuing him," snapped Chase, though why he was so evidently put out about it I could not make out at first. "How about that Calabar bean?" "I found it in a cabinet, while I was searching for the letters," he answered, his face betraying no expression. "Why did you tell me that in the first place?" demanded Kennedy, suddenly switching the subject. "Did you have any motive?" "Motive? I thought you ought to know--that's all. He's not _my_ client, you know." "But he's a _friend_ of your client and--" "Say, Kennedy, I know how Doyle has been hounding that poor little woman. If you want the truth, I didn't tell Doyle because it wouldn't do any good. I thought you could be _fair_." "Well, what's your opinion?" "I haven't any opinion. I know what I found. It's for you to have an opinion. Besides, I won't sacrifice a client for a friend of the client. Get me?" he asked, pointedly. "She has won you, hasn't she?" asked Kennedy, somewhat, I thought, in Doyle's style. Chase looked at him a minute. "Say, Kennedy," he returned, "I've always regarded you as something more than the rest of us." He stopped as though he would have said more, but considered he had said enough. What he meant by his cryptic remarks I could not make out. Was he determined to save his client, even at the cost of her lover? Kennedy's face was inscrutable. If he knew what Chase meant, I am sure Chase read no answer. We left immediately afterward and soon were back again in the Subway. As we waited for the train, Kennedy paced the platform. "I think I'm right, Walter," he remarked. "The thing is to prove it. I'm going to use a little more of Freud--to apply him to some detective work--in other words, I'm going to play upon suppressed desires. Just watch how it works." Somewhat less than half an hour later we found ourselves in the hurly-burly of the Wall Street district. Shattuck, I knew, had an office around the corner not very far from that which Vail Wilford had occupied. Kennedy, who had been there before, easily located it and called the floor from memory. "It's not a large office," I remarked, as I followed Craig down the hall and stopped before a single glass door that bore Shattuck's name, adding, "Banker & Broker." "But probably it's large enough for all the brokerage business that Shattuck really does," he returned. "I have an idea that it is just about enough to keep him from being classed as an idler. Besides, it gives him standing." Kennedy handed his card to the boy who presided over a sort of swinging gate in the outer office. The door to Shattuck's inner office happened to be open and we could see him. Consequently it was not possible for him to send out word that he was not in. It was a rather nettled office-boy who returned to us. "For what, may I ask, am I indebted to you for _this_ visit?" inquired Shattuck with almost insulting bruskness as the boy stood at the door, admitting us, then carefully closed the door to the outer office. I felt angry at the tone, but Kennedy kept his temper admirably. "I suppose," began Craig, clearing his throat and speaking as deliberately as ever Shattuck did, "that you know the story about Mrs. Lathrop?" "Some one on the street called my attention to it," Shattuck prevaricated, rather than admit interest. "I thought you might be in a position to explain it--at least to throw some light on it," pursued Kennedy, directly. "I'm quite interested, naturally." "Explain it?" flared Shattuck, eagerly seizing on something that would divert the main issue. "Explain it? Why, you and Doyle and the newspapers"--nodding insultingly at me--"ought to be able to do that best, don't you think? It's you all that have caused a great deal of trouble. Judging by what I read and hear, you know more about our affairs in this case than we do ourselves. I'd suggest that perhaps our positions should be reversed. I might appeal to you for information, rather than have you coming around here appealing to me." Not only was it what he said, but it was even more the tone and manner in which he said it that seemed to rub Kennedy the wrong way. As for myself, I must confess that I was boiling over at the bravado of the man. I would have come back with a quick remark--and probably have exposed my hand and done exactly what Shattuck expected, for there was no denying that he was clever with a gambler's cleverness and nerve. It was not so with Kennedy. For a moment he paused, as though checking a first remark; then he spoke in the same measured and considered tones as at the start. "I can tell you, Shattuck, that I don't like the attitude either you or Mrs. Wilford assume." Shattuck merely shrugged superciliously, and would have turned to some papers on his desk, had not Kennedy possessed one of those compelling personalities that demand that you hear them out, whether you like it or not. "Mrs. Wilford seems to have assumed a sort of passive attitude toward me," Kennedy resumed. "You don't expect her to help you?" inquired Shattuck. "As for yourself," continued Craig, unperturbed, "I am frankly of the opinion, Shattuck, that your attitude is quite one of open hostility. I would not presume to dictate to either of you how you should order your conduct--but--it seems to me that, under the circumstances, it might not be unwise to take care not to prejudice your cases, you know." Shattuck involuntarily shot a quick glance from under his heavy eyebrows at Kennedy. But not even Shattuck's cleverness could read anything in Craig's face. What is it that this man knows? Quite apparently that was the sudden thought working back of Shattuck's beetling brows. "For instance," continued Kennedy, as though determined to have his way in the matter and ram the words down Shattuck's throat, "I am sure you know of that Calabar bean which I--or rather Mr. Jameson--discovered in Mr. Wilford's office--not very far away from here, I see." Shattuck's face was a study. Not once did the man lose his poise. It was not that. "Well, it raises some interesting problems. I won't say that I haven't settled them. But, for the sake of argument, let us take the circumstance--just in itself." Shattuck calmly lighted a cigarette and deliberately inhaled it, bored. "Of course," Craig went on, after a pause, "we all know that Doctor Lathrop is a doctor and hence likely to dabble in almost anything relating to his profession. Perhaps he knew of the existence and the properties of the Calabar bean. Quite certainly, I should say. No doubt he has used the drug--physostigmine. In fact, he tells me he has. Very well, then. So much for that. "Take yourself, for example. I think I recall seeing many African trophies in that very cozy den of yours. Now, the Calabar bean is well known in Africa, not only in the Calabar, on the west coast, but in many other parts of the continent that travelers and tourists visit. So, you see, although at first sight such a bean might seem to have very little to do with a prosperous broker on Broad Street, it is not impossible that a judge or jury--or a detective--might see a connection." Kennedy paused to watch the effect of the home thrust. I cannot say that Shattuck even winced. He was a man with too much control over himself for that. I longed for some of the psychological laboratory instruments that will reveal, often, what a nerve-strong exterior hides. "But, quite more important still," continued Kennedy, "is the fact that the bean, or rather its derivative, physostigmine--which we know was the poison that killed Wilford--is known and used by oculists for its curious effect on the pupils. Now, from what I have learned on unimpeachable authority about Mrs. Wilford as a girl, her father, Honore Chappelle, a Frenchman, was a well-known oculist. He had no sons and often used to wish that his only child had not been a girl. For a time he had some vague idea, I believe, that his daughter might take up his place in the business. However, that was merely fanciful. As Honora grew to womanhood and tasted the advantages of the not small fortune her father had piled up, the social life appealed to her. And yet, in the girlhood days, who shall say she did not learn something of the Calabar bean, of the drug, and of its properties? It would be most unlikely if she did not." Kennedy paused for a moment, leaving Shattuck almost speechless and hiding a secret fear. "You can draw your own conclusions from what I have just said," finished Craig. "Sometimes, you know, actions speak louder than words." Shattuck had risen, almost angrily as two red spots of passion appeared on his face over the cheek-bones. "Don't you think you have done enough, hounding Mrs. Wilford with your confounded science?" he demanded. "I cannot say," replied Kennedy, coolly, reaching for his hat and deliberately turning away. "I am telling you this only for your own benefit. Good morning, sir." Just what Kennedy was attempting I began to understand as we closed the door to the hall and turned again to the elevator. The seeking out of Shattuck was quite in keeping with the plan of campaign Craig had mapped out at the start. I saw that he was counting on planting something that would make Shattuck fear for Honora, if not for himself. And, it was evident that behind his bravado Shattuck did have a fear for Honora. XVII THE SUPPRESSED DESIRE Even before Kennedy announced where he was going, I outguessed the next step in his scheme. He would end by planting something that would make Honora fearful for Shattuck, as well as for herself. The effect would be to bring to light her suppressed desires, to make the Freudian theory play detective for us. And then? Almost anything might happen. Looked at in this light, I could see that Craig would have done a very profitable day's work. It was, in short, merely playing one against the other--first Lathrop against Vina; now Honora against Shattuck. We rode back again up-town and prepared to make our daily excuse for visiting Mrs. Wilford. In spite of the distastefulness of our duty, I felt sure that still our position with her was superior to that of the other inquisitors who were always on her trail. "Before we go in," cautioned Kennedy, as we entered the main entrance to the apartment, "I want to see McCabe. He must be back on the job by this time." Careful to cover ourselves, we sought out the ostensibly empty apartment which Doyle had hired as a dictagraph room. McCabe was there and seemed to be glad to see us. Evidently he had some news to report. "What's on your mind, McCabe?" greeted Kennedy. "Why, sir, he's been calling her up again." "Who?" "Mr. Shattuck, I mean." Kennedy merely glanced at me. The virus had begun to work. "What did he say?" asked Kennedy, quickly. "I couldn't just make out what it was about. He wasn't very definite. Said he wanted to see her alone." "And Mrs. Wilford?" "Said she couldn't--that she was afraid--afraid for him, she said. I guess she knows pretty well how we're watching her." "What did Shattuck say to that?" "Well, I should say he was trying to warn _her_," replied McCabe, "without coming out too definitely. You see, they were both pretty careful in the words they used. There's something strange between that pair, you can be sure of that." "What were the exact words?" asked Kennedy. "Did you get them down?" McCabe nodded and referred to his notes. "When Mr. Shattuck called up, he asked her first, 'I suppose they're watching you yet, Honora?' "'Oh, Vance,' she answered, 'it gets worse every day.' "There's some more--and then he suddenly said, 'Honora, Kennedy has just been here to see me again.' "She seemed to be rather alarmed at that news. 'To see you again, Vance? What about?' "'I don't know what he's up to,' Shattuck replied. 'I wish I did. It's something about that poisoned bean--you know, the thing they've been talking about.'" "Pretending ignorance!" I exclaimed. "He knows. Go on." "They talked about that a little while, without saying anything important. The next was Honora: 'He keeps asking me all sorts of questions about dreams and trying psychological experiments. I don't dare refuse to answer. But what do you suppose it is all about, Vance?'" "What did Shattuck tell her?" asked Kennedy, interested. "Here, I'll read it, exactly. 'More of that Freud stuff, I guess, Honora, from what you've already told me. That may go all very well in a book--or in Greenwich Village. But it's a fake, I tell you. Don't believe it--too much.'" "That's a remarkably reassuring statement," commented Kennedy. "Don't believe it--and then he takes it all back by adding, 'too much.'" "Yes, sir," agreed McCabe, to whom this angle of the case was a mystery. "I don't know as he believed what he said himself. You see, he next asked her: 'Can't you see me? I _must_ try to help you.' And he meant it, too." "Did she say she would?" hastened Kennedy. "Not directly. 'Vance, I'm so afraid--afraid to drag you into this thing. You know they're watching me so closely. I don't see them around--yet they seem to know so much.'" "You don't suppose she suspects anything of this?" I interrupted, indicating the dictagraph and the tapped telephone. "Hardly," answered McCabe. "She wouldn't talk at all over the wire, if she did, would she? Here's how it ended. Shattuck said, finally, 'Well, I'm going to see you very soon, anyhow, to have a heart-to-heart talk, Honora.' He seemed to be quite worried. And so did she over him." "Have you told Doyle anything about it?" asked Craig. "Haven't had a chance yet. It just happened." Kennedy turned to go. "Oh, just before that that detective called her up, too." "Which one--Rascon or Chase?" "Chase." Kennedy smiled quietly. Everything was working. "What of him?" "He said you had been to see him. There was something about that poisonous bean he told her." "Did he mention Shattuck's name?" asked Kennedy. "Yes, he questioned her about Shattuck--about his travels--I thought it was pretty broadly hinting after he mentioned that Calabar bean." "But did he say anything definite about it? I mean, anything connecting it with Shattuck?" "No--nothing definite." Evidently Chase had never told Honora of his discovery in Shattuck's apartments. Why? Was it because he was sure that she would not believe it? Was he waiting for more conclusive evidence? What was the reason? It had not been revealed even yet. We thanked McCabe, made our exit, and arrived on Honora's floor in such a way that it would not be suspected that we had been anywhere else in the building. As we met Mrs. Wilford, I cannot say that we were quite as welcome as on some previous encounters with her. It seemed that she was repressing her excitement not quite as easily as on previous occasions. Yet she seemed not to dare to refuse to see us. Perhaps, too, there was an element of curiosity to know whether anything had been discovered beyond what Doyle had already told her. If that were the case, she had not long to wait. Kennedy did not plan this time to keep her in suspense long. In fact, it seemed as if it were part of his plan to fire the information he wished to impart as a broadside and watch the effect, both immediate and ultimate. "I suppose you have read in the newspapers about the troubles of the Lathrops and what has happened?" he opened fire. "Nothing about that woman interests me," Honora returned, coldly. "That's not exactly what I came to tell you, though," remarked Kennedy, briskly. Honora was on the alert in an instant, although she tried to hide it. "I've discovered just what it was that caused the death of your husband," hastened Craig. I watched her closely. She was trying to show just enough and not too much interest. "Indeed?" she replied, veiling her eyes as a matter of self-defense. "Was it belladonna?" "No, it was not atropin," returned Craig, giving the drug its more scientific name. "It was physostigmine." I was watching her narrowly. Evidently she had been expecting some repetition of the psychological tests and Kennedy's more direct attack almost swept away a defense as she tried to adjust herself to the unexpected. Before she could recover from the shock that the bald statement seemed to give her, Craig shot out, "Has Doyle told you?" "Yes," she replied, endeavoring to remain calm and at the same time appear frank, "something about a bean which either you or Mr. Jameson discovered down in the office." "Then why did you mention belladonna?" asked Craig. She avoided his gaze as she answered, quickly, "Because it was the first thing that the police mentioned--the first thing that came into my head--like some of your psychological tests, I suppose." The last sentence was uttered with a sort of sarcastic defiance which I did not relish in Honora. "So," she continued in the same defiant tone, "it's another poison, this time--this physostigmine?" "Yes," reiterated Kennedy, quietly. "The Calabar bean. I suppose Doyle described it to you--its devilish uses in the Calabar--the way the natives use it in ordeals--and all that sort of thing?" "Yes--briefly," she replied, evidently steeling herself into a nonchalance she did not feel. "Of course, the drug has a certain medical importance, too," continued Craig, as though eager to hammer home the information about it which he wished to have stick in her mind. "It is physostigmine." Honora was evidently about to ask some question about the drug, perhaps such a question as would have portrayed ignorance, but Kennedy caught her eye and she closed her parted lips. There was no use camouflaging before this man. She knew it--knew the drug, I decided, and knew he knew she knew of it. "But it wasn't the drug, physostigmine, in this case," went on Kennedy. "It was the Calabar bean itself. I found traces of it in Mr. Wilford's stomach--starch grains from the beans themselves. You know you can recognize various starch grains under the microscope by their size, formation, and so forth. I've clearly demonstrated that." "You did? Why--I--I--er--thought that was Doctor Leslie's work." Evidently she did not realize that Kennedy was anything more than a dilettante scientist, dabbling with his psychological tests. Kennedy was now coming into the open more and more with her and she could not place him. On her part she saw that she must be more and more on guard, yet with fewer weapons on which to rely. "Oh no," returned Kennedy, easily. "I mix up in all sorts of queer investigations. Toxicology is a hobby with me. Doctor Leslie did indeed confirm my results, working independently." He paused to let her get the full significance. "But about these beans. They come from Africa, you know. Travelers, people who have hunted over Africa, often bring them back as curios." Honora shot a covert glance at Craig. Did she know that Shattuck had possessed some, after all? I saw at once the trend of Kennedy's remarks. There was quite enough in what he had said to arouse in her the fear that Shattuck was suspected by him. And, as I studied Honora even more closely, I could see now that she was making a great effort to conceal her anxiety. If the anxiety concerned solely herself, I could have understood it better, perhaps. But was it about herself? Would she have acted in just this manner if it had been that she believed Kennedy to be making a direct accusation against her? I could not decide. But, as I thought of it, I saw how cleverly Kennedy was leading his trumps. If she were consumed with anxiety for Shattuck, the traveler in Africa, she must be heroically suppressing her own real feelings toward him, as she had done for so long. I felt sure that the added pressure, day by day, was having its effect on her. "I suppose you know," pursued Kennedy, deliberately, without letting up on the pressure, "that traces of belladonna were found in one glass on Mr. Wilford's desk at the office and that an almost empty bottle of belladonna was found by the police here in your apartment?" "It was mine," she asserted, calmly, as though prepared. "It had been nearly used up. Celeste knows all about how I used it for my eyes. Many women do. She can tell you that." She said it boldly, and yet, since Kennedy had mentioned the Calabar bean, I had an indefinable feeling that Honora was concealing something--perhaps not only a fact--but also a great fear. No longer, now, did Kennedy seem to care whether he antagonized her or not. More and more, it seemed, it was his purpose to drop the mask with her, to fight her with other weapons than those psychological. "Both physostigmine and belladonna are used by oculists, you know," hinted Kennedy, broadly. The face of Honora was a study as she listened to this direct insinuation. She bit her lips at the thought that she had betrayed her knowledge of the use of belladonna. For an instant Honora gazed at Kennedy, startled at the penetrating power of his eyes, as she realized that the finding of the bean had, in his mind, perhaps, some connection with herself. What must have been the conflicting emotions in her mind as, now, for the first time, she realized that Kennedy had gone deeper into the case than Doyle or Leslie, that, while she might be a match for them, she could not possibly hope to be a match against the new weapons of science that Kennedy had brought to bear? Even though she might not fully appreciate them, Honora was too clever a woman not to know, merely by intuition, that she was faced with a battle in which the old weapons were unavailing. I know the thoughts that were surging, by Kennedy's suggestion, through her mind--the past of her life, her father, Honore Chappelle; the old love-affair with Shattuck; the attainment of social ambitions with Wilford--and back again to the life of her girlhood and the profession of her father. I thought for the moment that Craig had broken through her reserve. I knew that Kennedy was in reality fishing--at least I thought so. But it was evident by her actions that Honora did not know it. "Why do you make these--these accusations?" she demanded. "You knew that my father was an optician--one of the best known in the city," she cried, searching Craig's face. Kennedy nodded implacably. "I haven't made any accusations," he returned, then added, directly, "But I assumed that you knew something of his business while he was alive." "I do not know by what right you assume that I knew anything of the sort," she fenced. "Girls were not supposed to learn trades or professions in those days." Honora, in spite of her assumption of a quiet tone, was almost hysterical. The mounting flush on her face showed that she was keen with emotion, that it was only by an almost superhuman effort that she controlled the volcano of her feelings. Kennedy could see that it was only by such an effort that she managed to maintain her composure. He must have known that to press the case would have resulted in a situation such as might have advanced us fairly far toward the truth. Yet he did not follow farther any advantage he might have. Evidently, Kennedy was content to let the seed which he had planted during this visit germinate. Or was he reluctant to allow McCabe over the dictagraph hear more that might be reported to Doyle on which Doyle might continue to base wrong conclusions? Desperately I clung to this last explanation. As far as Honora was concerned, now, there was no use in our staying longer. Kennedy had deliberately thrown away a chance to drive her into further admissions. The interval had given her the time she needed. Now she was keenly on guard and mistress again of herself. Secretly I was rather glad. It was better to let the information and suspicion that had been aroused work of itself. "You are not yourself, Mrs. Wilford," suddenly apologized Kennedy. "It is not fair to you. Think over some of the things I have been forced to say to you. Perhaps you will see matters in another light. Good-by." I do not know whether his keen questioning or this sudden quiet change of tone and the idea of leaving her at such a time had a greater effect. She shot him one startled look, then bowed in silence as we, in turn, bowed ourselves out. She even denied herself the final glance of curiosity, lest she might betray sudden relief changed to deep-seated fear at the sudden departure of Kennedy, with his cool assumption of power. Outside, we encountered Celeste, who had been hovering in the hall, apparently listening. Quietly Kennedy beckoned her down the hall, away from the door we had just left, while he paused a moment to question her. "I wish you would refresh your memory, mademoiselle," he began, suddenly. "Are you sure--absolutely sure that on the night Mr. Wilford was murdered madame was here--that she was not out--at all?" His tone was such as to imply, not suspicion, but certainty that Celeste had been lying, that Mrs. Wilford had been out. "Oh, but yes, monsieur," Celeste replied, glibly. "I was with madame all the evening. No--no--she was not out. She was here--all the evening--waiting for him. I can swear it. How many times must I swear it--to you--to those--those beasts!" Celeste nodded outside. Kennedy smiled. "Who should know better than I what madame was doing?" continued Celeste, vehemently. Kennedy did not pursue the subject. "You love madame, don't you, Celeste?" he asked, simply. "Why--yes!" replied the girl, startled by the unexpectedness of the question. "Good day," nodded Kennedy, simply, as a lawyer might dismiss a witness. "Methinks she doth protest too much," I quoted, as I remembered the "Aussage test" again and its proof of the unreliability of Celeste. Kennedy did not attempt further to shake the girl's story, and I was forced to conclude that he had another purpose in view. Perhaps it was that he knew that she would report to Honora what he had asked. Kennedy turned to go out. But he did not close the door tightly as we went out. Sure enough, no sooner had he seemed to shut the door than he could see that she had darted into the room we had just left. Kennedy smiled and closed the door softly. XVIII THE CONFESSION Little happened during the rest of the day, which I spent in the laboratory, while Craig checked up the results of his previous observations on the case. Toward the end of the afternoon I strolled out, uncertain just what to do. On the street I saw a boy selling papers and I called to him. As my eye fell on a black head-line I fairly jumped with surprise. I read it again, hardly able to believe it. It was a startling bit of news that stared me in the face. Vina Lathrop had committed suicide at the Sainte-Germaine! Practically the whole story was told in the head-lines--that is, all except what little we knew. I turned the pages quickly. Belle Balcom had got in her brief interview with Vina, but it contained nothing new, either. As I hastened back to the laboratory there ran through my mind the swift succession of events of the morning--our learning of the separation, the visit to the hotel, the meeting, the coming of Belle Balcom, and finally the appearance of Doyle. Without a doubt it was this succession of events that had convinced Vina that there was no escape from the social disgrace that awaited her after the action of Doctor Lathrop. "What do you think?" I almost shouted, as I burst into the laboratory and threw the paper before Craig, who was still at work in his acid-stained smock. "And, do you know, often I had almost come to regard Vina as a possible suspect in the case, too! Could I have been right? Is it a confession?" Kennedy read the news item, then tore off his smock and reached for his hat and coat. "I'll admit that suicide might be taken as a confession, as a general rule," he exclaimed. "But it's not so in this case. Come--we must get over to the hotel. I doubt whether half the story can be known, even by this time. I wish I had been informed of this earlier. However, maybe it won't make any difference." It did not take us many minutes to get down to the fashionable hotel, nor long to get up to the room from which, in spite of the demands of the hotel people, the body had not been removed. Leslie, already notified in the course of the city routine, had arrived perhaps five minutes before us. "I was out on a case," he explained. "When I got back to the office I saw the police notification. But you had already left when I tried to call you up." I looked about. There was great excitement among the guests and employees on the floor on which Vina had taken her rather cheap and unpretentious room. But in all the group I could not see one familiar face, except that of Doyle, who had arrived just a few moments before Leslie. "Has Doctor Lathrop been told?" asked Kennedy. "Yes, but he didn't show any emotion. He has given orders that everything necessary must be done. But he absolutely refuses to allow the funeral to take place from his apartment. He insists that it must be from a private establishment. Even in death he will not forgive her. Said he would be over--but he hasn't come yet. I doubt whether he will. Her relatives live in the Middle West. He did give orders that they were to be notified." "What was the cause of death?" asked Craig. Leslie looked at him significantly. "I wanted your advice on that," he remarked. "Look." He had led Kennedy over to the white bed on which the body of Vina lay. "The eyes show the characteristic contraction of the pupils that I have come to recognize as from physostigmine. In fact, I don't think there can be much doubt about it in this case. What do you think?" Kennedy bent over and examined the body. "I quite agree with you," he added, as he rose. "It is a case of the same poisoning--only I think not by the bean this time, but by the pure drug." "Where do you suppose she got it?" asked Doyle. "I'll try to trace it in some of the drugstores to make sure." "Craig," I exclaimed, "do you recall that Doctor Lathrop said he had no use for the bean itself, but that naturally in his medicine-chest he had the drug? She heard us talking the thing over that time when we visited them. Without a doubt it was where she got it--that is," I corrected, "where she might have got it." Kennedy nodded. "No doubt you are right. It's a case of suicide by suggestion. She heard of the drug--and tried it. It's the way they all do. Suicide is a sort of insanity. If one person uses bichloride tablets, you find that a dozen, learning of it, do the same. It's a curious bit of psychology." "I agree with you," chimed in Leslie. "This was a case of the use of the pure alkaloid. Nothing else could have acted so swiftly--and everything indicates swift action. The chambermaid had been in the room only a few minutes before. Then when she knocked on the door again she got no answer. She thought there was something strange about it, for she was sure that Mrs. Lathrop had not gone out. So she tried the door. It was locked. But through the keyhole she could see that Vina had fallen across the foot of the bed. She screamed and then they got the pass key and opened the door." Kennedy had gone over to the window and was looking out. On a little roof below he pointed out something gleaming. Even from where we were we could see that it was a plain little vial. "More than likely she took some of the drug from her husband's office," he commented. "By every indication the act was premeditated--or at least she contemplated doing it." We glanced at each other, then at the former lovely form on the lonely bed, as the undertaker, sent by her husband, prepared to carry out the last offices, now that Doctor Leslie had given his permission. "What about this new development?" asked Leslie at length of Kennedy. "Does it affect your plans at all?" "Very much," asserted Kennedy, energetically. "It forces my hand. Now I must act immediately." For a moment he stood, planning hastily just what to do. "I'm going to try a little piece of psychology," he decided, finally, turning to us. "There are many things I need to know yet. For one thing, I'm not exactly sure just how much Mrs. Wilford actually knew about her husband and Vina Lathrop--not what she suspected or guessed. Oh, there are innumerable points that must be cleared up. I know no better or quicker way than to get them all together at once at my laboratory. Then I am sure that we can straighten this thing out quickly." He paused and looked about us. "Now," he added, assuming direction of affairs, with the tacit consent of both Doyle and Leslie, "I want each of you to help me. You, Walter, perhaps will be the best one to go after Mrs. Wilford. But don't, for Heaven's sake, tell her anything--except that it has been discovered that Vina Lathrop is a suicide. "Doyle, you have worked some parts of the case up to a final point--in your own mind. I delegate you to go after Mr. Shattuck and bring him to the laboratory." "Very well," agreed Doyle, with alacrity. "I don't mind that duty." He almost grinned. Nor did I imagine that he did. Shattuck had made himself particularly obnoxious to Doyle and I fancied that Doyle would take a particular pleasure in this errand, especially as it might lead to the humiliation, or worse, of Shattuck. "You, Leslie, as a doctor, I think would be the best to go after Doctor Lathrop," ordered Kennedy. "And all of you are to remember you are not to talk of the case, but merely to compel the attendance of the persons you are sent after. If they refuse or resist, you know where to get the authority to coerce them. But I don't think any of them will. It would look badly." As we parted, I jumped into a taxicab. I felt sure now that something must break. In spite of all the discouragements, I saw that Kennedy had been biding his time. He had seemed to be quite willing to wait, much more so than either Doyle or Leslie. I had realized some time before what his game was. Anything might have happened to unmask some one. The death of Vina was that thing. Now was the time to follow up his surprise attack. While we were gone, Craig hurried to the laboratory and there completed some simple preparations for our reception. From his cabinet he took and adjusted several little instruments, with an attachment that could be placed about the wrist, like a cuff or strap. These cuffs were hollow and from each ran a tube attached to an indicator. Both the hollow cuffs and the tubes were filled with a colored liquid which registered on a scale on the indicator part. But I anticipate my story. I found my end of the duty far from pleasant, although under other circumstances, suspicion or not of Honora, I should have enjoyed an opportunity to meet her. In spite of her feeling against Vina, the first news as I broke it to her came as a shock which she could not conceal. Yet, I felt, it would have taken more than even the practised eye of Kennedy to determine just what underlay her feelings in the matter. When, however, I informed her that my orders were to take her to the laboratory, she demurred vigorously. It was more by threat than anything else that I managed to get her to go. She finally assented, nervously. Her whole attitude was one of not knowing what to expect this time. In silence I escorted her in the taxicab to the laboratory, arriving there last of all, due to the cajolery I had been compelled to use to avoid forcing the issue. Leslie and Lathrop were waiting already. As we entered, Honora bowed to Doctor Lathrop, who returned the bow courteously. Clearly, I thought, this is merely the relation of physician and patient. Doyle had returned, but McCabe was not with him. Shattuck had almost fought against coming, but only a direct threat of arrest on the part of Doyle had succeeded with him. Doyle was correspondingly watchful of his prey. Shattuck bowed to Honora, and I saw that she returned the bow, a slight flush spread over her face. What was it--fear for him or of him? Perhaps Shattuck misinterpreted the action. At any rate, he seemed not content with a mere bow. He stepped forward. "I hope, Honora," he remarked, in a low voice, but not so low that I could not catch it, "that you will not think this unpleasantness is in any way due to anything I've done." For a moment Honora stared at Shattuck, then at Doyle, and finally at Kennedy. "Not at all," she murmured. "It seems that I no longer have anything whatever to say about my own actions." She said it with a sarcasm that was cutting, and at the same time with a keen observation of the rest of us. It was as though she were trying to read our minds. Kennedy, at least, gave her no chance. As she entered, he greeted her blandly, and one would never have known from the look on his face or from his manner that it was he who had ordered them all assembled in his laboratory. He was the coolest of us all. "I am going to try a little affair here that may or may not yield some results," he remarked, picking up one of the cuff attachments that lay before him on the table. "It is a simple enough thing. You merely slip this cuff over the wrist--so," he illustrated. He drew the thing off again and turned to me. "I'm going to put the first one on you, Walter," he remarked. "You will be my 'control' in the experiment, as we call it." Carefully he adjusted the thing on my wrist, and as he did so I realized that his purpose had been rather to get them familiar with what he was going to do than for any reason directed at me as a control. I watched the liquid in the indicator pulsing minutely as he finished. Next he had turned and adjusted one after another of the instruments on the others, first Honora, then Shattuck, and finally Lathrop. When he came to Leslie and Doyle he paused and finally decided that as a "control" I was sufficient. It was interesting to see how each of them took it. Honora accepted it with her previous passivity. Naturally Shattuck rebelled and it was only after a lengthy argument in which Doyle moved over ominously that he accepted. Lathrop viewed it, naturally, with the interest of a man of science. "Of course, as you all realize," remarked Craig, as he finished adjusting the instruments, whatever they were, "there have been many very strange ramifications to this case. It began in tragedy and it seems to continue in tragedy. Crime is like the train of powder. When the match is touched to it the fire runs along rapidly until it reaches the magazine--which it will explode unless the fire is stamped out at some point along the line." As he said it he glanced about at the faces before him, as though to see what each indicated. Even Doctor Lathrop, in spite of the suicide of his wife, showed no emotion. "There is no use for me to rehearse the strange circumstances that root back into the past," Craig continued. "They are well known in general to all of you--the society gossip, the scandals that have been repeated widely. Motives enough for everybody have appeared in this case as I have delved into it. What we want now is _facts_." He paused and leaned forward earnestly. "It has always been a theorem with me that one might reason out by all sorts of logical means that a certain person could not have done a certain act at a certain time and place. And yet, when it has been reasoned out perfectly to the satisfaction of the reasoner--you may find that the person actually did it. Therefore, I am a sort of modern Gradgrind. What I want is facts--facts--facts." As he finished he turned toward the table. Nor did he seem disposed to add anything immediately. Still, we could see what he was doing and such was the attention riveted on him that I am sure none of us missed a movement of his. Casually he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew forth the peculiar bean which I had picked up on the floor of Wilford's office. He stood there for a moment, as though absent-mindedly toying with it, his back toward us. I glanced about. The action was not lost on any of them, but I watched the face of Honora more especially. She started forward, then caught herself. For the moment I thought she might have fainted. But she did not. "What's the idea, Kennedy?" burst out Shattuck, impatiently, observing. "Is it just some little theatricals--or is it a little Spanish Inquisition stuff?" "Just a moment, Shattuck," interrupted Doyle, who needed not very much provocation to boil over. "Mrs. Wilford," he shot out, suddenly, before she had recovered her composure, "you have not been frank, either with the police or with Mr. Kennedy. Some one besides you and your husband was in that office that night." "I--in the office?" she repeated, blankly. "Yes--in the office. We know there was a woman there." "I was not there," she asserted, positively. "Some one besides you and your husband--a man--was there," reiterated Doyle, ignoring her denial. Kennedy was still half turned away. Nor did he show any disposition to interrupt Doyle. I looked at Doyle, wondering why Kennedy did not interrupt the detective's third degree. Remorselessly Doyle pressed home his questioning. "We know much more than you think, Mrs. Wilford," exclaimed Doyle, menacingly. "We have not been idle. There are more sources of information open to the police than maids that earn their pay from their mistresses," he hinted, darkly. "Celeste told the truth," returned Honora, quietly. "Surely you have had chance enough to have found out about me from her, if there had been anything to find out." Doyle was not to be placated by a soft answer. "There were other people about that office that night," he added, confidently. "Mr. Wilford was not the only tenant in that building. Much can be overheard in the stillness after business hours. Don't forget that. Why did you tell him to give her up--that she never had loved him, did not, and never could love him?" Honora flushed slightly at the reference implied by Doyle to Vina. She seemed about to reply hotly, then checked herself. She looked about the room as though seeking help from some one, but not finding it. "If you were really there," interrupted Kennedy, quietly, for the first time, "tell." I saw Shattuck scowl blackly at Kennedy for lending the weight of his support even thus mildly to Doyle's bulldozing. Almost I hated Craig for doing it, myself. Honora's friendlessness appealed to me as it had often before. However, I reasoned, sentiment is a dangerous thing in a murder case. "It is your duty to tell," urged Kennedy. "It is ours to find out. As Doyle says, we have found out much. _Some one_--two people--were in that office, besides your husband!" There was silence. "A man was there--came later--at the time when the murder must have been committed!" An instant she faltered and gazed wildly from one to the other of us beside her. The strain was too great. It was as though something snapped under it. "No!" she cried, half sobbing, half defiant. "There was no one in that office! I--" It was too much for Shattuck. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen his glance riveted on Kennedy's hands as Craig twirled the Calabar bean nonchalantly. He turned suddenly and looked at Honora--then strode a step forward. "Professor Kennedy," he exclaimed, in a husky voice, "she was not there. It was I who was in the office. I will tell all!" XIX THE LIE-DETECTOR I do not know whether Kennedy was as startled as I at the unexpected confession of Shattuck. At any rate, his face did not betray it. It was Honora, however, whom I watched most closely. Her color came and went. One moment she seemed as pale as death; the next her face was flushed and burning. Yet she said nothing, though I knew she could have shrieked. What did it mean? Had she told the truth? Or had she confessed to something, in the hope of saving him? For the moment Shattuck was the calmest in the room, as generally happens in a crisis of this nature with the principal actor in the scene. "Let me tell you exactly what happened," he began, deliberately, avoiding as much as possible the mocking gaze of Doyle, who seemed delighted at the course of events. Shattuck paused and cleared his throat, as though to gain time to think out the correct order of events. "I came to the office," he continued, slowly. "It was quite late, but I found Vail Wilford there and alone," he emphasized the word. "As I entered, he was sitting at his desk. He turned and spoke to me. I don't recall just what it was that he said, but that doesn't make any difference now. "I had thought the whole thing out before. I knew perfectly what I was there for. The situation--the wide scandal between himself and Vina Lathrop--had become intolerable. As for me, I may as well confess that the growing unhappiness of Mrs. Wilford preyed on my mind--until I was almost mad." I heard Honora take a sharp breath, as though to control her feelings. She was leaning forward now, her cheeks burning, her eyes fixed on the face of the man who was speaking. With every word, I could see her emotions rising higher. Never had I dreamed that it was in this woman to show such depth of feeling. It was as though she were passing through some transformation which she herself did not understand, but which was changing her own soul and making a new creature of her. "I cannot recall just what passed between us," went on Shattuck, as though eager to hasten on and have it over with. "It was about his wife and what I thought his duties were. Every moment I could see that he was growing more and more angry--which was what I intended. Finally he rose, threatening. Wilford was a powerful man and no mean antagonist--but I had come prepared. I had my gun at his breast before he knew it. I forced him back into his chair. "'Honora is being driven mad by the way things are going,' I remember I shouted at him. 'One or the other of us must get out of her life.' "I could have shot him as he sat there, facing me before his desk--but I did not." Shattuck was talking calmly now, and earnestly, though underneath there was a depth of passion. "Then what?" demanded Doyle, as though fearful that something might even yet arise to stop the story. "I took one of those things, those beans that Kennedy has been talking about," he answered, pointing at the bean Kennedy was still holding in his hand. "Where did you get it?" "In Africa, of course," he hastened. "Where else?" "Have you any more?" demanded Doyle. "Yes--I think so," came back quickly. "I may have used the last one, though--or rather two, that is. You see, I must have dropped one and lost it. Then I must have forgotten about it in the excitement--that one Kennedy has." "I see," nodded Doyle. "Always there is some loophole you people leave open, some place where the cleverest of you fall down and get caught." Shattuck suppressed a quick retort that was on his lips. "As I faced him," he went on, "I told him that I would not kill him outright. I would give him an equal chance. I am a sportsman. I told him what the thing was, of the duels I had seen in Africa, of the chance that each took. At the very point of the gun I forced him to take the bean that was lying on the desk and cut it in half with my knife. Then I took back the knife and pointed to the two parts that lay on the desk before him. "'Choose!' I ordered." "But the glasses," interrupted Doyle, before he could check himself. "You forgot about the two glasses on the desk." "Oh yes--the glasses--on the desk. There were two glasses--I got two glasses. I filled them with water. I placed one before him, the other before myself. 'Choose!' I ordered him, pointing to the halves of the bean before him. "One thing I can say. Vail Wilford was not yellow. He saw that I had him--that there was no escape. He looked from the gun to me, then at the halves of the bean. Outside there was silence. No place, you know, is more deserted than down-town late at night after business hours. If he shouted, he knew that I would fire--also if he moved. I gave him sixty seconds to choose which half he would take. At the point of the gun he chose. "'Now,' I said to him, taking the remaining half myself, 'put it in your mouth, chew it, swallow it. If you spit out so much as a fragment I will fire instantly.' "And I give him credit. He was a sportsman and a gentleman through it all. I watched him chew it, and when he started I reached over and took my half. I began to chew that, myself. Then, together, we drank the water from the glasses, so that we would have to swallow the parts of the bean. Though I had him in my power, I did not take advantage of him." Honora gasped at the picture Shattuck was drawing. The recital was deeply affecting to her. I saw her leaning forward, and her rapidly rising and falling breast told the suppressed emotion under which she labored. "All right," hurried Doyle, to whom the dramatic quality of the tale had little appeal. "But what about the note? You forget to tell us about the suicide note." "Oh yes," exclaimed Shattuck, "so I did--about the note. I made him write it before we ate the bean--while I had him covered. I made him sit down at his own typewriter and I dictated it to him--one for myself, the other for him--to be used in case either survived." "You made him write one for you?" "Yes." "What did you do with it?" "I destroyed it afterward--of course." Doyle was forced to accept the answer. "And you were alone?" "Absolutely alone with him. Let me tell it--listen to me--will you? We ate the halves of the bean. I still kept the gun on him. I was taking no chances. The minutes passed as I stood over him--five--ten. "On which of us would the thing take effect first? It was a terrible wait. I will admit it. But it was the ordeal. We were just primitive men. Besides," he added, still keeping his glance from the face of Honora, who was leaning forward, her lustrous eyes trying to catch his, "I was playing for a big stake--it was death or what is really more than life to me." He paused just a fraction of a second, but only a fraction, as though he himself were afraid of an interruption. "At last I saw that his heart and lungs were beginning to be affected. His eyes were narrowed, the pupils to a pin-point--am I right about that, Professor? Never mind. In myself I waited for the same symptoms to appear. And I began to feel them, too. I was dizzy--with a burning thirst--but--alive! Still, I kept the gun leveled at him--the best I could, for my hand shook. "He did not know that, could not see it. Consciousness was fast going from him. But I was determined. I _would_ live. I saw that I might have the--the woman--I would give my life for. Perhaps it was will-power that saved me. But--they cannot say I did not give him a fair chance for the woman and the life that he did not deserve!" Breathlessly now we were all listening. Honora was trembling. Doctor Lathrop bent forward, nervously pulling his beard, his eyes riveted on the speaker. Only Doyle seemed to take the thing as a matter of course. "And Honora Wilford?" Doyle interjected. "What was she doing at--" "No--no--no, she was not there, I tell you. No one but Wilford and I was there!" Shattuck had burst forth with the first words in quick staccato, slowing up the assertion until at the end he was speaking slowly and warily. I had an impression that he was not so certain of himself that he could trust himself to get excited. Once I caught sight of Kennedy. He was saying nothing at all. But he was not idle. Taking advantage of the rapt attention of the little audience, he had stolen softly behind them. I saw him looking carefully at the various indicators of the arrangements on the wrists and noting them carefully. Was Shattuck telling the truth about what happened--or was he coloring it to save himself? "But about the atropin--in one glass and nothing in the other?" shot out Kennedy, suddenly. It was as though a bombshell had exploded. "Oh yes--yes," he faltered, "the atropin--of course, of course. In his glass, also, I--I--" Shattuck stopped. What was the matter? Did he realize that he was getting hopelessly tangled? "It is a pretty story, this, about your duel, as you call it," interrupted Doyle. "But it was not atropin that killed him. It was physostigmine. Atropin is the antidote. Didn't you know that, when you planned this ordeal you speak about? Besides, the traces of atropin were not in the glass that was found nearest the body. They were in the other." For a moment Shattuck stared helplessly. Was he, after all, just a murderer? Had he framed this duel by poison, preparing safety for himself, death for Wilford? "Come now, Shattuck," exclaimed Doyle, adopting that confidential manner that worked so well often with underworld characters, but seemed so out of place here, "did you--honestly--fight such a duel? Didn't you really force Mr. Wilford to eat that bean? And weren't you protecting yourself? Aren't there motives enough that we know for you to have wanted him out of the way?" Before Shattuck could reply, there was a sudden exclamation from some one beside me. A figure in a filmy dress darted between Doyle and Shattuck. "No--no--wait!" We were all on our feet in an instant at this sudden interruption at such a tense moment. It was Honora, no longer the stately creature of dignity we had seen, no longer the passive person submitting to the tests of Kennedy's psychology, suppressing the emotions that lay in her heart. Her whole being seemed to be transformed. It was as though a new spirit had been instilled suddenly into her. She faced us, and as I looked into her burning eyes I saw that what had been the mere statue of a woman, as we had first known her, had become a throbbing soul of life and passion. Shattuck saw the change. In spite of the terrible situation, his face kindled. It was worth it, if only for the brief moments, to feel that he had aroused in her that which he saw. "Wait," she repeated, "let me tell." Doyle was about to interrupt, but Kennedy, who had not for a moment, even at this crisis, forgotten to glance quickly at one of the instrument dials after another, pulled him back and silenced him without a spoken word. "You say there was a woman there?" she swept on, taking up the story, as though seizing it from Shattuck. "There _was_ a woman there. It was I. I was with him." The thing came as another thunderbolt, as it were, before the reverberation of the first had ceased echoing. Not one of us but realized what it meant. Honora had cast reputation, all, to the winds, to save him! She looked about at us, and never have I seen a woman more appealing, not even in any of the great moments of great cases in court which it has been my fortune to have witnessed and to have written. Cynic though I am, and knowing, as I thought at the moment, the purpose of it all, to save the man she loved, I could not resist the appeal. Nor was it directed at me. So marvelous was she that she took in the whole group, at once appealing to each, as if a sudden power had become hers. Quickly she poured forth her story, as though she, too, feared interruption. "It is all true--all that he has told," she cried. "I saw it all--heard it. But there is more--more that he will not tell. He has not told the whole story. Listen." It seemed as if she realized for the first time the power of an emotional woman. And her very instinct told her how to play upon us. "I knew the Calabar bean," she explained. "I need not tell Professor Kennedy that. Of course, as he knows, I had seen them in my father's laboratory, at his shop. And so, when I knew what it was that was taking place--what was I to do?" She paused, as though her intuition told her that the playing up of a dramatic moment would cover a multitude of questions that might otherwise come awkwardly flocking and demanding an answer as to much that she had not explained. "Should I scream out for help? He might have fired the gun. Besides--" She stopped again and dropped her gaze. "There was my reputation," she added. Doyle smiled cynically. She saw it. There was nothing, no slightest facial change that she missed. "What do I care--for anything--now?" she defied, directing the remark full at Doyle, who winced. Shattuck's face was a study as she poured forth her story. There was admiration in every line of it--and surprise. I was convinced that she had swept him off his feet as she had all of us. What did it mean? "What was I to do?" she repeated, gazing about wildly. "It came to me in a flash, an inspiration," she raced on, "the atropin--belladonna. I remembered it from the old days when I was little more than a school-girl, in the store." Involuntarily she reached for her chatelaine, but did not open it, as she illustrated. "I had my belladonna bottle with me." Rapt, now, we watched and listened. "There were only a few drops left in the bottle, I knew. I never carried much--nor used it often." She paused and clasped her hands as though in an agony of recollection. Was she telling the truth--or was she really a great actress who had just found herself? "I tried to run between them--I pleaded--my name--my honor--everything. They would not listen." She stopped just long enough to allow our own now supersensitive minds to reconstruct the scene already described by Shattuck between the two men. "But I managed to get between them and the glasses on the desk. I held the bottle, in one hand behind me--so." She acted it out, placing herself between us and a table, her face toward us, but her hand holding an imaginary bottle behind her. It was real to her, at least. "Which would I save?" She paused in desperation as she reconstructed the scene. Almost she had me convinced already, as she played out the part, under the stress of her feelings. "Which? My husband--or the other man whom I--I--" She let her voice die away over the implied word "loved" and there was another tense moment of silence. "There was not enough for both," she added, quickly; then, as though sweeping us on to the finale: "I poured the few drops of belladonna into the glass nearest me. Vance--Mr. Shattuck, drank it!" She swayed as the words were wrung from her very soul. Shattuck sprang to her and caught her. "You're wonderful," he whispered. "Honora--why--why have you said this?" For answer she merely allowed herself to rest more closely in his arms. Doyle moved forward with a triumphant smile. It made no difference to him. It was a confession, either way. And confessions meant convictions and success to him. What was human emotion, compared to a good record and report in the files at Headquarters? Honora looked from Doyle to Kennedy fearfully. She shrank farther into Shattuck's arms, nor did Shattuck relax his embrace. "It's true," she cried. "It's true. I tell you--it was a duel--just as he said--really--and I saved him!" Not one of us moved as we realized the situation. She would sacrifice her reputation, everything. But she would save her lover. "It was not murder--it--" Doyle raged, as he realized that, after all, a clever lawyer, with this woman as a witness, the heart-throbbing hypothetical question, and the impressionable jury might quickly overturn all that Doyle might swear to. "I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, looking up from his rounds of examination of the dials. "You know this little thing--the blood-pressure measurer that is used by the doctors? Many insurance companies use similar things in investigating risks." At once Kennedy had wrested from Shattuck and Honora the center of the stage. Nor did he intend to relinquish it. "I beg your pardon," he repeated, "but my sphygmograph--this little instrument--my lie-detector, if you please--tells me you are both lying!" XX THE SOUL SCAR "Let me go back a bit," began Kennedy, as in perplexity we turned to him. "Let me repeat how I first entered this case. You will remember it was because of my interest in the dreams of Honora Wilford. I have studied them ever since. My first clue came from them. From them I have worked out my leads." At the mention of the dreams Honora had drawn away from Shattuck. She was gazing at Kennedy, wide-eyed. Shattuck, too, was following tensely. No less were Doyle and Leslie. Doctor Lathrop leaned forward, his brow wrinkled, as he tugged at his beard, impatiently listening. "Let us take those dreams, without wasting any more time," continued Kennedy. "I do not know how many of you are acquainted with the Freud theory. Mr. Jameson is, by this time. Also Mr. Shattuck. We've seen some of Freud's books in his library. Doctor Leslie knows it, I am sure, and Doctor Lathrop has told me he reacts against many of Freud's theories seriously. "I shall not attempt to explain the theory, but shall touch on certain phases of my psychanalysis," he remarked, addressing the remark apparently to Honora. "Recall that Freud tells us that all dreams are primarily about self in some way or interests close to self. Your first dream and each succeeding dream which I learned, Mrs. Wilford, were, I take it then, about your own relations with your husband." Honora looked startled, not only at having been singled out, but at the mention of the dreams and the vague thought of what might, after all, have been derived from them by this man whom she did not understand. "The dream of death, the struggle dream, the bull-and-serpent dream, the dream of fire and explosion, all pointed to one thing among others, but one thing that was paramount. Really you did not love your husband--with that deep, passionate love which every woman yearns to possess. It was not your fault. You were the creature of forces, of circumstances, of feelings which were out of your control. I could have told you more about yourself than you would have admitted--half an hour ago," he qualified. It was a delicate and intimate subject, yet Kennedy handled it without a touch of morbidness. "From the study of your dreams," he resumed, "as I have already hinted, many other things might have been discovered. One of the next importance to your unconscious feeling toward your husband was shown clearly. It was that you knew that another woman had entered his life." Kennedy glanced from her to Doctor Lathrop, and back to Honora. "Of course, you did not know the whole story--that that woman was merely using your husband as a means to an end. But it would have made no difference if you had. In that she was equally in your way, whether you would have admitted it or not. We can speak frankly on this subject now. Vina Lathrop's death has put a different aspect on that phase of the case." "Oh, I see," interrupted Shattuck, who had been following carefully up to this point, when it suddenly dawned on him that Kennedy's remarks were converging on himself and the gossip that had flown far and wide regarding Vina and himself. "I see. You have been reading the French detective tales--eh?--_Cherchez la femme_?" Kennedy ignored the interruption. He did not intend to let any such aside destroy the thread of either his thought or his argument. "Let me delve a little deeper in the analysis," he proceeded, calmly. "There was something back of that lack of love, something even deeper than the hurt given by the discovery of his relations with the other woman." If Shattuck had been minded to pursue the guerrilla conversation in the hope of harassing Kennedy, this remark was like an explosion of shrapnel. He sought cover. Kennedy was talking rapidly and earnestly now. "In short," he concluded, "there is something which we call a soul scar here--a psychic wound--a mental trauma. It bears the same relation to the soul that a wound does to the body. And, as in the case of some wounds, muscles and limbs do not function and must be re-educated, so in these mental and moral cases feelings and emotions must be made to function again, must be re-educated. I need not refer to what caused that wound. I think we understand the reaction that almost any girl would experience against one whom she loved but considered unworthy. I saw it the moment I began to analyze the dreams." In spite of its intimate nature, Kennedy kept his analysis on almost an impersonal level. It was as though he were telling us the results of his study of some new substance that had been submitted to him for his opinion. "Mrs. Wilford," he went on, speaking rather to us generally now than to her, "married not for love--whatever she may say or even think about it. Yet love--romantic love--was open to her, if she would only let herself go." I saw that as he proceeded, Shattuck had colored deeply. He knew the origin of this soul wound in her disapproval of the life he had led at the time. He shifted restlessly. "All my psychanalysis, by whatever means I went at it, whether merely by study of the dreams or by having them written out a second time in order to compare the omissions and hesitations, whether by the association test, the day-dreaming when relaxed, or the Jung association word test, all the psychological expedients I resorted to, now paying out, as it were, a piece of information, now withholding another, and always watching what effect it had upon the various parties to this case, all, I say, tended toward one end--the discovery of the truth that was hidden from us. "Finally," he exclaimed, "came the time when I allowed Doyle to place a dictagraph in the apartment, where we might overhear the interplay of the forces let loose by the information which I was allowing to leak out in one way or another." Involuntarily, Honora turned and caught the eye of Shattuck leveled at her. Each looked startled. What had Craig overheard through that dictagraph? The thought was quite evident in both minds. Honora gripped her chair. Shattuck turned and stared sullenly at the man before him. "To return to the dreams," resumed Kennedy, apparently not noticing this interchange of looks and byplay. "From the hesitations in telling and retelling the dreams, from the changes that were made, from a somewhat similar process in tracing out the more controlled thoughts of the waking state, I found that everything confirmed and amplified my original conclusion. True, I did not know all. I may not know _all_ yet. But each time I added to my knowledge until there were so many things that joined up and corroborated one another that there was no human possibility left that I was on the wrong track." One might have heard a pin drop in the laboratory as Craig held his auditors and carried them along, even after the intensity of feeling that we had witnessed scarcely a few minutes before. "I wish I had time to go into the many phases of the dream theories of the modern scientists," he hastened. "For hours, with Mr. Jameson, I have patiently tried to interpret and fit together the strange and fantastic conceptions of the mind when the censorship of consciousness is raised in sleep, veiling things which are as little thought of in your philosophies as you could well imagine. "For example, nothing in modern psychological science is more amazing, more likely to cause violent dissent, than the intimate connection that exists between the fundamental passions of love and hate. There is no need of the injunction to love our enemies--in this sense. Very often it happens that those we love may arouse the most intense hate, and that those we hate may exercise a fascination over us that we ourselves hasten to repress and refuse to admit. It is curious, but more and more it is coming to be recognized. "And before I go a step farther," he added, "let me forestall what is going to happen in this case as certainly as if I were adding chlorin to sodium and were going to derive salt. When I touch the deep, true 'complex,' as we psychanalysts call it, I shall expect the very idea to be rejected with scorn and indignation. Thereby will the very theory itself be proved. Shattuck, your old rule may work well with the case of a man. But the new rule, the complementary rule, for woman is _Cherchez l'homme_." It was not said to Shattuck, however. With clever psychology Kennedy aimed the remark full at Honora. She flushed and her eyes blazed defiance. Scornfully and angrily she cast a withering glance at Craig as she drew herself up with dignity. "Then--you think, your science teaches--that a woman must be a fool--that she does not know with whom she really is in love--that she can really be in love with one whom she--hates?" There was a flash of satisfaction in Craig's eyes. "Complex," I read it. As for Shattuck, where a moment ago he had scoffed, he remained to pray, or rather to smile faintly. "I did not say exactly that," returned Kennedy, "although it may seem that way, if you choose to interpret the intimate relationship of love and hate so. Follow me just a moment. Consciously, she may hate. Education, society, morality, religion--this thing we call civilization--may exert restraints. Unconsciously, though, she may love. The veneer of modern society is very thin. I think the experiences the world is going through to-day demonstrate that. Underneath there are the deep, basic passions of millions of years. They must be reckoned with. It is better to reckon with them than to be wrecked by them. The wonder is, not that they are so strong--but that the veneer covers them so well!" Powerfully though as Kennedy was making the presentation of the case, Honora tenaciously refused to admit it. Like her sex, when a general proposition was made she immediately made a personal application, found it distasteful, and rejected the proposition. Still, Kennedy was not dismayed. Nor did he admit defeat, or even checkmating. For several seconds he paused, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet in a way that did not call for an answer. "Could you--be honest, now, with yourself, for you need not say a word aloud--could you always be sure of yourself, after this, in the face of any situation?" She looked startled at his sudden shift of the argument to the personal ground. Her ordinarily composed face betrayed everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen only fully by Kennedy. In the welter of passion, as one fact after another had been torn forth during the moments since she had come to the laboratory, much had happened to Honora which never before had entered her well-ordered, conservative life. She knew the truth that she strove to repress. She _was_ afraid of herself. And she knew that he knew. The defiance in her eyes died slowly. "It is dangerous," she murmured, "to be with a person who pays attention to such little things. If every one were like you, I would no longer breathe a syllable of my dreams!" She was sobbing now. What was back of it all? I had heard of the so-called resolution dreams. I had heard of dreams that kill, of unconscious murder, of terrible acts of the somnambulist, of temporary insanity, of many deeds of which the doer had no recollection in the waking state, until put under hypnotism. Could it be such a thing which Kennedy was driving at disclosing? I cast a hasty glance about at our little audience. Doyle was hushed, now. This was far beyond him. Leslie was deeply interested. Doctor Lathrop had moved closer to Honora on the other side of Shattuck, as if to reassure her. Kennedy, too, was studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on Honora and the others. Honora, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the long-suppressed emotion of the examination, called for sympathy. Shattuck saw it, saw the distress she so plainly showed. "Kennedy," he exclaimed, unable to restrain himself longer, pushing aside Doctor Lathrop, as he placed himself between her and the man whom he regarded now as her tormentor, "Kennedy--you are a faker--nothing but a damned dream doctor--in scientific disguise." "Perhaps," smiled Kennedy, unaffected by the threat. "But let me finish. Then you may think differently." He turned deliberately from Shattuck to the rest of us. "What happened at that office the fatal night was this," he shot out. "There was a woman there. But from what I deduce, it was not Honora Wilford. It must have been Vina Lathrop!" I felt a shock of surprise. Yet, after all, I had to admit that there was nothing improbable about it. "Later," he resumed, "someone else did enter that office. In all probability that person did hold up Vail Wilford, with a gun perhaps, just about as we have heard described. The Calabar bean was cut in half, undoubtedly. You will see from the facts in the case that it must have been so. Probably, too, each wrote a suicide note--on the typewriter--either to save the survivor, or at the dictation of the person who survived. Each must have eaten half of the bean. "But," added Kennedy, impressively, "it was no duel by poison--really. That other person knew the antidote--knew that the antidote was atropin--came prepared. That other person deliberately put atropin in his own glass of water, knowing that it was the antidote. No, it was no duel. It was murder--plain murder!" As he finished, Kennedy's voice rang out sharply and decisively in a direct accusation. "As for you, Doyle," he added, catching the eye of the detective, "you put your money on the wrong horse, as you would say. You thought that in my constant examination of Mrs. Wilford I coincided with your superficial observation. But I had another purpose, a very different purpose." Kennedy stopped a moment to turn from Doyle to the woman Doyle had persecuted. Honora and Shattuck were again close together, watching Kennedy intently, oblivious of all but themselves and him. It gave me a start to see them as they were now. Honora and the man she really loved were united at last. In his face I could see a far different kind of Shattuck, as though the fire of the ordeal had purified him. I caught a look of satisfaction that crossed Craig's face. He had succeeded. Back of all, I now saw that Kennedy had had all along a very human intention. Quickly I sought to explain what had already taken place only a few moments before. Had Shattuck lied to save her, when he saw that Doyle was framing a case against her? If that were so, then had she, with her quick wit, come to the rescue, with a marvelously constructed story that fitted perfectly with that which he had told and had broken down in telling? Had Shattuck and Honora, cornered, as they thought by Doyle, leaped at any suggestion? But the truth--what was it? Kennedy was speaking again, and now all hung on each word. "The stuff that dreams are made of is very real, after all," he remarked. "Just take this case itself. Suppose some one, who understood better than Honora Wilford, learned of her dreams--interpreted them--found out the truth about her relations with another--found out, as I have done, what she herself did not know--and then acted on the information. "Suppose that person knew of the soul scar, the old wound, knew from the dreams the conflict between the various persons--and encouraged the dream actors--in real life. Suppose, too, that that person, learning of what Vail Wilford was doing, had a personal grievance--a spite--a desire for bitter revenge." As Kennedy built up his hypothetical case I became more and more enthralled by it. It was more than hypothesis now. "The sphygmograph," he resumed, "has told me just what I still needed to know, even while you all have been here, perhaps forgetful of the little telltale that has been attached to your wrists. It is a faithful recorder of emotions, if you know how to study it. What is hidden from the eye the heart reveals. This heart machine will record it, betray the inmost secrets." Kennedy drew himself up slowly, as though to impress forcefully what he was about to add. "Psychanalysis," he exclaimed, "has led through Honora's soul scar to the discovery of the truth by the aid of this little lie-detector. It was your revenge on Vail Wilford--Lathrop!" Harshly Lathrop laughed, as though he had sensed the coming of the accusation all along. I took a step toward him, and as I did so something about his eyes almost halted me. The pupils were strangely contracted. I did not recall having noticed it before, certainly not when he came in. Again he laughed harshly. With a shaking hand he reached into his pocket and drew forth something. I saw instantly that it was a Calabar bean. He was about to place it in his mouth when Craig leaped and struck it from his hand. Honora screamed as Lathrop reeled back into his chair. Instantly Shattuck's arm stole about her solicitously as she shrank from the shaking figure in the chair near by. Her hand stole into his. "No cheating justice, Lathrop!" exclaimed Kennedy, seizing his wrist, which was already clammy. He smiled faintly, and his lips moved with an effort. "I did--what I did. It's too late for atropin now!" THE END BOOKS BY SIR GILBERT PARKER _THE WORLD FOR SALE_ _THE MONEY MASTER_ _THE JUDGMENT HOUSE_ _THE RIGHT OF WAY_ _THE LADDER OF SWORDS_ _THE WEAVERS_ _THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG_ _WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC_ _THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING_ _NORTHERN LIGHTS_ _PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE_ _AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH_ _A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS_ _CUMNER'S SON, AND OTHER SOUTH SEA FOLK_ HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK ESTABLISHED 1817 LONDON BOOKS BY REX BEACH _THE WINDS OF CHANCE_ _TOO FAT TO FIGHT_ _LAUGHING BILL HYDE_ _RAINBOW'S END_ _THE AUCTION BLOCK_ _THE CRIMSON GARDENIA_ _THE IRON TRAIL_ _THE SPOILERS_ _THE BARRIER_ _THE SILVER HORDE_ _THE NET_ _THE NE'ER-DO-WELL_ _HEART OF THE SUNSET_ _GOING SOME_ HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK [ESTABLISHED 1817] LONDON NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY The New Thin-Paper Edition of the greatest living English novelist is issued in two bindings: Red Limp-Leather and Red Flexible Cloth, 12mo. Frontispiece in each volume. _DESPERATE REMEDIES_ _FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD_ _A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES_ _THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA_ _JUDE THE OBSCURE_ _A LAODICEAN_ _LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES_ _THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE_ _A PAIR OF BLUE EYES_ _THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE_ _TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES_ _THE TRUMPET MAJOR_ _TWO ON A TOWER_ _UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE_ _THE WELL-BELOVED_ _WESSEX TALES_ _THE WOODLANDERS_ HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK ESTABLISHED 1817 LONDON NOVELS OF WILL N. HARBEN "His people talk as if they had not been in books before, and they talk all the more interestingly because they have for the most part not been in society, or ever will be. They express themselves in the neighborly parlance with a fury of fun, of pathos, and profanity which is native to their region. Of all our localists, as I may call the type of American writers whom I think the most national, no one has done things more expressive of the life he was born to than Mr. Harben." WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. _THE HILLS OF REFUGE_ _THE INNER LAW_ _ABNER DANIEL_ _ANN BOYD. Illustrated_ _DIXIE HART. Frontispiece_ _GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece_ _MAM' LINDA_ _JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece_ _PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece_ _POLE BAKER_ _SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece_ _THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece._ _THE GEORGIANS_ _THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece_ _THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece_ _THE SUBSTITUTE_ _WESTERFELT_ _Post 8vo, Cloth_ HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK ESTABLISHED 1817 LONDON TRANSCRIBER'S CORRECTIONS page original text correction 212 she hestitated a fraction she hesitated a fraction 270 "They are well know "They are well known 272 sources of informaation sources of information 
5150	----	THE EAR IN THE WALL BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE VANISHER II THE BLACK BOOK III THE SAFE ROBBERY IV THE ANONYMOUS LETTER V THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY VI THE WOMAN DETECTIVE VII THE GANG LEADER VIII THE SHYSTER LAWYER IX THE JURY FIXER X THE AFTERNOON DANCE XI THE TYPEWRITER CLUE XII THE "PORTRAIT PARLE" XIII THE CONVICTION XIV THE BEAUTY PARLOUR XV THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT XVI THE SANITARIUM XVII THE SOCIETY SCANDAL XVIII THE WALL STREET WOLF XIX THE ESCAPE XX THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH XXI THE MORGUE XXII THE CANARD XXIII THE CONFESSION XXIV THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN XXV THE BLOOD CRYSTALS XXVI THE WHITE SLAVE XXVII THE ELECTION NIGHT I THE VANISHER "Hello, Jameson, is Kennedy in?" I glanced up from the evening papers to encounter the square-jawed, alert face of District Attorney Carton in the doorway of our apartment. "How do you do, Judge?" I exclaimed. "No, but I expect him any second now. Won't you sit down?" The District Attorney dropped, rather wearily I thought, into a chair and looked at his watch. I had made Carton's acquaintance some years before as a cub reporter on the Star while he was a judge of an inferior court. Our acquaintance had grown through several political campaigns in which I had had assignments that brought me into contact with him. More recently some special writing had led me across his trail again in telling the story of his clean-up of graft in the city. At present his weariness was easily accounted for. He was in the midst of the fight of his life for re-election against the so-called "System," headed by Boss Dorgan, in which he had gone far in exposing evils that ranged all the way from vice and the drug traffic to bald election frauds. "I expect a Mrs. Blackwell here in a few minutes," he remarked, glancing again at his watch. His eye caught the headline of the news story I had been reading and he added quickly, "What do the boys on the Star think of that Blackwell case, anyhow?" It was, I may say, a case deeply shrouded in mystery--the disappearance without warning of a beautiful young girl, Betty Blackwell, barely eighteen. Her family, the police, and now the District Attorney had sought to solve it in vain. Some had thought it a kidnaping, others a suicide, and others had even hinted at murder. All sorts of theories had been advanced without in the least changing the original dominant note of mystery. Photographs of the young woman had been published broadcast, I knew, without eliciting a word in reply. Young men whom she had known and girls with whom she had been intimate had been questioned without so much as a clue being obtained. Reports that she had been seen had come in from all over the country, as they always do in such cases. All had been investigated and had turned out to be based on nothing more than imagination. The mystery remained unsolved. "Well," I replied, "of course there's a lot of talk now in the papers about aphasia and amnesia and all that stuff. But, you know, we reporters are a sceptical lot. We have to be shown. I can't say we put much faith in THAT." "But what is your explanation? You fellows always have an opinion. Sometimes I think the newspapermen are our best detectives." "I can't say that we have any opinion in this case--yet," I returned frankly. "When a girl just simply disappears on Fifth Avenue and there isn't even the hint of a clue as to any place she went or how, well--oh, there's Kennedy now. Put it up to him." "We were just talking of that Betty Blackwell disappearance case," resumed Carton, when the greetings were over. "What do you think of it?" "Think of it?" repeated Kennedy promptly with a keen glance at the District Attorney; "why, Judge, I think of it the same as you evidently do. If you didn't think it was a case that was in some way connected with your vice and graft investigation, you wouldn't be here. And if I didn't feel that it promised surprising results, aside from the interest I always have naturally in solving such mysteries, I wouldn't be ready to take up the offer which you came here to make." "You're a wizard, Kennedy," laughed Carton, though it was easily seen that he was both pleased and relieved to think that he had enlisted Craig's services so easily. "Not much of a wizard. In the first place, I know the fight you're making. Also, I know that you wouldn't go to the police in the present state of armed truce between your office and Headquarters. You want someone outside. Well, I'm more than willing to be that person. The whole thing, in its larger aspects, interests me. Betty Blackwell in particular, arouses my sympathies. That's all." "Exactly, Kennedy. This fight I'm in is going to be the fight of my life. Just now, in addition to everything else, people are looking to me to find Betty Blackwell. Her mother was in to see me today; there isn't much that she could add to what has already been said. Betty was a most attractive girl. The family is an excellent one, but in reduced circumstances. She had been used to a great deal as a child, but now, since the death of her father, she has had to go to work--and you know what that means to a girl like that." Carton laid down a new photograph which the newspapers had not printed yet. Betty Blackwell was slender, petite, chic. Her dark hair was carefully groomed, and there was an air with which she wore her clothes and carried herself, even in a portrait, which showed that she was no ordinary girl. Her soft brown eyes had that magnetic look which is dangerous to their owner if she does not know how to control it, eyes that arrested one's gaze, invited notice. Even the lens must have felt the spell. It had caught, also, the soft richness of the skin of her oval face and full throat and neck. Indeed one could not help remarking that she was really the girl to grace a fortune. Only a turn of the hand of that fickle goddess had prevented her from doing so. I had picked up one of the evening papers and was looking at the newspaper half-tone which more than failed to do justice to her. Just then my eye happened on an item which I had been about to discuss with Carton when Kennedy entered. "As a scientist, does the amnesia theory appeal to you, Craig?" I asked. "Now, here is an explanation by one of the special writers, headed, 'Personalities Lost Through Amnesia.' Listen." The article was brief: Mysterious disappearances, such as that of Betty Blackwell, have alarmed the public and baffled the police before this--disappearances that have in their suddenness, apparent lack of purpose, and inexplicability much in common with her case. Leaving out of account the class of disappearances for their own convenience--embezzlers, blackmailers, and so forth--there is still a large number of recorded cases where the subjects have dropped out of sight without apparent cause or reason and have left behind them untarnished reputations and solvent back accounts. Of these, a small percentage are found to have met with violence; others have been victims of suicidal mania, and sooner or later a clue has come to light which has established the fact. The dead are often easier to find than the living. Of the remaining small proportion, there are on record, however, a number of carefully authenticated cases where the subject has been the victim of a sudden and complete loss of memory. This dislocation of memory is a variety of aphasia known as amnesia, and when the memory is recurrently lost and restored, we have alternating personality. The Society for Psychical Research and many eminent psychologists, among them the late William James, Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Hodgson of Boston, and Dr. A. E. Osborn of San Francisco, have reported many cases of alternating personality. Studious efforts are being made to understand and to explain the strange type of mental phenomena exhibited in these cases, but as yet no one has given a clear and comprehensive explanation of them. Such cases are by no means always connected with disappearances, and exhaustive studies have been made of types of alternating personality that have from first to last been carefully watched by scientists of the first rank. The variety known as the ambulatory type, where the patient suddenly loses all knowledge of his own identity and of the past and takes himself off, leaving no trace or clue, is the variety which the present case of Miss Blackwell seems to suggest. There followed a number of most interesting cases and an elaborate argument by the writer to show that Betty Blackwell was a victim of this psychological aberration, that she was, in other words, "a vanisher." I laid down the paper with a questioning look at Kennedy. "As a scientist," he replied deliberately, "the theory, of course, does appeal to me, especially in the ingenious way in which that writer applied it. However, as a detective"--he shook his head slowly--"I must deal with facts--not speculations. It leaves much to be explained, to say the least." Just then the door buzzer sounded and Carton himself sprang to answer it. "That's Mrs. Blackwell now--her mother. I told her that I was going to take the case to you, Kennedy, and took the liberty of asking her to come up here to meet you. Good-afternoon, Mrs. Blackwell. Let me introduce Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, of whom I spoke to you." She bowed and murmured a tremulous greeting. Kennedy placed a chair for her and she thanked him. Mrs. Blackwell was a slender little woman in black, well past middle age. Her face and dress spoke of years of economy, even of privation, but her manner was plainly that of a woman of gentle breeding and former luxury. She was precisely of the type of decayed gentlewoman that one meets often in the city, especially at some of the middle-class boarding-houses. Deeply as the disappearance of her daughter had affected her, Mrs. Blackwell was facing it bravely. That was her nature. One could imagine that only when Betty was actually found would this plucky little woman collapse. Instinctively, one felt that she claimed his assistance in the unequal fight she was waging against the complexities of modern life for which she had been so ill prepared. "I do hope you will be able to find my daughter," she began, controlling her voice with an effort. "Mr. Carton has been so kind, more than kind, I am sure, in getting your aid. The police seem to be able to do nothing. They make out reports, put me off, tell me they are making progress--but they don't find Betty." There was a tragic pathos in the way she said it. "Betty was such a good girl, too," she went on, her emotions rising. "Oh, I was so proud of her when she got her position down in Wall Street, with the broker, Mr. Langhorne." "Tell Mr. Kennedy just what you told me of her disappearance," put in Carton. Again Mrs. Blackwell controlled her feelings. "I don't know much about it," she faltered, "but last Saturday, when she left the office early, she said she was going to do some shopping on Fifth Avenue. I know she went there, did shop a bit, then walked on the Avenue several blocks. But after that there is no trace of her." "You have heard nothing, have no idea where she might have gone--even for a time?" queried Kennedy. He asked it with a keen look at the face of Mrs. Blackwell. I recalled one case where a girl had disappeared in which Kennedy had always asserted that if the family had been perfectly frank at the start much more might have been accomplished in unravelling the mystery. There was evident sincerity in Mrs. Blackwell as she replied quickly, "Absolutely none. Another girl from the office was with her part of the time, then left her to take the subway. We don't live far uptown. It wouldn't have taken Betty long to get home, even if she had walked, after that, through a crowded street, too." "Of course, she may have met a friend, may have gone somewhere with the friend," put in Kennedy, as if trying out the remark to see what effect it might have. "Where could she go?" asked Mrs. Blackwell in naive surprise, looking at him with a counterpart of the eyes we had seen in the picture. "I hope you don't think that Betty---" The little widow was on the verge of tears again at the mere hint that her daughter might have had friends that were not all, perhaps, that they should be. Carton came to the rescue. "Miss Blackwell," he interposed, "was a very attractive girl, very. She had hosts of admirers, as every attractive girl must have. Most of them, all of them, as far as Mrs. Blackwell knows and I have been able to find out, were young men at the office where she worked, or friends of that sort--not the ordinary clerk, but of the rising, younger, self-made generation. Still, they don't seem to have interested her particularly as far as I have been able to discover. She merely liked them. There is absolutely nothing known to point to the fact that she was any different from thousands of girls in that respect. She was vivacious, full of fun and life, a girl any fellow would have been more than proud to take to a dance. She was ambitious, I suppose, but nothing more." "Betty was not a bad girl," asserted Mrs. Blackwell vehemently. "She was a good girl. I don't believe there was much, in fact anything important, on which she did not make me her confidante. Yes, she was ambitious. So am I. I have always hoped that Betty would bring our family--her younger sister--back to the station where we were before the panic wiped out our fortune and killed my husband. That is all." "Yes," added Carton, "nothing at all is known that would make one think that she was what young men call a 'good fellow' with them." Kennedy looked up, but said nothing. I thought I could read the unspoken word on his lips, as he glanced from Carton to Mrs. Blackwell, "known." She had risen and was facing us. "Is there no one in all this great city," appealed the distracted little woman with outstretched arms, "who can find my daughter? Is it possible that a girl can disappear in broad daylight in the streets and never be heard of again? Oh, won't you find her? Tell me she is safe--that she is still the little girl I---" Her voice failed and she was crying softly in her lace handkerchief. It was touching and I saw that Kennedy was deeply moved, although at once to his practical mind the thought must have occurred that nothing was to be gained by further questions of Mrs. Blackwell. "Believe me, Mrs. Blackwell," he said in a low tone, taking her hand, "I will do all that is in my power to find her." "Thank you," murmured the mother, overcome. A moment later, however, she had recovered her composure to some degree and rose to go. There was a flattering look of relief on her face which in itself must have been ample reward to Craig, a retainer worth more to him in a case like this than money. "I'm going back to my office," remarked Carton. "If I learn anything, I shall let you know." The District Attorney went out with Mrs. Blackwell. Busy as he was, he had time to turn aside to help this bereaved woman, and I admired him for it. "Do you think it is one of those cases like some that Carton has uncovered on the East Side and among girls newly arrived in the city?" I asked Craig when the door was shut. "Can't say," he returned, in an abstracted study. "It's awful if it is," I pursued. "And if it is, I suppose all that will result from it will be a momentary thrill of the newspaper-readers, and then they will fall back on the old saying that after all it is only a result of human nature that such things happen--they always have happened and always will--that old line of talk." "That sort of thing is NOT a result of human nature," returned Kennedy earnestly. "It's a System. I mean to say that if it should turn out to be connected with the vice investigations of Carton, and not a case of aphasia, such a disappearance you would find to be due to the persistent, cunning, and unprincipled exploitation of young girls. "No, Walter, it is not that women are weak or that men are inherently vicious. That doesn't account for a case like this. Then, too, some mawkish people to-day are fond of putting the whole evil on low wages as a cause. It isn't that--alone. It isn't even lack of education or of moral training. Human nature is not so bad in the mass as some good people think. No, don't you, as a reporter, see it? It is big business, in its way, that Carton is fighting--big business in the commercialized ruin of girls, such, perhaps, as Betty Blackwell--a vicious system that enmeshes even those who are its tools. I'm glad if I can have a chance to help smash it. "Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do, just so that we can start this thing with a clear understanding of what it amounts to. I want you to look up just what the situation is. I know there is an army of 'vanishers' in New York. I want to know something about them in the mass. Can't you dig up something from your Star connections?" Kennedy had some matters concerning other cases to clear up before he felt free to devote his whole time to this. As there was nothing we could do immediately, I spent some time getting at the facts he wanted. Indeed, it did not take me long to discover that the disappearance of Betty Blackwell, in spite of the prominence it had been given, was by no means an isolated case. I found that the Star alone had chronicled scores of such disappearances during the past few months, cases of girls who had simply been swallowed up in the big city. They were the daughters of neither the rich nor of the poor, most of them, but girls rather in ordinary circumstances. Even the police records showed upward of a thousand missing young girls, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one years and I knew that the police lists scarcely approximated the total number of missing persons in the great city, especially in those cases where a hesitancy on the part of parents and relatives often concealed the loss from public records. I came away with the impression that there were literally hundreds of cases every bit as baffling as that of Betty Blackwell, of young girls who had left absolutely no trace behind, who had made no preparations for departure and of whom few had been heard from since they disappeared. Many from homes of refinement and even high financial standing had disappeared, leaving no clues behind. It was not alone the daughters of the poor that were affected--it was all society. Many reasons, I found, had been assigned for the disappearances. I knew that there must be many causes at work, that no one cause could be responsible for all or perhaps a majority of the cases. There were suicides and murders and elopements, family troubles, poverty, desire for freedom and adventure; innumerable complex causes, even down to kidnapping. The question was, however, which of these causes had been in operation in the case of Betty Blackwell? Where had she gone? Where had this whole army of vanishers disappeared? Were these disappearances merely accidents--or was there an epidemic of amnesia? I could bring myself to no such conclusions, but was forced to answer my own queries in lieu of an answer from Kennedy, by propounding another. Was there an organized band? And, after I had tried to reason it all out, I still found myself back at the original question, as I rejoined Kennedy at the laboratory, "Where had they all--where had Betty Blackwell gone?" II THE BLACK BOOK I had scarcely finished pouring out my suspicions to Kennedy when the telephone rang. It was Carton on the wire, in a state of unsuppressed excitement. Kennedy answered the call himself, but the conversation was brief and, to me, unenlightening, until he hung up the receiver. "Dorgan--the Boss," he exclaimed, "has just found a detectaphone in his private dining-room at Gastron's." At once I saw the importance of the news and for the moment it obscured even the case of Betty Blackwell. Dorgan was the political boss of the city at that time, apparently entrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew him as a big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of surliness, owing his influence to his ability to "deliver the goods" in the shape of graft of all sorts, the archenemy of Carton, a type of politician who now is rapidly passing. "Carton wants to see us immediately at his office," added Craig, jamming his hat on his head. "Come on." Without waiting for further comment or answer from me, Kennedy, caught by the infectious excitement of Carton's message, dashed from our apartment and a few minutes later we were whirling downtown on the subway. "You know, I suppose," he whispered rather hoarsely above the rumble and roar of the train, but so as not to be overheard, "that Dorgan always has kept a suite of rooms at Gastron's, on Fifth Avenue, for dinners and conferences." I nodded. Some of the things that must have gone on in the secret suite in the fashionable restaurant I knew would make interesting reading, if the walls had ears. "Apparently he must have found out about the eavesdropping in time and nipped it," pursued Kennedy. "What do you mean?" I asked, for I had not been able to gather much from the one-sided conversation over the telephone, and the lightning change from the case of Betty Blackwell to this had left me somewhat bewildered. "What has he done?" "Smashed the transmitter of the machine," replied Kennedy tersely. "Cut the wires." "Where did it lead?" I asked. "How do you know?" Kennedy shook his head. Either he did not know, yet, or he felt that the subway was no place in which to continue the conversation beyond the mere skeleton that he had given me. We finished the ride in comparative silence and hurried into Carton's office down in the Criminal Courts Building. Carton greeted us cordially, with an air of intense relief, as if he were glad to have been able to turn to Kennedy in the growing perplexities that beset him. What surprised me most, however, was that, seated beside his desk, in an easy chair, was a striking looking woman, not exactly young, but of an age that is perhaps more interesting than youth, certainly more sophisticated. She, too, I noticed, had a tense, excited expression on her face. As Kennedy and I entered she had looked us over searchingly. "Let me present Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Ogleby," said Carton quickly. "Both of them know as much about how experts use those little mechanical eavesdroppers as anyone--except the inventor." We bowed and waited for an explanation. "You understand," continued Carton slowly to us in a tone that enjoined secrecy, "Mrs. Ogleby, who is a friend of Mr. Murtha, Dorgan's right-hand man, naturally is alarmed and doesn't want her name to appear in this thing." "Oh--it is terrible--terrible," Mrs. Ogleby chimed in in great agitation. "I don't care about anything else. But, my reputation--it will be ruined if they connect my name with the case. As soon as I heard of it--I thought of you, Mr. Carton. I came here immediately. There must be some way in which you can protect me--some way that you can get along without using--" "But, my dear Mrs. Ogleby," interrupted the District Attorney, "I have told you half a dozen times, I think, that I didn't put the detectaphone in--" "Yes, but you will get the record," she persisted excitedly. "Can't you do something?" she pleaded. I fancied that she said it with the air of one who almost had some right in the matter. "Mrs. Ogleby," reiterated Carton earnestly, "I will do all I can--on my word of honour--to protect your name, but--" He paused and looked at us helplessly. "What was it that was overheard?" asked Craig point-blank, watching Mrs. Ogleby's face carefully. "Why," she replied nervously, "there was a big dinner last night which Mr. Dorgan gave at Gastron's. Mr. Murtha took me and--oh--there were lots of others--" She stopped suddenly. "Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Who else was there?" She was on her guard, however. Evidently she had come to Carton for one purpose and that was solely to protect herself against the scandal which she thought might attach to having been present at one of the rather notorious little affairs of the Boss. "Really," she answered, colouring slightly, "I can't tell you. I mustn't say a word about who was there--or anything about it. Good heavens--it is bad enough as it is--to think that my name may be dragged into politics and all sorts of false stories set in motion about me. You must protect me, Mr. Carton, you must." "How did you find out about the detectaphone being there?" asked Kennedy. "Why," she replied evasively, "I thought it was just an ordinary little social dinner. That's what Mr. Murtha told me it was. I didn't think anyone outside was interested in it or in who was there or what went on. But, this morning, a--a friend--called me up and told me--something that made me think others besides those invited knew of it, knew too much." She paused, then resumed hastily to forestall questioning, "I began to think it over myself, and the more I thought of it, the stranger it seemed that anyone else, outside, should know. I began to wonder how it leaked out, for I understood that it was a strictly private affair. I asked Mr. Murtha and he told Mr. Dorgan. Mr. Dorgan at once guessed that there had been something queer. He looked about his rooms there, and, sure enough, they found the detectaphone concealed in the wall. I can't tell any more," she added, facing Carton and using her bewitching eyes to their best advantage. "I can't ask you to shield Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Murtha. They are your opponents. But I have done nothing to you, Mr. Carton. You must suppress--that part of it--about me. Why, it would ruin---" She cut her words short. But I knew what she meant, and to a certain extent I could understand, if not sympathize with her. Her husband, Martin Ogleby, club-man and man about town, had a reputation none too savoury. But, man-like, I knew, he would condone not even the appearance of anything that caused gossip in his wife's actions. I could understand how desperate she felt. "But, my dear lady," repeated Carton, in a manner that showed that he felt keenly, for some reason or other, the appeal she was making to him, "must I say again that I had nothing whatever to do with it? I have sent for Mr. Kennedy and---" "Nothing--on your honour?" she asked, facing him squarely. "Nothing--on my honour," he asserted frankly. She appeared to be dazed. Apparently all along she had assumed that Carton must be the person to see, that he alone could do anything for her, would do something. Her face paled as she met his earnest look. She had risen and now, half chagrined, half frightened, she stood irresolute. Her lips quivered and tears stood in her eyes as she realized that, instead of protecting herself by her confidence, she had, perhaps, made matters worse by telling an outsider. Carton, too, had risen and in a low voice which we could not overhear was trying to reassure her. In her confusion she was moving toward the door, utterly oblivious, now, to us. Carton tactfully took her arm and led her to a private entrance that opened from his office down the corridor and out of sight of the watchful eyes of the reporters and attendants in the outer hall. I did not understand just what it was all about, but I could see Kennedy's eye following Carton keenly. "What was that--a plant?" he asked, still trying to read Carton's face, as he returned to us alone a moment later. "Did she come to see whether you got the record?" "No--I don't think so," replied Carton quickly. "No, I think that was all on the level--her part of it." "But who did put in the instrument, really--did you?" asked Kennedy, still quizzing. "No," exclaimed Carton hastily, this time meeting Craig's eye frankly. "No. I wish I had. Why--the fact is, I don't know who did--no one seems to know, yet, evidently. But," he added, leaning forward and speaking rapidly, "I think I could give a shrewd guess." Kennedy said nothing, but nodded encouragingly. "I think," continued Carton impressively, "that it must have been Langhorne and the Wall Street crowd he represents." "Langhorne," repeated Kennedy, his mind working rapidly. "Why, it was his stenographer that Miss Blackwell was. Why do you suspect Langhorne?" "Because," exclaimed Carton, more excited than ever at Kennedy's quick deduction, bringing his fist down on the desk to emphasize his own suspicion, "because they aren't getting their share of the graft that Dorgan is passing out--probably are sore, and think that if they can get something on the Boss or some of those who are close to him, they may force him to take them into partnership in the deals." Carton looked from Kennedy to me, to see what impression his theory made. On me at least it did make an impression. Hartley Langhorne, I knew, was a Wall Street broker and speculator who dealt in real estate, securities, in fact in anything that would appeal to a plunger as promising a quick and easy return. Kennedy made no direct comment on the theory. "In what shape is the record, do you suppose?" he asked merely. "I gathered from Mrs. Ogleby," returned Carton watchfully, "that it had been taken down by a stenographer at the receiving end of the detectaphone, transcribed in typewriting, and loosely bound in a book of limp black leather. Oh," he concluded, "Dorgan would give almost anything to find out what is in that little record, you may be sure. Perhaps even, rather than have such a thing out, he would come to terms with Langhorne." Kennedy said nothing. He was merely absorbing the case as Carton presented it. "Don't you see?" continued the District Attorney, pacing his office and gazing now and then out of the window, "here's this record hidden away somewhere in the city. If I could only get it--I'd win my fight against Dorgan--and Mrs. Ogleby need not suffer for her mistake in coming to me, at all." He was apparently thinking aloud. Kennedy did not attempt to quiz him. He was considering the importance of the situation. For, as I have said, it was at the height of the political campaign in which Carton had been renominated independently by the Reform League--of which, more later. "You don't think that Langhorne is really in the inner ring, then?" questioned Craig. "No, not yet." "Well, then," I put in hastily, "can't you approach him or someone close to him, and get---" "Say," interrupted Carton, "anything that took place in that private dining-room at Gastron's would be just as likely to incriminate Langhorne and some of his crowd as not. It is a difference in degree of graft--that is all. They don't want an open fight. It was just a piece of finesse on Langhorne's part. You may be sure of that. No, neither of them wants a fight. That's the last thing. They're both afraid. What Langhorne wanted was a line on Dorgan. And we should never have known anything about this Black Book, if some of the women, I suppose, hadn't talked too much. Mrs. Ogleby added two and two and got five. She thought it must be I who put the instrument in." Carton was growing more and more excited again, "It's exasperating," he continued. "There's the record--somewhere--if I could only get it. Think of it, Kennedy--an election going on and never so much talk about graft and vice before!" "What was in the book--mostly, do you imagine?" asked Craig, still imperturbable. Carton shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, almost anything. For instance, you know, Dorgan has just put through a new scheme of city planning--with the able assistance of some theoretical reformers. That will be a big piece of real estate graft, unless I am mistaken. Langhorne and his crowd know it. They don't want to be frozen out." As they talked, I had been revolving the thing over in my head. Dorgan's little parties, as reported privately among the men on the Star whom I knew, were notorious. The more I considered, the more possible phases of the problem I thought of. It was not even impossible that in some way it might bear on the Betty Blackwell case. "Do you think Dorgan and Murtha are hunting the book as anxiously as--some others?" I ventured. "You have heard of the character of some of those dinners?" answered Carton by asking another question, then went on: "Why, Dorgan has had some of our leading lawyers, financiers, and legislators there. He usually surrounds them with brilliant, clever women, as unscrupulous as himself, and--well--you can imagine the result. Poor little Mrs. Ogleby," he added sympathetically. "They could twist her any way they chose for their purposes." My own impression had been that Mrs. Ogleby was better able to take care of herself than his words gave her credit for, but I said nothing. Carton paused before the window and gazed out at the Bridge of Sighs that led from his building across to the city prison. "What a record that Black Book must hold!" he exclaimed meditatively. "Why, if it was only that I could 'get' Murtha--I'd be happy," he added, turning to us. Murtha, as I have said, was Boss Dorgan's right bower, a clever and unscrupulous politician and leader in a district where he succeeded somehow or other in absolutely crushing opposition. I had run across him now and then in the course of my newspaper career and, aside from his well-known character in delivering the "goods" to the organization whenever it was necessary, I had found him a most interesting character. It was due to such men as Murtha that the organization kept its grip, though one wave of reform after another lashed its fury on it. For Murtha understood his people. He worked at politics every hour--whether it was patting the babies of the district on the head, or bailing their fathers out of jail, handing out shoes to the shiftless or judiciously distributing coal and ice to the deserving. Yet I had seen enough to know the inherent viciousness of the circle--of how the organization took dollars from the people with one concealed hand and distributed pennies from the other hand, held aloft and in the spotlight. Again and again, Kennedy and I in our excursions into scientific warfare on crime in the underworld had run squarely up against the refined as well as the debased creatures of the "System." Pyramided on what looked like open-handed charity and good-fellowship we had seen vice and crime of all degrees. And yet, somehow or other, I must confess to a sort of admiration for Murtha and his stamp--if for nothing else than because of the frankness with which he did what he sought to do. Neither Kennedy nor I could be accused of undue sympathy with the System, yet, like many who had been brought in close contact with it, it had earned our respect in many ways. And so, I contemplated the situation with more than ordinary interest. Carton wanted the Black Book to use in order to win his political fight for a clean city and to prosecute the grafters. Dorgan wanted it in order to suppress and thus protect himself and Murtha. Mrs. Ogleby wanted it to save her good name and prevent even the appearance of scandal. Langhorne wanted it in order to coerce Dorgan to share in the graft, yet was afraid of Carton also. Was ever a situation of such peculiar, mixed motives? "I would move heaven and earth for that Black Book!" exclaimed Carton finally, turning from the window and facing us. Kennedy, too, had risen. "You can count on me, then, Carton," he said simply, as the recollection of the many fights in which we had stood shoulder to shoulder with the young District Attorney came over him. A moment later Carton had us each by the hand. "Thank you," he cried. "I knew you fellows would be with me." III THE SAFE ROBBERY It was late that night that Kennedy and I left Carton after laying out a campaign and setting in motion various forces, official and unofficial, which might serve to keep us in touch with what Dorgan and the organization were doing. Not until the following morning, however, did anything new develop in such a way that we could work on it. Kennedy had picked up the morning papers which had been left at the door of our apartment and was hastily running his eye over the headlines on the first page, as was his custom. "By Jove, Walter," I heard him exclaim. "What do you think of that--a robbery below the deadline--and in Langhorne's office, too." I hurried out of my room and glanced at the papers, also. Sure enough, there it was: SAFE ROBBED IN WALL ST. OFFICE Door Into Office of Langhorne & Westlake, Brokers, Forced and Safe Robbed. One of the strangest robberies ever perpetrated was pulled off last night in the office of Langhorne & Westlake, the brokers, at-----Wall Street, some time during the regular closing time of the office and eight o'clock. Mr. Langhorne had returned to his office after dining with some friends in order to work on some papers. When he arrived, about eight o'clock, he found that the door had been forced. The office was in darkness, but when he switched on the lights it was discovered that the office safe had been entered. Nothing was said about the manner in which the safe robbery was perpetrated, but it is understood to have been very peculiar. So far no details have been announced and the robbery was not reported to the police until a late hour. Mr. Langhorne, when seen by the reporters, stated positively that nothing of great value had been taken and that the firm would not suffer in any way as a result of the robbery. One of the stenographers in the office, Miss Betty Blackwell, who acted as private secretary to Mr. Langhorne, is missing and the case has already attracted wide attention. Whether or not her disappearance had anything to do with the robbery is not known. "Naturally he would not report it to the police," commented Kennedy; "that is, if it had anything to do with that Black Book, as I am sure that it must have had." "It was certainly a most peculiar affair if it did not," I remarked. "There must be some way of finding that out. It's strange about Betty Blackwell." Kennedy was turning something over in his mind. "Of course," he remarked, "we don't want to come out into the open just yet, but it would be interesting to know what happened down there at Langhorne's. Have you any objection to going down with me and posing as a reporter from the Star?" "None whatever," I returned. We stopped at the laboratory on the campus of the University where Craig still retained his professorship. Kennedy secured a rather bulky piece of apparatus, which, as nearly as I can describe, consisted of a steel frame, which could be attached by screws to any wooden table. It contained a lower plate which could move forward and back, two lateral uprights stiffened by curved braces, and a cross piece of steel attached by strong bolts to the tops of the posts. In the face of the machine was a dial with a pointer. Kennedy quickly took the apparatus apart and made it up into two packages so that between us we could carry it easily, and at about the time that Wall Street offices were opening we were on our way downtown. Langhorne proved to be a tall, rather slim, man of what might be called youngish middle age. One did not have to be introduced to him to read his character or his occupation. Every line of his faultlessly fitting clothes and every expression of his keen and carefully cared-for face betokened the plunger, the man who lived by his wits and found the process both fascinating and congenial. "Mr. Langhorne," began Kennedy, after I had taken upon myself the duty of introducing ourselves as reporters, "we are preparing an article for our paper about a new apparatus which the Star has imported especially from Paris. It is a machine invented by Monsieur Bertillon just before he died, for the purpose of furnishing exact measurements of the muscular efforts exerted in the violent entry of a door or desk by making it possible to reproduce the traces of the work that a burglar has left on doors and articles of furniture. We've been waiting for a case that the instrument would fit into and it seemed to us that perhaps it might be of some use to you in getting at the real robber of your office. Would you mind if we made an attempt to apply it?" Langhorne could not very well refuse to allow us to try the thing, though it was plainly evident that he did not want to talk and did not relish the publicity that the news of the morning had brought him. Kennedy had laid the apparatus down on a table as he spoke and was assembling the parts which he had separated in order to carry it. "These are the marks on the door, I presume?" he continued, examining some indentations of the woodwork near the lock. Langhorne assented. "The door was open when you returned?" asked Kennedy. "Closed," replied Langhorne briefly. "Before I put the key into the lock, I turned the knob, as I have a habit of doing. Instead of catching, it yielded and the door swung open without any trouble." He repeated the story substantially as we had already read it in the papers. Kennedy had taken a step or two into the office, and was now facing the safe. It was not a large safe, but was one of the most modern construction and was supposed to be burglar proof. "And you say you lost practically nothing?" persisted Craig. "Nothing of importance," reiterated Langhorne. Kennedy had been watching him closely. The man was at least baffling. There was nothing excited or perturbed about his manner. Indeed, one might easily have thought that it was not his safe at all that had been robbed. I wondered whether, after all, he had had the Black Book. Certainly, I felt, if he had lost it he was very cool about the loss. Craig had by this time reached the safe itself. In spite of Langhorne's reluctance, his assurance had taken Kennedy even up to the point which he wished. He was examining the safe. On the front it showed no evidence of having been "souped" or drilled. There was not a mark on it. Nor, as we learned later from the police, was there any evidence of a finger-print having been left by the burglar. Langhorne now but ill concealed his interest. It was natural, too, for here he had one of the most modern of small strong-boxes, built up of the latest chrome steel and designed to withstand any reasonable assault of cracksman or fire. I was on the point of inquiring how on earth it had been possible to rob the safe, when Kennedy, standing on a chair, as Langhorne directed, uttered a low exclamation. I craned my neck to look also. There, in the very top of the safe, yawned a huge hole large enough to thrust one's arm through, with something to spare. As I looked at the yawning dark hole in the top of what had been only a short time ago a safe worthy of the latest state of the art, it seemed incomprehensible. Try as I could to reason it out, I could find no explanation. How it had been possible for a burglar to make such an opening in the little more than two hours between closing and the arrival of Langhorne after dinner, I could not even guess. As far as I knew it would have taken many long hours of patient labour with the finest bits to have made anything at all comparable to the destruction which we saw before us. A score of questions were on my lips, but I said nothing, although I could not help noticing the strange look on Langhorne's face. It plainly showed that he would like to have known what had taken place during the two or more hours when his office had been unguarded, yet was averse to betraying any such interest. Mystified as I was by what I saw, I was even more amazed at the cool manner in which Kennedy passed it all by. He seemed merely to be giving the hole in the top of the safe a passing glance, as though it was of no importance that someone should have in such an incredibly short time made a hole through which one might easily reach his arm and secure anything he wanted out of the interior of the powerful little safe. Langhorne, too, seemed surprised at Kennedy's matter of fact passing by of what was almost beyond the range of possibility. "After all," remarked Kennedy, "it is not the safe that we care to study so much as the door. For one thing, I want to make sure whether the marks show a genuine breaking and entering or whether they were placed there afterwards merely to cover the trail, supposing someone had used a key to get into the office." The remark suggested many things to me. Was it that he meant to imply that, after all, the missing Betty Blackwell had had something to do with it? In fact, could the thing have been done by a woman? "Most persons," remarked Craig, as he studied the marks on the door, "don't know enough about jimmies. Against them an ordinary door-lock or window-catch is no protection. With a jimmy eighteen inches long, even an anemic burglar can exert a pressure sufficient to lift two tons. Not one door-lock in ten thousand can stand this strain. It's like using a hammer to kill a fly. Really, the only use of locks is to keep out sneak thieves and to compel the modern, scientific educated burglar to make a noise. This fellow, however, was no sneak thief." He continued to adjust the machine which he had brought. Langhorne watched minutely, but did not say anything. "Bertillon used to call this his mechanical burglar detector," continued Kennedy. "As you see, this frame carries two dynamometers of unequal power. The stronger, which has a high maximum capacity of several tons, is designed for the measurement of vertical efforts. The other measures horizontal efforts. The test is made by inserting the end of a jimmy or other burglar's tool and endeavouring to produce impressions similar to those which have been found on doors or windows. The index of the dynamometer moves in such a way as to make a permanent record of the pressure exerted. The horizontal or traction dynamometer registers the other component of pressure." He pressed down on the machine. "There was a pressure here of considerably over two tons," he remarked at length, "with a very high horizontal traction of over four hundred pounds. What I wanted to get at was whether this could have been done by a man, woman, or child, or perhaps by several persons. In this case, it was clearly no mere fake to cover up the opening of the door by a key. It was a genuine attempt. Nor could it have been done by a woman. No, that is the work of a man, a powerful man, too, accustomed to the use of the jimmy." I fancied that a shade of satisfaction crossed the otherwise impassive face of Langhorne. Was it because the Bertillon dynamometer appeared at first sight to exonerate Betty Blackwell, at least so far, from any connection with the crime? It was difficult to say. Important though it was, however, to clear up at the start just what sort of person was connected with the breaking of the door I could not but feel that Kennedy had some purpose in deferring and minimizing for the present what, to me at least, was the greater mystery, the entering of the safe itself. He was still studying and comparing the marks on the door and the record made on the dynamometer, when the office telephone rang and Langhorne was summoned to answer it. Instead of taking the call in his own office, he chose to answer it at the switchboard, perhaps because that would allow him to keep an eye also on us. Whatever his purpose, it likewise enabled us to keep an ear on him, and it was with surprise which both Kennedy and I had great difficulty in concealing, that we heard him reply, "Hello--yes--oh, Mrs. Ogleby, good-morning. How are you? That's good. So you, too, read the papers. No, I haven't lost anything of importance, thank you. Nothing serious, you know. The papers like to get hold of such things and play them up. I have a couple of reporters here now. Heaven knows what they are doing, but I can foresee some more unpaid advertising for the firm in it. Thank you again for your interest. You haven't forgotten the studio dance I'm giving on the twelfth? No--that's fine. I hope you'll come, even if Martin has another engagement. Fine. Well-good-bye." He hung up the receiver with a mingled air of gratification and exasperation, I fancied. "Haven't you fellows finished yet?" he asked finally, coming over to us, a little brusquely. "Just about," returned Kennedy, who had by this time begun slowly to dismember and pack up the dynamometer, determined to take advantage of every minute both to observe Langhorne and to fix in his mind the general lay-out of the office. "Everybody seems to be interested in me this morning," he observed, for the moment forgetting the embargo he had imposed on his own words. As for myself, I saw at once that others besides ourselves were keenly interested in this robbery. "There," remarked Kennedy when at last he had finished packing up the dynamometer into two packages. "At least, Mr. Langhorne, you have the satisfaction of knowing that it was in all probability a man, a strong man, and one experienced in forcing doors who succeeded in entering your office during your brief absence last night." Langhorne shrugged his shoulders non-committally, but it was evident that he was greatly relieved and he could not conceal his interest in what Kennedy was doing, even though he had succeeded in conveying the impression that it was a matter of indifference to him. "I suppose you keep a great many of your valuable papers in safety deposit vaults," ventured Kennedy, finishing up the wrapping of the two packages, "as well as your personal papers perhaps at home." He made the remark in a casual manner, but Langhorne was too keen to fall into the trap. "Really," he said with an air of finality, "I must decline to be interviewed at present. Good-day, gentlemen." "A slippery customer," was Craig's comment when we reached the street outside the office. "By the way, evidently Mrs. Ogleby is leaving no stone unturned in her effort to locate that Black Book and protect herself." I said nothing. Langhorne's manner, self-confident to the point of bravado, had baffled me. I began to feel that even if he had lost the detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff of still having it, in much the same manner that he would have played the market on a shoestring or made the most of an unfilled four-card flush in a game of poker. Kennedy was far from being discouraged, however. Indeed, it seemed as if he really enjoyed matching his wit against the subtlety of a man like Langhorne, even more than against one the type of Dorgan and Murtha. "I want to see Carton and I don't want to carry these bundles all over the city," he remarked, changing the subject for the moment, as he turned into a public pay station. "I'll ring him up and have him meet us at the laboratory, if I can." A moment later he emerged, excited, perspiring from the closeness of the telephone booth. "Carton has some news--a letter--that's all he would say," he exclaimed. "He'll meet us at the laboratory." We hastily resumed our uptown journey. "What do you think it is?" I asked. "About Betty Blackwell?" Kennedy shook his head non-committally. "I don't know. But he has some of his county detectives watching Dorgan and Murtha in that Black Book case, I know. They are worried. It doesn't look as though they, at least, had the record--that is, if Langhorne has really lost it." I wondered whether Langhorne might not, after all, as Kennedy had hinted, have concealed it elsewhere. The activity of Dorgan and Murtha might indicate that they knew more about the robbery than appeared yet on the surface. Had they failed in it? Had they been double-crossed by the man they had chosen for the work, assuming that they knew of and had planned the "job"? The safe-breaking and the way Langhorne took it had served to complicate the case even further. While we had before been reasonably sure that Langhorne had the book, now we were sure of nothing. IV THE ANONYMOUS LETTER "What do you make of that?" inquired Carton half an hour later as he met us breathlessly at the laboratory. He unfolded a letter over which he had evidently been puzzling considerably. It was written, or rather typewritten, on plain paper. The envelope was plain and bore no marks of identification, except possibly that it had been mailed uptown. The letter ran: DEAR SIR: Although this is an anonymous letter, I beg that you will not consider it such, since it will be plain to you that there is good reason for my wishing to remain nameless. I want to tell you of some things that have taken place recently at a little hotel in the West Fifties. No doubt you know of the place already--the Little Montmartre. There are several young and wealthy men who frequent this resort. I do not dare tell you their names, but one is a well-known club-man and man about town, another is a banker and broker, also well known, and a third is a lawyer. I might also mention an intimate friend of theirs, though not of their position in society--a doctor who has somewhat of a reputation among the class of people who frequent the Little Montmartre, ready to furnish them with anything from a medical certificate to drugs and treatment. I have read a great deal in the newspapers lately of the disappearance of Betty Blackwell, and her case interests me. I think you will find that it will repay you to look into the hint I have given. I don't think it is necessary to say any more. Indeed it may be dangerous to me, and I beg that you will not even show this letter to anyone except those associated with you and then, please, only with the understanding that it is to go no farther. Betty Blackwell is not at this hotel, but I am sure that some of those whose wild orgies have scandalized even the Little Montmartre know something about her. Yours truly, AN OUTCAST. Kennedy looked up quickly at Carton as he finished reading the letter. "Typical," he remarked. "Anonymous letters occasionally are of a friendly nature, but usually they reflect with more or less severity upon the conduct or character of someone. They usually receive little attention, but sometimes they are of the most serious character. In many instances they are most important links in chains of evidence pointing to grave crimes. "It is possible to draw certain conclusions from such letters at once. For instance, it is a surprising fact that in a large number of cases the anonymous letter writer is a woman, who may write what it does not seem possible she could write. Such letters often by their writing, materials used, composition and general form indicate at once the sex of the writer and frequently show nationality, age, education, and occupation. These facts may often point to the probable author. "Now in this case the writer evidently was well educated. Assumed illiteracy is a frequent disguise, but it is impossible for an author to assume a literacy he or she does not possess. Then, too, women are more apt to assume the characteristics of men than men of women. There are many things to be considered. Too bad it wasn't in ordinary handwriting. That would have shown much more. However, we shall try our best with what we have here. What impressed you about it?" "Well," remarked Carton, "the thing that impressed me was that as usual and as I fully expected, the trail leads right back to protected vice and commercialized graft. This Little Montmartre is one of the swellest of such resorts in the city, the legitimate successor to the scores and hundreds of places which the authorities and the vice investigators have closed recently. In fact, Kennedy, I consider it more dangerous, because it is run, on the surface at least, just like any of the first-class hotels. There's no violation of law there, at least not openly." Craig had continued to examine the letter closely. "So, you have already investigated the Little Montmartre?" he queried, drawing from his pocket a little strip of glass and laying it down carefully over the letter. "Indeed I have," returned the District Attorney, watching Kennedy curiously. "It is a place with a very unsavoury reputation. And yet I have been able to get nothing on it. They are so confounded clever. There is never any outward violation of law; they adhere strictly to the letter of the rule of outward decency." Over the typewritten characters Kennedy had placed the strip of glass and I could see that it was ruled into little oblongs, into each of which one of the type of the typewritten sheet seemed to fall. Apparently he had forgotten the contents of the letter in his interest in the text itself. He held the paper up to the light and seemed to study its texture and thickness. Then he examined the typed characters more closely with a little pocket magnifying glass, his lips moving as if he were counting something. Next he seized a mass of correspondence on his desk and began comparing the letter with others, apparently to determine just the shade of writing of the ribbon. Finally he gave it up and leaned back in his chair regarding us. "It is written in the regular pica type," he remarked thoughtfully, "and on a machine that has seen considerable rough usage, although it is not an old machine. It will take me a little time to identify the make, but after I have done that, I think I could identify the particular machine itself the moment I saw it. You see, it is only a clue that would serve to fix it once you found that machine. The point is, after all, to find it. But once found, I am sure we shall be close to the source of the letter. I may keep this and study it at my leisure?" "Certainly." For a moment Carton was silent. Then it seemed as though the matter of Betty Blackwell brought to mind what he had read in the morning papers. "That robbery of Langhorne's safe was a most peculiar thing, wasn't it?" he meditated. "I suppose you know what Miss Blackwell was?" "Langhorne's stenographer and secretary, of course," I replied quickly. "Yes, I know. But I mean what she had actually done? I don't believe you do. My county detectives found out only last night." Kennedy paused in his rummaging among some bottles to which he had turned at the mention of the safe robbery. "No--what was it?" he asked. Carton bent forward as if our own walls might have ears and said in a low voice: "She was the operator who took down the detectaphone conversations at the other end of the wire in a furnished room in the house next to Gastron's." He drew back to see what effect the intelligence had on us, then resumed slowly: "Yes, I've had my men out on the case. That is what they think. I believe she often executed little confidential commissions for Langhorne, sometimes things that took her on short trips out of town. There is a possibility that she may be on a mission of that sort. But I think--it's this Black Book case that involves her now." "Langhorne wouldn't talk much about anything," I put in, hastily remembering his manner. "He may not be responsible--but from his actions I'd wager he knows more about her than appears." "Just so," agreed Carton. "If my men can find out that she was the operator who 'listened in' and got the notes and the transcript of the Black Book, then she becomes a person of importance in the case and the fact must be known to others who are interested. Why," he pursued, "don't you see what it means? If she is out of the way, there is no one to swear to the accuracy of the notes in the record, no one to identify the voices--even if we do manage finally to locate the thing." "Dorgan and the rest are certainly leaving nothing undone to shake the validity of the record," ruminated Kennedy, accepting for the moment at least Carton's explanation of the disappearance of Miss Blackwell. "Have you any idea what might have happened to her?" Carton shook his head negatively. "There are several explanations," he replied slowly. "As far as we have been able to find out she led a model life, at home with her mother and sister. Except for the few commissions for Langhorne and lately when she was out rather late taking the detectaphone notes, she was very quiet,--in fact devoted to her mother and the education of her younger sister." "What sort of place was it in which the receivers of the detectaphone were located--do you know?" asked Kennedy quickly. "Yes, it seems to be a very respectable boardinghouse," answered Carton. "She came there with a grip about a week ago and hired a room, saying she was out of town a great deal. Just about the same time a young man, who posed as a student in electrical engineering at some school uptown, left. It must have been he who installed the detectaphone--perhaps with the aid of a waiter in Gastron's. At any rate, she seems to have been alone in the boarding-house--that is, I mean, not acquainted with any of the other guests--during the time when she was taking down the record. Dorgan traced the wires, outside the two buildings, to her rooms, but she was not there. In fact there was nothing there but a grip with a few articles that give no clue to anything. Somehow she must have heard of it, for no one knows anything about her, since then." "Perhaps Langhorne is keeping her out of the way so that no one can tamper with her testimony," I suggested. "It's possible," said Carton in a tone that showed that he did not believe in that explanation. "How about that safe robbery, Kennedy? Some of the papers hinted that she might have known something of that. I had a man down there watching, afterwards, but I had cautioned him to be careful and keep under cover. One of the elevator boys told him that the robbers had made a hole in the safe. What did he mean? Did you see it?" Rapidly Kennedy sketched what we had done, telling the story of how the dynamometer had at least partly exonerated Betty Blackwell. When he reached the description of the hole in the safe, Carton was absolutely incredulous. As for myself, it presented a mystery which I found absolutely inexplicable. How it was possible in such a short time to make a hole in a safe by any known means, I could not understand. In fact, if I had not seen it myself, I should have been even more sceptical than Carton. Kennedy, however, made no reply immediately to our expressions of doubt. He had found and set apart from the rest a couple of little glass bottles with ground glass stoppers. Then he took a thick piece of steel and laid it across a couple of blocks of wood, under which was a second steel plate. Without a word of explanation, he took the glass stopper out of the larger bottle and poured some of the contents on the upper plate of steel. There it lay, a little mound of reddish powder. Then he took a little powder of another kind from the other bottle. He lighted a match and ignited the second pile of powder. "Stand back--close to the wall--shield your eyes," he called to us. He had dropped the burning mass on the red powder and in two or three leaps he joined us at the far end of the room. Almost instantly a dazzling, intense flame broke out. It seemed to sizzle and crackle. With bated breath we waited and, as best we could, shielding our eyes from the glare, watched. It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could see the reflection of the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for itself in the cold steel plate. At last it fell through to the lower piece of steel, on which it burnt itself out--fell through as the burning roof of a frame building might have fallen into the building. Neither Carton nor I spoke a word, but as we now cautiously advanced with Kennedy and peered over the steel plate we instinctively turned to Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to regard him as if he were some uncanny mortal. For, there in the steel plate, was a hole. As I looked at the clean-cut edges, I saw that it was smaller but identical in nature with that which we had seen in the safe in Langhorne's office. "Wonderful!" ejaculated Carton. "What is it?" "Thermit," was all Kennedy said, as just a trace of a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face. "Thermit?" echoed Carton, still as mystified as before. "Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen, Germany. It is composed of iron oxide, such as conies off a blacksmith's anvil or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered metallic aluminum. You could thrust a red-hot bar into it without setting it off, but when you light a little magnesium powder and drop it on thermit, a combustion is started that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidizing agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface. You see how it ate its way directly through this plate. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized--it all burns just as fast and just as easily. And it's comparatively inexpensive, also. This is an experiment Goldschmidt it fond of showing his students--burning holes in one--and two-inch steel plates. It is the same with a safe--only you need more of the stuff. Either black or red thermit will do the trick equally well, however." Neither of us said anything. There was nothing to say except to feel and express amazement. "Someone uncommonly clever or instructed by someone uncommonly clever, must have done that job at Langhorne's," added Craig. "Have you any idea who might pull off such a thing for Dorgan or Murtha?" he asked of Carton. "There's a possible suspect," answered Carton slowly, "but since I've seen this wonderful exhibition of what thermit can do, I'm almost ashamed to mention his name. He's not in the class that would be likely to use such things." "Oh," laughed Kennedy, "never think it. Don't you suppose the crooks read the scientific and technical papers? Believe me, they have known about thermit as long as I have. Safes are constructed now that are proof against even that, and other methods of attack. No indeed, your modern scientific cracksman keeps abreast of the times in his field better than you imagine. Our only protection is that fortunately science always keeps several laps ahead of him in the race--and besides, we have organized society to meet all such perils. It may be that the very cleverness of the fellow will be his own undoing. The unusual criminal is often that much the easier to run down. It narrows the number of suspects." "Well," rejoined Carton, not as confident now as when he had first met us in the laboratory, "then there is a possible suspect--a fellow known in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack--Jack Rubano. He's a clever fellow--no doubt. But I hardly think he's capable of that, although I should call him a rather advanced yeggman." "What makes you suspect him?" asked Kennedy eagerly. "Well," temporized Carton, "I haven't anything 'on' him in this connection, it's true. But we've been trying to find him and can't seem to locate him in connection with primary frauds in Murtha's own district. Dopey Jack is the leader of a gang of gunmen over there and is Murtha's first lieutenant whenever there is a tough political battle of the organization either at the primaries or on Election Day." "Has a record, I suppose?" prompted Kennedy. "Would have--if it wasn't for the influence of Murtha," rejoined Carton. I had heard, in knocking about the city, of Dopey Jack Rubano. That was the picturesque title by which he was known to the police and his enemies as well as to his devoted followers. A few years before, he had begun his career fighting in "preliminaries" at the prize fight clubs on the lower East Side. He had begun life with a better chance than most slum boys, for he had rugged health and an unusually sturdy body. His very strength had been his ruin. Working decently for wages, he had been told by other petty gang leaders that he was a "sucker," when he could get many times as much for boxing a few rounds at some "athletic" club. He tried out the game with many willing instructors and found that it was easy money. Jack began to wear better clothes and study the methods of other young men who never worked but always seemed to have plenty of money. They were his pals and showed him how it was done. It wasn't long before he learned that he could often get more by hitting a man with a blackjack than by using his fists in the roped ring. Then, too, there were various ways of blackmail and extortion that were simple, safe, and lucrative. He might be arrested, but he early found that by making himself useful to some politicians, they could fix that minor difficulty in the life. Thus because he was not only strong and brutal, but had a sort of ability and some education, Dopey Jack quickly rose to a position of minor leadership--had his own incipient "gang," his own "lobbygows." His following increased as he rose in gangland, and finally he came to be closely associated with Murtha himself on one hand and the "guns" and other criminals of the underworld who frequented the stuss games, where they gambled away the products of their crimes, on the other. Everyone knew Dopey Jack. He had been charged with many crimes, but always through the aid of "the big fellows" he avoided the penitentiary and every fresh and futile attempt to end his career increased the numbers and reverence of his followers. His had been the history and he was the pattern now of practically every gang leader of consequence in the city. The fight club had been his testing ground. There he had learned the code, which can be summarized in two words, "Don't squeal." For gangland hates nothing so much as a "snitch." As a beginner he could be trusted to commit any crime assigned to him and go to prison, perhaps the chair, rather than betray a leader. As a leader he had those under him trained in the same code. That still was his code to those above him in the System. "We want him for frauds at the primaries," repeated Carton, "at least, if we can find him, we can hold him on that for a time. I thought perhaps he might know something of the robbery--and about the disappearance of the girl, too. "Oh," he continued, "there are lots of things against him. Why, only last week there was a dance of a rival association of gang leaders. Against them Dopey Jack led a band of his own followers and in the ensuing pistol battle a passer-by was killed. Of course we can't connect Dopey Jack with his death, but--then we know as well as we know anything in gangland that he was responsible." "I suppose it isn't impossible that he may know something about the disappearance of Miss Blackwell," remarked Kennedy. "No," replied Carton, "not at all, although, so far, there is absolutely no clue as far as I can figure out. She may have been bought off or she may have been kidnapped." "In either case the missing girl must be found," said Craig. "We must get someone interested in her case who knows something about what may happen to a girl in New York." Carton had been revolving the matter in his mind. "By George," he exclaimed suddenly, "I think I know just the person to take up that case for us--it's quite in her line. Can you spare the time to run down to the Reform League headquarters with me?" "Nothing could be more important, just at the minute," replied Craig. The telephone buzzed and he answered it, a moment later handing the receiver to Carton. "It's your office," he said. "One of the assistant district attorneys wants you on the wire." As Carton hung up the receiver he turned to us with a look of great satisfaction. "Dopey Jack has just been arrested," he announced. "He has shut up like an oyster, but we think we can at least hold him for a few days this time until we sift down some of these clues." V THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY Carton took us directly to the campaign headquarters of the Reform League, where his fight for political life was being conducted. We found the offices in the tower of a skyscraper, whence was pouring forth a torrent of appeal to the people, in printed and oral form of every kind, urging them to stand shoulder to shoulder for good government and vote the "ring" out of power. There seemed to me to be a different tone to the place from that which I had ordinarily associated with political headquarters in previous campaigns. There was a notable absence of the old-fashioned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with tobacco. Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency, which was decidedly encouraging and hopeful. It seemed to speak of a new era in politics when things were to be done in the open instead of at secret meetings and scandalous dinners, as Dorgan did them at Gastron's. Maps of the city were hanging on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins, denoting the condition of the canvass. Other maps of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the various strongholds of Boss Dorgan and Sub-boss Murtha. Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting out a vast amount of campaign "literature" in a hurry; in short, a perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have been proud of, were in evidence everywhere one looked. Work was going ahead in every department under high pressure, for the campaign, which had been more than usually heated, was now drawing to a close. Indeed, it would have taken no great astuteness, even without one's being told, to deduce merely from the surroundings that the people here were engaged in the annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for reform and were nearly worn out by the arduous endeavour. It had been, as I have said, the bitterest campaign in years. Formerly the reformers had been of the "silk-stocking" type, but now a new and younger generation was coming upon the stage, a generation which had been trained to achieve results, ambitious to attain what in former years had been considered impossible. The Reform League was making a stiff campaign and the System was, by the same token, more frightened than ever before. Carton was fortunate in having shaken off the thralldom of the old bosses even before the popular uprising against them had assumed such proportions as to warrant anyone in taking his political life in his hands by defying the powers that ruled behind the scenes. In fact, the Reform League itself owed its existence to a fortunate conjunction of both moral and economic conditions which demanded progress. Of course, the League did not have such a big "barrel" as their opponents under Dorgan. But, at least they did have many willing workers, men and women, who were ready to sacrifice something for the advancement of the principles for which they stood. In one part of the suite of offices which had been leased by the League, Carton had had assigned to him an office of his own, and it was to this office that he led us, after a word with the boy who guarded the approach to the door, and an exchange of greetings with various workers and visitors in the outside office. We seated ourselves while Carton ran his eye through some letters that had been left on his desk for his attention. A moment later the door of his office opened and a young lady in a very stunning street dress, with a pretty little rakish hat and a tantalizing veil, stood a moment, hesitated, and then was about to turn back with an apology for intruding on what looked like a conference. "Good-morning, Miss Ashton," greeted Carton, laying down the letters instantly. "You're just the person I want to see." The girl, with a portfolio of papers in her hand, smiled and he quickly crossed the room and held the door open, as he whispered a word or two to her. She was a handsome girl, something more than even pretty. The lithe gracefulness of her figure spoke of familiarity with both tennis and tango, and her face with its well-chiselled profile denoted intellectuality from which no touch of really feminine charm had been removed by the fearsome process of the creation of the modern woman. Sincerity as well as humour looked out from the liquid depths of her blue eyes beneath the wavy masses of blonde hair. She was good to look at and we looked, irresistibly. "Let me introduce Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Miss Ashton," began Carton, adding: "Of course you have heard of Miss Margaret Ashton, the suffragist leader? She is the head of our press bureau, you know. She's making a great fight for us here--a winning fight." It seemed from the heightened look of determination which set Carton's face in deeper lines that Miss Ashton had that indispensable political quality of inspiring both confidence and enthusiasm in those who worked with her. "It is indeed a great pleasure to meet you," remarked Kennedy. "Both Mr. Jameson and myself have heard and read a great deal about your work, though we seem never before to have had the pleasure of meeting you." Miss Ashton, I recalled, was a very clever girl, a graduate of a famous woman's college, and had had several years of newspaper experience before she became a leader in the cause of equal suffrage. The Ashtons were well known in society and it was a sore trial to some of her conservative friends that she should reject what they considered the proper "sphere" for women and choose to go out into life and devote herself to doing something that was worth while, rather than to fritter her time and energy away on the gaiety and inconsequentiality of social life. Among those friends, I had understood, was Hartley Langhorne himself. He was older than Miss Ashton, but had belonged to the same social circle and had always held her in high regard. In fact the attentions he paid her had long been noticeable, the more so as she seemed politely unaffected by them. Carton had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I felt sure that I scented a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic conduct of a campaign press bureau. It is far from my intention even to hint that the ability or success of the head of the press bureau were not all her own or were in any degree overrated. But it struck me, both then and often later, that the candidate for District Attorney had an extraordinary interest in the newspaper campaign, much more, for instance, than in the speakers' bureau. I am sure that it was not wholly accounted for by the fact that publicity is playing a more and more important part in political campaigning. Nevertheless, as we came to know afterwards such innovations as her card index system by election districts all over the city, showing the attitude of the various newspaper editors, local leaders, and other influential citizens, recording changes of sentiment and possible openings for future work, all were very full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular pigeon-hole mind for facts himself, was visibly impressed by the huge mechanical memory built up by Miss Ashton. Though he said nothing to me, I knew that Craig also had observed the state of affairs between the reform candidate and the suffrage leader. "You see, Miss Ashton," explained Carton, "someone has placed a detectaphone in the private dining-room of Dorgan at Gastron's. I heard of it first through Mrs. Ogleby, who attended one of the dinners and was terribly afraid her name would be connected with them if the record should ever be published." "Mrs. Ogleby?" cried Miss Ashton quickly. "She--at a dinner--with Mr. Murtha? I--I can't believe it." Carton said nothing. Whether he knew more about Mrs. Ogleby than he cared to tell, I could not even guess. As he went on briefly summarizing the story, Miss Ashton shot a quick glance or two at him. Carton noticed it, but appeared not to do so. "I suppose," he concluded, "that she thought I was the only person capable of eavesdropping. As a matter of fact, I think the instrument was put in by Hartley Langhorne as part of the fight that is going on fiercely under the surface in the organization." It was Carton's turn now, I fancied, to observe Miss Ashton more closely. As far as I could see, the information was a matter of perfect indifference to her. Carton did not say it in so many words, but one could not help gathering that rather than seem to be pursuing a possible rival and using his official position in order to do it, he was not considering Langhorne in any other light than as a mere actor in the drama between himself and Dorgan and Murtha. "Now," he concluded, "the point of the whole thing is this, Miss Ashton. We have learned that Betty Blackwell--you know the case--who took the notes over the detectaphone for the Black Book, has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. If she is gone, it may be difficult to prove anything, even if we get the book. Miss Blackwell happens to be a stenographer in the office of Langhorne & Westlake." For the first time, Miss Ashton seemed to show a sign of embarrassment. Evidently she would just as well have had Miss Blackwell in some other connection. "Perhaps you would rather have nothing to do with it," suggested Carton, "but I know that you were always interested in things of the sort that happen to girls in the city and thought perhaps you could advise us, even if you don't feel like personally taking up the case." "Oh, it doesn't--matter," she murmured. "Of course, the first thing for us to do is, as you say, to find what has become of Betty Blackwell." Carton turned suddenly at the word "us," but Miss Ashton was still studying the pattern of the rug. "Do you know any more about her?" she asked at length. As fully as possible the District Attorney repeated what he had already told us. Miss Ashton seemed to be more than interested in the story of the disappearance of Langhorne's stenographer. As Carton unfolded the meagre details of what we knew so far, Miss Ashton appeared to be torn by conflicting opinions. The more she thought of what might possibly have happened to the unfortunate girl, the more aroused about the case she seemed to become. Carton had evidently calculated on enlisting her sympathies, knowing how she felt toward many of the social and economic injustices toward women, and particularly girls. "If Mr. Murtha or Mr. Dorgan is responsible in any way for any harm to her," she said finally, her earnest eyes now ablaze with indignation, "I shall not rest until someone is punished." Kennedy had been watching her emotions keenly, I suspect, to see whether she connected Langhorne in any way with the disappearance. I could see it interested him that she did not seem even to consider that Langhorne might be responsible. Whether her intuition was correct or not, it was at least better at present than any guess that we three might have made. "They control so many forces for evil," she went on, "that there is no telling what they might command against a defenceless girl like her when it is a question of their political power." "Then," pursued Kennedy, pacing the floor thoughtfully, "the next question is, How are we to proceed? The first step naturally will be the investigation of this Little Montmartre. How is it to be done? I presume you don't want to go up there and look the place over yourself, do you, Carton?" "Most certainly not," said Carton emphatically. "Not if you want this case to go any further. Why, I can't walk around a corner now without a general scurry for the cyclone cellars. They all know me, and those who don't are watching for me. On the contrary, if you are going to start there I had better execute a flank movement in Queens or Jersey to divert attention. Really, I mean it. I had better keep in the background. But I'll tell you what I would like to do." Carton hesitated and came to a full stop. "What's the matter?" asked Kennedy quickly, noticing the hesitation. "Why--I--er--didn't know just how you'd take a suggestion--that's all." "Thankfully. What is it?" "You know young Haxworth?" "You mean the son of the millionaire who is investigating vice and whom the newspapers are poking fun at?" "Yes. Those papers make me tired. He has been working, you know, with me in this matter. He is really serious about it, too. He has a corps of investigators of his own already. Well, there is one of them, a woman detective named Clare Kendall, who is the brains of the whole Haxworth outfit. If you would be willing to have them--er--to have her co-operate with you, I think I could persuade Haxworth---" "Oh," broke in Kennedy with a laugh. "I see. You think perhaps there might be some professional jealousy? On the contrary, it solves a problem I was already considering. Of course we shall need a woman in this case, one with a rare amount of discretion and ability. Yes, by all means let us call in Miss Kendall, and let us take every advantage we can of what she has already accomplished." Carton seized the telephone. "Tell her to meet us at my laboratory in half an hour," interposed Kennedy. "You will come along?" "I can't. Court opens in twenty minutes and there is a motion I must argue myself." Miss Ashton appeared to be greatly gratified at Craig's reception of the suggestion, and Carton noticed it. "Oh, yes," recollected Carton, "by the way, as I was on my way down here, my office called up and told me that they had succeeded in locating and arresting Dopey Jack. That ought to please you,--it will mean cutting down the number of those East Side 'rackets' considerably if we succeed with him." "Good!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I don't think there were any worse affairs than the dances of that Jack Rubano Association. They have got hold of more young girls and caused more tragedies than any other gang. If you need any help in getting together evidence, Mr. Carton, I shall be only too glad to help you. I have several old scores myself to settle with that young tough." "Thank you," said Carton. "I shall need your help, if we are to do anything. Of course, we can hold him only for primary frauds just now, but I may be able to do something about that dance that he broke up as a shooting affray." Miss Ashton nodded encouragingly. "And," he went on, "it's barely possible that he may know something, or some of his followers may, about the robbery of Mr. Langhorne's safe,--if not about the complete and mysterious disappearance of Betty Blackwell." "They'd stop at nothing to save their precious skins," commented Miss Ashton. "Perhaps that is a good lead. At any rate I can suggest that to the various societies and other agencies which I intend to set in motion trying to trace what has happened to her. You can have him held until they have time to report?" "I shall make it a point to do so at any cost," he returned, "and I can say only this, that we are all deeply indebted to you for the interest you have shown in the case." "Not at all," she replied enthusiastically, evidently having overcome the first hesitation which had existed because Miss Blackwell had been Langhorne's stenographer. Miss Ashton had quickly jotted down in her notebook the best description we could give of the missing girl, her address, and other facts about her, and a list of those whom she meant to start at work on the case. For a moment she hesitated over one name, then with a sudden resolution wrote it down. "I intend to see Hartley Langhorne about it, too," she added frankly. "Perhaps he may tell something of importance, after all." I am sure that this final resolution cost her more than all the rest. Carton would never have asked it of her, yet was gratified that she saw it to be her duty to leave nothing undone in tracing the girl, not even considering the possibility of offending Langhorne. "Decent people don't seem to realize," she remarked as she shut her little notebook and slipped it back into her chatelaine, "how the System and the underworld really do affect them. They think it is all something apart from the rest of us, and never consider how closely we are all bound together and how easy it is for the lowest and most vicious stratum in the social order to pass over and affect the highest." "That's exactly the point," agreed Carton. "Take this very case. It goes from Wall Street to gangland, from Gastron's down to the underworld gambling joints of Dopey Jack and the rest." "Society--gambling," mused Miss Ashton, taking out her notebook again. "That reminds me of Martin Ogleby. I must see Mary and try to warn her against some of those sporty friends of her husband's." "Please, Miss Ashton," put in Carton quickly, "don't mention that I have told you of the detectaphone record. It might do more harm than good, just at present. For a time at least, I think we should try to keep under cover." Whether or not that was his real reason, he turned now to Kennedy for support. We had been, for the most part, silent spectators of what had been happening. "I think so--for the present--at least as far as our knowledge of the Black Book goes," acquiesced Craig. He had turned to Miss Ashton and made no effort to conceal the admiration which he felt for her, after even so brief an acquaintance. "I think Miss Ashton can be depended upon to play her part in the game perfectly. I, for one, want to thank her most heartily for the way in which she has joined us." "Thank you," she smiled, as she rose to go to her own office. "Oh, you can always depend on me," she assured us as she gathered up her portfolio of papers, "where there are the interests of a girl like Betty Blackwell involved!" VI THE WOMAN DETECTIVE Half an hour later, a tall, striking, self-reliant young woman with an engaging smile opened the laboratory door and asked for Professor Kennedy. "Miss Kendall?" Craig inquired, coming forward to meet her. She was dark-haired, with regular features and an expression which showed a high degree of intelligence. Her clear grey eyes seemed to penetrate and tear the mask off you. It was not only her features and eyes that showed intelligence, but her gown showed that without sacrificing neatness she had deliberately toned down the existing fashions which so admirably fitted in with her figure in order that she might not appear noticeable. It was clever, for if there is anything a good detective must do it is to prevent people from looking twice. I knew something of her history already. She had begun on a rather difficult case for one of the large agencies and after a few years of experience had decided that there was a field for an independent woman detective who would appeal particularly to women themselves. Unaided she had fought her way to a position of keen rivalry now with the best men in the profession. Narrowly I watched Kennedy. Here, I felt instinctively, were the "new" woman and the "new" man, if there are such things. I wondered just how they would hit it off together. For the moment, at least, Clare Kendall was an absorbing study, as she greeted us with a frank, jerky straight-arm handshake. "Mr. Carton," she said directly, "has told me that he received an anonymous letter this morning. May I see it?" There are times when the so-called "new" woman's assumed masculine brusqueness is a trifle jarring, as well as often missing the point. But with Clare Kendall one did not feel that she was eternally trying to assert that she was the equal or the superior of someone else, although she was, as far as the majority of detectives I have met are concerned. It was rather that she was different; in fact, almost from the start I felt that she was indispensable. She seemed to have that ability to go straight to the point at issue, a sort of faculty of intuition which is often more valuable than anything else, the ability to feel or sense things for which at first there was no actual proof. No good detective ever lacks that sort of instinct, and Clare Kendall, being a woman, had it in large degree. But she had more. She had the ability to go further and get the facts and actual proof; for, as she often said during the course of a case, "Woman's intuition may not be good evidence in a court of law, but it is one of the best means to get good evidence that will convince a court of law." "My investigators have been watching that place for some time," she remarked as she finished the letter. "Of course, having been closely in touch with this sort of thing for several months in my work, I have had all the opportunity in the world to observe and collect information. The letter does not surprise me." "Then you think it is a good tip?" asked Kennedy. "Decidedly, although without the letter I should not have started there, I think. Still, as nearly as I can gather, there is a rather nondescript crowd connected in one way or another with the Montmartre. For instance, there is a pretty tough character who seems to be connected with the people there, my investigators tell me. It is a fellow named 'Ike the Dropper,' one of those strong-arm men who have migrated up from the East Side to the White Light District. At least my investigators have told me they have seen him there, for I have never bothered with the place myself. There has been plenty of work elsewhere which promised immediate results. I'm glad to have a chance to tackle this place, though, with your help." "What do you think of the rest of the letter?" asked Craig. "I think I could make a pretty shrewd guess from what I have heard, as to the identity of some of those hinted at. I'm not sure, but I think the lawyer may be a Mr. Kahn, a clever enough attorney who has a large theatrical clientele and none too savoury a reputation as a local politician. The banker may be Mr. Langhorne, although he is not exactly a young man. Still, I know he has been associated with the place. As for the club-man I should guess that that was Martin Ogleby." Kennedy and I exchanged glances of surprise. "As a first step," said Kennedy, at length, "I am going to write a letter to Betty Blackwell, care of the Little Montmartre--or perhaps you had better do the actual writing of it, Miss Kendall. A woman's hand will look less suspicious." "What shall I write?" she asked. "Just a few lines. Tell her that you are one of the girls in the office, that you have heard she was at the Montmartre--anything. The actual writing doesn't make any difference. I merely want to see what happens." Miss Kendall quickly wrote a little note and handed it to him. "Then direct this envelope," he said, reaching into a drawer of his desk and bringing out a plain white one. "And let me seal it." Carefully he sealed and stamped the letter and handed it to me to post. "You will dine with us, Miss Kendall?" he asked. "Then we will plan the next step in our campaign." "I shall be glad to do so," she replied. Fifteen minutes later I had dropped the letter in the drop of a branch of the general post-office to ensure its more prompt delivery, and it was on its way through the mails to accomplish the purpose Kennedy may have contemplated. "Just now it is more important for us to become acquainted with this Little Montmartre," he remarked. "I suppose, Miss Kendall, we may depend on you to join us?" "Indeed you may," she replied energetically. "There is nothing that we would welcome more than evidence that would lead to the closing of that place." Kennedy seemed to be impressed by the frankness and energy of the young woman. "Perhaps if we three should go there, hire a private dining-room, and look about without making any move against the place that would excite suspicion, we might at least find out what it is that we are fighting. Of course we must dine somewhere, and up there at the same time we can plan our campaign." "I think that would be ripping," she laughed, as the humour of the situation dawned on her. "Why, we shall be laying our plans right in the heart of the enemy's country and they will never realize it. Perhaps, too, we may get a glimpse of some of those people mentioned in the anonymous letter." To Clare Kendall it was simply another phase of the game which she had been playing against the forces of evil in the city. The Little Montmartre was, as I already knew, one of the smaller hotels in a side street just off Broadway, eight or ten stories in height, of modern construction, and for all the world exactly like a score of other of the smaller hostelries of the famous city of hotels. Clare, Craig, and myself pulled up before the entrance in a taxicab, that seeming to be the accepted method of entering with eclat. A boy opened the door. I jumped out and settled with the driver without a demur at the usual overcharge, while Craig assisted Clare. Laughing and chatting, we entered the bronze plate-glass doors and walked slowly down a richly carpeted corridor. It was elegantly furnished and decorated with large palms set at intervals, quite the equal in luxuriousness, though on a smaller scale, of any of the larger and well-known hotels. Beautifully marked marbles and expensive hangings greeted the eye at every turn. Faultlessly liveried servants solicitously waited about for tips. Craig and Clare, who were slightly ahead of me, turned quickly into a little alcove, or reception room and Craig placed a chair for her. Farther down the corridor I could see the office, and beyond a large main dining-room from which strains of music came and now and then the buzz of conversation and laughter from gay parties at the immaculately white tables. "Boy," called Kennedy quietly, catching the eye of a passing bell hop and unostentatiously slipping a quarter into his hand, which closed over the coin almost automatically, "the head waiter, please. Oh--er--by the way--what is his name?" "Julius," returned the boy, to whom the proceeding seemed to present nothing novel, although the whole atmosphere of the place was beyond his years. "I'll get him in a minute, sir. He's in the main dining-room. He's having some trouble with the cabaret singers. One of them is late--as usual." We sat in the easy chairs watching the people passing and repassing in the corridor. There was no effort at concealment here. A few minutes later Julius appeared, a young man, tall and rather good-looking, suave and easy. A word or two with Kennedy followed, during which a greenback changed hands--in fact that seemed to be the open sesame to everything here--and we were in the elevator decorously escorted by the polished Julius. The door of the elevator shut noiselessly and it shot up to the next floor. Julius preceded us down the thickly carpeted corridor leading the way to a large apartment, or rather a suite of rooms, as handsomely furnished as any in other hotels. He switched on the lights and left us, with the remark, "When you want the waiter or anything, just press the button." In the largest of the rooms was a dining-table and several chairs of Jacobean oak. A heavy sideboard and serving-table stood against opposite walls. Another, smaller room was furnished very attractively as a sitting-room. Deep, easy chairs stood in the corners and a wide, capacious davenport stretched across one wall. In another nook was a little divan or cosy corner. Electric bulbs burned pinkly in the chandeliers and on silver candelabra on the table, giving a half light that was very romantic and fascinating. From a curtained window that opened upon an interior court we could catch strains from the cabaret singers below in the main dining-room. Everything was new and bright. Kennedy pressed the button and a waiter brought a menu, imposing in length and breath-taking in rates. "The cost of vice seems to have gone up with the cost of living," remarked Miss Kendall, as the waiter disappeared as silently as he had responded to the bell. It was a phrase that stuck in my head, so apt was it in describing the anomalous state of things we found as the case unrolled. Craig ordered, now and then consulting Clare about some detail. The care and attention devoted to us could not have been more punctilious if it had been an elaborate dinner party. "Well," he remarked, as the waiter at last closed the door of the private dining-room to give the order in downstairs in the kitchen, "the Little Montmartre makes a brave showing. I suppose it will be some time before the dinner arrives, though. There is certainly some piquancy to this," he added, looking about at the furnishings. "Yes," remarked Miss Kendall, "risque from the moment you enter the door." She said it with an impersonal tone as if there were complete detachment between herself as an observer and as a guest of the Montmartre. "Miss Kendall," asked Kennedy, "did you notice anything particularly downstairs? I'd like to check up my own impressions by yours." "I noticed that Titian beauty in the hotel office as we left the reception room and entered the elevator." Craig smiled. "So did I. I thought you would be both woman enough and detective enough to notice her. Well, I suppose if a man likes that sort of girl that's the sort of girl he likes. That's point number one. But did you notice anything else--as we came in, for instance?" "No--except that everything seems to be a matter of scientific management here to get the most out of the suckers. This is no place for a piker. It all seems to run so smoothly, too. Still, I'm sure that our investigators might get something on the place if they kept right after it, although on the surface it doesn't look as if any law was being openly violated here. What do you mean? What is your point number two?" "In the front window," resumed Craig, "just as you enter, I noticed one of those little oblong signs printed neatly in black on white--'Dr. Vernon Harris, M. D.' You recall that the letter said something about a doctor who was very friendly with that clique the writer mentioned? It's even money that this Harris is the one the writer meant. I suppose he is the 'house physician' of this gilded palace." Clare nodded appreciatively. "Quite right," she agreed. "Just how do you think he might be involved?" "Of course I can't say. But I think, without going any further, that a man like that in a place like this will bear watching anyway, without our needing more than the fact that he is here. Naturally we don't know anything about him as a doctor, but he must have some training; and in an environment like this--well, a little training may be a dangerous thing." "The letter said something about drugs," mused Clare. "Yes," added Kennedy. "As you know, alcohol is absolutely necessary to a thing like this. Girls must keep gay and attractive; they must meet men with a bright, unfaltering look, and alcohol just dulls the edge of conscience. Besides, look over that wine list--it fills the till of the Montmartre, judging by the prices. But then, alcohol palls when the pace is as swift as it seems to be here. Even more essential are drugs. You know, after all, it is no wonder so many drug fiends and drunkards are created by this life. Now, a doctor who is not over-scrupulous, and he would have to be not over-scrupulous to be here at all, would find a gold mine in the dispensing of drugs and the toning up of drug fiends and others who have been going the pace too rapidly." "Yes," she said. "We have found that some of these doctors are a great factor in the life of various sections of the city where they hang out. I know one who is deeply in the local politics and boasts that any resort that patronizes him is immune. Yes, that's a good point about Dr. Harris." "I suppose your investigators have had more or less to do with watching the progress of drug habits?" ventured Craig. "Very much," she replied, catching the drift of his remarks. "We have found, for instance, that there are a great many cases where it seems that drugs have been used in luring young and innocent girls. Not the old knockout drops--chloral, you know--but modern drugs, not so powerful, perhaps, but more insidious, and in that respect, I suppose, more dangerous. There are cocaine fiends, opium smokers; oh, lots of them. But those we find in the slums mostly. Still, I suppose there are all kinds of drugs up here in the White Light District--belladonna to keep the eyes bright, arsenic to whiten the complexion, and so on." "Yes," asserted Craig. "This section of the city may not be so brutal in its drug taking as others, but it is here--yes, and it is over on Fifth Avenue, too, right in society. Before we get through I'm sure we'll both learn much more than we even dream of now." The door opened after a discreet tap from the waiter and the lavish dinner which Craig had ordered appeared. The door stayed open for a moment as the bus boy carried in the dishes. A rustle of skirts and low musical laughter was wafted in to us and we caught a glimpse of another gay party passing down the hall. "How many private dining-rooms are there?" asked Craig of the waiter. "Just this one, sir, and the next one, which is smaller," replied the model waiter, with the air of one who could be blind and deaf and dumb if he chose. "Oh, then we were lucky to get this." "Yes, sir. It is really best to telephone first to Julius to make sure and have one of the rooms reserved, sir." Craig made a mental note of the information. The party in the next room were hilariously ordering, mostly from the wine list. None of us had recognized any of them, nor had they paid much attention to us. Craig had eaten little, although the food was very good. "It's a shame to come here and not see the whole place," he remarked. "I wonder if you would excuse me while I drop downstairs to look over things there--perhaps ingratiate myself with that Titian? Tell Miss Kendall about our visit to Langhorne's office while I am gone, Walter." There was not much that I could tell except the bare facts, but I thought that Miss Kendall seemed especially interested in the broker's reticence about his stenographer. I had scarcely finished when Craig returned. A glance at his face told me that even in this brief time something had happened. "Did you meet the Titian?" I asked. "Yes. She is the stenographer and sometimes works the switchboard of the telephone. I happened to strike the office while the clerk was at dinner and she was alone. While I was talking to her I was looking about and my eye happened to fall on one of the letter boxes back of the desk, marked 'Dr. Harris.' Well, at once I had an overwhelming desire to get a note which I saw sticking in it. So I called up a telephone number, just as a blind, and while she was at the switchboard I slipped the note into my pocket. Here it is." He had laid an envelope down before us. It was in a woman's hand, written hastily. "I'd like to know what was in it without Dr. Harris knowing it," he remarked. "Now, the secret service agents abroad have raised letter-opening to a fine art. Some kinds of paper can be steamed open without leaving a trace, and then they follow that simple operation by reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument. But that won't do. It might make this ink run." Among the ornaments were several with flat wooden bases. Kennedy took one and placed it on the edge of the table, which was perfectly square. Then he placed the envelope between the table and the base. "When other methods fail," he went on, "they place the envelope between two pieces of wood with the edges projecting about a thirty-second of an inch." He had first flattened the edge of the envelope, then roughened it, and finally slit it open. "Scientific letter-opening," he remarked, as he pulled out a little note written on the hotel paper. It read: DEAR HARRY: Called you up twice and then dropped into the hotel, but you seem to be out all the time. Have something VERY IMPORTANT to tell you. Shall be busy to-night and in the morning, but will be at the dansant at the Futurist Tea Room to-morrow afternoon about four. Be sure to be there. MARIE. "I shall," commented Kennedy. "Now the question is, how to seal up this letter so that he won't know it has been opened. I saw some of this very strong mucilage in the office. Ring the bell, Walter. I'll get that impervious waiter to borrow it for a moment." Five minutes later he had applied a hair line of the strong, colourless gum to the inside of the envelope and had united the edges under pressure between the two pieces of wood. As soon as it was dry he excused himself again and went back to the office, where he managed to secure an opportunity to stick the letter back in the box and chat for a few minutes longer with the Titian. "There's a wild cabaret down in the main dining-room," he reported on his return. "I think we might just as well have a glimpse of it before we go." Kennedy paid the cheque, which by this time had mounted like a taximeter running wild, and we drifted into the dining-room, a rather attractive hall, panelled in Flemish oak with artificial flowers and leaves about, and here and there a little bird concealed in a cage in the paper foliage. As cabarets go, it was not bad, although I could imagine how wild it might become in the evening or on special occasion. "That Dr. Harris interests me," remarked Kennedy across the table at us. "We must get something in writing from him in some way. And then there's that girl in the office, too. She seems to be right in with all these people here." Evidently the cabaret had little of interest to Miss Kendall, who, after a glance that took in the whole dining-room and disclosed none there in the gay crowd who, as far as we could see, had any relation to the case, seemed bored. Craig noticed it and at once rose to go. As we passed out and into the corridor, Miss Kendall turned and whispered, "Look over at the desk--Dr. Harris." Sure enough, chatting with the stenographer was a man with one of those black bags which doctors carry. He was a young man in appearance, one of those whom one sees in the White Light District, with unnaturally bright eyes which speak of late hours and a fast pace. He wore a flower in his buttonhole--a very fetching touch with some women. Debonair, dapper, dashing, his face was not one readily forgotten. As we passed hurriedly I observed that he had torn open the note and had thrown the envelope, unsuspectingly, into the basket. VII THE GANG LEADER With the arrest of Dopey Jack, it seemed as if all the forces of the gang world were solidified for the final battle. Carton had been engaged in a struggle with the System so long that he knew just how to get action, the magistrates he could depend on, the various pitfalls that surrounded the snaring of one high in gangland, the judges who would fix bail that was prohibitively high. As he had anticipated and prepared for, every wire was pulled to secure the release of Rubano. But Carton was fortunate in having under him a group of young and alert assistants. It took the combined energies of his office, however, to carry the thing through and Kennedy and I did not see Carton again for some time. Meanwhile we were busy gathering as much information as we could about those who were likely to figure in the case. It was remarkable, but we found that the influence of Dorgan and Murtha was felt in the most unexpected quarters. People who would have talked to us on almost any other subject, absolutely refused to become mixed up in this affair. It was as though the System practised terrorism on a large scale. Late in the afternoon we met in Carton's office, to compare notes on the progress made during the day. The District Attorney greeted us enthusiastically. "Well," he exclaimed as he dropped into his big office chair, "this has been a hard day for me--but I've succeeded." "How?" queried Kennedy. "Of course the newspapers haven't got it yet," pursued Carton, "but it happened that there was a Grand Jury sitting and considering election cases. It went hard, but I made them consider this case of Dopey Jack. I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have succeeded in forcing action in record time. They have found an indictment on the election charges, and if that falls through, we shall have time to set up other charges against him. In fact we are 'going to the mat,' so to speak, with this case." The office telephone rang and after a few sentences of congratulation, Carton turned to us, his spirits even higher than before. "That was one of my assistants," he explained, "one of the cleverest. The trial will be before Judge Pomeroy in General Sessions and it will be an early trial. Pomeroy is one of the best of them, too--about to retire, and wants to leave a good record on the bench behind him. Things are shaping up as well as we could wish for." The door opened and one of Carton's clerks started to announce the name of a visitor. "Mr. Carton, Mr.--" "Murtha," drawled a deep voice, as the owner of the name strode in, impatiently brushing aside the clerk. "Hello, Carton," greeted the Sub-boss aggressively. "Hello, Murtha," returned Carton, retaining his good temper and seeing the humour of the situation, where the practice of years was reversed and the mountain was coming to Mahomet. "This is a little--er--informal--but I'm glad to see you, nevertheless," he added quietly. "Won't you sit down? By the way, meet Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson. Is there anything I can do for you?" Murtha shook hands with us suspiciously, but did not sit down. He continued to stand, his hat tilted back over his head and his huge hands jammed down into his trousers pockets. "What's this I hear about Jack Rubano, Carton?" he opened fire. "They tell me you have arrested him and secured an indictment." "They tell the truth," returned Carton shortly. "The Grand Jury indicted Dopey Jack this afternoon. The trial---" "Dopey Jack," quoted Murtha in disgusted tones. "That's the way it is nowadays. Give a dog a bad name--why,--I suppose this bad name's going to stick to him all his life, now. It ain't right. You know, Carton, as well as I do that if they charged him with just plain fighting and got him before a jury, all you would have to say would be, 'Gentlemen, the defendant at the bar is the notorious gangster, Dopey Jack.' And the jurors wouldn't wait to hear any more, but'd say, 'Guilty!' just like that. And he'd go up the river for the top term. That's what a boy like that gets once the papers give him such an awful reputation. It's fierce!" Carton shook his head. "Oh, Murtha," he remonstrated with just a twinkle in his eye, "you don't think I believe that sort of soft stuff, do you? I've had my eye on this 'boy'--he's twenty-eight, by the way--too long. You needn't tell me anything about his respectable old father and his sorrowing mother and weeping sister. Murtha, I've been in this business too long for that heart throb stuff. Leave that to the lawyers the System will hire for him. Let's cut that out, between ourselves, and get down to brass tacks." It was a new and awkward role for Murtha as suppliant, and he evidently did not relish it. Aside from his own interest in Dopey Jack, who was one of his indispensables, it was apparent that he came as an emissary from Dorgan himself to spy out the land and perhaps reach some kind of understanding. He glanced about at us, with a look that broadly hinted that he would prefer to see Carton alone. Carton made no move to ask us to leave and Kennedy met the boss's look calmly. Murtha smothered his rage, although I knew he would with pleasure have had us stuck up or blackjacked. "See here, Carton." he blurted out at length, approaching the desk of the District Attorney and lowering his big voice as much as he was capable, "can't we reach some kind of agreement between ourselves? You let up on Rubano--and--well, I might be able to get some of my friends to let up on Carton. See?" He was conveying as guardedly as he could a proposal that if the District Attorney would consent to turn his back while the law stumbled in one of the numerous pitfalls that beset a criminal prosecution, the organization would deliver the goods, quietly pass the word along to knife its own man and allow Carton to be re-elected. I studied Carton's face intently. To a man of another stripe, the proposal might have been alluring. It meant that although the organization ticket won, he would, in the public eye at least, have the credit of beating the System, of going into office unhampered, of having assured beyond doubt what was at best only problematical with the Reform League. Carton did not hesitate a moment. I thought I saw in his face the same hardening of the lines of his features in grim determination that I had seen when he had been talking to Miss Ashton. I knew that, among other things, he was thinking how impossible it would be for him ever to face her again in the old way, if he sold out, even in a negative way, to the System. Murtha had shot his huge face forward and was peering keenly at the man before him. "You'll--think it over?" he asked. "I will not--I most certainly will not," returned Carton, for the first time showing exasperation, at the very assumption of Murtha. "Mr. Murtha," he went on, rising and leaning forward over the desk, "we are going to have a fair election, if I can make it. I may be beaten--I may win. But I will be beaten, if at all, by the old methods. If I win--it will be that I win--honestly." A half sneer crossed Murtha's face. He neither understood nor cared to understand the kind of game Carton played. "You'll never get anything on that boy," blustered Murtha. "Do you suppose I'm fool enough to come here and make a dishonest proposition--here--right in front of your own friends?" he added, turning to us. "--I ain't asking any favours, or anything dishonest. His lawyers know what they can do and what you can do. It ain't because I care a hang about you, Carton, that I'm here. If you want to know the truth, it's because you can make trouble, Carton,--that's all. You can't convict him, in the end, because--you can't. There's nothing 'on' him. But you can make trouble. We'll win out in the end, of course." "In other words, you think the Reform League has you beaten?" suggested Carton quietly. "No," ejaculated Murtha with an oath. "We don't know--but maybe YOU have us beaten. But not the League. We don't want you for District Attorney, Carton. You know it. But here's a practical proposition. All you have to do is just to let this Rubano case take its natural course. That's all I ask." He dwelt on the word "natural" as if it were in itself convincing. "Why," he resumed, "what foolishness it is for you to throw away all your chances just for the sake of hounding one poor fellow from the East Side. It ain't right, Carton,--you, powerful, holding an important office, and he a poor boy that never had a chance and has made the most of what little nature gave him. Why, I've known that boy ever since he hardly came up to my waist. I tell you, there ain't a judge on the bench that wouldn't listen to what we can show about him--hounded by police, hounded by the District Attorney, driven from pillar to post, and---" "You will have a chance to tell the story in court," cut in Carton. "Pomeroy will try the case." "Pomeroy?" repeated Murtha in a tone that quite disguised the anger he felt that it should come up before the one judge the System feared and could not control. "Now, look here, Carton. We're all practical men. Your friend--er--Kennedy, here, he's practical." Murtha had turned toward us. He was now the Murtha I had heard of before, the kind that can use a handshake or a playful slap on the back, as between man and man, to work wonders in getting action or carrying a point. Far from despising such men as Murtha, I think we all rather admired his good qualities. It was his point of view, his method, his aim that were wrong. As for the man himself he was human--in fact, I often thought far more human than some of the reformers. "I'll leave it to Kennedy," he resumed. "Suppose you were running a race. You knew you were going to win. Would you deliberately stop and stick your foot out, in order to trip up the man who was coming in second?" "I don't know that the cases are parallel," returned Kennedy with an amused smile. Murtha kept his good nature admirably. "Then you would stick your foot out--and perhaps lose the race yourself?" persisted Murtha. "I'll relieve Kennedy of answering that," interrupted Carton, "not because I don't think he can do it better than I can, perhaps, but because this is my fight--my race." "Well," asked Murtha persuasively, "you'll think it over, first, won't you?" Carton was looking at his opponent keenly, as if trying to take his measure. He had some scheme in mind and Kennedy was watching the faces of both men intently. "This race," began Carton slowly, in a manner that showed he wanted to change the subject, "is different from any other in the politics of the city as either of us have ever known it, Murtha." Murtha made as though he would object to the proposition, but Carton hurried on, giving him no chance to inject anything into the conversation. "It may be possible--it is possible," shot out the young District Attorney, "to make use of secret records--conversations--at conferences--dinners--records that have been taken by a new invention that seems to be revolutionizing politics all over the country." The look that crossed Murtha's face was positively apoplectic. The veins in his forehead stood out like whipcords. He started to speak, but choked off the words before he had uttered them. I could almost read his mind. Carton had said nothing directly about the Black Book, and Murtha had caught himself just in time not to betray anything about it. "So," he shouted at last, "you are going to try some of those fine little scientific tricks on us, are you?" He was pacing up and down the room, storming and threatening by turns. "I want to tell you, Carton," pursued Murtha, "that you're up against a crowd who were playing this game before you were born. You reformers think you are pretty smooth. But we know a thing or two about you and what you are doing. Besides," he leaned over the desk again, "Carton, there ain't many men that can afford to throw stones. I admit my life hasn't been perfect--but, then I ain't posing as any saint. I don't mind telling you that the organization, as you call it, is looking into some of the things that you reformers have done. It may be that some of your people--some of the ladies," he insinuated, "don't look on life in the broad-minded way that some of the rest do. Mind you--I ain't making any threats, but when it comes to gossip and scandal and mud-slinging--look out for the little old organization--that's all!" Carton had set his tenacious jaw. "You can go as far as you like, Murtha," was all he said, with a grim smile. Murtha looked at him a moment, then his manner changed. "Carton," he said in a milder tone, at length, "what's the use of all this bluffing? You and I understand each other. These men understand--life. It's a game--that's what it is--a game. Sometimes one move is right, sometimes another. You know what you want to accomplish here in this city. I show you a way to do it. Don't answer me," persisted Murtha, raising a hand, "just--think it over." Carton had taken a step forward, the tense look on his face unchanged. "No," he exclaimed, and we could almost hear his jaw snap as if it had been a trap. "No--I'll not think it over. I'll not yield an inch. Dopey Jack goes to trial before election." As Carton bit off the words, Murtha became almost beside himself with rage and chagrin. He was white and red by turns. For a moment I feared that he might do Carton personal violence. "Carton," he ground out, as he reached the door, "you will regret this." "I hope not," returned the other summoning with a mighty effort at least the appearance of suavity. "Good-bye." The only answer was the vicious slam which Murtha gave the door. As the echo died, the District Attorney turned to us. "Apparently, then, Dorgan did not secure the Black Book," was all he said, "even supposing Dopey Jack planned and executed that robbery of Langhorne." VIII THE SHYSTER LAWYER That's a declaration of war," remarked Kennedy, as Carton resumed his seat at the desk unconcernedly after the stormy ending of the interview with Murtha. "I suppose it is," agreed the District Attorney, "and I can't say that I am sorry." "Nor I," added Craig. "But it settles one thing. We are now out in what I call the 'open' investigation. They have forced us from cover. We shall have to be prepared to take quick action now, whatever move they may make." Together we were speculating on the various moves that the System might make and how we might prepare in advance for them. Evidently, however, we were not yet through with these indirect dealings with the Boss. The System was thorough, if nothing else, and prompt. We had about decided to continue our conference over the dinner table in some uptown restaurant, when the officer stationed in the hall poked his head in the door and announced another visitor for the District Attorney. This time the entrance was exactly the opposite to the bluster of Murtha. The man who sidled deferentially into the room, a moment after Carton had said he would see him, was a middle-sized fellow, with a high, slightly bald forehead, a shifty expression in his sharp ferret eyes, and a nervous, self-confident manner that must have been very impressive before the ignorant. "My name is Kahn," he introduced himself. "I'm a lawyer." Carton nodded recognition. Although I had never seen the man before, I recollected the name which Miss Kendall had mentioned. He was one of the best known lawyers of the System. He had begun his career as an "ambulance chaser," had risen later to the dignity of a police court lawyer, and now was of the type that might be called, for want of a better name, a high class "shyster"--unscrupulous, sharp, cunning. Shyster, I believe, has been defined as a legal knave, a lawyer who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all that--and still more. If he had been less successful, he would have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals he had none. His claws reached out to grab the pittance of the poverty-stricken client as well as the fee of the wealthy. He had risen from hospitals to police courts, coroner's court, and criminal courts, at last attaining the dignity of offices opposite an entrance to the criminal courts building, from which vantage point his underlings surveyed the scene of operations like vultures hovering over bewildered cattle. Carton knew him. Kahn was the leader among some score of men more or less well dressed, of more or less evil appearance, who are constantly prowling from one end to the other of the broad first floor of the criminal courts building during the hours of the day that justice is being administered there. These are the shyster lawyers and their runners and agents who prey upon the men and women whom misfortune or crime have delivered into the hands of the law. Others of the same species are wandering about the galleries on other floors of the building, each with a furtive eye for those who may be in trouble themselves or those who seem to be in need of legal assistance for a relative or friend in trouble. Perhaps the majority of lawyers practising in the courts are reputable to the highest degree, and many of the rest merely to a safe degree. Many devote themselves to philanthropic work whenever a prisoner is penniless. But the percentage of shysters is high. Kahn belonged in the latter class, although his days of doing dirty work himself were passed. He had a large force of incipient shysters for that purpose. As for himself, he handled only the big cases in which he veneered the dirty work by a sort of finesse. Kahn bowed and smiled ingratiatingly. "Mr. Carton," he began in a conciliatory tone, "I have intruded on your valuable time in the interest of my client, Mr. Jack Rubano." "Huh!" grunted Carton. "So they've retained you, have they, Ike?" he mused familiarly, closely regarding the visitor. Kahn, far from resenting the familiarity, seemed rather to enjoy it and take it as his due measure of fame. "Yes, Mr. Carton, they have retained me. I have just had a talk with the prisoner in the Tombs and have gone over his case very carefully, sir." Carton nodded, but said nothing, willing to let Kahn do the talking for the present until he exposed his hand. "He has told me all about his case," pursued Kahn evenly. "It is not such a bad case. I can tell you that, Mr. Carton, because I didn't have to resort to the 'friend of the judge' gag in order to show him that he had a good chance." Kahn looked knowingly at Carton. At least he was frank about his own game before us; in fact, utterly shameless, it seemed to me. Probably it was because he knew it was no use, that Carton had no illusions about him. Still, there was an uncanny bravado about it all. Kahn was indeed very successful in making the worst appear the better reason. He knew it and knew that Carton knew it. That was his stock in trade. He had seated himself in a chair by the District Attorney's desk and as he talked was hitching it closer and closer, for men of Kahn's stamp seem unable to talk without getting into almost personal contact with those with whom they are talking. Carton drew back and folded his hands back of his head as he listened, still silent. "You know, Mr. Carton," he insinuated, "it is a very different thing to be sure in your own mind that a man is guilty from being able to prove it in court. There are all sorts of delays that may be granted, witnesses are hard to hold together, in fact there are many difficulties that arise in the best of cases." "You don't need to tell me that, Kahn," replied Carton quietly. "I know it, Mr. Carton," rejoined the other apologetically. "I was just using that as a preface to what I have to say." He took another hitch of the chair nearer Carton and lowered his voice impressively. "The point, sir, at which I am driving is simply this. There must be some way in which we can reach an agreement, compromise this case, satisfactorily to the people with a minimum of time and expense--some way in which the indictment or the pleadings can be amended so that it can be wound up and--you understand--both of us win--instead of dragging it out and perhaps you losing the case in the end." Carton shook his head. "No, Kahn," he said in a low tone, but firmly, "no compromise." Kahn bent his ferret eyes on Carton's face as if to bore through into his very mind. "No," added the District Attorney, "Murtha was just here, and I may as well repeat what I said to him--although I might fairly assume that he went from this room directly across the street to your office and that you know it already. This case has gone too far, it has too many other ramifications for me to consent to relax on it one iota." Kahn was baffled, but he was cleverer than Murtha and did not show it. "Surely," he urged, "you must realize that it is not worth your while at such a critical time for yourself to waste energies on a case when there are so many more profitable things that you could do. The fact is that I would be the last one to propose anything that was not open and above board and to our mutual advantage. There must be some way in which we can reach an agreement which will be satisfactory to all parties in interest, sir." "Kahn," repeated Carton a little testily, "how often must I repeat to you and your people that I am NOT going to compromise this case in any shape, form, or manner? I am going to fight it out on the lines I have indicated if I have to disrupt this entire office to get men to do it. I have plenty to do seeking re-election, but my first duty is to act as public prosecutor in the office to which I have been already elected. Otherwise, it would be a poor recommendation to the people to return me to the same position. No, you are merely wasting your time and ours talking compromise." Kahn had been surveying Carton keenly, now and then taking a shifty glance at Kennedy and myself. As Carton rapped out the last words, as if in the nature of an ultimatum, Kahn gazed at him in amazement. Here was a man whom he knew he could neither bribe, bully, or bulldoze. "You must consider this, too," he added pointedly. "There has been a good deal of mud-slinging in this campaign. We may find it necessary to go back into the antecedents and motives of those who represent the people in this case." It was a subtle threat. Just what it implied I could not even guess, nor did Carton betray anything by look or word. Carton had voluntarily placed himself in the open and in a position from which he could not retreat. Evidently, now, he was willing to force the fight, if the other side would accept the issue. It meant much to him but he did not balk at it. "No, Kahn," he repeated firmly, "no compromise." Kahn drew back a bit and hastily scanned the face of the prosecutor. Evidently he saw nothing in it to encourage him. Yet he was too smooth to let his temper rise, as Murtha had. By the same token I fancied him a more dangerous opponent. There was something positively uncanny about his assurance. Kahn rose slowly. "Then it is war--without quarter?" asked Kahn shrewdly. "War--without quarter," repeated Carton positively. He withdrew quietly, with an almost feline tread, quite in contrast with the bluster of Murtha. I felt for the first time a sort of sinking sensation, as I began to realize the varied character of the assault that was preparing. Not so, Carton and Kennedy. It seemed that every event that more clearly defined our position and that of our opponents added zest to the fight for them. And I had sufficient confidence in the combination to know that their feelings were justified. Carton silently pulled down and locked the top of his desk, then for a moment we debated where we should dine. We decided on a quiet hotel uptown and, leaving word where we could be found, hurried along for the first real relaxation and refreshment after a crowded day's work. If, however, we thought we could escape even for a few minutes we were mightily mistaken. We had not fairly done justice to the roast when a boy in buttons came down the line of tables. "Mr. Carton--please." The District Attorney crooked his finger at the page. "You're wanted at the telephone, sir." Carton rose and excused himself. The message must have given him food of another kind, for when he returned after a long absence, he pushed aside the now cold roast and joined us in the coffee and cigars. "One of my men," he announced, "has been doing some shadowing for me. Evidently, both Murtha and Kahn having failed, they are resorting to other tactics. It looks as if they had in some way, probably from some corrupt official of the court or employee in charge of the jury list, obtained a copy of the panel which Justice Pomeroy has summoned for the case." "It ought to be a simple thing to empanel another set of talesmen and let these fellows serve in some other part of the court," I suggested, considering the matter hastily. "Much better to let it rest as it is," cut in Craig quickly, "and try to catch Kahn with the goods. It would be great to catch one of these clever fellows trying to 'fix' the jury, as well as intimidate witnesses, as he already hinted himself." "Just the thing," exclaimed Carton, whose keen sense of proportion showed what a valuable political asset such a coup would make in addition to its effect on the case. "We'll get Kahn right, if we have a chance," planned Craig. "You are acquainted more or less with his habits, I suppose. Where does Kahn hang out? Most fellows like him have a sort of Amen Corner where they meet their henchmen, issue orders, receive reports and carry on business that wouldn't do for an office downtown." "Why, I believe he goes to Farrell's--has an interest in the place, I think." Farrell's, we recognized, as a rather well-known all-night cafe which managed to survive the excise vicissitudes by dint of having no cabaret or entertainment. We finished the dinner in silence, Kennedy turning various schemes over in his mind, and rejecting them one after another. "There's nothing we can do immediately, I suppose," he remarked at length. "But if you and Carton care to come up to the laboratory with me, I might in time of peace prepare for war. I have a little apparatus up there which I think may fit in somehow and if it does, Mr. Kahn's days of jury fixing are numbered." A few minutes later, we found ourselves in Kennedy's laboratory, where he had gathered together an amazing collection of paraphernalia in the warfare of science against crime which he had been waging during the years that I had known him. Carton looked about in silent admiration. As for myself, although one might have thought it was an old story with me, I had found that no sooner had I become familiar with one piece of apparatus to perform one duty, than another situation, entirely different and unprecedented in our cases arose which called for another, entirely new. I had learned to have implicit confidence in Kennedy's ability to meet each new emergency with something fully capable of solving the problem. From a cabinet, Kennedy took out what looked like the little black leather box of a camera, with, however, a most peculiar looking lens. IX THE JURY FIXER "Let's visit Farrell's," remarked Craig, after looking over the apparatus and slinging it over his shoulder. It was early yet, and the theatres were not out, so that there were comparatively few people in the famous all-night cafe. We entered the bar cautiously and looked about. Kahn at least was not there. In the back of this part of the cafe were several booths, open to conform to the law, yet sufficiently screened so that there was at least a little privacy. Above the booths was a line of transoms. "What's back there?" asked Kennedy, under his breath. "A back room," returned Carton. "Perhaps Kahn is there," Craig suggested. "Walter, you're the one whom he would least likely recognize. Suppose you just stick your head in the door and look about as quietly as you can." I lounged back, glanced at the records of sporting events posted on the wall at the end of the bar, then, casually, as if looking for someone, swung the double-hinged door that led from the bar into the back room. The room was empty except for one man, turned sidewise to the door, reading a paper, but in a position so that he could see anyone who entered. I had not opened the door widely enough to be noticed, but I now let it swing back hastily. It was Kahn, pompously sipping something he had ordered. "He's back there," I whispered to Kennedy, as I returned, excitedly motioning toward one of the transoms over the booths back of which Kahn was seated. "Right there?" he queried. "Just about," I answered. A moment later Kennedy led the way over to the booth under the transom and we sat down. A waiter hovered near us. Craig silenced him quickly with a substantial order and a good-sized tip. From our position, if we sat well within the booth, we were effectually hidden unless someone purposely came down and looked in on us. We watched Kennedy curiously. He had unslung the little black camera-like box and to it attached a pair of fine wires and a small pocket storage battery which he carried. Then he looked up at the transom. It was far too high for us to hear through, even if those in the back room talked fairly loud. Standing on the leather wall seats of the booth to listen or even to look over was out of the question, for it would be sure to excite suspicion among the waiters, or the customers who were continually passing in and out of the place. Kennedy was watching his chance, and when the cafe emptied itself after being deluged between the acts from a neighbouring theatre, he jumped up quickly in the seat, stood on his toes and craned his neck through the diagonally opened transom. Before any of the waiters, who were busy clearing up the results of the last theatre raid, had a chance to notice him, Craig had slipped the little black box into the shadow of the corner. From it dangled down the fine wires, not noticeable. "He's sitting just back of us yet," reported Kennedy. "I don't know about that flaming arc light in the middle of the room, but I think it will be all right. Anyhow, we shall have to take a chance. It looks to me as if he were waiting for someone--didn't it to you, Walter?" I nodded acquiescence. "He has wasted no time in getting down to work," put in Carton, who had been a silent spectator of the preparations of Kennedy. "What's that thing you put on the ledge up there--a detectaphone?" Kennedy smiled. "No--they're too clever to do any talking, at least in a place like this, I'm afraid," he said, carefully hiding the wires and the battery beside him in the shadow of the corner of the booth. "It may be that nothing will happen, anyhow, but if it does we can at least have the satisfaction of having tried to get something. Carton, you had better sit as far back in the booth as I am. The longer we can stay here unnoticed the better. Let Walter sit on the outside." We changed places. "Lawyers have been complaining to me lately," remarked Carton in a well modulated voice, "about jury fixing. Some of them say it has been going on on a large scale and I have had several of my county detectives working on it. But they haven't landed anything yet,--except rumours, like this one about the Dopey Jack jury. I've had them out posing as jurymen who could be 'approached' and would arrange terms for other bribable jurymen." "And you mean to say that that's going on right here in this city?" I asked, scenting a possible newspaper story. "This campaign I have started," he replied, "is only the beginning of our work in breaking up the organized business of jury bribing. I mean to put an end to the work of what I have reason to believe is a secret ring of jury fixers. Why, I understand that the prices for 'hanging' a jury range all the way from five to five hundred dollars, or even higher in an important case. The size of the jury fixer's 'cut' depends upon the amount the client is willing to pay for having his case made either a disagreement or a dismissal. Usually a bonus is demanded for a dismissal in criminal cases. But such things are very difficult to--" "Sh!" I cautioned, for from my vantage point I saw two men approaching. They saw me in the booth, but not the rest of us, and turned to enter the next one. Though they were talking in low tones, we could catch words and phrases now and then, which told us that we ourselves would have to be very careful about being overheard. "We've got to be careful," one of them remarked in a scarcely audible undertone. "Carton has detectives mingling with the talesmen in every court of importance in the city." The reply of the other was not audible, but Carton leaned over to us and whispered, "One of Kahn's runners, I think." Apparently Kahn was taking extreme precautions and wanted everything in readiness so that whatever was to be done would go off smoothly. Kennedy glanced up at the little black leather box perched high above on the sill of the partition. "The chief says that a thousand dollars is the highest price that he can afford for 'hanging' this jury--providing you get on it, or any of your friends." The other man, whose voice was not of the vibrating, penetrating quality of the runner, seemed to hesitate and be inclined to argue. "We've had 'em as low as five dollars," went on the runner, at which Carton exchanged a knowing glance with us. "But in a special case, like this, we realize that they come high." The other man grumbled a bit and we could catch the word, "risky." Back and forth the argument went. The runner, however, was a worthy representative of his chief, for at last he succeeded in carrying both his point and his price. "All right," we heard him say at last, "the chief is in the back room. Wait until I see whether he is alone." The runner rose and went around to the swinging door. From the other side of the transom we could, as we had expected, hear nothing. A moment later the runner returned. "Go in and see him," he whispered. The man rose and made his way through the swinging door into the back room. None of us said a word, but Kennedy was literally on his toes with excitement. He was holding the little battery in his hand and after waiting a few moments pressed what looked like a push button. He could not restrain his impatience longer, but had jumped up on the leather seat and for a moment looked at the black leather box, then through the half open transom, as best he could. "Press it--press it!" he whispered to Carton, pointing at the push button, as he turned a little handle on the box, then quickly dropped down and resumed his seat. "Craig--one of the waiters," I cried hurriedly. The outside bar had been filling up as the evening advanced and the sight of a man standing on one of the seats had attracted the attention of a patron. A waiter had followed his curious gaze and saw Kennedy. With a quick pull on the wire, Kennedy jerked the black leather box from its high perch and deftly caught it as it fell. "Say--what are youse guys doin', huh?" demanded the waiter pugnaciously. Carton and I had risen and stood between the man and Craig. The sound of voices in high pitch was enough to attract a crowd ever ready to watch a scrap. Mindful of the famous "flying wedge" of waiters at Farrell's for the purpose of hustling objectionable and obstreperous customers with despatch to the sidewalk, I was prepared for anything. The runner who was sitting alone in the next booth, leaned out and gazed around the corner into ours. "Carton!" he shouted in a tone that could have been heard on the street. The effect of the name of the District Attorney was magical. For the moment, the crowd fell back. Before the tough waiters or anyone else could make up their minds just what to do, Kennedy, who had tucked the box into his capacious side pocket, took each of us by the arm and we shoved our way through the crowd. The head waiter followed us to the door, but offered no resistance. In fact no one seemed to know just what to do and it was all over so quickly that even Kahn himself had not time to get a glimpse of us through the swinging door. A moment later we had piled into a taxicab at the curb and were speeding through the now deserted streets uptown to the laboratory. Kennedy was jubilant. "I may have almost precipitated a riot," he chortled, "but I'm glad I stood up. I think it must have been at the psychological moment." At the laboratory he threw off his coat and prepared to plunge into work with various mysterious pans of chemicals, baths, jars, and beakers. "What is it?" asked Carton, as Kennedy carefully took out the dark leather box, shielding it from the glare of a mercury vapour light. "A camera with a newly-invented electrically operated between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures as I wanted, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything else ever invented before, that it is possible to use it in this sort of detective work. I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It may or may not have worked, but if it has we've caught someone, right in the act." Kennedy had a "studio" of his own which was quite equal to the emergency of developing the two pictures which he had taken with the new camera. Late as it was, we waited for him to finish, just as we would have waited down in the Star office if one of our staff photographers had come in with something important. At last Kennedy emerged from his workshop. As he did so, he slapped down two untoned prints. Both were necessarily indistinct owing to the conditions under which they had had to be taken. But they were quite sufficient for the purpose. As Carton bent over the second one, which showed Kahn in the very act of handing over a roll of bills to the rather anemic man whom his runner had brought to him, Carton addressed the photograph as if it had been Kahn himself. "I have you at last," he cried. "This is the end of your secret ring of jury fixers. I think that will about settle the case of Kahn, if not of Dopey Jack, when we get ready to spring it. Kennedy, make another set of prints and let me lock them in a safe deposit vault. That's as precious to me as if it were the Black Book itself!" Craig laughed. "Not such a bad evening's work, after all," he remarked, clearing things up. "Do you realize what time it is?" Carton glanced perfunctorily at his watch. "I had forgotten time," he returned. "Yes," agreed Craig, "but to-morrow is another day, you know. I don't object to staying up all night, or even several nights, but there doesn't seem to be anything more that we can do now, and it may be that we shall need our strength later. This is, after all, only a beginning in getting at the man higher up." "The man highest up," corrected Carton, with elation as we parted on the campus, Kennedy and I to go to our apartment. "See you in the morning, Carton," bade Kennedy. "By that time, no doubt, there will be some news of the Black Book." We arrived at our apartment a few minutes later. On the floor was some mail which Kennedy quickly ran over. It did not appear to be of any importance--that is, it had no bearing on the case which was now absorbing our attention. "Well, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed as he tore open one diminutive letter. "That was thoughtful, anyhow. She must have sent us that a few minutes after we left headquarters." He handed me an engraved card. It was from Miss Ashton, inviting us to a non-partisan suffrage evening at her studio in her home, to be followed by a dance. Underneath she had written a few words of special invitation, ending, "I shall try to have some people there who may be able to help us in the Betty Blackwell matter." X THE AFTERNOON DANCE It was early the following morning that I missed Kennedy from our apartment. Naturally I guessed from my previous experiences with that gentleman that he would most likely be found at his laboratory, and I did not worry, but put the finishing touches on a special article for the Star which I had promised for that day and had already nearly completed. Consequently it was not until the forenoon that I sauntered around to the Chemistry Building. Precisely as I had expected, I found Kennedy there at work. I had been there scarcely a quarter of an hour when the door opened and Clare Kendall entered with a cheery greeting. It was evident that she had something to report. "The letter to Betty Blackwell which you sent to the Montmartre has come back, unopened," she announced, taking from her handbag a letter stamped with the post-office form indicating that the addressee could not be found and that the letter was returned to the sender. The stamped hand of the post-office pointed to the upper left-hand corner where Clare had written in a fictitious name and used an address to which she frequently had mail sent when she wanted it secret. "Only on the back," she pursued, turning the letter over, "there are some queer smudges. What are they? They don't look like dirt." Kennedy glanced at it only casually, as if he had fully expected the incident to turn out as it did. "Not unopened, Miss Kendall," he commented. "We have already had a little scientific letter-opening. This was a case of scientific letter-sealing. That was a specially prepared envelope." He reached down into his desk and pulled out another, sealed it carefully, dried it, then held it over a steaming pan of water until the gum was softened and it could be opened again. On the back were smudges just like those on the letter that had been returned. "On the thin line of gum on the flap of the envelope," he explained, "I have placed first a coating of tannin, over which is the gum. Then on the part of the envelope to which the flap adheres when it is sealed I placed some iron sulphate. When I sealed the envelope so carefully I brought the two together separated only by the thin film of gum. Now when steam is applied to soften the gum, the usual method of the letter-opener, the tannin and the sulphate are brought together. They run and leave these blots or dark smudges. So, you see, someone has been found at the Montmartre, even if it is not Betty Blackwell herself, who has interest enough in the case to open a letter to her before handing it back to the postman. That shows us that we are on the right trail at least, even if it does not tell us who is at the end of the trail. Here's another thing; This 'Marie' is a new one. We must find out about her." "At the Futurist Tea Room at four this afternoon, when she meets our good friend, young Dr. Harris," reminded Clare. "Between cabarets and tea rooms I don't know whether this is work or play." "It's work, all right," smiled Kennedy, adding, "at least it would be if it weren't lightened by your help." It was the middle of the afternoon when Craig and I left the laboratory to keep our appointment with Miss Kendall at the Futurist Tea Room, where we hoped to find Dr. Harris's friend "Marie," who seemed to want to see him so badly. A long line of touring and town cars as well as taxicabs bore eloquent testimony not only to the popularity of this tea room and cabaret, but to the growth of afternoon dancing. One never realizes how large a leisure class there is in the city until after a visit to anything from a baseball game to a matinee--and a dance. People seemed literally to be flocking to the Futurist. They seemed to like its congeniality, its tone, its "atmosphere." As we left our hats to the tender mercies of the "boys" who had the checking concession we could see that the place was rapidly filling up. "If we are to get a table that we want here, we'd better get it now," remarked Kennedy, slipping the inevitable piece of change to the head waiter. "If we sit over there in that sort of little bower we can see when Miss Kendall arrives and we shall not be so conspicuous ourselves, either." The Futurist was not an especially ornate place, although a great deal of money had evidently been expended in fitting it up to attract a recherche clientele. Our table, which Kennedy had indicated, was, as he had said, in a sort of little recess, where we could see without being much observed ourselves, although that seemed almost an impossibility in such a place. In fact, I noticed before we had had time to seat ourselves that we had already attracted the attention of two show girls who sat down the aisle and were amusing themselves at watching us by means of a mirror. It would not have been very difficult to persuade them to dispense with the mirror. A moment later Clare Kendall entered and paused at the door an instant, absorbing the gay scene as only a woman and a detective could. Craig rose and advanced to meet her, and as she caught sight of us her face brightened. The show girls eyed her narrowly and with but slight approval. "We feel more at ease with a lady in the party," remarked Craig, as they reached the table and I rose to greet her. "Two men alone here are quite as noticeable as two ladies. Walter, I know, was quite uncomfortable." "To say nothing of the fact which you omitted," I retaliated, "that it is a pleasure to be with Miss Kendall--even if we must talk shop all the time." Clare smiled, for her quick intuition had already taken in and dismissed as of no importance the two show girls. We ordered as a matter of course, then settled back for a long interval until the waiter out of the goodness of his heart might retrieve whatever was possible from the mob of servitors where refreshments were dispensed. "Opposite us," whispered Clare, resting her chin on her interlocked fingers and her elbows on the tip-edge of the table, "do you see that athletic-looking young lady, who seems to be ready for anything from tea to tango? Well, the man with her is Martin Ogleby." Ogleby was of the tall, sloping-shouldered variety, whom one can see on the Avenue and in the clubs and hotels in such numbers that it almost seems that there must be an establishment for turning them out, even down to a trademark concealed somewhere about them, "Made in England." Only Ogleby seemed a little different in the respect that one felt that if all the others were stamped by the same die, he was the die, at least. Compared to him many of the others took on the appearance of spurious counterfeits. "Dr. Harris," Craig whispered, indicating to us the direction with his eyes. Outside on a settee, we could see in the corridor a man waiting, restless and ill at ease. Now and then he looked covertly at his watch as if he expected someone who was late and he wondered if anything could be amiss. Just then a superbly gowned woman alighted from a cab. The starter bowed as if she were familiar. It was evident that this was the woman for whom Harris waited, the "Marie" of the letter. She was a carefully groomed woman, as artificial as French heels. Yet indeed it was that studied artificiality which constituted her chief attraction. As Harris greeted her I noted that Clare was amazed at the daring cut of her gown, which excited comment even at the Futurist. Her smooth, full, well-rounded face with its dark olive skin and just a faint trace of colour on either cheek, her snappy hazel eyes whose fire was heightened by the penciling of the eyebrows, all were a marvel of the dexterity of her artificial beautifier. And yet in spite of all there was an air of unextinguishable coarseness about her which it was difficult to describe, but easy to feel. "Her lips are too thick and her mouth too large," remarked Clare, "and yet in some incomprehensible way she gives you the impression of daintiness. What is it?" "The woman is frankly deceptive from the tip of her aigrette to the toes of her shoes," observed Craig. "And yet," smiled Clare, watching with interest the little stir her arrival had made among the revellers, "you can see that she is the envy of every woman here who has slaved and toiled for that same effect without approaching within miles of it or attracting one quarter the notice for her pains that this woman receives." Dr. Harris was evidently in his element at the attention which his companion attracted. They seemed to be on very good terms indeed, and one felt that Bohemianism could go no further. They paused, fortunately, at a just vacated table around an "L" from us and sat down. For once waiters seemed to vie in serving rather than in neglecting. By this time I had gained the impression that the Futurist was all that its name implied--not up to the minute, but decidedly ahead of it. There was an exotic flavour to the place, a peculiar fascination, that was foreign rather than American, at seeing demi-monde and decency rubbing elbows. I felt sure that a large percentage of the women there were really young married women, whose first step downward was truly nothing worse than saying they had been at their whist clubs when in reality it was tango and tea. What the end might be to one who let the fascination blind her perspective I could imagine. Dr. Harris and "Marie" were nearer the dancing floor than we were, but seemed oblivious to it. Now and then as the music changed we could catch a word or two. He was evidently making an effort to be gay, to counteract the feeling which she had concealed as she came in, but which had the upper hand now that they were seated. "Won't you dance?" I heard him say. "No, Harry. I came here to tell you about how things are going." There was a harshness about her voice which I recognized as belonging exclusively to one class of women in the city. She lowered it as she went on talking earnestly. "It looks as though someone has squealed, but who--" I caught in the fragmentary lulls of the revelry. "I didn't know it was as bad as that," Dr. Harris remarked. They talked almost in whispers for several moments while I strained my ears to catch a syllable, but without success. What were they talking about? Was it about Dopey Jack? Or did they know something about Betty Blackwell? Perhaps it was about the Black Book. Even when the music stopped they talked without dropping a word. The music started again. There was no mistaking the appeal that the rocking whirl of the rhythmic dance made. From the side of the table where Kennedy was seated he could catch an occasional glimpse of the face of Marie. I noticed that he had torn a blank page off the back of the menu and with a stub of a pencil was half idly writing. At the top he had placed the word, "Nose," followed by "straight, with nostrils a trifle flaring," and some other words I could not quite catch. Beneath that he had written "Ears," which in turn was followed by some words which he was setting down carefully. Eyes, chin, and mouth followed, until I began to realize that he was making a sort of scientific analysis of the woman's features. "I shall need some more--" I caught as the music softened unexpectedly. A singer on the little platform was varying the programme now by a solo and I shifted my chair so as to get a better view and at the same time also a look at the table around the corner from us. As I did so I saw Dr. Harris reach into his breast pocket and take out a little package which he quickly handed to Marie. As their hands met, their eyes met also. I fancied that the doctor struggled to demagnetize, so to speak, the look which she gave him. "You'll come to see me--afterwards?" she asked, dropping the little package into her handbag of gold mesh and rattling the various accoutrements of beautification which tinkled next to it. Harris nodded. "You're a life saver to some--" floated over to me from Marie. The solo had been completed and the applause was dying away. "... tells me he needs ... badly off ... don't forget to see ..." The words came in intervals. What they meant I did not know, but I strove to remember them. Evidently Marie and a host of others were depending on Harris for something. At any rate, it seemed, now that she had talked she felt easier in mind, as one does after carrying a weight a long time in secret. "Tanguez-vous?" he asked as the orchestra struck up again. "Yes--thank you, Harry--just one." We watched the couple attentively as they were alternately lost and found in the dizzy swaying mass. The music became wilder and they threw themselves into the abandon of the dance. They had been absorbed so much in each other and the unburdening of whatever it was she had wanted to tell him, that neither had noticed the other couple on the other side of the floor whose presence had divided our own attention. Martin Ogleby and his partner were not dancing. It was warm and they were among the lucky ones who had succeeded in getting something besides a cheque from the waiters. Two tall glasses of ginger ale with a long curl of lemon peel sepentining through the cracked ice stood before them. The dance had brought Dr. Harris and Marie squarely around to within a few feet of where Ogleby was sitting. As Harris swung around she faced Ogleby in such a way that he could not avoid her, nor could she have possibly missed seeing him. For a moment their eyes met. Not a muscle in either face moved. It was as if they were perfect strangers. She turned and murmured something to her partner. Ogleby leaned over, without the least confusion, and made a witty remark to his partner. It was over in a minute. The acting of both could not have been better if they had deliberately practised their parts. What did it mean? As the dance concluded I saw Ogleby glance hastily over in the direction of Marie. He gave a quick smile of recognition, as much as to say "Thank you." It was evident now that both Dr. Harris and Marie, whoever she was, were getting ready to leave. As they rose to move to the door, Kennedy quickly paid our own cheque, leaving the change to the waiter, and without seeming to do so we followed them. Harris was standing near the starter with his hat off, apparently making his adieux. Deftly Kennedy managed to slip in behind so as to be next in line for a cab. "Walter and I will follow Harris if they separate," he whispered to Clare Kendall. "You follow the woman." The afternoon was verging toward dinner and people were literally bribing the taxicab starter. Our own cab stood next in line behind that which Harris had called. "I have certainly enjoyed this little glimpse of Bohemia," commented Kennedy to Miss Kendall as we waited. "I shouldn't mind if detective work took me more often to afternoon dances. There, they are going down the steps. Here's the cab I called. Let me know how things turn out. Goodbye. Here--chauffeur, around that way--where that other cab is going--the lady will tell you where to drive." Harris hesitated a moment as if considering whether to take a cab himself, then slowly turned and strolled down the street. We followed, slowly also. There was something unreal about the bright afternoon sunshine after the atmosphere of the Futurist Tea Room, where everything had been done to promote the illusion of night. Harris walked along meditatively, crossing one street after another, not as if debating where he was going, but rather in no great hurry to get there. Instead of going down Broadway he swerved into Seventh Avenue, then after a few blocks turned into a side street, quickened his pace, and at last dived down into a basement under a saloon. It was a wretched neighbourhood, one of those which reminds one of the life of an animal undergoing a metamorphosis. Once it had evidently been a rather nice residential section. The movement of population uptown had left it stranded to the real estate speculators, less desirable to live in, but more valuable for the future. The moving in of anyone who could be got to live there had led to rapid deterioration and a mixed population of whites and negroes against the day when the upward sweep of business should bring the final transformation into office and loft buildings. But for the present it was decaying, out of repair, a mass of cheap rooming-houses, tenements, and mixed races. The joint into which Harris had gone was the only evidence of anything like prosperity on the block, and that evidence was confined to the two entrances on the street, one leading into the ground floor and the other down a flight of steps to the basement. "Do you want to go in?" asked Kennedy in a tone that indicated that he himself was going. Just then a negro, dazzling in the whiteness of his collar and the brilliancy of his checked suit, came up the stairs accompanied by a light mulatto. "It's a black and tan joint," Craig went on, "at least downstairs--negro cabaret, and all that sort of thing." "I'm game," I replied. We stumbled down the worn steps, past a swinging door near which stood the proprietor with a careful eye on arrivals and departures. The place was deceiving from the outside. It really extended through two houses, and even at this early hour it was fairly crowded. There were negroes of all degrees of shading, down to those who were almost white. Scattered about at the various tables were perhaps half a dozen white women, tawdry imitations of the faster set at the Futurist which we had just left, the leftovers of a previous generation in the Tenderloin. There was also a fair sprinkling of white men, equally degraded. White men and coloured women, white women and coloured men, chatted here and there, but for the most part the habitues were negroes. At any rate the levelling down seemed to have produced something like an equality of races in viciousness. As we sat down at a table, Kennedy remarked: "They used to drift down to Chinatown, a good many of these relics. You used to see them in the old 'suicide halls' of the Bowery, too. But that is all passing away now. Reform and agitation have closed up those old dives. Now they try to veneer it over with electric lights and bright varnish, but I suppose it comes to the same thing. After they are cast off Broadway, the next step lower is the black and tan joint. After that it is suicide, unless it is death." "I don't think this is any improvement over the--the bad old days," I ventured. Kennedy shook his head in agreement. "There's Harris, down there in the back, talking to someone, a white man, alone." A waiter came over to us grinning, for we had assumed the role of sightseers. "Who is that, 'way back there, with his chair tipped to the wall, talking to the man with his back to us?" asked Kennedy. "Ike the Dropper, sah," informed the waiter with obvious pride that such a celebrity should be harboured here. I looked with a feeling akin to awe at the famous character who, in common with many others of his type, had migrated uptown from the proverbial haunts of the gunmen on the East Side in search of pastures new and untroubled. Ike the Dropper may have once been a strong-arm man, but at present I knew that he was chiefly noted for the fact, and he and his kind were reputed to be living on the earnings of women to whom they were supposed to afford "protection." I reflected on the passing glories of brutality which had sunk so low. There were noise and life a plenty here. At a discordant box of a piano a negro performer was playing with a keen appreciation of time if of nothing else, and two others with voices that might not have been unpopular in a decent minstrel show were rendering a popular air. They wore battered straw hats and a make-up which was intended to be grotesque. From time to time, as the pianist was moved, he played snatches of the same music as that which we had heard at the Futurist, and between us and Harris and Ike the Dropper several couples were one-stepping, each in their own sweet way. As the music became more lively their dancing came more and more to resemble some of the almost brutal Apache dances of Paris, in that the man seemed to exert sheer force and the woman agility in avoiding him. It was an entirely new phase of afternoon dancing, an entirely new "leisure class," this strange combination of Bohemia and Senegambia. At a table next to us, so near that we could almost rub elbows with them, sat a white man and a white woman. They had been talking in low tones, but I could catch whole sentences now and then, for they seemed to be making no extraordinary effort at concealment. "He was framing a sucker to get away with a whole front," I heard the man say, "or with a poke or a souper, but instead he got dropped by a flatty and was canned for a sleep." "Two dips--pickpockets," whispered Craig. "Someone was trying to take everything a victim had, or at least his pocketbook or watch, but instead he was arrested by a detective and locked up over night." "Good work," I laughed. "You are 'some' translator." I looked at our neighbours with a certain amount of respect. Were they framing up something themselves? At any rate I felt that I would rather see them here and know what they were than to be jostled by them in a street car. The sleek proprietor kept a careful eye on them and I knew that a sort of unwritten law would prevent them from trying on anything that would endanger their welcome in a joint none too savoury already. Nevertheless I was quite interested in the bits of pickpocket argot that floated across to us, expressions like "crossing the mit," "nipping a slang," a "mouthpiece," "making a holler" and innumerable other choice bits as unintelligible to me as "Beowulf." After a few minutes the woman got up and went out, leaving the man still sitting at the table. Of course it was none of my business what they were doing, I suppose, but I could not help being interested. That diversion being ended, I joined Kennedy in his scrutiny of Harris and his choice friend. Of course at our distance it was absolutely impossible to gain any idea of what they were talking about, and indeed our chief concern was not to attract any attention. Whatever it was, they were very earnest about it and paid no attention to us. The dancing had ceased and the two "artists" were entertaining the select audience with some choice bits of ragtime. We could see Ike the Dropper and Dr. Harris still talking. Suddenly Kennedy nudged me. I looked up in time to see Dr. Harris reach into his inside breast pocket again and quietly slip out a package much like that which we had already seen him hand to Marie at the Futurist. Ike took it, looked at it a moment with some satisfaction, then stuffed it down carefully into the right-hand outside pocket of his coat. "I wonder what that is that Harris seems to be passing out to them?" mused Craig. "Drugs, perhaps," I ventured offhand. "Maybe. I'd like to know for certain." Just then Harris and Ike rose and walked down on the other side of the place toward the door. Kennedy turned his head so that even if they should look in our direction they would not see his face. I did the same. Fortunately neither seemed interested in the other occupants. Harris having evidently fulfilled his mission, whether of delivering the package or receiving news which Ike seemed to be pouring into his ear, had but one thought, to escape from a place which was evidently distasteful to him. At the door they paused for a moment and spoke with the proprietor. He nodded reassuringly once or twice to Dr. Harris, much to the relief, I thought, of that gentleman. Kennedy was chafing under the restraint which kept him in the background and prevented any of his wizardry of mechanical eavesdropping. I fancied that his roving eye was considering various means of utilizing his seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity if occasion should arise. At last Harris managed to shake hands good-bye and disappeared up the steps to the sidewalk still followed by Ike. Kennedy leaned over and looked the "dip" sitting alone back of us squarely in the face. "Would you like to make twenty-five dollars--just like that?" he asked with a quick gesture that accorded very well with the slang. The man looked at him very suspiciously, as if considering what kind of new game this was. "That was your gun moll who just went out, wasn't it?" pursued Kennedy with assurance. "Aw, come off. Whatyer givin' us?" responded the man half angrily. "Don't stall. I know. I'm not one of the bulls, either. It's just a plain proposition. Will you or won't you take twenty-five of easy money?" Kennedy's manner seemed to mystify him. For a moment he looked us over, then seemed to decide that we were all right. "How?" he asked in a harsh but not wholly ungracious whisper. "I'll tip yer off if the boss is lookin'. He don't like no frame-ups in here." "You saw Ike the Dropper go out with that man?" "The guy with the glasses?" "Yes." "Well?" "The guy with the glasses gave Ike a little package which Ike put into the right-hand outside pocket of his coat. Now it's worth twenty-five beans to me to get that package--get me?" "I gotyer. Slip me a five now and the other twenty if I get it." Kennedy appeared to consider. "I'm on the level," pursued the dip. "Me and the goil is in hard luck with a mouthpiece who wants fifty bucks to beat the case for one of the best tools we ever had in our mob that they got right to-day." "From that I take it that one of your pals needs fifty dollars for a lawyer to get him out of jail. Well, I'll take a chance. Bring the package to me at--well, the Prince Henry cafe. I'll be there at seven o'clock." The pickpocket nodded, slid from his place and sidled out of the joint without attracting any attention. "What's the lay?" I asked. "Oh, I just want that package, that's all. Come on, Walter. We might as well go before any of these yellow girls speak to us and frame up something on us." The proprietor bowed as much as to say, "Come again and bring your friends." XI THE TYPEWRITER CLUE Ike was nowhere to be seen when we reached the street, but down the block we caught sight of Dr. Harris on the next corner. Kennedy hastened our pace until we were safely in his wake, then managed to keep just a few paces behind him. Instead of turning into the street where the Futurist was, Harris kept on up Broadway. It was easy enough to follow him in the crowd now without being perceived. He turned into the street where the Little Montmartre was preparing for a long evening of entertainment. We turned, and to cover ourselves got into a conversation with a hack driver who seemed suddenly to have sprung from nowhere with the cryptic whisper, "Drive you to the Ladies' Club, gents?" Out of the tail of his eye Kennedy watched Harris. Instead of turning into the Montmartre and his office, he went past to a high-stooped brownstone house, two doors away, climbed the steps and entered. We sauntered down the street and looked quickly at the house. A brass sign on the wall beside the door read, "Mme. Margot's Beauty Shop." "I see," commented Kennedy. "You know women of the type who frequent the Futurist and the Montmartre are always running to the hairdressing and manicure parlours. They make themselves 'beautiful' under the expert care of the various specialists and beauty doctors. Then, too, they keep in touch that way with what is going on in the demi-monde. That is their club, so to speak. It is part of the beauty shop's trade to impart such information--at least of a beauty shop in this neighbourhood." I regarded the place curiously. "Come, Walter, don't stare," nudged Kennedy. "Let's take a turn down to the Prince Henry and wait. We can get a bite to eat, too." I had hardly expected that the pickpocket would play fair, but evidently the lure of the remaining twenty dollars was too strong. We had scarcely finished our dinner when he came in. "Here it is," he whispered. "The house man here at the Prince Henry knows me. Slip me the twenty." Kennedy leisurely tore the wrappings from the packet. "I suppose you have already looked at this first and found that it isn't worth anything to you compared to twenty dollars. Anyhow, you kept your word. Hello--what is it?" He had disclosed several small packets. Inside each, sealed, was a peculiar glistening whitish powder. "H'm," mused Kennedy, "another job for the chemist. Here's the bankroll." "Thanks," grinned the dip as he disappeared through the revolving door. We had returned to the laboratory that night where Kennedy was preparing to experiment on the white powder which he had secured in the packet that came from Dr. Harris. The door opened and Clare Kendall entered. "I've been calling you up all over town," she said, "and couldn't find you. I have something that will interest you, I think. You said you wanted something written by Dr. Harris. Well, there it is." She laid a sheet of typewriting on the laboratory table. "How did you get it?" asked Kennedy in eager approbation. "When I left you at the Futurist Tea Room to follow that woman Marie in the cab, I had a good deal of trouble. I guess people thought I was crazy, the way I was ordering that driver about, but he was so stupid and he would get tangled up in the traffic on Fifth Avenue. Still, I managed to hang on, principally because I had a notion already that she was going to the Montmartre. Sure enough, she turned down that block, but she didn't go into the hotel after all. She stopped and went into a place two doors down--Mme. Margot's Beauty Parlour." "Just where we finally saw Harris go," exclaimed Kennedy. "I beg your pardon for interrupting." "Of course I couldn't go in right after her, so I drove around the corner. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good time to stop in to see Dr. Harris--when he was out. You know my experience with the fakers has made me pretty good at faking up ailments. Then, too, I knew that it would be easy when he was not there. I said I was an old patient and had an appointment and that I'd wait, although I knew those were not his regular office hours. He has an alleged trained nurse there all the time. She let me into his waiting-room on the second floor in front--you remember the private dining-rooms are in back. I waited in momentary fear that he WOULD come back. You see, I had a scheme of my own. Well, I waited until at last the nurse had to leave the office for a short time. "That was my chance. I tiptoed over to his desk in the next room. On it were a lot of letters. I looked over them but could find nothing that seemed to be of interest. They were all letters from other people. But they showed that he must have quite an extensive practice, and that he is not over-scrupulous. I didn't want to take anything that would excite suspicion unless I had to. Just then I heard someone coming down the corridor from the elevator. I had just time to get back to a chair in the waiting-room when the door opened and there was that Titian from the office, you remember. She saw me without recognizing me, went in and laid some papers on his desk. As soon as she was gone, I went in again and looked them over. Here was one that she had copied for him." Kennedy had been carefully scrutinizing the sheet of paper as she told how she obtained it. "It couldn't be better as far as our purposes are concerned," he congratulated. "It seems to consist of some notes he had made and wished to preserve about drugs." I leaned over and read: VERONAL.--Diethylmalonyl or diethylbarbituric acid. A hypnotic used extensively. White, crystalline, odourless, slightly bitter. Best in ten to fifteen grain cachets. Does not affect circulatory or respiratory systems or temperature. Toxicity low: 135 gr. taken with no serious result. Unreasonable use for insomnia, however, may lead to death. HEROIN.--Constant use of heroin has been known to lead to-- I looked inquiringly at Kennedy. "Just some fragmentary notes which he had evidently been making. Rather interesting in themselves as showing perhaps something of his practice, but not necessarily incriminating." While we were discussing the contents of the notes, Kennedy had laid over the typewritten sheet the rules and graduated strip of glass which he had used in examining the strange letter signed "An Outcast." A moment later he pulled the letter itself from a drawer and laid the two pieces of writing side by side, comparing them, going from one to the other successively. "People generally, who have not investigated the subject," he remarked as he worked, "hold the opinion that the typewriter has no individuality. Fortunately that is not true. The typewriting machine does not always afford an effective protection to the criminal. On the contrary, the typewriting may be a direct means of tracing a document to its source and showing it to be what it really is. This is especially true of typewritten anonymous letters. Without careful investigation it is impossible to say what can be determined from the examination of any particular piece of typewriting, but typewriting can often be positively identified as being the work of a certain particular typewriting machine and even the date of writing can sometimes be found out." He had been carefully counting something under the lens of a pocket glass. "Even the number of threads to the inch in the ribbon, as shown in the type impression, plainly seen and accurately measured by the microscope or in an enlarged photograph, may show something about the identity of a disputed writing." He was pointing to a letter "r." Under the glass I noticed that there was a break in the little curl at the top. "Now if you find such a break in the same letter in another piece of typewriting, what would you think?" "That they were from the same machine," I replied. "Not so fast," he cautioned. "True, it might raise a presumption that it was from the same machine. But the laws of chance would be against your enthusiasm, Walter." "Of course," I admitted on second thought. "It's just like the finger-print theory. There must be a sort of summation of individual characteristics. Now here's a broken 'l' and there is an 'a' that is twisted. Now, if the same defects are found in another piece of writing, that makes the presumption all the stronger, and when you have massed together a number of such characteristics it raises the presumption to a mathematical certainty, does it not?" I nodded and he went on. "The faces of many letters inevitably become broken, worn, or battered. Not only does that tend to identify a particular machine, but it is sometimes possible, if you have certain admitted standard specimens of writing covering a long period, to tell just when a disputed writing was made. There are two steps in such an inquiry, the first the determination of the fact that a document was written on a certain particular kind of machine and the second that it was written on a certain individual machine of that make. I have here specimens of the writing of all the leading machines. It is easy to pick out the make used, say in the 'Outcast' letter. Moreover, as I said when I first saw that letter, it is in the regular pica type. So are they all, but as ninety-five per cent, use the pica style that in itself proved nothing." "What is that bit of ruled glass?" asked Clare, bending over the letters in deep interest. "In ordinary typewriting," replied Craig, "each letter occupies an imaginary square, ten to the inch horizontally and six to the inch vertically. Typewriting letters are in line both ways. This ruled glass plate is an alinement test plate for detecting defects in alinement. I have also here another glass plate in which the lines diverge each at a very slightly different angle--a typewriting protractor for measuring the slant of divergence of various letters that have become twisted, so to speak. "When it is in perfect alinement the letter occupies the middle of each square and when out of alinement it may be in any of the four corners, or either side of the middle position or at the top or bottom above or below the middle. That, you see, makes nine positions in all--or eight possible divergences from normal in this particular alone." Clare had been using the protractor herself, quickly familiarizing herself with it. "Another possible divergence," went on Kennedy, "is the perpendicular position of the letter in relation to the line. That is of great value in individualizing a machine. It is very seldom that machines, even when they are new, are perfect in this particular. It does not seem much until you magnify it. Then anyone can see it, and it is a characteristic that is fixed, continuous, and not much changed by variations in speed or methods of writing. "Here's another thing. Typewriter faces are not flat like printing type, but are concaved to conform to the curve of the printing surface of the roller. When they are properly adjusted all portions should print uniformly. But when they are slightly out of position in any direction the two curved surfaces of type and roller are not exactly parallel and therefore don't come together with uniform pressure. The result is a difference in intensity in different parts of the impression." It was fascinating to see Craig at work over such minute points which we had never suspected in so common a thing as ordinary typewriting. "Then you can identify these letters positively?" asked Clare. "Positively," answered Craig. "If two machines of the same make were perfect to begin with and in perfect condition--which is never found to be the case when they are critically examined--the work from one would be theoretically indistinguishable from that of another until actual use had affected them differently. The work of any number of machines begins inevitably to diverge as soon as they are used. Since there are thousands of possible particulars in which differences may develop, it very soon becomes possible to identify positively the work of a particular typewriting machine." "How about the operator?" I asked curiously. "Different habits of touch, spacing, speed, arrangement, and punctuation all may also tend to show that a particular piece of writing was or was not done by one operator. In other words, typewriting individuality in many cases is of the most positive and convincing character and reaches a degree of certainty which may almost be described as absolute proof. The identification of a typewritten document in many cases is exactly parallel to the identification of an individual who precisely answers a general description as to features, complexion, size, and in addition matches a long detailed list of scars, birthmarks, deformities, and individual peculiarities." Together we three began an exhaustive examination of the letters, and as Kennedy called off the various characteristics of each type on the standard keyboard we checked them up. It did not take long to convince us, nor would it have failed to convince the most sceptical, that both had come from the same source and the same writer. "You see," concluded Kennedy triumphantly, "we have advanced a long step nearer the solution of at least one of the problems of this case." Miss Kendall had evidently been thinking quickly and turning the matter over in her mind. "But," she spoke up quickly, "even that does not point to the same person as the author--not the writer, but the author--of the three pieces of writing." "No indeed," agreed Craig. "There is much left to be done. As a matter of fact, there might have been one author, or there might have been two, although all the mechanical work was done by one person. But we are at least sure that we have localized the source of the writing. We know that it is from the Montmartre that the letter came. We know that it is in some way that that place and some of the people who frequent it are connected with the disappearance of Betty Blackwell." "In other words," supplied Clare, "we are going to get at the truth through that Titian-haired stenographer." "Exactly." Clare had risen to go. "It quite takes my breath away to think that we are really making such progress against the impregnable Montmartre. At various times my investigators have been piecing together little bits of information about that place. I shall have the whole record put together to-night. I shall let you know about it the first thing in the morning." The door had scarcely closed when Kennedy turned quickly to me and remarked, "That girl has something on her mind. I wonder what it is?" XII THE "PORTRAIT PARLE" What it was that Clare Kendall had on her mind, appeared the following day. "There's something I want to try," she volunteered, evidently unable to repress it any longer. "I have a plan--or half a plan. Don't you think it would be just the thing, under the circumstances, to ring up District Attorney Carton, tell him what we have accomplished and take him into our confidence? Perhaps he can suggest something. At any rate we have all got to work together, for there is going to be a great fight when they find out how far we have gone." "Bully idea," agreed Craig. Twenty minutes later we were seated in the District Attorney's office in the Criminal Courts Building, pouring into his sympathetic ear the story of our progress so far. Carton seemed to be delighted, as Kennedy proceeded to outline the case, at the fact that he and Miss Kendall had found it possible to co-operate. His own experience in trying to get others to work with the District Attorney's office, particularly the police, had been quite the reverse. "I wish to heaven you could get the right kind of evidence against the Montmartre gang," he sighed. "It is a gang, too--a high-class gang. In fact--well, it must be done. That place is a blot on the city. The police never have really tried to get anything on it. Miss Kendall never could, could you? I admit I never have. It seems to be understood that it is practically impossible to prove anything against it. They openly defy us. The thing can't go on. It demoralizes all our other work. Just one good blow at the Montmartre and we could drive every one of these vile crooks to cover." He brought his fist down with a thud on the desk, swung around in his chair, and emphasized his words with his forefinger. "And yet, I know as well as I know that you are all in this room that graft is being paid to the police and the politicians by that place and in fact by all those places along there. If we are to do anything with them, that must be proved. That is the first step and I'm glad the whole thing hinges on the Blackwell case. People always sit up and take notice when there is something personal involved, some human interest which even the newspapers can see. That Montmartre crowd, whoever they are, must be made to feel the strong arm of the law. That's what I am in this office to do. Now, Kennedy, there must be some way to catch those crooks with the goods." "They aren't ordinary crooks, you know," ruminated Kennedy. "I know they are not. But you and Miss Kendall and Jameson ought to be able to think out a scheme." "But you see, Mr. Carton," put in Clare, "this is a brand new situation. Your gambling and vice and graft exposures have made all of them so wary that they won't pass a bill from their right to their left pockets for fear it is marked." Carton laughed. "Well, you are a brand new combination against them. Let me see; you want suggestions. Why don't you use the detectaphone--get our own little Black Book?" Kennedy shook his head. "The detectaphone is all right, as Dorgan knows. It might work again. But I don't think I'll take any chances. No, these grafters wouldn't say 'Thank you' in an open boat in mid-ocean, for fear of wireless, now. They've been educated up to a lot of things lately. No, it must be something new. What do you know about graft up there?" "The people who are running those places in the fifties are making barrels of money," summarized Carton quickly. "No one ever interferes with them, either. I know from reliable sources, too, that the police are 'getting theirs.' But although I know it I can't prove it; I can't even tell who is getting it. But once a week a collector for the police calls around in that district and shakes them all down. By Jove, to-day is the day. The trouble with it all is that they have made the thing so underground that no one but the principals know anything about it--not even the agents. I guess you are right about the detectaphone." "To-day's the day, is it?" mused Craig. "So I understand." "I think I can get them with a new machine they never dreamed of," exclaimed Kennedy, who had been turning something over in his mind. He reached for the telephone and called the Montmartre. "Julius, please," he said when they answered; then, placing his hand over the transmitter, he turned to Clare. "That was your friend the Titian, Miss Kendall." "No friend of mine if she happens to remember seeing me in Dr. Harris's office the other day. Still, I doubt if she would." "Hello--Julius? Good morning. How about a private dining-room for three, Julius?" We could not hear the reply, but Craig added quickly, "I thought there were two?" Evidently the answer was in the affirmative, for Craig asked next, "Well, can't we have the small one?" He hung up the receiver with a satisfied smile after closing with "That's the way to talk. Thank you, Julius. Good-bye." "What was the difficulty?" I asked. "Why, I thought I'd take a chance--and it took. Now figure it out for yourself. Carton says it's dough day, so to speak, up there. What is more natural than that the money for all those places leased to various people should be passed over in a place that is public and yet is not public? For instance, there is the Montmartre itself. Now think it out. Where would that be done in the Montmartre? Why, in one of the private dining-rooms, of course." "That seems reasonable," agreed Carton. "That was the way I doped it," pursued Craig. "I thought I'd confirm it if I could. You remember they told us to call up always if I wanted a private dining-room and it would be reserved for me. So it was the most natural thing in the world for me to call up. If they had said yes, I should have been disappointed. But they said no, and straightway I wanted one of those rooms the worst way. One seems to be engaged--the large one. He said nothing about the other, so I asked him. Since I knew about it, he could hardly say no. Well, I have engaged it for lunch--an early luncheon, too." "It sounds all right, as though you were on the right trail," remarked Carton. "But, remember, only the best sort of evidence will go against those people. They can afford to hire the best lawyers that money can retain. And be careful not to let them get anything on you, for they are fearful liars, and they'll go the limit to discredit you." "Trust us," assured Craig. "Now, Miss Kendall, if you will give us the pleasure of lunching with you at the Montmartre again, I think we may be able to get the Judge just the sort of open and shut evidence he is after." "I shall be glad to do it. I'm ready now." Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It's a little early yet. If we take a taxicab we shall have plenty of time to stop at the laboratory on our way." Arriving at the laboratory, he went to a drawer, from which he took a little box which contained a long tube, and carefully placed it in the breast pocket of his coat. Then from a chest of tools he drew several steel sections that apparently fitted together, and began stuffing the parts into various pockets. "Here, Walter," he said, "these make me bulge like a yeggman with his outfit under his coat. Can't you help me with some of these parts?" I jammed several into various pockets--heavy pieces of metal--and we were ready. Our previous visits to the Montmartre seemed to have given us the entree and the precaution of telephoning made it even easier. Indeed, it appeared that about all that was necessary there was to be known and to be thought "right." We carefully avoided the office, where the stenographer might possibly have recognized Clare, and entered the elevator. "Is Dr. Harris in?" asked Craig, both by way of getting information and showing that he was no stranger. The black elevator boy gave an ivory grin. "No, sah. He done gone on one o' them things." Another question developed the fact that whenever Harris was away it was generally assumed that he was tinting the metropolis vermilion from the Battery to the Bronx. We passed down the hall to the smaller of the two dining-rooms, and as we went by the larger we could see the door open and that no one was there. We had ordered and the waiter had scarcely shut the door before Kennedy had divested himself of the heavy steel sections which he had hidden in his pockets. I did the same. With a quick glance he seemed to be observing just how the furniture was placed. The smaller dining-room was quite as elaborately furnished as the larger, though of course the furniture was more crowded. He moved the settee and was on his knees in a corner. "Let me see," he considered. "There was nothing on this side of the larger room except the divan in the centre." As nearly as he could judge he was measuring off just where the divan stood on the opposite side of the wall, and its height. Then he began fitting together the pieces of steel. As he added one to another, I saw that they made a sectional brace and bit of his own design, a long, vicious-looking affair such as a burglar might have been glad to own. Carefully he started to bore through the plaster and lath back of the settee and to one side of where the divan must have been. He was making just as small a hole as possible, now and then stopping to listen. There was no noise from the next room, but a tap on the door announced the waiter with luncheon. He shoved the settee back and joined us. The discreet waiter placed the food on the table and departed without a word or look. Kennedy resumed his work and we left the luncheon still untasted. The bit seemed to have gone through as Kennedy, turning it carefully, withdrew it now and then to make sure. At last he seemed to be satisfied with the opening he had made. From the package in his breast pocket he drew a long brass tube which looked as if it might be a putty-blower. Slowly he inserted it into the hole he had bored. "What is it?" I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity longer. "I felt sure that there would be no talking done in that room, especially as we are in this one and anyone knows that even if you can't put a detectaphone in a room, it will often work if merely placed against a wall or door, on the other side, in the next room. So I thought I'd use this instead. Put your eye down here." I did so and was amazed to find that through a hole less than a quarter of an inch in diameter the brass tube enabled me to see the entire room next to us. I looked up at Kennedy in surprise. "What do you think of this, Miss Kendall?" I asked, moving the settee out of her way. "What do you call it?" "That is a detectascope," he replied, "a little contrivance which makes use of the fish-eye lens. "Yes. The detectascope enables you to see what is going on in another room. The focus may be altered in range so that the faces of those in the room may be recognized and the act of passing money or signing cheques, for instance, may be detected. The instrument is fashioned somewhat after the cytoscope of the doctors, with which the human interior may be seen." "Very remarkable," exclaimed Clare. "But I can't understand how it is possible to see so much through such a little tube. Why, I almost fancy I can see more in that room than I could with my own eyes if I were placed so that I could not move my head." Kennedy laughed. "That's the secret," he went on. "For instance, take a drop of water. Professor Wood of Johns Hopkins has demonstrated recently the remarkable refracting power of a drop of water, using the camera and the drop of water as a lens. It is especially interesting to scientists because it illustrates the range of vision of some fishes. They have eyes that see over half a circle. Hence the lens gets its name--'the fish-eye lens.' A globe refracts the light that reaches it from all directions, and if it is placed as the lens is in the detectascope so that one half of it catches the light, all this light will be refracted through it. Ordinary lenses, because of their flatness, have a range of only a few degrees, the widest in use, I believe, taking in only ninety-six degrees, or a little over a quarter of a circle. So you see my detectascope has a range almost twice as wide as that of any other lens." The little tube was fascinating, and although there was no one in the next room yet, I could not resist the desire to keep on looking through it. "Since you are so interested, Walter," laughed Craig, "we'll appoint you to take the first shift at watching. Meanwhile we may as well eat since we shall certainly have to pay. When you are tired or hungry I'll take a turn." Kennedy and I had been taking turns at watching through the detectascope while Miss Kendall told us more about how she had come to be associated with the organization to clean up New York. "We have struck some delicate situations before," she was saying, "times when it meant either that we must surrender and compromise the work of the investigation or offend an interest that might turn out to be more powerful than we realized. Our rule from the start was, 'No Compromise.' You know the moment you compromise with one, all the others hear it and it weakens your position. We've made some powerful enemies, but our idea is that as long as we keep perfectly straight and honest they will never be able to beat us. We shall win in the end, because so far it has never come to a show-down, when we appealed to the public itself, that the public had not risen and backed us strongly." I had come to have the utmost confidence in Clare Kendall and her frank way of handling a ticklish yet most important subject without fear or prudishness. There was a refreshing newness about her method. It was neither the holier-than-thou attitude of many religionists, nor the smug monopoly of all knowledge of the social worker, nor the brutal wantonness of the man or woman of the world who excuses everything "because it is human nature, always has been and always will be." "We have no illusions on the subject," she pursued. "We don't expect to change human nature until the individual standard changes. But we are convinced of this--and it is as far as we go and is what we are out to accomplish--and that is that we can, and are going to, smash protected, commercialized vice as one of the big businesses of New York." "Sh-h," cautioned Kennedy, whose turn it happened to be just then to watch. "Someone has just entered the room." "Who is it?" I whispered eagerly. "A man. I can't see his face. His back is toward me, but there is something familiar about him. There--he is turning around. For Heaven's sake--it's Ike the Dropper!" We had already recounted to Miss Kendall our experiences in following Dr. Harris to the black and tan joint and the meeting with Ike the Dropper. "Then Ike the Dropper is the collector for the police or the politicians higher up," she exclaimed under her breath. "If we learned nothing more, that would be enough. It would tell us whom to watch." Hastily we took turns at getting a good look at Ike through the wonderful little detectascope. Then Kennedy resumed his watch, whispering now and then what he saw. Apparently Ike had proceeded to make himself comfortable in the luxurious surroundings of the private dining-room, against the arrival of the graft payers. "I wonder who the man higher up is," whispered Miss Kendall. "Someone is coming in," reported Kennedy. "By George, it is that stenographer from the office downstairs. She is handing him an envelope. Good for her! He tried to kiss her and she backed away in disgust. The scoundrel! "Isn't it clever, though? Not a word is said by anyone. I don't suppose she could swear to knowing anything about what is in the envelope. There she goes out. He is opening the envelope and counting out the money--ten one-hundred-dollar bills. There they go into the fob pocket of his trousers. I imagined he learned something from my pick-pocket. That is the safest pocket a man has. That little contribution, I take it, was from the Montmartre itself." Then followed an interval in which Ike puffed away on his cigar in silent state. "Here's another now," announced Craig. "Another woman. I never saw her before." Both Miss Kendall and I looked and neither of us recognized her. She was slim and would have been young-looking if she had not made such obvious efforts to imitate the healthy colour of the cheeks which she probably would have had if she had lived sensibly and left cosmetics alone. Kennedy was hastily jotting down some notes on the back of an envelope. "They are going through the same proceedings again. I guess Ike doesn't like her. There she goes. Only two hundred this time." Another wait followed, during which Ike smoked down his cigar and lighted another from the stub. Then the door opened again. Kennedy motioned quickly to Clare to look through the detectascope. Meanwhile he pulled from his pocket the piece of paper he had written on and torn from the back of the menu at the Futurist. "Marie!" exclaimed Clare under her breath. "The same," whispered Kennedy. "Miss Kendall, you have the true 'camera eye' of the born detective. Now--please--let me see if I can get what occurs." She yielded her place to him. "Three hundred more," he murmured. "Marie must be in the game, though. He didn't wait for her to leave before he tore open the envelope. Now they are burning the envelopes in the ash tray. And still not a word. This is clever, clever. Think of it--fifteen hundred dollars of easy money like that! I wonder how much of it sticks to Ike's hands on the way up. He must have a capacious fob pocket for that. Say, he's a regular fellow with the ladies, Ike is. Only this one doesn't seem to resent it. By George, I wonder if this fellow Ike isn't giving the police or the politicians the double-cross. He couldn't be on such intimate terms with one who was paying graft to him as collector otherwise; do you think so?" Craig looked up without waiting for an answer. "You will excuse any levity, but that was some kiss she just gave him." Kennedy resumed his position for looking through the detectascope, occasionally glancing down at the notes he had made the day before and now and then making a slight alteration. "There. She is going away now. Well, I guess the collection is all over. He has his hat on and a third cigar, ready to go as soon as somebody signals that the coast is clear. That was a good day's work for Ike and the man higher up, whoever he is. Ah--there he goes. It was a signal from the waiter he was after. Now we may as well finish this luncheon. It cost enough." For several minutes we ate in silence. "I wish I could have followed Ike," observed Craig. "But of course it would have been of no use. To go out right after him would have given the whole thing away." "Who is that dark-haired, dark-skinned woman, Marie, do you suppose?" asked Clare. "Sometimes I almost think she is part negro." "I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if you were right. If you have any investigators to spare, they might try to find out who she is and something of her history. I will give them a copy of these notes which I intend to turn over to the Department of Justice men who have been making the white slave investigation for the Federal Government." Kennedy had laid the notes which he had made on the menu before us and was copying them. Both Clare and I leaned over to read them. It was Greek to me: Nose--straight, base elevated, nostrils thick, slightly flaring. Ears--lobe descending oval, traversed by a hollow, antitragus concave; lobe separated from cheek. Lips--large. Mouth--large. Chin--receding. There was much more that he had jotted down and added to the description. "Oh," exclaimed Clare, as she ran through the writing, "that is this new portrait parle, the spoken picture, isn't it?" "Yes," replied Kennedy. "You may know that the Government has been using it in its white slave inquiry and has several thousands of such descriptions. Under the circumstances, I understand that the Government agents find it superior to finger-prints. Finger-prints are all right for identification, as we have found right here, for instance, in the Night Court. But Bertillon's new portrait parle is the thing for apprehension." "What is it?" I asked. "Well, take the case before us. We have had no chance to finger-print that woman and what good would it do if we had? No one could recognize her that way until she was arrested or some means had been taken to get the prints again. "But the portrait parle is scientific apprehension, the step that comes before scientific identification by finger-prints. It means giving the detective an actual portrait of the person he is sent after without burdening him with a photograph. As descriptions are now given, together with a photograph, a person is described as of such a weight, height, general appearance, and so on. A clever crook knows that. He knows how to change his appearance so that there are few even of the best detectives who can recognize him. This new system describes the features so that a man can carry them in his mind systematically, features that cannot be changed. "Take the nose, for example," explained Kennedy. "There are only three kinds, as Bertillon calls them--convex, straight, and concave. A detective, we will say, is sent out after a man with a concave nose or, as in this case a woman with a straight nose. Thus he is freed from the necessity of taking a second glance at two-thirds of the women, roughly, that he meets--that is, theoretically. He passes by all with convex and concave noses. "There are four classes of ears--triangular, square, oval, and round, as they may be called. Having narrowed his search to women with straight noses, the detective needs to concern himself with only one-fourth of the women with straight noses. Having come down to women with straight noses and, say, oval ears, he will eliminate all those that do not have the mouth, lips, chin, eyes, forehead, and so on that have been given him. Besides that, there are other striking differences in noses and ears that make his work much easier than you would imagine, once he has been trained to observe such things quickly." "It sounds all right," I agreed haltingly. "It is all right, too," he argued warmly. "The proof of it is its use in Paris and other cities abroad and the fact that it has been imported here to New York in the Police Department and has been used by the Government. I could tell you many interesting stories about how it has succeeded where photographs would have failed." I had been reading over the description again and trying to apply it. "For instance," Craig resumed thoughtfully. "I believe that this woman is a mulatto, but that is a long way from proving it. Still, I hope that by using the portrait parle and other things we may be able to draw the loose threads together into a net that will catch her--providing, of course, that she ought to be caught." He had finished making copies of the portrait parle and had called for a cheque for the lunch. "So you see," he concluded, "this is without any doubt the woman we saw at the Futurist, whom Miss Kendall followed to Madame Margot's Beauty Shop, two doors down." Kennedy handed a copy to Miss Kendall. "Using that and whatever other means you may have, Miss Kendall," he said, "I wish that you would try to find this woman and all you can about her. Walter, take this other copy and see Carton. I think he has a county detective who knows the system. I shall spend the rest of the day getting in touch with the Federal authorities in this city and in Washington trying to find out whether they know anything about her." We left the Montmartre with as much care as we had entered and seemingly without having yet aroused any suspicion. The rest of the day was spent in setting to work those whom we felt we could trust to use the portrait parle to locate the mysterious dark-haired Marie who seemed to cross our trail at every turn, yet who proved so elusive. XIII THE CONVICTION Meanwhile, the organization was using every effort to get possession of the Black Book, as Kennedy had suspected. Miss Ashton had been busy on the case of the missing Betty Blackwell, but as yet there was no report from any of the agencies which she had set in motion to locate the girl. She had seen Langhorne, and, although she did not say much about the result of the interview, I felt sure that it had resulted in a further estrangement between them, perhaps a suspicion on the part of Langhorne that Carton had been responsible for it. In as tactful a way as possible, Miss Ashton had also warned Mrs. Ogleby of the danger she ran, but, as I had already supposed, the warning had been unnecessary. The rumours about the detectaphone record of the dinner had been quite enough. As for the dinner itself, what happened, and who were present, it remained still a mystery, perhaps only to be explained when at last we managed to locate the book. Since the visit of Kahn, we had had no direct or indirect communications with either Dorgan or Murtha. They were, however, far from inactive, and I felt that their very secrecy, which had always been the strong card of the organization, boded no good. Although both Carton and Kennedy were straining every nerve to make progress in the case, there was indeed very little to report, either the next day or for some time after the episode which had placed Kahn in our power. Carton was careful not to say anything about the graphic record we had taken of Kahn's attempt to throw the case. It was better so, he felt. The jury fixing evidence would keep and it would prove all the stronger trump to play when the right occasion arose. That time rapidly approached, now, with the day set for the trial of Dopey Jack. The morning of the trial found both Kennedy and myself in the part of General Sessions to which the case had been assigned to be tried under Justice Pomeroy. To one who would watch the sieve through which justice vigorously tries to separate the wheat from the chaff, the innocent from the guilty, a visit to General Sessions is the best means. For it is fed through the channels that lead through the police courts, the Grand Jury chambers, and the District Attorney's office. There one can study the largest assortment of criminals outside of a penal institution, from the Artful Dodger and Bill Sykes, Fagin and Jim the Penman, to the most modern of noted crooks of fact or fiction, all done here in real flesh and blood. It is the busiest of criminal courts. More serious offenders against the law are sentenced here than in any other court in New York. The final chapter in nearly every big crime is written there, sooner or later. As we crowded in, thanks to the courtesy of Carton, we found a roomy chamber, with high ceiling, and grey, impressive walls in the southeast corner of the second floor of the Criminal Courts Building. Heavy carved oaken doors afforded entrance and exit for the hundreds of lawyers, witnesses, friends, and relatives of defendants and complainants who flocked thither. Rows upon rows of dark-brown stained chairs filled the west half of the courtroom, facing a three-foot railing that enclosed a jury box and space reserved for counsel tables, the clerk and the District Attorney representing the people. At the extreme east rose in severe dignity the dais or bench above which ascended a draped canopy of rich brown plush. Here Justice Pomeroy presided, in his robes of silk, a striking, white-haired figure of a man, whose face was seamed and whose eyes were keen with thought and observation. Across the street, reached by the famous Bridge of Sighs, loomed the great grey hulk of stone and steel bars, the city prison, usually referred to as "The Tombs." As if there had been some cunning design in the juxtaposition, the massive jail reared itself outside the windows as an object lesson. It was a perpetual warning to the lawbreaker. Its towers and projections jutted out as so many rocks on a dangerous shore where had been wrecked thousands of promising careers just embarked on the troublesome seas of life. Skirting the line of southern windows through which The Tombs was visible, ran a steel wire screen, eight feet high, marking off a narrow chute that hugged the walls to a door at the rear of the courtroom leading to the detention pen. Ordinarily prisoners were brought over the Bridge of Sighs in small droves and herded in the detention pens just outside the courtroom until their cases were called. The line-up of prisoners at such times awaiting their turn at the bar of justice affords ample opportunity for study to the professional or the amateur criminalist. Almost daily in this court one might look upon murderers, bank looters, clever forgers, taxicab robbers, safe crackers, highwaymen, second-story men, shoplifters, pickpockets, thieves, big and little--all sorts and conditions of crooks come to pay the price. The court was crowded, for the gang leaders knew that this was a show-down for them. Carton himself, not one of his assistants, was to conduct the case. If Dopey Jack, who had violated almost every law in the revised statutes and had never suffered anything worse than a suspended sentence, could not get off, then no one could. And it was unthinkable that Dopey should not only be arrested and held in jail without bail, but even be convicted on such a trivial matter as slight irregularities that swung the primaries in a large section of the city for his superior, "higher up." Rubano's father, a decent, sorrowing old man, sat in the rear of the courtroom, probably wondering how it had all happened, for he came evidently of a clean, law-abiding family. But there was nothing in the appearance of the insolent criminal at the bar to show that he was of the same breed. He was no longer the athlete, whom "prize fighting" had inculcated with principles of manliness and fair play as well as a strong body. All that, as I had seen often before, was a pitiful lie. He was rat-eyed and soft-handed. His skin had the pastiness that comes of more exposure to the glare of vile dance halls than the sunlight of day. His black hair was slicked down; he was faultlessly tailored and his shoes had those high, bulging toes which are the extreme of Fourteenth Street fashion. Outside, overflowing into the corridor, were gangsters, followers and friends of Dopey Jack. Only an overpowering show of force preserved the orderliness of the court from their boasting, bragging, and threats. The work of selecting the jury began, and we watched it carefully. Kahn, cool and cunning, had evidently no idea of what Carton was holding out against him. In the panel I could see the anemic-looking fellow whom we had caught with the goods up at Farrell's. Carton's men had shadowed him and had learned of every man with whom he had spoken. As each, for some reason or other, was objected to by Carton, Kahn began to show exasperation. At last the anemic fellow came up for examination. Kahn accepted him. For a moment Carton seemed to fumble among his papers, without even looking at the prospective juror. Then he drew out the print which Kennedy had made. Quietly, without letting anyone else see it, he deliberately walked to Kahn's table and showed it to the lawyer, without a word, in fact without anyone else in the court knowing anything about it. Kahn's face was a study, as he realized for the first time what it was that Carton and Kennedy had been doing that night at Farrell's. He paled. His hand shook. It was with the utmost effort that he could control his voice. He had been cornered and the yellow streak in him showed through. In a husky voice he withdrew the juror, and Carton, in the same cold, self-possessed manner resumed his former position, not even a trace of a smile on his features. It was all done so quickly that scarcely a soul in the court besides ourselves realized that anything had happened. "Isn't he going to say anything about it?" I whispered to Craig. "That will come later," was all that Kennedy replied, his eyes riveted still on Carton. Though no one besides ourselves realized it, Carton had thrown a bombshell that had demolished the defence. Others noticed it, but as yet did not know the cause. Kahn, the great Kahn by whom all the forces of the underworld had conjured, was completely unnerved. Carton had fixed it so that he could not retreat and leave the case to someone else. He had knocked the props from under his defence by uncannily turning down every man whom he had any reason of suspecting of having been approached. Then he had given Kahn just a glimpse of the evidence that hinted at what was in store for himself personally. Kahn was never the same after that. Judge Pomeroy, who had been following the progress of the case attentively, threw another bombshell when he announced that he would direct that the names of the jurors be kept secret until it was absolutely necessary to disclose them, a most unusual proceeding designed to protect them from reprisals of gangmen. At last the real trial began. Carton had been careful to see that none of the witnesses for the people should be "stiffened" as the process was elegantly expressed by those of Dopey Jack's class--in other words, intimidated, bribed, or otherwise rendered innocuous. One after another, Carton rammed home the facts of the case, the fraudulent registration and voting, the use of the names of dead men to pad the polling lists, the bribery of election officials at the primaries--the whole sordid, debasing story of how Dopey Jack had intimidated and swung one entire district. It was clever, as he presented it, with scarcely a reference to the name of Murtha, the beneficiary of such tactics--as though, perhaps, Murtha's case was in his mind separate and would be attended to later when his turn came. Rapidly, concisely, convincingly, Carton presented the facts. Now and then Kahn would rise to object to something as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. But there was lacking something in his method. It was not the old Kahn. In fact, one almost felt that Carton was disappointed in his adversary, that he would have preferred a stiff, straight from the shoulder, stand-up fight. Now and then we could hear a whisper circulating about among the spectators. What was the matter with Kahn? Was he ill? Gangdom was in a daze itself, little knowing the smooth stone that Carton had slung between the eyes of the great underworld Goliath of the law. At last Carton's case was all in, and Kahn rose to present his own, a forced smile on his face. There was an attempt at a demonstration, but Judge Pomeroy rapped sharply for order, and alert court attendants were about to nip effectively any such outburst. Still, it was enough to show the undercurrent of open defiance of the court, of law, of the people. What it was no one but ourselves knew but Kahn was not himself. Others saw it, but did not understand. They had waited patiently through the sledge-hammer pounding of Carton, waiting expectantly for Kahn to explode a mine that would demolish the work of the District Attorney as if it had been so much paper. Carton had figuratively dampened the fuse. It sputtered, but the mine did not explode. Once or twice there were flashes of the old Kahn, but for the most part he seemed to have crumpled up. Often I thought he was not the equal of even a police court lawyer. The spectators seemed to know that something was wrong, though they could not tell just what it was. Kahn's colleagues whispered among themselves. He made his points, but they lacked the fire and dash and audacity that once had caused the epigram that Kahn's appearance in court indicated two things--the guilt of the accused and a verdict of acquittal. Even Justice Pomeroy seemed to notice it. Kahn had tried many a case before him and the old judge had a wholesome respect for the wiley lawyer. But to-day the court found nothing so grave as the strange dilatoriness of the counsel. Once the judge had to interfere with the remark, "I may remind the learned counsel for the defence that the court intends to finish this case before adjournment for the day, if possible; if not, then we shall sit to-night." Kahn seemed not to grasp the situation, as he had of old. He actually hurried up the presentation of the case, oblivious to the now black looks that were directed at him by his own client. If he had expected to recover his old-time equanimity as the case proceeded, he failed. For no one better than he knew what that little photograph of Carton's meant--disgrace, disbarment, perhaps prison itself. What was this Dopey Jack when ruin stared himself so relentlessly in the face in the person of Carton, calm and cool? At last the summing up was concluded and both sides rested. Judge Pomeroy charged the jury, I thought with eminent fairness and impartiality, even, perhaps, glossing over some points which Kahn's weak presentation might have allowed him to make more of if Kahn had been bolder and stronger in pressing them. The jury filed out and the anxious waiting began. On all sides was the buzz of conversation. Kahn himself sat silent, gazing for the most part at the papers before him. There must have been some wrangling of the jury, for twice hope of the gangsters revived when they sent in for the record. But it was not over an hour later when the jury finally filed back again into their box. As Judge Pomeroy faced them and asked the usual question, the spectators hung, breathless, on the words of the foreman as the jurors stood up silently in their places. There was a tense hush in the courtroom, as every eye was fastened on the face of the foreman. The hush seemed to embarrass him. But finally he found his voice. Nervously, as if he were taking his own life in his hands he delivered the verdict. "We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment!" Instantly, before anyone could move, the dignified judge faced the prisoner deliberately. "You have heard the verdict," he said colourlessly. "I shall sentence you Friday." Three court attendants were at Dopey Jack's side in a moment, but none too soon. The pent-up feeling of the man idolized by blackmailers, and man-killers, and batteners on street-women, who held nothing as disgrace but a sign of respect for law or remorse for capture, burst forth. He cast one baleful look at Kahn as they hurried him to the wire-screened passageway. "It's all a frame-up--a damned frame-up!" he shouted. As he disappeared a murmer of amazement ran through the room. The unthinkable had happened. An East Side idol had fallen. XIV THE BEAUTY PARLOUR "It seems strange," remarked Kennedy the following morning when we had met in his laboratory for our daily conference to plan our campaign, "that although we seem to be on the right trail we have not a word yet about Betty Blackwell herself. Carton has just telephoned that her mother, poor woman, is worrying her heart out and is a mere shadow of her former self." "We must get some word," asserted Miss Kendall. "This silence is almost like the silence of death." "I'm afraid I shall have to impose on you that task," said Kennedy thoughtfully to her. "There seems to be no course open to us but to transfer our watch from Dr. Harris to this Marie. Of course it is too early to hear from our search by means of the portrait parle. But we have both seen Dr. Harris and Marie enter the beauty parlour of Madame Margot. Now, I don't mean to cast aspersions on your own good looks, Miss Kendall. They are of the sort with which no beauty parlour except Nature can compete." A girl of another type than Clare would probably have read a half dozen meanings into his sincere compliment. But then, I reflected that a man of another type than Craig could not have made the remark without expecting her to do so. There was a frankness between them which, I must confess, considerably relieved me. I was not prepared to lose Kennedy, even to Miss Kendall. She smiled. "You want me to try a course in artificial beautification, don't you?" "Yes. Walter doesn't need it, and as for me, nothing could make me a modern Adonis. Seriously, though, a man couldn't get in there, I suppose. At least that is one of the many things I want you to find out. Under the circumstances, you are the only person in whom I have confidence enough to believe that she can get at the facts there. Find out all you can about the character of the place and the people who frequent it. And if you can learn anything about that Madame Margot who runs the place, so much the better." "I'll try," she said simply. Kennedy resumed his tests of the powder in the packets which Dr. Harris had been distributing, and I endeavoured to make myself as little in the way as possible. It was not until the close of the afternoon that a taxicab drove up and deposited Miss Kendall at the door. "What luck?" greeted Kennedy eagerly, as she entered. "Do you feel thoroughly beautified?" "Don't make me smile," she replied, as she swept in with an air that would have done credit to the star in a comic opera. "I'd hate to crack or even crease the enamel on my face. I've been steamed and frozen, beaten and painted and---" "I'm sorry to have been the cause of such cruel and unusual punishment," apologized Craig. "No, indeed. Why, I enjoyed it. Let me tell you about the place." She leaned against the laboratory table, certainly an incongruous picture in her new role as contrasted with the stained and dirty background of paraphernalia of medico-legal investigation. I could not help feeling that if Clare Kendall ever had decided to go in for such things, Marie herself would have had to look sharp to her laurels. "As you enter the place," she began, "you feel a delightful warmth and there is an odour of attar of roses in the air. There are thick half-inch carpets that make walking a pleasure and dreamy Sleepy Hollow rockers that make it an impossibility. It is all very fascinating. "There are dull-green lattices, little gateways with roses, white enamel with cute little diamond panes of glass for windows, inviting bowers of artificial flowers and dim yellow lights. It makes you feel like a sybarite just to see it. It's a cosmetic Arcadia for that fundamental feminine longing for beauty. "Well, first there are the little dressing-rooms, each with a bed, a dresser and mirror, and everything in such good taste. After you leave them you go to a white, steamy room and there they bake you. It's a long process of gentle showers, hot and cold, after that, and massage. "I thought I was through. But it seems that I had only just started. There was a battery of white manicure tables, and then the hairdressers and the artists who lay on these complexions--what do you think of mine? I can't begin to tell all the secrets of the curls and puffs, and reinforcements, hygienic rolls, transformations, fluffy puffers, and all that, or of the complexions. Why, you can choose a complexion, like wall-paper or upholstery. They can make you as pale as a sickly heroine or they can make you as yellow as a bathing girl. There is nothing they can't do. I asked just for fun. I could have come out as dusky as a gipsy. "They tried electrolysis on my eyebrows, and one attendant suggested a hypodermic injection of perfume. Ever hear of that? She thought 'new mown hay' was the best to saturate the skin with. Then another suggested, as long as I had chosen this moonbeam make-up, that perhaps I'd like a couple of dimples. They could make them permanent or lasting only a few hours. I declined. But there is nothing so wild that they haven't either thought of themselves or imported from Paris or somewhere else. I heard them discussing someone who wanted odd eyes--made by pouring in certain liquids. They don't seem to care how they affect sight, hearing, skin, or health. It is decoration run mad." "How about the people there?" asked Kennedy. "Oh, I must tell you about that. There's so much to tell, I hardly know where to begin--or stop. I saw some flashy people. You know one customer attracts her friends and so on. There is every class there from the demi-monde up to actresses and really truly society. And they have things for all prices from the comparatively cheap to the most extravagant. They're very accommodating and, in a way, democratic." "Did it seem--straight?" asked Kennedy. "On the surface, yes, as far as I could judge. But I'll have to go back again for that. For instance, there was one thing that seemed queer to me. I had finished the steaming and freezing and was resting. A maid brought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little thin ones with gilt tips. There seemed to be several kinds. I managed to try some of them. One at least I know was doped, although I only had a whiff of it. I think after they got to know you they'd serve anything from a cocktail in a teacup to the latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman taking some veronal in her coffee." "Veronal?" commented Craig. "Then that may be where Dr. Harris comes in." "Partly, I think. I've got to find out more about what is hidden there. Once I heard a man's voice and I know it was Dr. Harris's." "Harris! Why, the elevator boy at the Montmartre said he was painting the town," I observed. "I don't believe it. I think he has all he can do keeping up with the beauty shop. You see, it is more than a massage parlour. They do real decorative surgery, as it is called. They'll engage to give you a new skin as soft and pink as a baby's. Or they will straighten a nose, or turn an ear. They have light treatment for complexions--the ruby ray, the violet ray, the phosphorescent ray. "You would laugh at the fake science that is being handed out to those gullible fools. They can get rid of freckles and superfluous hair, of course. But they'll even tell you that they can change your mouth and chin, your eyes, your cheeks. I should be positively afraid of some of their electrical appliances there. They sweat down your figure or build it up--just as you please. "Oh, no one need be plain in these days, not as long as Madame Margot's exists. That is where I think Dr. Harris comes in. He can pose as a full-fledged, blown-in-the-bottle cosmetic surgeon. I'll bet there is no limit to the agonized beautification that they can put you through if they think they can play you for a sucker." "By the way, did you see Madame Margot herself?" asked Craig. "No. I made all sorts of discreet inquiries after her, but they seemed to know nothing. The nearest I could get was a hint from one of the girls that she was away. But I'll tell you whom I think I heard, talking to the man whose voice sounded like Dr. Harris's, and that was Marie. Of course I couldn't see, but in the part of the shop that looks like a fake hospital I heard two voices and I would wager that Marie is going through some of this beautification herself. Of course she is. You remember how artificial she looked?" "Did you see anyone else?" "Oh, yes. You know the place is two doors from the Montmartre. Well, I think they have some connection with that place between them and the Montmartre. Anyhow it looks as if they did, for after I had been there a little while a girl came in, apparently from nowhere. She was the girl we saw paying money to Ike the Dropper, you remember--the one none of us recognized? There's something in that next house, and she seems to have charge of it." "Well, you have done a good day's work," complimented Kennedy. "I feel that I have made a start, anyhow," she admitted. "There is a lot yet to be learned of Margot's. You remember it was early in the day that I was there. I want to go back sometime in the afternoon or evening." "Dr. Harris is apparently the oracle on beauty," mused Kennedy. "Yes. He must make a lot of money there." "They must have some graft, though, besides the beauty parlour," went on Kennedy. "They wouldn't be giving up money to Ike the Dropper if that was all there was." "No, and that is where the doped cigarette comes in. That is why I want to go again. I imagine it's like the Montmartre. They have to know you and think you are all right before you get the real inside of the place." "I don't doubt it." "I can't go around looking like a chorus girl," remarked Miss Kendall finally, with a glance at a little mirror she carried in her bag. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me until I get rid of this beautification." The telephone rang sharply. As Kennedy answered, we gathered that it was Carton. A few minutes of conversation, mostly on Carton's part, followed. Kennedy hung up the receiver with an exclamation of vexation. "I'm afraid I did wrong to start anything with the portrait parle yet," he said. "Why, this thing we are investigating has so many queer turns that you hardly know whom to trust." "What do you mean?" "I don't know who could have given the thing away, but Carton says it wasn't an hour after the inquiries began about Marie that it became known in the underworld that she was being looked for in this way. Oh, they are clever, those grafters. They have all sorts of ways of keeping in touch. I suppose they remember they had one experience with the portrait parle and it has made them as wary as a burglar is over finger-prints. Carton tells me that Marie has disappeared." "I could swear I heard her or someone at Margot's," said Clare. "And Harris has disappeared. Of course you thought you overheard him, too. But you may have been mistaken." "Why?" "As nearly as Carton can find out," said Kennedy quickly, "Marie is Madame Margot herself." XV THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT "I want to go to Margot's again to-day," volunteered Miss Kendall the following morning, adding with a smile, "You see, I've got the habit. Really, though, there is a mystery about that place that fascinates me. I want to find out more about this Marie, or Margot, or whoever it was that I thought I heard there. And then those doped cigarettes interest me. You see, I haven't forgotten what you said about dope the first time we talked about Dr. Harris. They will be more free with me, too, now that I am no longer a stranger." "That is a good idea," agreed Kennedy, who was now chafing under the enforced inaction of the case. "I hope that this time they will let you into some of the secrets. There is one thing, though, I wish you'd look out for especially." "What do you mean?" she asked. "I should like to know what ways there are of communicating with the outside. You realize, of course, that it is very easy for them, if they come to suspect you, to frame up something in a place like that. There are strong-arm women as well as men, and I'm not at all sure that there may not be some men besides Dr. Harris who are acquainted with that place. At any rate Dr. Harris is unscrupulous enough himself." "I shall make it a point to observe that," she said as she left us. "I hope I'll have something to tell you when I come back." "Walter," remarked Craig as the door closed, "that is one of the gamest girls I ever knew." I looked across at him inquiringly. "Don't worry, my boy," he added, reading my expression. "She's not of the marrying kind, any more than I am." The morning passed and half of the afternoon without any word from Miss Kendall. Kennedy was plainly becoming uneasy, when a hurried footstep in the hall was followed by a more hurried opening of the door. "Let me sit down, just a minute, to collect myself," panted Miss Kendall, pressing her hands to her temples where the blue veins stood out and literally throbbed. "I'm all in." "Why, what is the matter?" asked Kennedy, placing a chair and switching on an electric fan, while he quickly found a bottle of restorative salts which was always handy for emergencies in the laboratory. "Oh--such a time as I've had! Wait--let me see whether I can recollect it in order." A few minutes later she resumed. "I went in, as before. There seemed to be quite a change in the way they treated me. I must have made a good impression the first time. A second visit seemed to have opened the way for everything. Evidently they think I am all right. "Well, I went through much the same thing as I did before, only I tried to make it not quite so elaborate, down to the point where several of us were sitting in loose robes in the lounging-room. That was the part, you know, that interested me before. "The maid came in with the cigarettes and I smoked one of the doped ones. They watch everything that you do so closely there, and the moment I smoked one they offered me another. I don't know what was in them, but I fancy there must be just a trace of opium. They made me feel exhilarated, then just a bit drowsy. I managed to make away with the second without inhaling much of the smoke, for my head was in a whirl by this time. It wasn't so much that I was afraid I couldn't take care of myself as it was that I was afraid that it would blunt the keenness of my observation and I might miss something." "Besides the cigarettes, was there anything else?" asked Craig. "Yes, indeed. I didn't see anyone there I recognized, but I heard some of them talk. One was taking a little veronal; another said something about heroin. It was high-toned hitting the pipe, if you call it that--a Turkish bath, followed by massage, and then a safe complement of anything you wanted, taken leisurely by these aristocratic dope fiends. "There was one woman there who I am sure was snuffing cocaine. She had a little gold and enamelled box like a snuff box beside her from which she would take from time to time a pinch of some white crystals and inhale it vigorously, now and then taking a little sip of a liqueur that was brought in to her." "That's the way," observed Kennedy. "There are always a considerable number of inhuman beings who are willing to make capital out of the weaknesses of others. This illicit sale of cocaine is one example. Such conditions have existed with the opium products a long time. Now it seems to be the 'coke fiend.'" "I was glad I did just as I did," resumed Clare, "because it wasn't long before I saw that the thing to do was to feign drowsiness. A maid came over to me and in a most plausible and insinuating way hinted that perhaps I might feel like resting and that if the noise in the beauty parlour annoyed me, they had the entire next house--the one next to the Montmartre, you know--which had been fitted up as a dormitory." "You didn't go?" cut in Craig immediately. "I did not. I pleaded an engagement. Why, the place is a regular dope joint." "Exactly. I suspected as much as you went along. Everything seems to have moved uptown lately, to have been veneered over to meet the fastidious second decade of the twentieth century. But underneath it all are the same old vices. I'm glad you didn't attempt to go into the next house. Anyhow, now we are certain about the character of the place. Did you notice anything about the means of communicating with the outside--the telephones, for instance?" Miss Kendall was evidently feeling much better now. "Oh, yes," she answered. "I took particular care to observe that. They have a telephone, but there is a girl who attends to it, although they don't really need one. She listens to everything. Then, too, in the other house--You remember I spoke about the girl whom we saw paying Ike the Dropper? It seems that she has a similar position at the telephone over there." "So they have two telephones," repeated Craig. "Yes." "Good. There are always likely to be some desperate characters in places like that. If we ever have anyone go into that dope joint we must have some way of keeping in touch and protecting the person." Miss Kendall had gone home for a few hours of rest after her exciting experience. Craig was idly tapping with his fingers on the broad arm of his chair. Suddenly he jumped up. "I'm going up there to look that joint over from the outside," he announced. We walked past the front of it without seeing anything in particular, then turned the corner and were on the Avenue. Kennedy paused and looked at a cheap apartment house on which was a sign, "Flats to Let." "I think I'll get the janitor to show me one of them," he said. One was on the first floor in the rear. Kennedy did not seem to be very much interested in the rent. A glance out of the window sufficed to show him that he could see the back of the Montmartre and some of the houses. It took only a minute to hire it, at least conditionally, and a bill to the janitor gave us a key. "What are you going to do?" "We can't do anything just yet, but it will be dark by the time I get over to the laboratory and back and then we can do something." That night we started prowling over the back fences down the street. Fortunately it was a very black night and Craig was careful not to use even the electric bull's-eye which he had brought over from the laboratory together with some wire and telephone instruments. As we crouched in the shadow of one of the fences, he remarked: "Just as I expected; the telephone wires run along the tops of the fences. Here's where they run into 72--that's the beauty parlour. These run into 70--that's the dope joint. Then next comes the Montmartre itself, reaching all the way back as far as the lot extends." We had come up close to the backs of the houses by this time. The shades were all drawn and the blinds were closed in both of them, so that we had really nothing to fear provided we kept quiet. Besides the back yards looked unkempt, as if no one cared much about them. Kennedy flashed the electric bull's-eye momentarily on the wires. They branched off from the back fence down the party fence to the houses, both sets on one fence. "Good!" he exclaimed. "It is better than I hoped. The two sets go on up to the first floor together, then separate. One set goes into the beauty parlour; the other into the dope joint." Craig had quietly climbed up on a shed over the basements of both the houses. He was working quickly with all the dexterity of a lineman. To two of the four wires he had attached one other. Then to two others he attached another, all the connections being made at exactly corresponding points. The next step was to lead these two newly connected wires to a window on the first floor of the house next to the Montmartre. He fastened them lightly to the closed shutter, let himself down to the yard again and we beat a slow and careful retreat to our flat. In one of the yards down near the corner, however, he paused. Here was an iron box fastened to one of the fences, a switch box or something of the sort belonging to the telephone company. To it were led all the wires from the various houses on the block and to each wire was fastened a little ticket on which was scrawled in indelible pencil the number of the house to which the wire ran. Kennedy found the two pairs that ran to 70 and 72, cut in on them in the same way that he had done before and fastened two other wires, one to each pair. This pair he led along and into the flat. "I've fixed it," he explained, "so that anyone who can get into that room on the back of the first floor of the dope joint can communicate with the outside very easily over the telephone, without being overheard, either." "How?" I asked completely mystified by the apparent simplicity of the proceeding. "I have left two wires sticking on the outside shutter of that room," he replied. "All that anyone who gets into that room has to do is to open the window softly, reach out and secure them. With them fastened to a transmitter which I have, he can talk to me in the flat around the corner and no one will ever know it." There was nothing more that we could do that night and we waited impatiently until Clare Kendall came to make her daily report in the morning. "The question is, whom are we going to get whom we can trust to go to that dope joint and explore it?" remarked Kennedy, after we had finished telling Miss Kendall about our experiences of the night before. "Carton must have someone who can take a course in beauty and dope," I replied. "Or perhaps Miss Kendall has one of her investigators whom she can trust." "If the thing gets too rough," added Craig, "whoever is in there can telephone to us, if she will only be careful first to get that back room in the 'dormitory,' as they call it. Then all we'll have to do will be to jump in there and---" "I'll do it," interrupted Clare. "No, Miss Kendall," denied Kennedy firmly. "Let me do it. There is no one whom I can trust more than myself. Besides, I know the places now." She said it with an air of quiet determination, as if she had been thinking it over ever since she returned from her visit of the day before. Kennedy and Miss Kendall faced each other for a moment. It was evident that it was against just this that he had been trying to provide. On her part it was equally evident that she had made up her mind. "Miss Kendall," said Kennedy, meeting her calm eye, "you are the most nervy detective, barring none, that it has ever been my pleasure to meet. I yield under protest." I must say that it was with a great deal of misgiving that I saw Clare enter Margot's. We had gone as far as the corner with her, had watched her go in, and then hurried into the unfurnished apartment which Craig had rented on the Avenue. As we sat on the rickety chairs which we had borrowed from the janitor under pretence of wanting to reach something, the minutes that passed seemed like hours. I wondered what had happened to the plucky girl in her devotion to the cause in which she had enlisted, and several times I could see from the expression of Craig's face that he more and more regretted that he had given in to her and had allowed her to go, instead of adhering to his original plan. From what she had told us about the two places, I tried to imagine what she was doing, but each time I ended by having an increased feeling of apprehension. Kennedy sat grimly silent with the receiver of the telephone glued to his ear, straining his hearing to catch even the faintest sound. At last his face brightened. "She's there all right," he exclaimed to me. "Managed to make them think in the beauty parlour that she was a dope fiend and pretty far gone. Insisted that she must have the back room on the first floor because she was afraid of fire. She kept the door open so that she would not miss anything, but it was a long time before she got a chance to reach out of the window and get the wires and connect them with the instruments I gave her. But it's all right now. "Yes, Miss Kendall, right here, listening to everything you get a chance to say. Only be careful. There is no use spoiling the game by trying to talk to me until you have all that you think you can obtain in the way of evidence. Don't let them think you have any means of communication with the outside or they'll go to any length to silence you. We'll be here all the time and the moment you think there is any danger, call us." Kennedy seemed visibly relieved by the message. "She says that she has found out a great deal already, but didn't dare take the time to tell it just yet," he explained. "By the way, Walter, while we are waiting, I wish you would go out and see whether there is a policeman on fixed post anywhere around here." Five minutes later when I returned, having located the nearest peg post a long block away on Broadway, Kennedy raised a warning hand. She was telephoning again. "She says that attendants come and go in her room so often that it's hard to get a chance to say anything, but she is sure that there is someone hidden there, perhaps Marie or Madame Margot, whoever she is, or it may even be Betty Blackwell. They watch very closely." "But," I asked, almost in a whisper, as if someone over there might hear me, "isn't this a very dangerous proceeding, Craig? It seems to me you are taking long chances. Suppose one of the telephone girls in either house, whom she told us keep such sharp watch over the wires, should happen to be calling up or answering a call. She would hear someone else talking over the wire and it wouldn't be difficult for her to decide who it was. Then there'd be a row." "Not a chance," smiled Kennedy. "No one except ourselves, not even Central, can hear a word of what is said over these connections I have made. This is what is called a phantom circuit." "A phantom circuit?" I repeated. "What kind of a weird thing is that?" "It is possible to superimpose another circuit over the four telephone wires of two existing circuits, making a so-called phantom line," he explained, as we waited for the next message. "It seems fantastic at first, but it is really in accordance with the laws of electricity. You use each pair of wires as if it were one wire and do not interfere in the least with them, but are perfectly independent of both. The current for the third circuit enters the two wires of one of the first circuits, divides, reunites, so to speak, at the other end, then returns through the wires of the second circuit, dividing and reuniting again, thus just balancing the two divisions of the current and not causing any effect on either of the two original circuits. Rather wonderful, isn't it?" "I should say that it was," I marvelled. "I am glad I see it actually working rather than have to believe it second hand." "It's all due to a special repeating coil of high efficiency absolutely balanced as to resistances, number of turns of wire, and so on which I have used--Yes--Miss Kendall--we are here. Now please don't let things go on too far. At the first sign of danger, call. We can get in all right. You have the evidence now that will hold in any court as far as closing up that joint goes, and I'll take a chance of breaking into--well, Hades, to get to you. Good-bye. "I guess it is Hades there," he resumed to me. "She has just telephoned that one of the dope fiends upstairs--a man, so that you see they admit both men and women there, after all--had become violent and Harris had to be called to quiet him before he ran amuck. She said she was absolutely sure, this time at least, that it was Harris. As I was saying about this phantom circuit, it is used a good deal now. Sometimes they superimpose a telephone conversation over the proper arrangement of telegraph messages and vice versa. "What's that?" cried Craig, suddenly breaking off. "They heard you talking that last time, and you have locked the door against them? They are battering it down? Move something heavy, if you can, up against it--the bureau, anything to brace it. We'll be there directly. Come on, Walter. There isn't time to get around Broadway for that fixed post cop. We must do it ourselves. Hurry." Craig dashed breathlessly out on the street. I followed closely. "Hurry," he panted. "Those people haven't any use for anyone that they think will snitch on them." As we turned the corner, we ran squarely into a sergeant slowly going his rounds with eyes conveniently closed to what he was paid not to see. Kennedy stopped and grabbed his arm. "There's a girl up here in 72 who is being mistreated," he cried. "Come. You must help us get her out." "Aw, g'wan. Whatyer givin' us? 72? That's a residence." "Say--look here. I've got your number. You'll be up on the most serious charges of your whole career if you don't act on the information I have. All of Ike the Dropper's money'll go for attorney's fees and someone will land in Sing Sing. Now, come!" We had gained the steps of the house. Outside all was dark, blank, and bare. There was every evidence of the most excessive outward order and decency--not a sign of the conflict that was raging within. Before the policeman could pull the bell, which would have been a first warning of trouble to the inmates, Kennedy had jumped from the high stoop to a narrow balcony running along the front windows of the first story, had smashed the glass into splinters with a heavy object which he had carried concealed under his coat, and was engaged in a herculean effort to wrench apart some iron bars which had been carefully concealed behind the discreetly drawn shades. As one yielded, he panted, "No use to try the door. The grill work inside guards that too well. There goes another." Inside now we could hear cries that told us that the whole house was roused, that even the worst of the drug fiends had come at least partly to his senses and begun to realize his peril. From Margot's beauty parlour a couple of girls and a man staggered forth in a vain effort to seem to leave quietly. "Close that place, too, officer," cried Kennedy to the now astounded policeman. "We'll attend to this house." The sergeant slowly lumbered across in time to let two more couples escape. It was evident that he hated the job; indeed, would have arrested Kennedy in the old days before Carton had thrown such a scare into the grafters. But Kennedy's assurance had flabbergasted him and he obeyed. Another bar yielded, and another. Together we squeezed in and found ourselves in a dark front parlour. There was nothing to distinguish it from any ordinary reception room in the blackness. Hurried footsteps were heard as if several people were retreating into the next house. Down the hall we hastened to the back room. A second we listened. All was silent. Was Clare safe? It looked ominous. Still the door, partly battered in, was closed. "Miss Kendall!" called Craig, bending down close to the door. "Is it you, Professor Kennedy?" came back a faint voice from the other side. "Yes. Are you all right?" There was no answer, but she was evidently tugging at something which appeared to be a heavy piece of furniture braced against the door. At last the bolt was slipped back, and there in the doorway she swayed, half exhausted but safe. "Yes, all right," murmured Clare, bracing herself against the chiffonier which she had moved away from the door, "just a little shaky from the drugs--but all right. Don't bother about me, now. I can take care of myself. I'll feel better in a minute. Upstairs--that is where I think that woman is. Please, please don't--I'm all right--truly. Upstairs." Kennedy had taken her gently by the arm and she sank down in an easy chair. "Please hurry," she implored. "You may be too late." She had risen again in spite of us and was out in the lower hall. We could hear a footstep on the stairs. "There she goes, the woman who has been hiding up there, Madame--" Clare cut the words short. A woman had hastily descended the steps, evidently seeing her opportunity to escape while we were in the back of the house. She had reached the street door, which now was open, and the flaming arc light in front of the house shone brightly on her. I looked, expecting to see our dark-haired, olive-skinned Marie. I stared in amazement. Instead, this woman was fair, her hair was flaxen, her figure more slim, even her features were different. She was a stranger. I could not recollect ever having seen her. Again I strained my eyes, thinking it might be Betty Blackwell at last, but this woman bore no resemblance apparently to her. She looked older, more mature. In my haste I noted that she had a bandage about her face, as if she had been injured recently, for there seemed to be blood on it where it had worked itself loose in her flight. She gave one glance at us, and quickened her pace at seeing us so close. The bandage, already loose, slipped off her face and fell to the floor. Still she did not seem other than a stranger to me, though I had a half-formed notion that I had seen that face somewhere before. She did not stop to pick the bandage up. She had gained the door and was down the front step on the sidewalk before we could stop her. Taxicabs in droves seemed to have collected, like buzzards over a dead body. They were doing a thriving business carrying away those who sought to escape. Into one by which a man was waiting in the shadow the woman hurried. The man looked for all the world like Dr. Harris. An instant later the chauffeur was gone. The policeman had the front door of Madame Margot's covered all right, so efficiently that he was neglecting everything else. From the basement now and then a scurrying figure catapulted itself out and was lost in the curious crowd that always collects at any time of day or night on a New York street when there is any excitement. "It is of no use to expect to capture anyone now," exclaimed Craig, as we hurried back into the dope joint. "I hardly expected to do it. All I panted was to protect Miss Kendall. But we have the evidence against this joint that will close it for good." He stooped and picked up the bandage. "I think I'll keep that," he remarked thoughtfully. "I wonder what that blonde woman wore that for?" "She MUST be up there," reiterated Clare, who had followed us. "I heard them talking, it seemed to me only the moment before I heard you in the hall." The excitement seemed now to have the effect of quieting her unstrung nerves and carrying her through. "Let us go upstairs," said Kennedy. From room to room we hurried in the darkness, lighting the lights. They were all empty, yet each one gave its mute testimony to the character of its use and its former occupants. There were opium lay-outs with pipes, lamps, yen haucks, and other paraphernalia in some. In others had been cocaine snuffers. There seemed to be everything for drug users of every kind. At last in a small room in front on the top floor we came upon a girl, half insensible from a drug. She was vainly trying to make herself presentable for the street, ramblingly talking to herself in the meantime. Again my hopes rose that we had found either the mysterious Marie Margot or Betty Blackwell. A second glance caused us all to pause in surprise and disappointment. It was the Titian-haired girl from the Montmartre office. Miss Kendall, recovering from the effects of the drugs which she had been compelled to take in her heroic attempt to get at the dope joint, was endeavouring to quiet the girl from the Montmartre, who, now vaguely recollecting us, seemed to realize that something had gone wrong and was trembling and crying pitifully. "What's the matter with her?" I asked. "Chloral," replied Miss Kendall in a low voice aside. "I suppose she has had a wild night which she has followed by chloral to quiet her nerves, with little effect. Didn't you ever see them? They will go into a drug store in this part of the city where such things are sold, weak, shaky, nervous wrecks. The clerk will sell them the stuff and they will retire for a moment into the telephone booth. Sometimes they will come out looking as though they had never felt a moment's effect from their wild debauches. But there are other times when they are too weakened to get over it so quickly. That is her case, poor girl." The soothing hand which she laid on the girl's throbbing head was quite in contrast with the manner in which I recalled her to have spoken of the girl when first we saw her at the Montmartre. She must have seen the look of surprise on my face. "I can't condemn these girls too strongly when I see them themselves," she remarked. "It would be so easy for them to stop and lead a decent life, if they only would forget the white lights and the gay life that allures them. It is when they are so down and out that I long to give them a hand to help them up again and show them how foolish it is to make slaves of themselves." "Call a cab, Walter," said Kennedy, who had been observing the girl closely. "There is nothing more that we can expect to accomplish here. Everybody has escaped by this time. But we must get this poor girl in a private hospital or sanitarium where she can recover." Clare had disappeared. A moment later she returned from the room she had had downstairs with her hat on. "I'm going with her," she announced simply. "What--you, Miss Kendall?" "Yes. If a girl ever needed a friend, it is this girl now. There is nothing I can do for the moment. I will take care of her in my apartment until she is herself again." The girl seemed to half understand, and to be grateful to Clare. Kennedy watched her hovering over the drug victim without attempting to express the admiration which he felt. Just as the cab was announced, he drew Miss Kendall aside. "You're a trump," he said frankly. "Most people would pass by on the other side from such as she is." They talked for a moment as to the best place to go, then decided on a quiet little place uptown where convalescents were taken in. "I think you can still be working on the case, if you care to do so," suggested Craig as Miss Kendall and her charge were leaving. "How?" she asked. "When you get her to this sanitarium, try to be with her as much as you can. I think if anyone can get anything out of her, you can. Remember it is more than this girl's rescue that is at stake. If she can be got to talk she may prove an important link toward piecing together the solution of the mystery of Betty Blackwell. She must know many of the inside secrets of the Montmartre," he added significantly. They had gone, and Craig and I had started to go also when we came across a negro caretaker who seemed to have stuck by the place during all the excitement. "Do you know that girl who just went out?" asked Craig. "No, sah," she replied glibly. "Look here," demanded Craig, facing her. "You know better than that. She has been here before, and you know it. I've a good mind to have you held for being in charge of this place. If I do, all the Marie Margots and Ike the Droppers can't get you out again." The negress seemed to understand that this was no ordinary raid. "Who is she?" demanded Craig. "I dunno, sah. She come from next door." "I know she did. She's the girl in the office of the Montmartre. Now, you know her. What is her name?" The negress seemed to consider a moment, then quickly answered, "Dey always calls her Miss Sybil here, sah, Sybil Seymour, sah." "Thank you. I knew you had some name for her. Come, Walter. This is over for the present. A raid without arrests, too! It will be all over town in half an hour. If we are going to do anything it must be done quickly." We called on Carton and lost no time in having the men he could spare placed in watching the railroads and steamship lines to prevent if we could any of the gang from getting out of the city that way. It was a night of hard work with no results. I began to wonder whether they might not have escaped finally after all. There seemed to be no trace. Harris had disappeared, there was no clue to Marie Margot, no trace of the new blonde woman, not a syllable yet about Betty Blackwell. XVI THE SANITARIUM "It seems as if the forces of Dorgan are demoralized," I remarked the afternoon after the raid on Margot's. "We have them on the run--that's true," agreed Kennedy, "but there's plenty of fight in them, yet. We're not through, by any means." Still, the lightning swiftness of Carton's attack had taken their breath away, temporarily, at least. Already he had started proceedings to disbar Kahn, as well as to prosecute him in the courts. According to the reports that came to us Murtha himself seemed dazed at the blow that had fallen. Some of our informants asserted that he was drinking heavily; others denied it. Whatever it was, however, Murtha was changed. As for Dorgan, he was never much in the limelight anyhow and was less so now than ever. He preferred to work through others, while he himself kept in the background. He had never held any but a minor office, and that in the beginning of his career. Interviews and photographs he eschewed as if forbidden by his political religion. Since the discovery of the detectaphone in his suite at Gastron's he had had his rooms thoroughly overhauled, lest by any chance there might be another of the magic little instruments concealed in the very walls, and having satisfied himself that there was not, he instituted a watch of private detectives to prevent a repetition of the unfortunate incident. Whoever it was who had obtained the Black Book was keeping very quiet about it, and I imagined that it was being held up as a sort of sword of Damocles, dangling over his head, until such time as its possessor chose to strike the final blow. Of course, we did not and could not know what was going on behind the scenes with the Silent Boss, what drama was being enacted between Dorgan and the Wall Street group, headed by Langhorne. Langhorne himself was inscrutable. I had heard that Dorgan had once in an unguarded moment expressed a derogatory opinion of the social leanings of Langhorne. But that was in the days before Dorgan had acquired a country place on Long Island and a taste for golf and expensive motors. Now, in his way, Dorgan was quite as fastidious as any of those he had once affected to despise. It amused Langhorne. But it had not furthered his ambitions of being taken into the inner circle of Dorgan's confidence. Hence, I inferred, this bitter internecine strife within the organization itself. Whatever was brewing inside the organization, I felt that we should soon know, for this was the day on which Justice Pomeroy had announced he would sentence Dopey Jack. It was a very different sort of crowd that overflowed the courtroom that morning from that which had so boldly flocked to the trial as if it were to make a Roman holiday of justice. The very tone was different. There was a tense look on many a face, as if the owner were asking himself the question, "What are we coming to? If this can happen to Dopey Jack, what might not happen to me?" Even the lawyers were changed. Kahn, as a result of the proceedings that Carton had instituted, had yielded the case to another, perhaps no better than himself, but wiser, after the fact. Instead of demanding anything, as a sort of prescriptive right, the new attorney actually adopted the unheard of measure of appealing to the clemency of the court. The shades of all the previous bosses and gangsters must have turned in disgust at the unwonted sight. But certain it was that no one could see the relaxation of a muscle on the face of Justice Pomeroy as the lawyer proceeded with his specious plea. He heard Carton, also, in the same impassive manner, as in a few brief and pointed sentences he ripped apart the sophistries of his opponent. The spectators fairly held their breath as the prisoner now stood before the tribune of justice. "Jack Rubano," he began impressively, "you have been convicted by twelve of your peers--so the law looks on them, although the fact is that any honest man is immeasurably your superior. Even before that, Rubano, the District Attorney having looked into all the facts surrounding this charge had come to the conclusion that the evidence was sufficiently strong to convict you. You were convicted in his mind. In my mind, of course, there could be no prejudgment. But now that a jury has found you guilty, I may say that you have a record that is more than enough to disgrace a man twice your age. True, you have never been punished. But this is not the time or place for me to criticise my colleagues on the bench for letting you off. Others of your associates have served terms in prison for things no whit worse than you have done repeatedly. I shall be glad to meet some of them at this bar in the near future." The justice paused, then extended a long, lean accusatory finger out from the rostrum at the gangster. "Rubano," he concluded, "your crime is particularly heinous--debauching the very foundations of the state--the elections. I sentence you to not less than three nor more than five years in State's prison, at hard labour." There was an audible gasp in the big courtroom, as the judge snapped shut his square jaw, bull-dog fashion. It was as though he had snapped the backbone of the System. The prisoner was hurried from the room before there was a chance for a demonstration. It was unnecessary, however. It seemed as if all the jaunty bravado of the underworld was gone out of it. Slowly the crowd filed out, whispering. Dopey Jack, Murtha's right-hand man, had been sentenced to State's prison! Outside the courtroom Carton received an ovation. As quickly as he could, he escaped from the newspapermen, and Kennedy was the first to grasp his hand. But the most pleasing congratulation came from Miss Ashton, who had dropped in with two or three friends from the Reform League. "I'm so glad, Mr. Carton--for your sake," she added very prettily, with just a trace of heightened colour in her cheeks and eyes that showed her sincere pleasure at the outcome of the case. "And then, too," she went on, "it may have some bearing on the case of that girl who has disappeared. So far, no one seems to have been able to find a trace of her. She just seems to have dropped out as if she had been spirited away." "We must find her," returned Carton, thanking her for her good wishes in a manner which he had done to none of the rest of us, and in fact forgetful now that any of us were about. "I shall start right in on Dopey Jack to see if I can get anything out of him, although I don't think he is one that will prove a squealer in any way. I hope we can have something to report soon." Others were pressing around him and Miss Ashton moved away, although I thought his handshakes were perhaps a little less cordial after she had gone. I turned once to survey the crowd and down the gallery, near a pillar I saw Langhorne, his eyes turned fixedly in our direction, and a deep scowl on his face. Evidently he had no relish for the proceedings, at least that part in which Carton had just figured, whatever his personal feelings may have been toward the culprit. A moment later he saw me looking at him, turned abruptly and walked toward the stone staircase that led down to the main floor. But I could not get that scowl out of my mind as I watched his tall, erect figure stalking away. Neither Murtha, nor, of course, Dorgan, were there, though I knew that they had many emissaries present who would report to them every detail of what had happened, down perhaps to the congratulations of Miss Ashton. Somehow, I could not get out of my head a feeling that she would afford them, in some way, a point of attack on Carton and that the unscrupulous organization would stop at nothing in order to save its own life and ruin his. Carton had not only his work at the District Attorney's office to direct, but some things to clear up at the Reform League headquarters, as well as a campaign speech to make. "I'm afraid I shan't be able to see much of you, to-day," he apologized to Kennedy, "but you're going to Miss Ashton's suffrage evening and dance, aren't you?" "I should like to go," temporized Kennedy. Carton glanced about to see whether there was anyone in earshot. "I think you had better go," he added. "She has secured a promise from Langhorne to be there, as well as several of the organization leaders. It is a thoroughly non-partisan affair--and she can get them all together. You know the organization is being educated. When people of the prominence of the Ashtons take up suffrage and make special requests to have certain persons come to a thing like that, they can hardly refuse. In fact, no one commits himself to anything by being present, whereas, absence might mean hostility, and there are lots of the women in the organization that believe in suffrage, now. Yes, we'd better go. It will be a chance to observe some people we want to watch." "We'll go," agreed Kennedy. "Can't we all go together?" "Surely," replied Carton, gratified, I could see, by having succeeded in swelling the crowd that would be present and thus adding to the success of Miss Ashton's affair. "Drop into the office here, and I'll be ready. Good-bye--and thanks for your aid, both of you." We left the Criminal Courts Building with the crowd that was slowly dispersing, still talking over the unexpected and unprecedented end of the trial. As we paused on the broad flight of steps that led down to the street on this side, Kennedy jogged my elbow, and, following his eyes, I saw a woman, apparently alone, just stepping into a town car at the curb. There was something familiar about her, but her face was turned from me and I could not quite place her. "Mrs. Ogleby," Kennedy remarked. "I didn't see her in the courtroom. She must have been there, though, or perhaps outside in the corridor. Evidently she felt some interest in the outcome of the case." He had caught just a glimpse of her face and now that he pronounced her name I recognized her, though I should not have otherwise. The car drove off with the rattle of the changing gears into high speed, before we had a chance to determine whether it was otherwise empty or not. "Why was she here?" I asked. Kennedy shook his head, but did not venture a reply to the question that was in his own mind. I felt that it must have something to do with her fears regarding the Black Book. Had she, too, surmised that Murtha had employed his henchman, Dopey Jack, to recover the book from Langhorne? Had she feared that Dopey Jack might in some moment of heat, for revenge, drop some hint of the robbery--whether it had been really successful or not? It was my turn to call Kennedy's attention to something, now, for standing sidewise as I was, I could see the angles of the building back of him. "Don't turn--yet," I cautioned, "but just around the corner back of you, Langhorne is standing. Evidently he has been watching Mrs. Ogleby, too." Kennedy drew a cigarette from his case, tried to light it, let the match go out, and then as if to shield himself from the wind, stepped back and turned. Langhorne, however, had seen us, and an instant later had disappeared. Without a word further Kennedy led the way around the corner to the subway and we started uptown, I knew this time, for the laboratory. He made no comment on the case, but I knew he had in mind some plan or other for the next move and that it would probably involve something at the suffrage meeting at Miss Ashton's that evening. During the rest of the day, Craig was busy testing and re-testing a peculiar piece of apparatus, while now and then he would despatch me on various errands which I knew were more as an outlet for my excitement than of any practical importance. The apparatus, as far as I could make it out, consisted of a simple little oaken box, oblong in shape, in the face of which were two square little holes with side walls of cedar, converging pyramid-like in the interior of the box and ending in what looked to be little round black discs. I had just returned with a hundred feet or so of the best silk-covered flexible wire, when he had evidently completed his work. Two of the boxes were already wrapped up. I started to show him the wire, but after a glance he accepted it as exactly what he had wanted and made it into a smaller package, which he handed to me. "I think we might be journeying down to Carton's office," he added, looking impatiently at his watch. It was still early and we did not hurry. Carton, however, was waiting for us anxiously. "I've called you at the laboratory and the apartment--all over," he cried. "Where have you been?" "Just on the way down," returned Kennedy. "Why, what has happened?" "Then you haven't heard it?" asked Carton excitedly, without waiting for Craig's answer. "Murtha has been committed to a sanitarium." Kennedy and I stared at him. "Pat Murtha," ejaculated Craig, "in a sanitarium?" "Exactly. Paresis--they say--absolutely irresponsible." Coming as it did as a climax to the quick and unexpected succession of events of the past few days, it was no wonder that it seemed impossible. What did it mean? Was it merely a sham? Or was it a result of his excesses? Or had Carton's relentless pursuit, the raid of Margot's, and the conviction of Dopey Jack, driven the Smiling Boss really insane? XVII THE SOCIETY SCANDAL Nothing else was talked about at the suffrage reception at Miss Ashton's that evening, not even suffrage, as much as the strange fate that seemed to have befallen Murtha. And, as usual with an event like that, stories of all sorts, even the wildest improbabilities, were current. Some even went so far as to insinuate that Dorgan had purposely quickened the pace of life for Murtha by the dinners at Gastron's in order to get him out of the way, fearing that with his power within the organization Murtha might become a serious rival to himself. Whether there was any truth in the rumour or not, it was certain that Dorgan was of the stamp that could brook no rivals. In fact, that had been at the bottom of the warfare between himself and Langhorne. Certain also was it that the dinners and conferences at the now famous suite of the Silent Boss were reputed to have been often verging on, if not actually crossing, the line of the scandalous. Miss Ashton's guests assembled in force, coming from all classes of society, all parties in politics, and all religions. Her object had been to show that, although she personally was working with the Reform League, suffrage itself was a broad general issue. The two or three hundred guests of the evening surely demonstrated it and testified to the popularity of Miss Ashton personally, as well. She had planned to hold the meeting in the big drawing-room of the Ashton mansion, but the audience overflowed into the library and other rooms. As the people assembled, it was interesting to see how for the moment at least they threw off the bitterness of the political campaign and met each other on what might be called neutral ground. Dorgan himself had been invited, but, in accordance with his custom of never appearing in public if he could help it, did not come. Langhorne was present, however, and I saw him once talking to a group of labour union leaders and later to Justice Pomeroy, an evidence of how successful the meeting was in hiding, if not burying, the hatchet. Carton, naturally, was the lion of the evening, though he tried hard to keep in the background. I was amused to see his efforts. In fleeing from the congratulations of some of his own and Miss Ashton's society friends, he would run into a group of newspaper men and women who were lying in wait for him. Shaking himself loose from them would result in finding himself the centre of an enthusiastic crowd of Reform Leaguers. Mrs. Ogleby was there, also, and both Kennedy and I watched her curiously. I wondered whether she might not feel just a little relieved to think that Murtha was seemingly out of the way for the present. Her knowledge of the Black Book which had first given the tip to Carton had always been a mystery to Kennedy and was one of the problems which I knew he would like to solve to-night. She was keenly observant of Carton, which led us to suppose that she had not yet got out of her mind the idea that somehow it was he who had been responsible for the detectaphone record which so many of those present were struggling to obtain. Though Langhorne studiously avoided her, I noticed that each kept an eye on the other, and I felt that there was something common to both of them. It was with an unexpressed air of relief to several members of the party that Miss Ashton at last rapped for order and after a short, pithy, pointed speech of introduction presented the several speakers of the evening. It was, like the audience, a well-balanced programme, which showed the tactfulness and political acumen of Miss Ashton. I shall pass over the speeches, however, as they had no direct bearing on the mystery which Kennedy and I found so engrossing. The meeting had been cleverly planned so that in spite of its accomplishing much for the propaganda work of the "cause," it did not become tiresome and the speaking was followed by the entrance of one of the best little orchestras for dance music in the city. Instantly, the scene transformed itself from a suffrage meeting to a social function that was unique. Leaders of the smart set rubbed elbows, and seemed to enjoy it, with working girls and agitators. Conservative and radical, millionaire and muckraker succumbed to the spell of the Ashton hospitality and the lure of the new dances. It was a novel experience for all, a levelling-up of society, as contrasted to some of the levelling-down that we had recently seen. Kennedy and I, having no mood as things stood for the festivities, drew aside and watched the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers. Across from us was a wide doorway that opened into a spacious conservatory, a nook of tropical and temperate beauty. Several couples had wandered in there to rest and, as the orchestra struck up something new that seemed to have the "punch" to its timeful measures, they gradually rejoined the dancers. It had evidently suggested an idea to Kennedy, for a moment later he led me toward the coat room and uncovered the package which he had brought consisting of the two oaken boxes I had seen him adjusting in the laboratory. We managed to reach the conservatory and found in a corner a veritable bower with a wide rustic seat under some palms. Quickly Kennedy deposited in the shadow of one of them an oaken box, sticking into it the plugs on the ends of the wires that I had brought. It was an easy matter here in the dim half light to conceal the wire behind the plants and a moment later he tossed the end through a swinging window in the glass and closed the window. Casually we edged our way out among the dancers and around to the room into which he had thrown the wire. It was a breakfast room, I think, but at any rate we could not remain there for it was quite easy to see into it through the crystal walls of the conservatory. There was, however, what seemed to be a little pantry at the other end, and to this Kennedy deftly led the wires and then plugged them in on the other oaken box. He turned a lever. Instantly from the wizard-like little box issued forth the strains of the dance music of the orchestra and the rhythmic shuffle of feet. Now and then a merry laugh or a snatch of gay conversation floated in to us. Though we were effectually cut off from both sight and hearing in the pantry, it was as though we had been sitting on the rustic bench in the conservatory. "What is it?" I asked in amazement, gazing at the wonderful little instrument before us. "A vocaphone," he explained, moving the switch and cutting off the sound instantly, "an improved detectaphone--something that can be used both in practical business, professional, and home affairs as a loud speaking telephone, and, as I expect to use it here, for special cases of detective work. You remember the detectaphone instruments which we have used?" Indeed I did. It had helped us out of several very tight situations--and seemed now to have been used to get the organization into a very tight political place. "Well, the vocaphone," went on Kennedy, "does even more than the detectaphone. You see, it talks right out. Those little apertures in the face act like megaphone horns increasing the volume of sound." He indicated the switch with his finger and then another point to which it could be moved. "Besides," he went on enthusiastically, "this machine talks both ways. I have only to turn the switch to that point and a voice will speak out in the conservatory just as if we were there instead of talking here." He turned the switch so that it carried the sounds only in our direction. The last strains of the dance music were being followed by the hearty applause of the dancers. As the encore struck up again, a voice, almost as if it were in the little room alongside us, said, "Why, hello, Maty, why aren't you dancing?" There was an unmistakable air of familiarity about it and about the reply, "Why aren't you, Hartley?" "Because I've been looking for a chance to have a quiet word with you," the man rejoined. "Langhorne and Mrs. Ogleby," cried Craig excitedly. "Sh!" I cautioned, "they might hear us." He laughed. "Not unless I turn the switch further." "I saw you down at the Criminal Courts Building this morning," went on the man, "but you didn't see me. What did you think of Carton?" I fancied there was a trace of sarcasm or jealousy in his tone. At any rate, woman-like, she did not answer that question, but went on to the one which it implied. "I didn't go to see Carton. He is nothing to me, has not been for months. I was only amusing myself when I knew him--leading him on, playing with him, then." She paused, then turned the attack on him. "What did you think of Miss Ashton? You thought I didn't see you, but you hardly took your eyes off her while I was in the hallway waiting to hear the verdict." It was Langhorne's turn to defend himself. "It wasn't so much Margaret Ashton as that fellow Carton I was watching," he answered hastily. "Then you--you haven't forgotten poor little me?" she inquired with a sincere plaintiveness in her voice. "Mary," he said, lowering his voice, "I have tried to forget you--tried, because I had no right to remember you in the old way--not while you and Martin remained together. Margaret and I had always been friends--but I think Carton and this sort of thing,"--he waved his hand I imagined at the suffrage dancers--"have brought us to the parting of the ways. Perhaps it is better. I'm not so sure that it isn't best." "And yet," she said slowly, "you are piqued--piqued that another should have won where you failed--even if the prize isn't just what you might wish." Langhorne assented by silence. "Hartley," she went on at length, "you said a moment ago you had tried to forget me--" "But can't," he cut in with almost passionate fierceness. "That was what hurt me when I--er--heard that you had gone with Murtha to that dinner of Dorgan's. I couldn't help trying to warn you of it. I know Martin neglects you. But I was mad--mad clean through when I saw you playing with Carton a few months ago. I don't know anything about it--don't want to. Maybe he was innocent and you were tempting him. I don't care. It angered me--angered me worse than ever when I saw later that he was winning with Margaret Ashton. Everywhere, he seemed to be crossing my trail, to be my nemesis. I--I wish I was Dorgan--I wish I could fight." Langhorne checked himself before he said too much. As it was I saw that it had been he who had told Mrs. Ogleby that the Black Book existed. He had not told her that he had made it, if in fact he had, and she had let the thing out, never thinking Langhorne had been the eavesdropper, but supposing it must be Carton. "Why--why did you go to that dinner with Murtha?" he asked finally, with a trace of reproach in his tone. "Why? Why not?" she answered defiantly. "What do I care about Martin? Why should I not have my--my freedom, too? I went because it was wild, unconventional, perhaps wrong. I felt that way. If--if I had felt that you cared--perhaps--I could have been--more discreet." "I do care," he blurted out. "I--I only wish I had known you as well as I do now--before you married--that's all." "Is there no way to correct the mistake?" she asked softly. "Must marriage end all--all happiness?" Langhorne said nothing, but I could almost hear his breathing over the vocaphone, which picked up and magnified even whispers. "Mary," he said in a deep, passionate voice, "I--I will defend you--from this Murtha thing--if it ever gets out. I know it is always on your mind--that you couldn't keep away from that trial for fear that Carton, or Murtha, or SOMEBODY might say something by chance or drop some hint about it. Trust me." "Then we can be--friends?" "Lovers!" he cried fiercely. There was a half-smothered exclamation over the faithful little vocaphone, a little flurried rustle of silk and a long, passionate sigh. "Hartley," she whispered. "What is it, Mary?" he asked tensely. "We must be careful. Carton MUST be defeated. He must not have the power--to use that--record." "No," ground out Langhorne. "Wait--he shall not. By the way, aren't those orchids gorgeous?" The encore had ceased and over the vocaphone we could hear gaily chatting couples wandering into the conservatory. The two conspirators rose and parted silently, without exciting suspicion. For several minutes we listened to snatches of the usual vapid chatter that dancing seems to induce. Then the orchestra blared forth with another of the seductive popular pieces. Kennedy and I looked at each other, amazed. From the underworld up to the smart set, the trail of graft was the same, debauching and blunting all that it touched. Here we saw the making of a full-fledged scandal in one of the highest circles. We had scarcely recovered from our surprise at the startling disclosures of the vocaphone, when we heard two voices again above the music, two men this time. "What--you here?" inquired a voice which we recognized immediately as that of Langhorne. "Yes," replied the other voice, evidently of a young man. "I came in with the swells to keep my eye peeled on what was going on." The voice itself was unfamiliar, yet it had a tough accent which denoted infallibly the section of the city where it was acquired. It was one of the gangsters. "What's up, Ike?" demanded Langhorne suspiciously. Craig looked at me significantly. It was Ike the Dropper! The other lowered his voice. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Langhorne. You're in the organization and we ain't got no grudge against you. It's Carton." "Carton?" repeated Langhorne, and one could feel the expectant catch in his breath, as he added quickly: "You mean you fellows are going to try to get him right?" "Bet your life," swaggered Ike, believing himself safe. "How?" The gangster hesitated, then reassured by Langhorne, said: "He's ordered a taxicab. We got it for him--a driver who is a right guy and'll drive him down where there's a bunch of the fellows. They ain't goner do nothing serious--but--well, he won't campaign much from a hospital cot," he added sagely. "Say--here he comes now with that girl. I better beat it." Langhorne also managed to get away apparently, or else Carton and Miss Ashton were too engrossed in one another to notice him, for we heard no word of greeting. A moment later Carton's and Miss Ashton's voices were audible. "Must you go?" she was saying. "I'm afraid so," he apologized. "I've a speech to prepare for to-morrow and I've had several hard days. It's been a splendid evening, Miss Ashton--splendid. I've enjoyed it ever so much and I think it has accomplished more than a hundred meetings--besides the publicity it will get for the cause. Shall I see you to-morrow at headquarters?" "I shall make it a point to drop in," she answered in a tone as unmistakable. "Mr. Carton--your cab is waiting, sir," announced a servant with an apology for intruding. "At the side entrance, sir, so that you can get away quietly, sir." Carton thanked him. I looked at Kennedy anxiously. If Carton slipped away in this fashion before we could warn him, what might not happen? We could hardly expect to get around and through the press of the dancers in time. "I hate to go, Miss Ashton," he was adding. "I'd stay--if I saw any prospect of the others going. But--you see--this is the first time to-night--that I've had a word with you--alone." It was not only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy's eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton's love affairs was quite another thing from Langhorne's. Quickly Craig turned the lever all the way over. "Carton--Miss Ashton--this is Kennedy," he called. "Back of the big palm you'll find a vocaphone. Don't take that cab! They are going to stick you up. Wait--I'll explain all in a moment!" XVIII THE WALL STREET WOLF It was a startled couple that we found when we reached the conservatory. As we made our hasty explanation, Carton overwhelmed us with thanks for the prompt and effective manner in which Kennedy had saved him from the machinations of the defeated gangsters. Miss Ashton, who would have kept her nerves under control throughout any emergency, actually turned pale as she learned of the danger that had been so narrowly averted. I am sure that her feelings, which she made no effort to conceal, must have been such as to reassure Carton if he had still any doubt on that score. The delay in his coming out, however, had been just enough to arouse suspicion, and by the time that we reached the side entrance to the house both Ike and the night-hawk taxicab which had evidently been drafted into service had disappeared, leaving no clue. The result of the discovery over the vocaphone was that none of us left Miss Ashton's until much later than we had expected. Langhorne, apparently, had gone shortly after he left the conservatory the last time, and Mrs. Ogleby had preceded him. When at last we managed to convince Miss Ashton that it was perfectly safe for Carton to go, nothing would suffice except that we should accompany him as a sort of bodyguard to his home. We did so, without encountering any adventure more thrilling than seeing an argument between a policeman and a late reveller. "I can't thank you fellows too much," complimented Carton as we left him. "I was hunting around for you, but I thought you had found a suffrage meeting too slow and had gone." "On the contrary," returned Kennedy, equivocally, "we found it far from slow." Carton did not appreciate the tenor of the remark and Craig was not disposed to enlighten him. "What do you suppose Mrs. Ogleby meant in her references to Carton?" mused Kennedy when we reached our own apartment. "I can't say," I replied, "unless before he came to really know Miss Ashton, they were intimate." Kennedy shook his head. "Why will men in a public capacity get mixed up with women of the adventuress type like that, even innocently?" he ruminated. "Mark my words, she or someone else will make trouble for him before we get through." It was a thought that had lately been in my own mind, for we had had several hints of that nature. Kennedy said no more, but he had started my mind on a train of speculative thought. I could not imagine that a woman of Mrs. Ogleby's type could ever have really appealed to Carton, but that did not preclude the possibility that some unscrupulous person might make use of the intimacy for base purposes. Then, too, there was the threat that I had heard agreed on by both Langhorne and herself over the vocaphone. What would be the next step of the organization now in its sworn warfare on Carton, I could not imagine. But we did not have long to wait. Early the following forenoon an urgent message came to Kennedy from Carton to meet him at his office. "Kennedy," he said, "I don't know how to thank you for the many times you have pulled me through, and I'm almost ashamed to keep on calling on you." "It's a big fight," hastened Craig. "You have opponents who know the game in its every crooked turn. If I can be only a small cog on a wheel that crushes them, I shall be only too glad. Your face tells me that something particularly unpleasant has happened." "It has," admitted Carton, smoothing out some of the wrinkles at the mere sight of Craig. He paused a moment, as if he were himself in doubt as to just what the trouble was. "Someone has been impersonating me over the telephone," he began. "All day long there have been reports coming into my office asking me whether it was true that I had agreed to accept the offer of Dorgan that Murtha made, you know,--that is, practically to let up on the organization if they would let up on me." "Yes," prompted Kennedy, "but, impersonation--what do you mean by that?" "Why, early to-day someone called me up, said he was Dorgan, and asked if I would have any objection to meeting him. I said I would meet him--only it would do no good. Then, apparently, the same person called up Dorgan and said he was myself, asking if he had any objection to meeting me. Dorgan said he'd see. Whoever it was, he almost succeeded in bringing about the fool thing--would have done it, if I hadn't got wise to the fact that there was something funny about it. I called up Dorgan. He said he'd meet me, as long as I had approached him first. I said I hadn't. We swore a little and called the fake meeting off. But it was too late. It got into the papers. Now, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference to either of us. It doesn't to him. People will think he tried to slip one over on ME. But it does make a difference to me. People will think I'm trying to sell out." Carton showed plainly his vexation at the affair. "The old scheme!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That's the plan that has been used by a man down in Wall Street that they call, 'the Wolf.' He is a star impersonator--will call up two sworn enemies and put over something on them that double-crosses both." "Wall Street," mused Carton. "That reminds me of another batch of rumours that have been flying around. They were that I had made a deal with Langhorne by which I agreed to support him in his fight to get something in the contracts of the new city planning scheme in return for his support of the part of the organization he could swing to me in the election,--another lie." "It might have been Langhorne himself, playing the wolf," I suggested. Kennedy had reached for the telephone book. "Also, it might have been Kahn," he added. "I see he has an office in Wall Street, too. He has been the legal beneficiary of several shady transactions down there." "Oh," put in Carton, "it might have been any of them--they're all capable of it from Dorgan down. If Murtha was only out, I'd be inclined to suspect him." He tossed over a typewritten sheet of paper. "That's the statement I gave out to the press," he explained. It read: "My attention has been called to the alleged activities of some person or persons who through telephone calls and underground methods are seeking to undermine confidence in my integrity. A more despicable method of attempting to arouse distrust I cannot imagine. It is criminal and if anyone can assist me in placing the responsibility where it belongs I shall be glad to prosecute to the limit." "That's all right," assented Kennedy, "but I don't think it will have any effect. You see, this sort of thing is too easy for anyone to be scared off from. All he has to do is to go to a pay station and call up there. You couldn't very well trace that." He stopped abruptly and his face puckered with thought. "There ought to be some way, though," I murmured, without knowing just what the way might be, "to tell whether it is Dorgan and the organization crowd, or Langhorne and his pool, or Kahn and the other shysters." "There IS a way," cried Kennedy at last. "You fellows wait here while I make a flying trip up to the laboratory. If anyone calls us, just put him off--tell him to call up later." Carton continued to direct the work of his office, of which there had been no interruptions even during the stress of the campaign. Now and then the telephone rang and each time Carton would motion to me, and say, "You take it, Jameson. If it seems perfectly regular then pass it over to me." Several routine calls came in, this way, followed by one from Miss Ashton, which Carton prolonged much beyond the mere time needed to discuss a phase of the Reform League campaign. He had scarcely hung up the receiver, when the bell tinkled insistently, as though central had had an urgent call which the last conversation had held up. I took down the receiver, and almost before I could answer the inquiry, a voice began, "This is the editor of the Wall Street Record, Mr. Carton. Have you heard anything of the rumours about Hartley Langhorne and his pool being insolvent? The Street has been flooded with stories--" "One moment," I managed to interrupt. "This is not Mr. Carton, although this is his office. No--he's out. Yes, he'll certainly be back in half an hour. Ring up then." I repeated the scrap of gossip that had filtered through to me, which Carton received in quite as much perplexity as I had. "Seems as if everybody was getting knocked," he commented. "That may be a blind, though," I suggested. He nodded. I think we both realized how helpless we were when Kennedy was away. In fact we made even our guesses with a sort of lack of confidence. It was therefore with a sense of relief that we welcomed him a few minutes later as he hurried into the office, almost breathless from his trip uptown and back. "Has anyone called up?" he inquired unceremoniously, unwrapping a small parcel which he carried. I told him as briefly as I could what had happened. He nodded, without making any audible comment, but in a manner that seemed to show no surprise. "I want to get this thing installed before anyone else calls," he explained, setting to work immediately. "What is it?" I asked, regarding the affair, which included something that looked like a phonograph cylinder. "An invention that has just been perfected," he replied without delaying his preparations, "by which it is possible for messages to be sent over the telephone and automatically registered, even in the absence of anyone at the receiving end. Up to the present it has been practicable to take phonograph records only by the direct action of the human voice upon the diaphragm of the instrument. Not long ago there was submitted to the French Academy of Sciences an apparatus by which the receiver of the telephone can be put into communication with a phonograph and a perfect record obtained of the voice of the speaker at the other end of the wire, his message being reproduced at will by merely pressing a button." "Wouldn't the telegraphone do?" I asked, remembering our use of that instrument in other cases. "It would record," he replied, "but I want a phonograph record. Nothing else will do in this case. You'll see why, before I get through. Besides, this apparatus isn't complicated. Between the diaphragm of the telephone receiver and that of the phonographic microphone is fitted an air chamber of adjustable size, open to the outer atmosphere by a small hole to prevent compression. I think," he added with a smile, "it will afford a pretty good means of collecting souvenirs of friends by preserving the sound of their voices through the telephone." For several minutes we waited. "I don't think I ever heard of such effrontery, such open, bare-faced chicanery," fumed Carton impatiently. "We'll catch the fellow yet," replied Kennedy confidently. "And I think we'll find him a bad lot." XIX THE ESCAPE At last the telephone rang and Carton answered it eagerly. As he did so, he quickly motioned to us to go to the outside office where we, too, could listen on extensions. "Yes, this is Mr. Carton," we heard him say. "This is the editor of the Wall Street Record," came back the reply in a tone that showed no hesitation or compunction if it was lying. "I suppose you have heard the rumours that are current downtown that Hartley Langhorne and the people associated with him have gone broke in the pool they formed to get control of the public utilities that would put them in a position to capture the city betterment contracts?" "No--I hadn't heard it," answered Carton, with difficulty restraining himself from quizzing the informant about himself. Kennedy was motioning to him that that was enough. "I'm sure I can't express any opinion at all for publication on the subject," he concluded brusquely, jamming down the receiver on the hook before his interlocutor had a chance to ask another question. The bell continued to ring, but Craig seized the receiver off its hook again and called back, "Mr. Carton has gone for the day," hanging it up again with a bang. "Call up the Record now," advised Craig, disconnecting the recording instrument he had brought. "See what the editor has to say." "This is the District Attorney's office," said Carton a moment later when he got the number. "You just called me." "I called you?" asked the editor, non-plussed. "About a rumour current in Wall Street." "Rumour? No, sir. It must be some mistake." "I guess so. Sorry to have troubled you. Good-bye." Carton looked from one to the other of us. "You see," he said in disgust, "there it is again. That's the sort of thing that has been going on all day. How do I know what that fellow is doing now--perhaps using my name?" I had no answer to his implied query as to who was the "wolf" and what he might be up to. As for Kennedy, while he showed plainly that he had his suspicions which he expected to confirm absolutely, he did not care to say anything about them yet. "Two can play at 'wolf,'" he said quietly, calling up the headquarters of Dorgan's organization. I wondered what he would say, but was disappointed to find that it was a merely trivial conversation about some inconsequential thing, as though Kennedy had merely wished to get in touch with the "Silent Boss." Next he called up the sanitarium to which Murtha had been committed, and after posing as Murtha's personal physician managed to have the rules relaxed to the extent of exchanging a few sentences with him. "How did he seem--irrational?" asked Carton with interest, for I don't think the District Attorney had complete confidence in the commonly announced cause of Murtha's enforced retirement. Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "Sounded pretty far gone," was all he said, turning over the pages of the telephone book as he looked for another number. This time it was Kahn whom he called up, and he had some difficulty locating him, for Kahn had two offices and was busily engaged in preparing a defence to the charges preferred against him for the jury fixing episode. Among others whom he called up was Langhorne, and the conversation with him was as perfunctory as possible, consisting merely in repeating his name, followed by an apology from Kennedy for "calling the wrong number." In each case, Craig was careful to have his little recording instrument working, taking down every word that was uttered and when he had finished he detached it, looking at the cylinder with unconcealed satisfaction. "I'm going up to the laboratory again," he announced, as Carton looked at him inquiringly. "The investigation that I have in mind will take time, but I shall hurry it along as fast as I possibly can. I don't want any question about the accuracy of my conclusions." We left Carton, who promised to meet us late in the afternoon at the laboratory, and started uptown. Instead, however, of going up directly, Craig telephoned first to Clare Kendall to shadow Mrs. Ogleby. The rest of the day he spent in making microphotographs of the phonograph cylinder and studying them very attentively under his high-powered lens. Toward the close of the afternoon the first report of Miss Kendall, who had been "trailing" Mrs. Ogleby, came in. We were not surprised to learn that she had met Langhorne in the Futurist Tea Room in the middle of the afternoon and that they had talked long and earnestly. What did surprise us, though, was her suspicion that she had crossed the trail of someone else who was shadowing Mrs. Ogleby. Kennedy made no comment, though I could see that he was vitally interested. What was the significance of the added mystery? Someone else had an interest in watching her movements. At once I thought of Dorgan. Could he have known of the intimacy of his guest at the Gastron dinner with Langhorne, rather than with Murtha, with whom she had gone? Suddenly another explanation occurred to me. What was more likely than that Martin Ogleby should have heard of his wife's escapade? He would certainly learn now to his surprise of her meeting with Langhorne. What would happen then? Kennedy had about finished with his microphotographic work and was checking it over to satisfy himself of the results, when Carton, as he had promised, dropped in on us. "What are you doing now?" he asked curiously, looking at the prints and paraphernalia scattered about. "By the way, I've been inquiring into the commitment of Murtha to that sanitarium for the insane. On the surface it all seems perfectly regular. It appears that, unknown even to many of his most intimate friends, he has been suffering from a complication of diseases, the result of his high life, and they have at last affected his brain, as they were bound to do in time. Still, I don't like his 'next friends' in the case. One is his personal physician--I don't know much about him. But Dorgan is one of the others." "We'll have to look into it," agreed Kennedy. "Meanwhile, would you like to know who your 'wolf' is that has been spreading rumours about broadcast?" "I would indeed," exclaimed Carton eagerly. "You were right about the statement I issued. It had no more effect than so many unspoken words. The fellow has kept right on. He even had the nerve to call up Miss Ashton in my name and try to find out whether she had any trace of the missing Betty Blackwell. How do you suppose they found out that she was interested?" "Not a very difficult thing," replied Kennedy. "Miss Ashton must have told several organizations, and the grafters always watch such societies pretty closely. What did she say?" "Nothing," answered Carton. "I had thought that they might try something of the sort and fortunately I warned her to disregard any telephone messages unless they came certainly from me. We agreed on a little secret formula, a sort of password, to be used, and I flatter myself that the 'wolf' won't be able to accomplish much in that direction. You say you have discovered a clue? How did you get it?" Kennedy picked up one of the microphotographs which showed an enlargement of the marks on the phonograph cylinder. He showed it to us and we gazed curiously at the enigmatic markings, greatly magnified. To me, it looked like a collection of series of lines. By close scrutiny I was able to make out that the lines were wavy and more or less continuous, being made up of collections of finer lines,--lines within lines, as it were. An analysis of their composition showed that the centre of larger lines was composed of three continuous series of markings which looked, under the lens, for all the world like the impressions of an endless straight series of molar teeth. Flanking these three tooth-like impressions were other lines--varying in width and in number--I should say, about four, both above and below the tooth-like impressions. When highly magnified one could distinguish roughly parallel parts of what at even a low magnification looked like a single line. "I have been studying voice analysis lately," explained Kennedy, "particularly with reference to the singing voice. Mr. Edison has made thousands and thousands of studies of voices to determine which are scientifically perfect for singing. That side of it did not interest me particularly. I have been seeking to use the discovery rather for detective purposes." He paused and with a fine needle traced out some of the lines on the photographs before us. "That," he went on, "is a highly magnified photograph of a minute section of the phonographic record of the voice that called you up, Carton, as editor of the Wall Street Record. The upper and lower lines, with long regular waves, are formed by a voice with no overtones. Those three broader lines in the middle, with rhythmic ripples, show the overtones." Carton and I followed, fascinated by the minuteness of his investigation and knowledge. "You see," he explained, "when a voice or a passage of music sounds or is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received upon the diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the surface of the cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig-zag lines of infinitely varying depth and breadth. "Close familiarity with such records for about forty years has taught Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation in the lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By examining them under the microscope one can analyze each tone with mathematical accuracy and can almost hear it--just as a musician reading the score of a song can almost hear the notes." "Wonderful," ejaculated Carton. "And you mean to say that in that way you can actually identify a voice?" Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking them over under a microscope--yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice--mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger-print, the portrait parle of the human voice!" Incredible as it seemed, we were forced to believe, for there on the table lay the graphic evidence which he had just so painstakingly interpreted. "Who was it?" asked Carton breathlessly. Kennedy picked up another microphotograph. "That is the record I took of one of the calls I made--merely for the purpose of obtaining samples of voices to compare with this of the impersonator. The two agree in every essential detail and none of the others could be confounded by an expert who studied them. Your 'wolf' was your old friend Kahn!" "Fighting back at me by his usual underhand methods," exclaimed Carton in profound disgust. "Or else trying himself to get control of the Black Book," added Kennedy. "If you will stop to think a moment, his shafts have been levelled quite as much at discrediting Langhorne as yourself. He might hope to kill two birds with one stone--and incidentally save himself." "You mean that he wants to lay a foundation now for questioning the accuracy of the Black Book if it ever comes to light?" "Perhaps," assented Kennedy carefully. "Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his impostures," hastened Carton. "I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that we know what he is up to and can trace it to him--provided you don't tell him how we did it--yet." Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every place in which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his offices, nor at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton left a message which told the story and which he could hardly fail to receive soon. As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown study. He rose slowly and put on his hat. "Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked, "particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with it. I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I heard about his condition. I want to see him myself." Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to speak to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more important to look to the foundations than to the building just now." A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced that Murtha had been taken. I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty either in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We arrived at the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high brick wall, and evidently once a fine country estate, at just about dusk. To my surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had no difficulty in being admitted. For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room, I listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the building. Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state of disorder. I had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for the care and treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of excitement which palpably pervaded the air was not what one would have expected. I began to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and wonder whether there might not have been a revolution in the place and the patients have taken charge of their keepers. At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going to pass us without notice. "I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, who had heard his footsteps approaching and had placed himself in the hallway so that the attendant could not pass, "but we have called to see Mr. Murtha." The attendant eyed us curiously. I expected him to say that it was against the rules, or to question our right to see the patient. "I'm afraid you're too late," he said briefly, instead. "Too late?" queried Kennedy sharply. "What do you mean?" The man answered promptly as if that were the quickest way to get back to his own errand. "Mr. Murtha escaped from his keepers this evening, just after dinner, and there is no trace of him." XX THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH Murtha's escape from the sanitarium had again thrown our calculations into chaos. We rode back to the city in silence, and even Kennedy had no explanation to offer. Even at a late hour that night, although a widespread alarm had been sent out for him, no trace of the missing man could be found. The next morning's papers, of course, were full of the strange disappearance, but gave no hint of his discovery. In fact, all day the search was continued by the authorities, but without result. On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the official and political life of the city, could remain at large unrecognized. Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men had disappeared. The facts in Murtha's case spoke for themselves. Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the final spurt to the finish. With Kennedy's unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn, that worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our sight. Mrs. Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect that the shadow that had been placed on her could not have been engaged by Martin Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take reports of the sort complaisantly. Someone else must be interested. As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that no one made use of it. Even though we gained no hint from Langhorne after the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was impossible to tell whether or not he still retained the detectaphone record. On the other hand, if Dorgan had obtained it by using the services of someone in the criminal hierarchy that Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that we would have heard anything about it. We were in the position of men fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly whom we fought. We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as had been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous twenty-four, had been speculating on the possible solution of the mysterious dropping out of sight of Murtha. The evening papers had contained nothing that the morning papers had not already published and Kennedy had tossed the last of an armful into the scrap basket when the buzzer on the door of our apartment sounded. A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a note, as he touched his hat. "A message for Professor Kennedy from Mr. Carton, sir," he announced. I recognized him as Carton's valet as he stood impatiently waiting for Craig to read the letter. "It's all right--there's no answer--I'll see him immediately," nodded Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet disappeared. "My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves," read the note. "Would you like to look it over? I can't find anything missing except a bundle of old and valueless photographs. Carton." "Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book from Langhorne," I commented, following the line on which I had been thinking at the time. "And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not finding it?" Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my theory. "Perhaps," I acquiesced weakly, as we went out. Instead of turning in the direction of Carton's immediately, Kennedy walked across the campus toward the Chemistry Building. At the laboratory we loaded ourselves with a large and heavy oblong case containing a camera and a tripod. The Cartons lived in an old section of the city which still retained something of its aristocratic air, having been passed by, as it were, like an eddy in the stream of business that swirled uptown, engulfing everything. It was an old four-story brownstone house which had been occupied by his father and grandfather before him, and now was the home of Carton, his mother, and his sister. "I'm glad to see you," Carton met us at the door. "This isn't quite as classy a robbery as Langhorne's--but it's just as mysterious. Must have happened while the family were at dinner. That's why I said it was a robbery by a sneak thief." He was leading the way to his study, which was in an extension of the house, in the rear. "I hope you've left things as they were," ventured Craig. "I did," assured Carton. "I know your penchant for such things and almost the first thought I had was that you'd prefer it that way. So I shut the door and sent William after you. By the way, what have you done with him?" "Nothing," returned Craig. "Isn't he back yet?" "No--oh, well I don't need him right away." "And nothing was taken except some old photographs?" asked Craig, looking intently at Carton's face. "That is all I can find missing," he returned frankly. Kennedy's examination of the looted study was minute, taking in the window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally he set up his camera with most particular care and took several flashlight pictures of the window, the cabinet, the doors--including the study--from every angle. Outside he examined the extension and back of the house carefully, noting possible ways of getting from the side street across the fences into the Carton yard. With Carton we returned to Craig's splendidly equipped photographic studio and while Carton and I made the best of our time by discussing various phases of the case, Kennedy employed the interval in developing his plates. He had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size, mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on all four margins. Carton and I puzzled over them. "Those are metric photographs, such as Bertillon of Paris used to take," Craig explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other methods that have been worked out, we can determine from those pictures distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the spot ourselves. Bertillon cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with other devices in the study of crime." He was going over the photographs carefully. "For instance," he continued, "in order to solve the riddle of a crime, the detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each object is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera is called into requisition. The plundered room is photographed, as in this case. I might have done it by placing a foot rule on a table and taking that in the picture. But a more scientific and accurate method has been devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In the way he has worked it out, the distance between any two points in the picture can be determined. With a topographical plan and a metric photograph one can study a crime, as a general studies the map of a strange country. There were several peculiar things that I observed at your house, Carton, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime. Preserved in this way, it cannot be questioned. You are sure that the only thing missing is the photographs?" Carton nodded, "I never keep anything valuable lying around." "Well," resumed Kennedy, "the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets, but none of them seems to have been disturbed. Therefore the thief must have known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock were not those of a jimmy, but of a screwdriver. No amazing command of the resources of science is needed so far. All that is necessary is a little scientific common sense." Carton glanced at me, and I smiled, for it always did seem so easy, when Craig did it, and so impossible when we tried to go it alone. "Now, how did the robber get in?" he continued, thoroughly engrossed in his study. "All the windows were supposedly locked. I saw that a pane had been partly cut from this window at the side--and the pieces were there to show it. But consider the outside, a moment. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There were no marks of a ladder or even of any person in the soft soil of the garden under the window. What is more, that window was cut from the inside. The marks of the diamond which cut it plainly show that. Scientific common sense again." "Then it must have been someone in the house or at least familiar with it?" I exclaimed. Kennedy shook his head affirmatively. I had been wondering who it could be. Certainly this was not the work of Dopey Jack, even if the far cleverer attempt on Langhorne's safe had been. But it might have been one of his gang. I had not got as far as trying to reason out the why of the crime. "Call up your house, Carton," asked Craig. "See if William, your valet, has returned." Carton did so, and a moment later turned to us with a look of perplexity on his face. "No," he reported, "he hasn't come back yet. I can't imagine where he is." "He won't come back," asserted Kennedy positively. "It was an inside job--and he did it." Carton gasped astonishment. "At any rate," pursued Kennedy, "one thing we have which the police greatly neglect--a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon used to call it." "Strange that he should take only photographs," I mused. "What were they?" asked Kennedy, and again I saw that he was looking intently at Carton's face. "Nothing much," returned Carton unhesitatingly, "just some personal photographs--of no real value except to me. Most of them were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different times and places that I kept for the associations." "Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?" suggested Kennedy. Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied frankly. Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. I frankly had not believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of the same type and I felt that his open face would surely have disclosed to us any real loss that he suffered or apprehension that he felt over the robbery. I was forced to give it up, and I think Kennedy, too, had decided not to worry over the crossing of any bridges until at least we knew that there were bridges to be crossed. Carton was worried more by the discovery that one he had trusted even as a valet had proved unfaithful. He knew, however, as well as we did that one of the commonest methods of the underworld when they wished to pull off a robbery was to corrupt one of the servants of a house. Still, it looked strange, for the laying of such an elaborate plan usually preceded only big robberies, such as jewelery or silver. For myself, I was forced back on my first theory that someone had concluded that Carton had the Black Book, had concocted this elaborate scheme to get what was really of more value than much jewelry, and had found out that Carton did not have the precious detectaphone record, after all. I knew that there were those who would have gone to any length to get it. A general alarm was given, through the police, for the apprehension of William, but we had small hope that anything would result from it, for at that time Carton's enemies controlled the police and I am not sure but that they would have been just a little more dilatory in apprehending one who had done Carton an injury than if it had been someone else. It was too soon, that night, of course, to expect to learn anything, anyhow. It was quite late, but it had been a confining day for Kennedy who had spent the hours while not working on Carton's case in some of the ceaseless and recondite investigations of his own to which he was always turning his restless mind. "Suppose we walk a little way downtown with Carton?" he suggested. I was not averse, and by the time we arrived in the white light belt of Broadway the theatres were letting out. Above the gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"--the only superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose every issue was an "Extra." Kennedy bought one, with the laughing remark, "Perhaps it's about your robbery, Carton." It was only a second before the smile on his face changed to a look of extreme gravity. We crowded about him. In red ink across the head of the paper were the words: "BODY OF MURTHA, MISSING, FOUND IN MORGUE" Down in a lower corner, in a little box into which late news could be dropped, also in red ink, was the brief account: This morning the body of an unknown man was found in The Bronx near the Westchester Railroad tracks. He had been run over and badly mutilated. After lying all day in the local morgue, it was transferred, still unidentified, to the city Morgue downtown. Early this evening one of the night attendants recognized the unidentified body as that of Murtha, "the Smiling Boss," whose escape day before yesterday from an asylum in Westchester has remained a mystery until now. "Well--what do you--think of that!" ejaculated Carton. "Murtha--dead--and I thought the whole thing was a job they were putting up on me!" Kennedy crooked his finger at a cabby who was alertly violating the new ordinance and soliciting fares away from a public cab stand. "The Morgue--quick!" he ordered, not even noticing the flabbergasted look on the jehu's face, who was not accustomed to carrying people thither from the primrose path of Broadway quite so rapidly. XXI THE MORGUE There had come a lull in the activities which never entirely cease, night or day, in the dingy building at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. Across the street in the municipal lodging-house the city's homeless were housed for the night. Even ever wakeful Bellevue Hospital nearby was comparatively quiet. The last "dead boat" which carries the city's unclaimed corpses away for burial had long ago left, when we arrived. The anxious callers who pass all day through the portals of the mortuary chamber seeking lost friends and relatives had disappeared. Except for the night keeper and one or two assistants, the Morgue was empty save of the overcrowded dead. Years before, as a cub reporter on the Star, I had had the gruesome assignment once of the Morgue. It was the same old place after all these years and it gave me the same creepy sensations now as it did then. Even the taxicab driver seemed glad to set down his fares and speed away. It was ghoulish. I felt then and I did still that instead of contributing to the amelioration of conditions that could not be otherwise than harrowing, everything about the old Morgue lent itself to the increase of the horror of the surroundings. As Kennedy, Carton, and I entered, we found that the principal chamber in the place was circular. Its walls were lined with the ends of caskets, which, fitting close into drawer-like apertures were constantly enveloped in the refrigerated air. It seemed, even at that hour, that if these receptacles were even adequate to contain all of the daily tenants of the Morgue, much of the anguish and distress inseparable from such a place might be spared those who of necessity must visit the place seeking their dead. As it was, even for those bound by no blood ties to the unfortunates who found their way to the city Morgue, the room was a veritable chamber of horror. We stood in horrified amazement at what we saw. On the floor, which should be kept clear, lay the overflow of the day's intake. Bodies for which there was no room in the cooling boxes, others which were yet awaiting claimants, and still more awaiting transfer to the public burying ground, lay about in their rough coffins, many of them brutally exposed. It seemed, too, that if ever there was a time when conditions might have been expected to have halfway adjusted themselves to the pressure which by day brought out all too clearly the hopeless inadequacy of the facilities provided by the city to perform one of its most important and inevitable functions, it was at that early morning hour of our visit. Presumably preparation had been completed for the busy day about to open by setting all into some semblance of respectful order. But such was not the case. It was impossible. In one group, I recall, which an attendant said had been awaiting his removal for a couple of days, the rough board coffins, painted the uniform brown of the city's institutions, lay open, without so much as face coverings over the dead. They lay as they had been sent in from various hospitals. Most of them were bereft of all the decencies usual with the dead, in striking contrast, however, with the bodies from Bellevue, which were all closely swathed in bandages and shrouds. One body, that of a negro, which had been sent in to the Morgue from a Harlem hospital, lay just as it came, utterly bare, exposing to public view all the gruesome marks of the autopsy. I wondered whether anything like that might be found to be the fate of the once jovial and popular Murtha, when we found him. I almost forgot our mission in the horror of the place, for, nearby was an even more heartrending sight. Piled in several heaps much higher than a man's head and as carelessly as cordwood were the tiny coffins holding the babies which the authorities are called on by the poor of the city to bury in large numbers--far too poor to meet the cost of the cheapest decent burial. Atop the stack of regulation coffins were the nondescript receptacles made use of by the very poor--the most pathetic a tiny box from the corner grocery. The bodies, some dozens of them, lay like so much merchandise, awaiting shipment. "What a barbarity!" I heard Craig mutter, for even he, though now and then forced to visit the place when one of his cases took him there, especially when it was concerned with an autopsy, had never become hardened to it. Often I had heard him denounce the primitive appointments, especially in the autopsy rooms. The archaic attempts to utilize the Morgue for scientific investigation were the occasion for practices that shocked even the initiated. For the lack of suitable depositories for the products of autopsies, these objects were plainly visible in rude profusion when a door was opened to draw out a body for inspection. About and around the slabs whereon the human bodies lay, in bottles and in plates, this material which had no place except in the cabinets of a laboratory was inhumanly displayed in profusion, close to corpses for which a morgue is expected to provide some degree of reverential care. "You see," apologized the keeper, not averse to throwing the blame on someone else, for it indeed was not his but the city's fault, "one reason why so many bodies have to remain uncared for is that I could show you cooling box after cooling box with some subject which figured during the past few months in the police records. Why victims of murders committed long ago should be held indefinitely, and their growing numbers make it impossible to give proper places to each day's temporary bodies, I can't say. Sometimes," he added with a sly dig at Carton, "the only explanation seems to be that the District Attorney's office has requested the preservation of the grisly relics." I could see that Carton was making a mental note that the practice would be ended as far as his office was concerned. "So--you saw the story in the newspapers about Mr. Murtha," repeated the keeper, not displeased to see us and at the publicity it gave him. "It was I that discovered him--and yet many's the times some of the boys that must have handled the body since it was picked up beside the tracks must have seen him. It was too late to get anyone to take the body away to-night, but the arrangements have all been made, and it will be done early in the morning before anyone else sees Pat Murtha here, as he shouldn't be. We've done what we could for him ourselves--he was a fine gentleman and many's the boy that owes a boost up in life to him." Reverentially even the hardened keeper drew out one of the best of the drawer-like boxes. On the slab before us lay the body. Carton drew back, excitedly, shocked. "It IS Murtha!" he exclaimed. I, too, looked at it quickly. The name as Carton pronounced it, in such a place, had, to me at least, an unpleasant likeness to "murder." Kennedy had bent down and was examining the mutilated body minutely. "How do you suppose such a thing is possible--that he could lie about the city, even here until the night keeper came on,--unknown?" asked Carton, aghast. "I don't know," I said, "but I imagine that in connection with the actual inadequacy of the equipment one would find reflected the same makeshift character in the attitude and actions of those who handle the city's dead. It used to be the case, at least, that the facilities for keeping records were often almost totally neglected, and not through the fault of the Morgue keepers, entirely. But, I understand it is better now." "This is terrible," repeated Carton, averting his face. "Really, Jameson, it makes me feel like a hound, for ever thinking that Murtha might have been putting up a game on me. Poor old Murtha--I should have preferred to remember him as the 'Smiling Boss' as everyone always called him!" I called to mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton's office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he would compromise with the organization. What a contrast, this, with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with passion at Carton's refusal! And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all--the fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions which had made possible such neglect of the district leader's body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many who owed their very positions to the organization. I could not help but think that if he had served humanity with one-half the zeal which he had served graft, this could not have happened. The more I contemplated the case, the more tragic did it seem to me. I longed for the assignment of writing the story for the Star--the chance I would have had in the old days to bring in a story that would have got me a nod of approval from my superior. I determined, as soon as possible, to get the Star on the wire and try to express some of the thoughts that were surging through my brain in the face of this awful and unexpected occurrence. There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as those of the Morgue attendants. I could not help reflecting on the strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all distinctions between men of high and low degree. Murtha had almost literally sprung from the streets. His career had been one possible only in the social and political conditions of his times. And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a pauper's grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan to debauch. Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed. For the moment he did not even think of how this blow to the System might affect his own chances. It was only the pitiful wreck of a human being before us that he saw. I was not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who was examining Murtha's body with minute care, now and then muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it had received in its various transfers about the city. But there were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which added even more to the horror of the case. One thing, I felt, was fortunate. Murtha had had no family. There had been plenty of scandal about him, but as far as I knew there was no one except his old cronies in the organization to be shocked by his loss, no living tragedy left in the wake of this. "How do you suppose it happened?" I asked the night keeper. He shook his head doubtfully. "No one knows, of course," he replied slowly. "But I think the big fellow got worse up there in that asylum. He wasn't used to anything but having his own way, you know. They say he must have waited his chance, after the dinner hour, when things were quiet, and then slipped out while no one was looking. He may have been crazy, but you can bet your life Pat Murtha was the smartest crazy man they ever had up there. THEY couldn't hold him." "I see," I said, struck by the faith which the man had inspired even in those who held the lowest of city positions. "But I meant how do you suppose he was killed?" The attendant looked at me thoughtfully a while. "Young man," he answered, "I ain't saying nothing and it may have been an accident after all. Have you ever been up in that part of town?" I had not and said so. "Well," he continued, "those electric trains do sneak up on a fellow fast. It may have been an accident, all right. The coroner up there said so, and I guess he ought to know. It must have been late at night--perhaps he was wandering away from the ordinary roads for fear of being recaptured. No one knows--I guess no one will know, ever. But it's a sad day for many of the boys. He helped a lot of 'em. And Mr. Dorgan--he knows what a loss it is, too. I hear that it's hit the Chief hard." The attendant, rough though he was and hardened by the daily succession of tragedies, could not restrain an honest catch in his voice over the passing of the "big fellow," as some of them called the "Smiling Boss." It was a pretty good object lesson on the power of the system which the organization had built up, how Murtha, and even the more distant Dorgan himself, had endeared himself to his followers and henchmen. Perhaps it was corrupt, but it was at least human, and that was a great deal in a world full of inhumanities. In the face of what had happened, one felt that much might be forgiven Murtha for his shortcomings, especially as the era of the Murthas and Dorgans was plainly passing. "Here at least," whispered Carton, as we withdrew to a corner to escape the palling atmosphere, "is one who won't worry about what happens to that Black Book any more. I wonder what he really knew about it--what secrets he carried away with him?" "I can't say," I returned. "But, one thing it does. It must relieve Mrs. Ogleby's fears a bit. With Murtha out of the way there is one less to gossip about what went on at Gastron's that night of the dinner." He said nothing and just then Kennedy straightened up, as though he had finished his examination. We hurried over to him. I thought the look on Craig's face was peculiar. "What is it--what did you find?" both Carton and I asked. Kennedy did not answer immediately. "I--I can't say," he answered slowly at length, as we thanked the Morgue keeper for his courtesy and left the place. "In fact I'd rather not say--until I know." I knew from previous experiences that it was of no use to try to quiz Kennedy. He was a veritable Gradgrind for facts, facts, facts. As for myself, I could not help wondering whether, after all, Murtha might not have been the victim of foul play--and, if so, by whom? XXII THE CANARD We did not have to wait long for the secret of the robbery of Carton to come out. It was not in any "extras," or in the morning papers the next day, but it came through a secret source of information to the Reform League. "A clerk in the employ of the organization who is really a detective employed by the Reform League," groaned Carton, as he told us the story himself the next morning at his office, "has just given us the information that they have prepared a long and circumstantial story about me--about my intimacy with Mrs. Ogleby and Murtha and some others. The story of the robbery of my study is in the papers this morning. To-morrow they plan to publish some photographs--alleged to have been stolen." "Photographs--Mrs. Ogleby," repeated Kennedy. "Real ones?" "No," exclaimed Carton quickly, "of course not--fakes. Don't you see the scheme? First they lay a foundation in the robbery, knowing that the public is satisfied with sensations, and that they will be sure to believe that the robbery was put up by some muckrakers to obtain material for an expose. I wasn't worried last night. I knew I had nothing to conceal." "Then what of it?" I asked naively. "A good deal of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some means of putting a date on them early in the spring." "What are they that they should take such pains with them?" persisted Kennedy, looking fixedly at Carton. Carton met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be photographs of myself," he repeated. "One purports to represent me in a group composed of Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, another woman whom I do not even know, and myself. I am standing between Murtha and Mrs. Ogleby and we look very familiar. Another is a picture of the same four riding in a car, owned by Murtha. Oh, there are several of them, of that sort." He paused as a dozen unspoken questions framed themselves in my mind. "I don't hesitate to admit," he added, "that a few months ago I knew Mrs. Ogleby--socially. But there was nothing to it. I never knew Murtha well, and the other woman I never saw. At various times I have been present at affairs where she was, but I know that no pictures were ever taken, and even if there had been, I would not care, provided they told the truth about them. What I do care about is the sworn allegation that, I understand, is to accompany these--these fakes." His voice broke. "It's a lie from start to finish, but just think of it, Kennedy," he went on. "Here is the story, and here, too, are the pictures--at least they will be, in print, to-morrow. Now, you know nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have a scandal like this raised at this time. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for the suspicion to turn the tide against me. If it were earlier in the campaign, I might accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn of events I should have really the best sort of campaign material. But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick on the Saturday before election." "Can't we buy them off?" I ventured, perplexed beyond measure at this new and unexpected turn of events. "No, I won't," persisted Carton, shutting his square jaw doggedly. "I won't be held up--even if that is possible." "Miss Ashton on the wire," announced a boy from the outer office. The look on Carton's face was a study. I saw directly what was the trouble--far more important to him than a mere election. "Tell her--I'm out--will be back soon," he muttered, for the first time hesitating to speak to her. "You see," he continued blackly, "I'll fight if it takes my last dollar, but I won't allow myself to be blackmailed out of a cent--no, not a cent," he thundered, a heightened look of determination fixing the lines on his face as he brought his fist down with a rattling bang on the desk. Kennedy was saying nothing. He was letting Carton ease his mind of the load which had been suddenly thrust upon it. Carton was now excitedly pacing the floor. "They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect." "That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off." "But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat--they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial." He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to-day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an asset instead of a liability. And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign. That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway." Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?" "No--but I've been promised them this morning." "H'm," mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Carton,--nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I agree with you, Carton--it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method." "Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury. "I haven't said I can do that--yet," measured Craig with provoking slowness. "Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton. Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder. "I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been--er--foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. I--I don't know that I'd desert you--if the pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation." "I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that, Kennedy. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and--get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up--Langhorne--anybody. And, for God's sake get it in time--there's more than an election that hangs on it!" Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby. That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might artfully heap up? As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight--the two fights. "I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were outside. Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt that Kennedy must know best. When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and girls had already set to work, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrapbooks, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal. Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cashier and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports received of meetings already held. On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active force, in charge of Miss Ashton. As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we could see that something was the matter. Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr. Carton." She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what the true state of her feelings was. "I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to slander Mr. Carton," went on Kennedy. Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was thinking much. "I suppose in a large force like this that it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out the "literature." "I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in THIS office, though." Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word "this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now pale and agitated. "I--I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy--I would almost rather not have known it at all,--only I suppose I must have known it sooner or later." "Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you know already? I didn't think--it was known." She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the organization brought the pictures up here--one of the girls opened them by mistake--it got about the office--I couldn't help but know." "Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Remember pictures can lie--just like words." "I--I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with the League. I--I can hardly believe--" Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait until--" "Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for--for even knowing--" she paused just in time to substitute Mr. Murtha for Mrs. Ogleby--"such men as Mr. Murtha--secretly." She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay. "Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it." Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the photographs," he asked at length. "They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would not soil her hands by touching the filthy things. We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office. There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake." Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the photographs--as plain as they could be, the group including Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the porch of a gabled building in the sunshine, again the four speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read faintly, and other less interesting snapshots. As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind in connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story. Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note instead. He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act toward me in the same old way--and that after I know what I know. I--I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing something from me." What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had much effect. "That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole affair," he sighed as we left. "She believes it." I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If people believed it generally, Carton was ruined. XXIII THE CONFESSION Dorgan was putting up a bold fight, at any rate. Everyone, and most of all his opponents who had once thought they had him on the run, was forced to admit that. Moreover, one could not help wondering at his audacity, whatever might be the opinion of his dishonesty. But I was quite as much struck by the nerve of Carton. In the face of gathering misfortunes many a man of less stern mettle might have gone to pieces. Not so with the fighting District Attorney. It seemed to spur him on to greater efforts. It was a titanic struggle, this between Carton and Dorgan, and had reached the point where quarter was given or asked by neither. Kennedy had retired to his laboratory with the photographs and was studying them with an increasing interest. It was toward the close of the afternoon when the telephone rang and Kennedy motioned to me to answer it. "If it's Carton," he said quickly, "tell him I'm not here. I'm not ready for him yet and I can't be interrupted." I took down the receiver, prepared to perjure my immortal soul. It was indeed Carton, bursting with news and demanding to see Kennedy immediately. Almost before I had finished with the carefully framed, glib excuse that I was to make, he shouted to me over the wire, "What do you think, Jameson? Tell him to come down right away. The impossible has happened. I have got under Dopey Jack's guard--he has confessed. It's big. Tell Kennedy I'll wait here at my office until he comes." He had hung up the receiver before I could question him further. I think it cured Kennedy, temporarily of asking me to fib for him over the telephone. He was as anxious as I to see Carton, now, and plunged into the remaining work on the photographs eagerly. He finished much sooner than he would, otherwise, and only to preserve the decency of the excuse that I had made did not hasten down to the Criminal Courts Building before a reasonable time had elapsed. As we entered Carton's office we could tell from the very atmosphere of the halls that something was happening. The reporters in their little room outside were on the qui vive and I heard a whisper and a busy scratching of pencils as we passed in and the presence of someone else in the District Attorney's office was noted. Carton met us in a little ante-room. He was all excitement himself, but I could see that it was a clouded triumph. His mind was really elsewhere than on the confession that he was getting. Although he did not ask us, I knew that he was thinking only of Margaret Ashton and how to regain the ground that he had apparently lost with her. Still, he said nothing about the photographs. I wondered whether it was because of his confidence that Kennedy would pull him through. "You know," he whispered, "I have been working with my assistants on Dopey Jack ever since the conviction, hoping to get a confession from him, holding out all sorts of promises if he would turn state's evidence and threats if he didn't. It all had no effect. But Murtha's death seems to have changed all that. I don't know why--whether he thinks it was due to foul play or not, for he won't say anything about that and evidently doesn't know--but it seems to have changed him." Carton said it as though at last a ray of light had struck in on an otherwise black situation, and that was indeed the case. "I suppose," suggested Craig, "that as long as Murtha was alive he would rather have died than say anything that would incriminate him. That's the law of the gang world. But with Murtha no longer to be shielded, perhaps he feels released. Besides, it must begin to look to him as though the organization had abandoned him and was letting him shift pretty much for himself." "That's it," agreed Carton. "He has never got it out of his head that Kahn swung the case against him and I've been careful not to dwell on the truth of that Kahn episode." Carton led us into his main office, where Rubano was seated with two of Carton's assistants who were quizzing him industriously and obtaining an amazing amount of information about gang life and political corruption. In fact, like most criminals when they do confess, Dopey Jack was in danger of confessing too much, in sheer pride at his own prowess as a bad man. Outside, I knew that it was being well noised abroad, in fact I had nodded to an old friend on the Star who had whispered to me that the editor had already called him up and offered to give Rubano any sum for a series of articles for the Sunday supplement on life in the underworld. I knew, then, that the organization had heard of it, by this time--too late. Most of the confession was completed by the time we arrived, but as it had all been carefully taken down we knew we had missed nothing. "You see, Mr. Carton," Rubano was saying as we three entered and he turned from the assistant who was quizzing him, "it's like this. I can't tell you all about the System. No one can. You understand that. All any of us know is the men next to us--above and below. We may have opinions, hear gossip, but that's no good as evidence." "I understand," reassured Carton. "I don't expect that. You must tell me the gossip and rumours, but all I am bartering a pardon for is what you really know, and you've got to make good, or the deal is off, see?" He said it in a tone that Dopey Jack could understand and the gangster protested. "Well, Mr. Carton, haven't I made good?" "You have so far," grudgingly admitted Carton who was greedy for everything down to the uttermost scrap that might lead to other things. "Now, who was the man above you, to whom you reported?" "Mr. Murtha, of course," replied Jack, surprised that anyone should ask so simple a question. "That's all right," explained Carton. "I knew it, but I wanted you on record as saying it. And above Murtha?" "Why, you know it is Dorgan," replied Dopey, "only, as I say, I can't prove that for you any better than you can." "He has already told about his associates and those he had working under him," explained Carton, turning to us. "Now Langhorne--what do you know about him?" "Know about Langhorne--the fellow that was--that I robbed?" repeated Jack. "You robbed?" cut in Kennedy. "So you knew about thermit, then?" Dopey smiled with a sort of pride in his work, much as if he had received a splendid recommendation. "Yes," he replied. "I knew about it--got it from a peterman who has studied safes and all that sort of thing. I heard he had some secret, so one night I takes him up to Farrell's and gets him stewed and he tells me. Then when I wants to use it, bingo! there I am with the goods." "And the girl--Betty Blackwell--what did she have to do with it?" pursued Craig. "Did you get into the office, learn Langhorne's habits, and so on, from her?" Dopey Jack looked at us in disgust. "Say," he replied, "if I wanted a skirt to help me in such a job, believe me I know plenty that could put it all over that girl. Naw, I did it all myself. I picked the lock, burnt the safe with that powder the guy give me, and took out something in soft leather, a lot of typewriting." We were all on our feet in unrestrained excitement. It was the Black Book at last! "Yes," prompted Carton, "and what then--what did you do with it?" "Gave it to Mr. Murtha, of course," came back the matter-of-fact answer of the young tough. "What did he do with it?" demanded Carton. Dopey Jack shook his head dubiously. "It ain't no use trying to kid you, Mr. Carton. If I told you a fake you'd find it out. I'd tell you what he did, if I knew, but I don't--on the level. He just took it. Maybe he burnt it--I don't know. I did my work." Unprincipled as the young man was, I could not help the feeling that in this case he was telling only the truth as he knew it. We looked at each other aghast. What if Murtha had got it and had destroyed it before his death? That was an end of the dreams we had built on its capture. On the other hand, if he had hidden it there was small likelihood now of finding it. The only chance, as far as I could see, was that he had passed it along to someone else. And of that Dopey Jack obviously knew nothing. Still, his information was quite valuable enough. He had given us the first definite information we had received of it. Carton, his assistants, and Kennedy now vigorously proceeded in a sort of kid glove third degree, without getting any further than convincing themselves that Rubano genuinely did not know. "But the stenographer," reiterated Carton, returning to the line of attack which he had temporarily abandoned. "Something became of her. She disappeared and even her family haven't a trace of her, nor any other institutions in the city. We've got something on you, there, Rubano." Jack laughed. "Mr. Carton," he answered easily, "the police put me through the mill on that without finding anything, and I don't believe you have anything. But just to show you that I'm on the square with you, I don't mind telling you that I got her away." It was dramatic, the off-hand way in which the gangster told of this mystery that had perplexed us. "Got her away--how--where?" demanded Carton fiercely. "Mr Murtha gave me some money--a wad. I don't know who gave it to him, but it wasn't his money. It was to pay her to stay away till this all blew over. Oh, they made it worth her while. So I dolled up and saw her--and she fell for it--a pretty good sized wad," he repeated, as though he wished some of it had stuck to his own hands. We fairly gasped at the ease and simplicity with which the fellow bandied facts that had been beyond our discovery for days. Here was another link in our chain. We could not prove it, but in all probability it was Dorgan who furnished the money. Even if the Black Book were lost, it was possible that in the retentive memory of this girl there might be much that would take its place. She had seen a chance for providing for the future of herself and her family. All she had to do was to take it and keep quiet. "You know where she is, then?" shot out Kennedy suddenly. "No--not now," returned Dopey. "She was told to meet me at the Little Montmartre. She did. I don't think she knew what kind of place it was, or she wouldn't have come." He paused, as though he had something on his mind. "Go on," urged Kennedy. "Tell all. You must tell all." "I was just thinking," he hesitated. "I remember I saw Ike the Dropper and Marie Margot there that day, too, with Martin Ogleby--" "Martin Ogleby!" interrupted Carton in surprise. "Yes, Martin Ogleby. He hangs about the Montmartre and the Futurist, all those joints. Say--I've been thinking a heap since this case of mine came up. I wonder whether it was all on the level--with me. I gave the money. But was that a stall? Perhaps they tried to get back. Perhaps she played into their hands--I saw her watching the sports, there, and believe me, there are some swell lookers. Oh well, _I_ don't know. All I know is my part. I don't know anything that happened after that. I can't tell what I don't know, can I, Mr. Carton?" "Not very well," smiled the prosecutor. "But you can tell us anything you suspect." "I don't know what I suspect. I was only a part of the machine. Only after I read that she disappeared, I began to think there might have been some funny business--I don't know." Eager as we were, we could only accept this unsatisfactory explanation of the whereabouts of Betty. "After all, I was only a part," reiterated Jack. "You better ask Ike--that's all." Just then the telephone buzzed. Carton was busy and Kennedy, who happened to be nearest, answered it. I fancied that there was a puzzled expression on his face, as he placed his hand over the transmitter and said to Carton, "Here--it's for you. Take it. By the way, where's that thing I left down here for recording voices?" "Here in my desk. But you took the cylinder with you." "Haven't you got another? Don't you ever use them for dictating letters?" Carton nodded and sent his stenographer to get a new one. "Just a minute, please," cut in Kennedy. "Mr. Carton will be here in a few moments, now." Carton took the telephone and placed his hand over it, until, with a nod from Kennedy as he affixed the machine, he answered. "Yes--this is the District Attorney," we heard him answer. "What? Rubano? Why you can't talk to him. He's a convicted man. Here? How do you know he's here? No--I wouldn't let you talk to him if he was. Who are you, anyway? What's that--you threaten him--you threaten me? You'll get us both, will you? Well, I want to tell you, you can go plumb--the deuce! The fellow's cut himself off!" As Carton finished, a peculiar smile played about Rubano's features. "I expected that, but not so soon," he said quietly. "New York'll be no place for me, Mr. Carton, after this. You've got to keep your word and smuggle me out. South Africa, you know--you promised." "I'll keep my word, Rubano, too," assured Carton. "The nerve of that fellow. Where's Kennedy?" We looked about. Craig had slipped out quietly during the telephone conversation. Before we could start a search for him, he returned. "I thought there was something peculiar about the voice," he explained. "That was why I wanted a record of it. While you were talking I got your switchboard operator to connect me with central on another wire. The call was from a pay station on the west side. There wasn't a chance to get the fellow, of course--but I have the voice record, anyhow." Dopey Jack's confession occupied most of the evening and it was late when we got away. Carton was overjoyed at the result of his pressure, and eager to know, on the other hand, whether Kennedy had made any progress yet with his study of the photographs. I could have told him beforehand, however, that Craig would say nothing and he did not. Besides, he had the added mystery of the new phonograph cylinder to engross him, with the result that we parted from Carton, a little piqued at being left out of Craig's confidence, but helpless. As for me, I knew it was useless to trail after Kennedy and when he announced that he was going back to the laboratory, I balked and, in spite of my interest in the case, went home to our apartment to bed, while Kennedy made a night of it. What he discovered I knew no better in the morning than when I left him, except that he seemed highly elated. Leisurely he dressed, none the worse for his late work and after devouring the papers as if there were nothing else in the world so important, he waited until the middle of the morning before doing anything further. "I merely wanted to give Dorgan a chance to get to his office," he surprised me with, finally. "Come, Walter, I think he must be there now." Amazed at his temerity in bearding Dorgan in his very den, I could do nothing but accompany him, though I much feared it was almost like inviting homicide. The Boss's office was full of politicians, for it was now approaching "dough day," when the purse strings of the organization were loosed and a flood of potent argument poured forth to turn the tide of election by the force of the only thing that talks loud enough for some men to hear. Somehow, Kennedy managed to see the Boss. "Mr. Dorgan," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone in the little Sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me if I seem to be a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here this morning. First of all I may say that you probably share the idea that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed, a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For, when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an important case may rest should be subjected to critical examination, for it is an established fact that a photograph may be made as untruthful as it may be reliable." He paused. Dorgan was regarding him keenly, but saying nothing. Kennedy did not mind, as he resumed. "Combination photographs change entirely the character of the initial negative and have been made for the past fifty years. The earliest, simplest, and most harmless photographic deception is the printing of clouds in a bare sky. But the retoucher with his pencil and etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of ordinary ability can introduce a person taken in a studio into an open-air scene well blended and in complete harmony without a visible trace of falsity." Dorgan was growing interested. "I need say nothing of how one head can be put on another body in a picture," pursued Craig, "nor need I say what a double exposure will do. There is almost no limit to the changes that may be wrought in form and feature. It is possible to represent a person crossing Broadway or walking on Riverside Drive, places he may never have visited. Thus a person charged with an offence may be able to prove an alibi by the aid of a skilfully prepared combination photograph. "Where, then," asked Kennedy, "can photography be considered as irrefutable evidence? The realism may convince all, except the expert and the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will be careful to insist that in every case the negative be submitted and examined for possible alterations by a clever manipulator." Kennedy bent his gaze on Dorgan. "Now, I do not accuse you, sir, of anything. But a photograph has come into my possession in which Mr. Carton is represented as standing in a group on a porch, with Mr. Murtha, Mrs. Ogleby, and an unknown woman. The first three are in poses that show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate to say that was originally a photograph of yourself, Mr. Murtha, Mrs. Ogleby, and a woman whom you know well. It is a pretty raw deal, a fake in which Carton has been substituted by very excellent photographic forgery." "A fake--huh!" repeated Dorgan, contemptuously. "How about the story of them? There's no negative. You've got to show me that the original print stolen from Carton, we'll say, is a fake. You can't do it. No, sir, those pictures were taken this summer." Kennedy quietly laid down the bundle of photographs copied from those alleged to have been stolen from Carton. He was pointing to a shadow of a gable on the house. "You see that shadow of the gable, Dorgan?" he asked. "Perhaps you never heard of it, but it is possible to tell the exact time at which a photograph was taken from a study of the shadows. It is possible in theory and practice, and it can be trusted absolutely. Almost any scientist, Dorgan, may be called in to bear testimony in court nowadays, but you probably think the astronomer is one of the least likely. "Well, the shadow in this picture can be made to prove an alibi for someone. Notice. It is seen prominently to the right, and its exact location on the house is an easy matter. The identification of the gable casting the shadow ought to be easy. To be exact, I have figured it out as 19.62 feet high. The shadow is 14.23 feet down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see, I am exact. I have to be. In one minute it moves 0.080 feet upward, 0.053 feet to the right, and 0.096 feet in its apparent path. It passes the width of a weatherboard, 0.37 foot, in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds." Kennedy was talking rapidly of data which he had derived from the study of the photograph as from plumb line, level, compass, and tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole, and sun, declination, azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a dozen other bewildering terms. "In spherical trigonometry," he concluded, "to solve the problem three elements must be known. I know four. Therefore, I can take each of the known, treat it as unknown, and have four ways to check my result. I find that the time might have been either three o'clock, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds in the afternoon, or 3:21:31 or 3:21:29, or 3:21:33. The average is 3: 21:26 and there can be no appreciable error except for a few seconds. I tell you that to show you how close I can come. The important thing, however, is that the date must have been one of two days, either May 22 or July 22. Between these two dates we must decide on evidence other than the shadow. It must have been in May, as the immature condition of the foliage shows. But even if it had been in July, that would be far from the date you allege. Why, I could even tell you the year. Then, too, I could look up the weather records and tell something from them. I can really answer, with an assurance and accuracy superior to the photographer himself, if you could produce him and he were honest, as to the real date. The original picture, aside from being doctored, was actually taken last May. Science is not fallible, but exact in this matter." Kennedy felt that he had scored a palpable hit. Dorgan was speechless. Still, Craig hurried on. "But, you may ask, how about the automobile picture? That also is an unblushing fake. Of course I must prove that. In the first place you know that the general public has come to recognize the distortion of a photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a car in a race that doesn't lean is rejected. People demand to see speed, speed, more speed, even in pictures. Distortion does indeed show speed, but that, too, can be faked. "Almost everyone knows that the image is projected upside down by the lens on the plate, and that the bottom of the picture is taken before the top. The camera mechanism admits light, which makes the picture, in the manner of a roller blind curtain. The slit travels from the top to the bottom and, the image on the plate being projected upside down, the bottom of the object appears on the top of the plate. For instance, the wheels are taken before the head of the driver. If the car is moving quickly, the image moves on the plate and each successive part is taken a little in advance of the last. The whole leans forward. By widening the slit and slowing the speed of the shutter, there is more distortion. "Now, that is just what has been done. A picture has been taken of a car owned once by Murtha, probably at rest, with perhaps yourself, Murtha, Mrs. Ogleby, and your friend in it. The matter of faking Carton or anyone else is simple. If, with an enlarging lantern, the image of this faked picture is thrown on the printing paper like a lantern slide, and if the right-hand side is moved a little further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom, you can in that way print a fraudulent high-speed picture ahead. "True, everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is distorted, and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will pass with most people. In this case, however," added Kennedy suddenly, "the faker was so sure of it that he was careless. Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right, he did so on the left. It was further away on the bottom than on the top. He got the distortion, all right, enough to satisfy anyone. But it is distortion in the wrong direction! The top of the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is, in the fake, as sharp as any other part. It is a small mistake that was made, but fatal. Your picture is not of a joy ride at all. It is really high speed--backwards! It is too raw, too raw." "You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do you?" asked Dorgan coolly, in spite of the exposures. "What of it all?" he asked surlily. "I have nothing to do with it, anyhow. Why do you come to me? Take it to the proper authorities." "Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly, leaning over and whispering a few words in Dorgan's ear. I could not hear what he said, but Dorgan appeared to be fairly staggered. When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom. Not a word could I extract from him on the subject, either. I was still in the dark as to the result of his visit. XXIV THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN Sunday morning came and with it the huge batch of papers which we always took. I looked at them eagerly, though Kennedy did not seem to evince much interest, to see whether the Carton photographs had been used. There were none. Kennedy employed the time in directing some work of his own and had disappeared, I knew not where, though I surmised it was on one of his periodic excursions into the underworld in which he often knocked about, collecting all sorts of valuable and interesting bits of information to fit together in the mosaic of a case. Monday came, also, the last day before the election, with its lull in the heart-breaking activities of the campaign. There were still no pictures published, but Kennedy was working in the laboratory over a peculiar piece of apparatus. "I've been helping out my own shadows," was all the explanation he vouchsafed of his disappearances, as he continued to work. "Watching Mrs. Ogleby?" I hinted. "No, I didn't interfere any more with Miss Kendall. This was someone else--in another part of the city." He said it with an air that seemed to imply that I would learn all about it shortly and I did not pursue the subject. Meanwhile, he was arranging something on the top of a large, flat table. It seemed to be an instrument in two parts, composed of many levers and discs and magnets, each part with a roll of paper about five inches wide. On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords attached at right angles to each other near the point. On the other was a capillary glass tube at the junction of two aluminum arms, also at right angles to each other. It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his laboratory again, and I watched him curiously. Two sets of wires were attached to each of the instruments, and they led out of the window to some other wires which had been strung by telephone linemen only a few hours before. Craig had scarcely completed his preparations when Carton arrived. Things were going all right in the campaign again, I knew, at least as far as appeared on the surface. But his face showed that Carton was clearly dissatisfied with what Craig had apparently accomplished, for, as yet, he had not told Carton about his discovery after studying the photographs, and matters between Carton and Margaret Ashton stood in the same strained condition that they had when last we saw her. I must say that I, too, was keenly disappointed by the lack of developments in this phase of the case. Aside from the fact that the photographs had not actually been published, the whole thing seemed to me to be a mess. What had Craig said to Dorgan? Above all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings merely by allowing the election to go on without a scandal to Carton? I knew the result of the election was now the least of Carton's worries. Carton did not say much, but he showed that he thought it high time for Kennedy to do something. We were seated about the flat table, wondering when Kennedy would break his silence, when suddenly, as if by a spirit hand, the stylus before us began to move across one of the rolls of paper. We watched it uncomprehendingly. At last I saw that it was actually writing the words. "How is it working?" Quickly Craig seized the stylus on the lower part of the instrument and wrote in his characteristic scrawl, "All right, go ahead." "What is the thing?" asked Carton, momentarily forgetting his own worries at the new marvel before us. "An instrument that was invented many years ago, but has only recently been perfected for practical, every-day use, the telautograph, the long-distance writer," replied Kennedy, as we waited. "You see, with what amounts to an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of the transmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the current which controls another capillary glass tube-pen at the other end of the line. The receiving pen moves simultaneously with my stylus. It is the same principle as the pantagraph, cut in half as it were, one half here, the other half at the other end of the line, two telephone wires in this case connecting the halves. Ah,--that's it. The pencil of the receiving instrument is writing again. Just a moment. Let us see what it is." I almost gasped in astonishment at the words that I saw. I looked again, for I could not believe my eyes. Still, there it was. My first glance had been correct, impossible as it was. "I, Patrick Murtha," wrote the pen. "What is it?" asked Carton, awestruck. "A dead hand?" "Stop a minute," wrote Kennedy hastily. We bent over him closely. Craig had drawn from a packet several letters, which he had evidently secured in some way from the effects of Murtha. Carefully, minutely, he compared the words before us with the signatures at the bottom of the letters. "It is genuine!" he cried excitedly. "Genuine!" Carton and I echoed. What did he mean? Was this some kind of spiritism? Had Kennedy turned medium and sought a message from the other world to solve the inexplicable problems of this? It was weird, uncanny, unthinkable. We turned to him blankly for an explanation of the mystery. "That wasn't Murtha at all whose body we saw at the Morgue," he hurried to explain. "That was all a frame-up. I thought as soon as I saw it that there was something queer." I recalled now the peculiar look on his face which I had interpreted as indicating that he thought Murtha had been the victim of foul play. "And the other night, when we were in Carton's office and someone called up threatening you, Carton, and Dopey Jack, I saw at once that the voice was concealed. Yet there was something about it that was familiar, though I couldn't quite place it. I had heard that voice before, perhaps while we were getting the records to discover the 'wolf.' It occurred to me that if I had a record of it I might identify it by comparing it with those we had already taken. I got the record. I studied it. I compared it with what I already had, line, and wave, and overtone. You can imagine how I felt when I found there was only one voice with which it corresponded, and that man was supposed to be dead. Something more than intuition as I looked at the body that night had roused my suspicions. Now they were confirmed. Fancy how that information must have burned in my mind, during these days while I knew that Murtha was alive, but could say nothing!" Neither Carton nor I could say a word as we thought of this voice from the dead, as it almost seemed. "I hadn't found him," continued Craig, "but I knew he had used a pay station on the West Side. I began shadowing everyone who might have helped him, Dorgan, Kahn, Langhorne, all. I didn't find him. They were too clever. He was hiding somewhere in the city, a changed personality, waiting for the thing to blow over. He knew that of all places a city is the best to hide in, and of all cities New York is safest. "But, though I didn't actually find his hiding place, I had enough on some of his friends so that I could get word to him that his secret was known to me, at least. I made him an offer of safety. He need not come out of his hiding place and I would agree to let him go where and when he pleased without further pursuit from me, if he would let me install a telautograph in a neutral place which he could select and the other end in this laboratory. I myself do not know where the other place is. Only a mechanic sworn to secrecy knows and neither Murtha nor myself know him. If Murtha comes across, I have given my word of honour that before the world he shall remain a dead man, free to go where he pleases and enjoy such of his fortune as he was able to fix so that he could carry it with him into his new life." Carton and I were entranced by the romance of the thing. Murtha was alive! The commitment to the asylum, the escape, the search, the finding of a substitute body, mutilated beyond ordinary recognition, the mysterious transfers, and finally the identification in the Morgue--all had been part of an elaborately staged play! We saw it all, now. Carton had got too close to him in the conviction of Dopey Jack and the proceedings against Kahn. He had seen the handwriting on the wall for himself. In Carton's gradual climbing, step by step, for the man higher up, he would have been the next to go. Murtha had decided that it was time to get out, to save himself. Suddenly, I saw another aspect of it. By dropping out as though dead, he destroyed a link in the chain that would reach Dorgan. There was no way of repairing that link if he were dead. It was missing and missing for good. Dorgan had known it. Had it been a hint as to that which had finally clinched whatever it was that Kennedy had whispered to the Silent Boss that morning when we had seen him in his office? All these thoughts and more flashed through my head with lightning-like rapidity. The telautograph was writing again, obedient to Kennedy's signal that he was satisfied with the signature. "... in consideration of Craig Kennedy's agreement to destroy even this record, agree to give him such information as he has asked for, after which no further demands are to be made and the facts as already publicly recorded are to stand." "Just witness it," asked Kennedy of us. "It is a gentleman's agreement among us all." Nervously we set our names to the thing, only too eager to keep the secret if we could further the case on which we had been almost literally sweating blood so long. Prepared though we were for some startling disclosures, it was, nevertheless, with a feeling almost of faintness that we saw the stylus above moving again. "The Black Book, as you call it," it wrote, "has been sent by messenger to be deposited in escrow with the Gotham Trust Company to be delivered, Tuesday, the third of November, on the written order of Craig Kennedy and John Carton. An officer of the trust company will notify you of its receipt immediately, which will close the entire transaction as far as I am concerned." Kennedy could not wait. He had already seized his own telephone and was calling a number. "They have it," he announced a moment later, scrawling the information on the transmitter of the telautograph. A moment it was still, then it wrote again. "Good-bye and good luck," it traced. "Murtha!" The Smiling Boss could not resist his little joke at the end, even now. "Can--we--get it?" asked Carton, almost stunned at the unexpected turn of events. "No," cautioned Kennedy, "not yet. To-morrow. I made the same promise to Murtha that I made to Dorgan, when I went to him with Walter, although Walter did not hear it. This is to be a fair fight, for the election, now." "Then," said Carton earnestly, "I may as well tell you that I shall not sleep to-night. I can't, even if I can use the book only after election in the clean-up of the city!" Kennedy laughed. "Perhaps I can entertain you with some other things," he said gleefully, adding, "About those photographs." Carton was as good as his word. He did not sleep, and the greater part of the night we spent in telling him about what Craig had discovered by his scientific analysis of the faked pictures. At last morning came. Though Kennedy and I had slept soundly in our apartment, Carton had in reality only dozed in a chair, after we closed the laboratory. Slowly the hours slipped away until the trust company opened. We were the first to be admitted, with our order ready signed and personally delivered. As the officer handed over the package, Craig tore the wrapper off eagerly. There, at last, was the Black Book! Carton almost seized it from Kennedy, turning the pages, skimming over it, gloating like a veritable miser. It was the debacle of Dorgan--the end of the man highest up! XXV THE BLOOD CRYSTALS Much as we had accomplished, we had not found Betty Blackwell. Except for her shadowing of Mrs. Ogleby, Clare Kendall had devoted her time to winning the confidence of the poor girl, Sybil Seymour, whom we had rescued from Margot's. Meanwhile, the estrangement of Carton and Margaret Ashton threw a cloud over even our success. During the rest of the morning Craig was at work again in the laboratory. He was busily engaged in testing something through his powerful microscopes and had a large number of curious microphotographs spread out on the table. As I watched him, apparently there was nothing but the blood-stained gauze bandage which had been fastened to the face of the strange, light-haired woman, and on the stains on this bandage he was concentrating his attention. I could not imagine what he expected to discover from it. I waited for Kennedy to speak, but he was too busy more than to notice that I had come in. I fell to thinking of that woman. And the more I thought of the fair face, the more I was puzzled by it. I felt somehow or other that I had seen it somewhere before, yet could not place it. A second time I examined the unpublished photograph of Betty Blackwell as well as the pictures that had been published. The only conclusion that I could come to was that it could not be she, for although she was light-haired and of fair complexion, the face as I remembered it was that of a mature woman who was much larger than the slight Betty. I was sure of that. Every time I reasoned it out I came to the same contradictory conclusion that I had seen her, and I hadn't. I gave it up, and as Kennedy seemed indisposed to enlighten me, I went for a stroll about the campus, returning as if drawn back to him by a lodestone. About him was still the litter of test tubes, the photographs, the microscopes; and he was more absorbed in his delicate work than ever. He looked up from his examination of a little glass slide and I could see by the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes that he was not looking so much at me as through me at a very puzzling problem. "Walter," he remarked at length, "did you notice anything in particular about that blonde woman who dashed down the steps into the taxicab and escaped from the dope joint?" "I should say that I did," I returned, glad to ease my mind of what had been perplexing me ever since. "I don't want to appear to be foolish, but, frankly, I thought I had seen her before, and then when I tried to place her I found that I could not recognize her at all. She seemed to be familiar, and yet when I tried to place her I could think of no one with just those features. It was a foolish impression, I suppose." "That's exactly it," he exclaimed. "I thought at first it was just a foolish impression, too, an intuition which my later judgment rejected. But often those first impressions put you on the track of the truth. I reconsidered. You remember she had dropped that bandage from her face with the blood-stain on it. I picked it up and it occurred to me to try a little experiment with these blood-stains which might show something." He paused a moment and fingered some of the microphotographs. "What would you say," he went on, "if I should tell you that a pronounced blonde, with a fair complexion and thin, almost hooked, nose, was in reality a negress?" "If it were anyone but you, Craig," I replied frankly, "I'd be tempted to call him something. But you--well, what's the answer? How do you know?" "I wonder if you have ever heard of the Reichert blood test? Well, the Carnegie Institution has recently published an account of it. Professor Edward Reichert of the University of Pennsylvania has discovered that the blood crystals of all animals and men show characteristic differences. "It has even been suggested that before the studies are over photographs of blood corpuscles may be used to identify criminals, almost like fingerprints. There is much that can be discovered already by the use of these hemoglobin clues. That hemoglobin, or red colouring matter of the blood, forms crystals has been known for a long time. These crystals vary in different animals, as they are studied under the polarizing microscope, both in form and molecular structure. That is of immense importance for the scientific criminologist. "A man's blood is not like the blood of any other living creature, either fish, flesh, or fowl. Further, it is said that the blood of a woman or a man and of different individuals shows differences that will reveal themselves under certain tests. You can take blood from any number of animals and the scientists to-day can tell that it is not human blood, but the blood, say, of an animal. "The scientists now can go further. They even hope soon to be able to tell the difference between individuals so closely that they can trace parentage by these tests. Already they can actually distinguish among the races of men, whether a certain sample of blood, by its crystals, is from a Chinaman, a Caucasian, or a negro. Each gives its own characteristic crystal. The Caucasian shows that he is more closely related to one group of primates; the negro to another. It is scientific proof of evolution. "It is all the more wonderful, Walter, when you consider that these crystals are only 1-2250th of an inch in length and 1-9000th of an inch in width." "How do you study them?" I asked. "The method I employed was to take a little of the blood and add some oxalate of ammonium to it, then shake it up thoroughly with ether to free the hemoglobin from the corpuscles. I then separated the ether carefully from the rest of the blood mixture and put a few drops of it on a slide, covered them with a cover slip and sealed the edges with balsam. Gradually the crystals appear and they can be studied and photographed in the usual way--not only the shapes of the crystals, but also the relation that their angles bear to each other. So it is impossible to mistake the blood of one animal for another or of one race, like the white race, for that of another, like the black. In fact the physical characteristics by which some physicians profess to detect the presence of negro blood are held by other authorities to be valueless. But not so with this test." "And you have discovered in this case?" I asked. "That the blood on the bandage from the face of that woman who escaped was not the blood of a pure Caucasian. She shows traces of negro blood, in fact exactly what would have been expected of a mulatto." It dawned on me that the woman must have been Marie, after all; at least that that was what he meant. "But," I objected, "one look at her face was enough to show that she was not the dark-skinned Marie with her straight nose, her dark hair and other features. This woman was fair, had a nose that was almost hooked and hair that was almost flaxen. Remember the portrait parle." "Just so--the portrait parle. That is what I am remembering. You recall Carton discovered that in some way these people found out that we were using it? What would they do? Why, they have thought out the only possible way in which to beat it, don't you see? "Marie, Madame Margot, whatever you call her, had a beauty parlour. Oh, they are clever, these people. They reasoned it all out. What was a beauty parlour, a cosmetic surgery, for, if it could not be used to save them? They knew we had her scientific description. What was the thing to do, then? Why, change it, of course, change her!" Kennedy was quite excited now. "You know what Miss Kendall said of decorative surgery, there? They change noses, ears, foreheads, chins, even eyes. They put the thing up to Dr. Harris with his knives and bandages and lotions. He must work quickly. It would take all his time. So he disappeared into Margot's and stayed there. Marie also stayed there until such time as she might be able to walk out, another person entirely. Harris must have had charge of her features. The attendants in Margot's had charge of her complexion and hair--those were the things in which they specialized. "Don't you see it all now? She could retire a few days into the dope joint next door and she would emerge literally a new woman ready to face us, even with Bertillon's portrait parle against her." It was amazing how quickly Kennedy pieced the facts together into an explanation. "Yes," he concluded triumphantly, "that blonde woman was our dark-skinned mulatto made over--Marie. But they can't escape the power of science, even by using science themselves. She might change her identity to our eyes, but she could not before the Reichert test and the microscope. No, the Ethiopian could not change her skin before the eye of science." It was late in the afternoon that Kennedy received a hurried telephone call from Miss Kendall. I could tell by the scraps of conversation which I overheard that it was most important. "That girl, Sybil Seymour, has broken down," was all he said as he turned from the instrument. "She will be here to-day with Miss Kendall. You must see Carton immediately. Tell him not to fail to be here, at the laboratory, this afternoon at three, sharp." He was gone before I could question him further and there was nothing for me to do but to execute the commission he had laid on me. I met Carton at his club, relating to him all that I could about the progress of the case. He seemed interested but I could see that his mind was really not on it. The estrangement between him and Margaret Ashton outweighed success in this case and even in the election. Half an hour before the appointed time, however, we arrived at the laboratory in Carton's car, to find Kennedy already there, putting the finishing touches on the preparations he was making to receive his "guests." "Dorgan will be here," he answered, evading Carton's question as to what he had discovered. "Dorgan?" we repeated in surprise. "Yes. I have made arrangements to have Martin Ogleby, too. They won't dare stay away. Ike the Dropper, Dr. Harris, and Marie Margot have not been found yet, but Miss Kendall will bring Sybil Seymour. Then we shall see." The door opened. It was Ogleby. He bowed stiffly, but before he could say anything, a noise outside heralded the arrival of someone else. It proved to be Dorgan, who had come from an opposite direction. Dorgan seemed to treat the whole affair with contempt, which he took pleasure in showing. He was cool and calm, master of himself, in any situation no matter how hostile. As we waited, the strained silence, broken only by an occasional whisper between Carton and Kennedy, was relieved even by the arrival of Miss Kendall and Sybil Seymour in a cab. As they entered I fancied that a friendship had sprung up between the two, that Miss Kendall had won her fight for the girl. Indeed, I suspect that it was the first time in years that the girl had had a really disinterested friend of either sex. I thought Ogleby visibly winced as he caught sight of Miss Seymour. He evidently had not expected her, and I thought that perhaps he had no relish for the recollection of the Montmartre which her presence suggested. Miss Seymour, now like herself as she had appeared first behind the desk at the hotel, only subdued and serious, seemed ill at ease. Dorgan, on the other hand, bowed to her brazenly and mockingly. He was evidently preparing against any surprises which Craig might have in store, and maintained his usual surly silence. "Perhaps," hemmed Ogleby, clearing his throat and looking at his watch ostentatiously, "Professor Kennedy can inform us regarding the purpose of this extra-legal proceeding? Some of us, I know, have other engagements. I would suggest that you begin, Professor." He placed a sarcastic emphasis on the word "professor," as the two men faced each other--Craig tall, clean-cut, earnest; Ogleby polished, smooth, keen. "Very well," replied Craig with that steel-trap snap of his jaws which I knew boded ill for someone. "It is not necessary for me to repeat what has happened at the Montmartre and the beauty parlour adjoining it," began Kennedy deliberately. "One thing, however, I want to say. Twice, now, I have seen Dr. Harris handing out packets of drugs--once to Ike the Dropper, agent for the police and a corrupt politician, and once to a mulatto woman, almost white, who conducted the beauty parlour and dope joint which I have mentioned, a friend and associate of Ike the Dropper, a constant go-between from Ike to the corrupt person higher up. "This woman, whom I have just mentioned, we have been seeking by use of Bertillon's new system of the portrait parle. She has escaped, for the time, by a very clever ruse, by changing her very face in the beauty parlour. She is Madame Margot herself!" Not a word was breathed by any of the little audience as they hung on Kennedy's words. "Why was it necessary to get Betty Blackwell out of the way?" he asked suddenly, then without waiting for an answer, "You know and District Attorney Carton knows. Someone was afraid of Carton and his crusade. Someone wanted to destroy the value of that Black Book, which I now have. The only safety lay in removing the person whose evidence would be required in court to establish it--Betty Blackwell. And the manner? What more natural than to use the dope fiends and the degenerates of the Montmartre gang?" "That's silly," interrupted Ogleby contemptuously. "Silly? You can say that--you, the tool of that--that monster?" It was a woman's voice that interrupted. I turned. Sybil Seymour, her face blazing with resentment, had risen and was facing Ogleby squarely. "You lie!" exclaimed the Silent Boss, forgetting both his silence and his superciliousness. The situation was tense as the girl faced him. "Go on, Sybil," urged Clare. "Be careful, woman," cried Dorgan roughly. Sybil Seymour turned quickly to her new assailant. "You are the man for whom we were all coined into dollars," she scorned, "Dorgan--politician, man higher up! You reaped the profits through your dirty agent, Ike the Dropper, and those over him, even the police you controlled. Dr. Harris, Marie Margot, all are your tools--and the worst of them all is this man Martin Ogleby!" Dorgan's face was livid. For once in his life he was speechless rather than silent, as the girl poured out the inside gossip of the Montmartre which Kennedy had now stamped with the earmarks of legal proof. She had turned from Dorgan, as if from an unclean animal and was now facing Ogleby. "As for you, Martin Ogleby, they call you a club-man and society leader. Do you want to know what club I think you really belong to--you who have involved one girl after another in the meshes of this devilish System? You belong to the Abduction Club--that is what I would call it--you--you libertine!" XXVI THE WHITE SLAVE Carton had sprung to his feet at the direct charge and was facing Ogleby. "Is that true--about the Montmartre?" he demanded. Ogleby fairly sputtered. "She lies," he almost hissed. "Just a moment," interrupted Dorgan. "What has that to do with Miss Blackwell, anyhow?" Sybil Seymour did not pause. "It is true," she reiterated. "This is what it has to do with Betty Blackwell. Listen. He is the man who led me on, who would have done the same to Betty Blackwell. I yielded, but she fought. They could not conquer her--neither by drugs nor drink, nor by clothes, nor a good time, nor force. I saw it all in the Montmartre and the beauty parlour--all." "Lies--all lies," hissed Ogleby, beside himself with anger. "No, no," cried Sybil. "I do not lie. Mr. Carton and this good woman, Miss Kendall, who is working for him, are the first people I have seen since you, Martin Ogleby, brought me to the Montmartre, who have ever given me a chance to become again what I was before you and your friends got me." "Have a care, young woman," interrupted Dorgan, recovering himself as she proceeded. "There are laws and--" "I don't care a rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs--that was what you were going to say--I'd snap my fingers in the face of Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I would tell the truth. "Let me tell you my case," she continued, turning in appeal to the rest of us, "the case of a poor girl in a small city near New York, who liked a good time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an automobile, theatres, excitement, bright lights, night life. I liked them. He knew that. He led me on, made me like him. And when I began to show the strain of the pace--we all show it more than the men--he cast me aside, like a squeezed-out lemon." Sybil Seymour was talking rapidly, but she was not hysterical. "Already you know Betty Blackwell's story--part of it," she hurried on. "Miss Kendall has told me--how she was bribed to disappear. But beyond that--what?" For a moment she paused. No one said a word. Here at last was the one person who held the key to the mystery. "She did disappear. She kept her word. At last she had money, the one thing she had longed for. At last she was able to gratify those desires to play the fashionable lady which her family had always felt. What more natural, then, than while she must keep in hiding to make one visit to the beauty parlour to which so many society women went--Margot's? It was there that she went on the day that she disappeared." We were hanging breathlessly now on the words of the girl as she untangled the sordid story. "And then?" prompted Kennedy. "Then came into play another arm of the System," she replied. "They tried to make sure that she would disappear. They tried the same arts on her that they had on me--this man and the gang about him. He played on her love of beauty and Madame Margot helped him. He used the Montmartre and the Futurist to fascinate her, but still she was not his. She let herself drift along, perhaps because she knew that her family was every bit the equal socially of his own. Madame Margot tried drugs; first the doped cigarette, then drugs that had to be forced on her. She kept her in that joint for days by force; and there where I went for relief day after day from my own bitter thoughts I saw her, in that hell which Miss Kendall now by her evidence will close forever. Still she would not yield. "I saw it all. Maybe you will say I was jealous because I had lost him. I was not. I hated him. You do not know how close hate can be to love in the heart of a woman. I could not help it. I had to write a letter that might save her. "Miss Kendall has told me about the typewritten letters; how you, Professor Kennedy, traced them to the Montmartre. I wrote them, I admit, for these people. I wrote that stuff about drugs for Dr. Harris. And I wrote the first letter of all to the District Attorney. I wrote it for myself and signed it as I am--God forgive me--'An Outcast.'" The poor girl, overwrought by the strain of the confession that laid bare her very soul, sank back in her chair and cried, as Miss Kendall gently tried to soothe her. Dorgan and Ogleby listened sullenly. Never in their lives had they dreamed of such a situation as this. There was no air of triumph about Kennedy now over the confession, which with the aid of Miss Kendall, he had staged so effectively. Rather it was a spirit of earnestness, of retribution, justice. "You know all this?" he inquired gently of the girl. "I saw it," she said simply, raising her bowed head. Dorgan had been doing some quick thinking. He leaned over and whispered quickly to Ogleby. "Why was she not discovered then when these detectives broke into the private house--an act which they themselves will have to answer for when the time comes?" demanded Ogleby. It seemed as if the mere sound of his voice roused the girl. "Because it was dangerous to keep her there any longer," she replied. "I heard the talk about the hotel, the rumour that someone was using this new French detective scheme. I heard them blame the District Attorney--who was clever enough to have others working on the case whom you did not know. While you were watching his officers, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Kendall were gathering evidence almost under your very eyes. "But you were panic-stricken. You and your agents wanted to remove the danger of discovery. Dr. Harris and Marie Margot had a plan which you grasped at eagerly. There was Ike the Dropper, that scoundrel who lives on women. Between them you would spirit her away. You were glad to have them do it, little realizing that, with every step, they had you involved deeper and worse. You forgot everything, all honour and manhood in your panic; you were ready to consent, to urge any course that would relieve you--and you have taken the course that involves you worse than any other." "Who will believe a story like that?" demanded Ogleby. "What are you--according to your own confession? Am I to be charged with everything this gang, as you call it, does? You are their agent, perhaps working for this blackmailing crew. But I tell you, I will fight, I will not be blackened by--" Sybil laughed, half hysterically. "Blackened?" she repeated. "You who would put this thing all off on others who worked for you, who played on your vices and passions, not because you were weak, but because you thought you were above the law! "You did not care what became of that girl, so long as she was where she could not accuse you. You left her to that gang, to Ike, to Marie, to Harris." She paused a moment, and flashed a quick glance of scorn at him. "Do you want to know what has become of her, what you are responsible for? "I will tell you. They had other ideas than just getting her out of the way of your selfish career. They are in this life for money. Betty Blackwell to them was a marketable article, a piece of merchandise in the terrible traffic which they carry on. If she had been yielding, like the rest of us, she might now be apparently free, yet held by a bondage as powerful and unescapable as if it were of iron, a life from which she could not escape. But she was not yielding. They would break her. Perhaps you have tried to ease your conscience, if you have any, by the thought that it is they, not you, who have her hidden away somewhere now. You cannot escape that way; it was you who made her, who made others of us, what we are." "Let her rave, Ogleby," sneered Dorgan. "Yes--raving, that's it," echoed Ogleby. But his expression belied him. "There it is," she continued. "You have not even an opinion of your own. You repeat even the remarks of others. They have you in their power. You have put yourself there." "All very pretty," remarked Dorgan with biting sarcasm. "All very cleverly thought out. So nice here! Wait until you have to tell that story in court. You know the first rule of equity? Do you go into court with clean hands? There is a day of reckoning coming to you, young woman, and to these other meddlers here--whether they are playing politics or meddling just because they are old-maidish busy-bodies." She was facing the politician with burning cheeks. "You," she scorned, "belong to an age that is passing away. You cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton, who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You would not pull us up--you shoved us down deeper, in your greed. But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose? You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything from us. We--" "Come, Ogleby," interposed Dorgan, deliberately turning his back on her and slowly placing his hat on his half-bald head. "We are indebted to Professor Kennedy for a pleasant entertainment. When he has another show equally original we trust he will not forget the first-nighters who have enjoyed this farce." Dorgan had reached the door and had his hand on the knob. I had expected Kennedy to reply. But he said nothing. Instead his hand stole along the edge of the table beside which he was standing. "Good-night," bowed Dorgan with mock solemnity. "Thank you for laying the cards on the table. We shall know how to play--" Dorgan cut the words short. Kennedy had touched the button of an electric attachment which was under the table by which he could lock every door and window of the laboratory instantly and silently. "Well?" demanded Dorgan fiercely, though there was a tremble in his voice that had never been heard before. "Where is Betty Blackwell?" demanded Craig, turning to Sybil Seymour. "Where did they take her?" We hung breathlessly on the answer. Was she being held as a white slave in some obscure den? I knew that that did not mean that she was necessarily imprisoned behind locked doors and barred windows, although even that might be the case. I knew that the restraint might be just as effective, even though it was not actually or wholly physical. An ordinary girl, I reasoned, with little knowledge of her rights or of the powers which she might call to her aid if she knew how to summon them, might she not be so hemmed in by the forces into whose hands she had fallen as to be practically held in bonds which she could not break? Here was Sybil herself! Once she had been like Betty Blackwell. Indeed, when she seemed to have every chance to escape she did not. She knew how she could be pursued, hounded at every turn, forced back, and her only course was to sink deeper into the life. The thought of what might be accomplished by drugs startled me. Clare bent over the poor girl reassuringly. What was it that seemed to freeze her tongue now? Was it still some vestige of the old fear under which she had been held so long? Clare strove, although we could not hear what she was saying, to calm her. At last Sybil raised her head, with a wild cry, as if she were sealing her own doom. "It was Ike. He kept us all in terror. Oh, if he hears he will kill me," she blurted out. "Where did he take her?" asked Clare. She had broken down the girl's last fear. "To that place on the West Side--that black and tan joint, where Marie Margot came from before the gang took her in." "Carton," called Kennedy. "You and Walter will take Miss Kendall and Miss Seymour. Let me see. Dorgan, Ogleby, and myself will ride in the taxicab." Carton was toying ostentatiously with a police whistle as Dorgan hesitated, then entered the cab. I think at the joint, as we pulled up with a rush after our wild ride downtown, they must have thought that a party of revellers had dropped in to see the sights. It was perhaps just as well that they did, for there was no alarm at first. As we entered the black and tan joint, I took another long look at its forbidding exterior. Below, it was a saloon and dance hall; above, it was a "hotel." It was weatherbeaten, dirty, and unsightly, without, except for the entrance; unsanitary, ramshackle, within, except for the tawdry decorations. At every window were awnings and all were down, although it was on the shady side of the street in the daytime and it was now getting late. That was the mute sign post to the initiated of the character of the place. Instead of turning downstairs where we had gone on our other visit, Kennedy led the way up through a door that read, "Hotel Entrance--Office." A clerk at a desk in a little alcove on the second floor mechanically pushed out a register at us, then seeming to sense trouble, pulled it back quickly and with his foot gave a sharp kick at the door of a little safe, locking the combination. "I'm looking for someone," was all Kennedy said. "This is the District Attorney. We'll go through--" "Yes, you will!" It was Ike the Dropper. He had heard the commotion, and, seeing ladies, came to the conclusion that it was not a police plainclothes raid, but some new game of the reformers. He stopped short in amazement at the sight of Dorgan and Ogleby. "Well--I'll be--" "Carton! Walter!" shouted Kennedy. "Take care of him. Watch out for a knife or gun. He's soft, though. Carton--the whistle!" Our struggle with the redoubtable Ike was short and quickly over. Sullen, and with torn clothes and bleeding face, we held him until the policeman arrived, and turned him over to the law. At a room on the same floor Craig knocked. "Come in," answered a woman's voice. He pushed open the door. There was the woman who had fled so precipitately from the dope joint. Evidently she did not recognize us. "You are under arrest," announced Kennedy. The blonde woman laughed mockingly. "Under arrest? For what?" "You are Marie Margot. Never mind about your alias. All the arts of your employees and Dr. Harris himself cannot change you so that I cannot recognize you. You may feel safe from the portrait parle, but there are other means of detection that you never dreamed of. Where is Betty Blackwell? Marie, it's all off!" All the brazen assurance with which she had met us was gone. She looked from one to the other and read that it was the end. With a shriek, she suddenly darted past us, out of the door. Down the hall was Ike the Dropper with the policeman and Carton. Beside her was a stairway leading to the upper floors. She chose the stairs. Following Kennedy we hurried through the hotel, from one dirty room to another, with their loose and creaking floors, rotten and filthy, sagging as we walked, covered with matting that was rotting away. Damp and unventilated, the air was heavy and filled with foul odours of tobacco, perfumery, and cheap disinfectants. There seemed to have been no attempt to keep the place clean. The rooms were small and separated by thin partitions through which conversations in even low tones could be heard. The furniture was cheap and worn with constant use. Downstairs we could hear the uproar as the news spread that the District Attorney was raiding the place. As fast as they could the sordid crowd in the dance hall and cabaret was disappearing. Now and then we could hear a door bang, a hasty conference, and then silence as some of the inmates realized that upstairs all escape was cut off. On the top floor we came to a door, locked and bolted. With all the force that he could gather in the narrow hall, Kennedy catapulted himself against it. It yielded in its rottenness with a crash. A woman, in all her finery, lay across the foot of a bed, a formless heap. Kennedy turned her over. It was Marie, motionless, but still breathing faintly. In an armchair, with his hands hanging limply down almost to the floor, his head sagging forward on his chest, sprawled Harris. Kennedy picked up a little silver receptacle on the floor where it lay near his right hand. It was nearly empty, but as he looked from it quickly to the two insensible figures before us he muttered: "Morphine. They have robbed the law of its punishment." He bent over the suicides, but it was too late to do anything for them. They had paid the price. "My heavens!" he exclaimed suddenly, as a thought flashed over his mind. "I hope they have not carried the secret of Betty Blackwell with them to the grave. Where is Miss Kendall?" Down the hall, cut off from the rest of the hotel into a sort of private suite, Clare had entered one of the rooms and was bending over a pale, wan shadow of a girl, tossing restlessly on a bed. The room was scantily furnished with a dilapidated bureau in one corner and a rickety washstand equipped with a dirty washbowl and pitcher. A few cheap chromos on the walls were the only decorations, and a small badly soiled rug covered a floor innocent for many years of soap. I looked sharply at the girl lying before us. Somehow it did not occur to me who she was. She was so worn that anyone might safely have transported her through the streets and never have been questioned, in spite of the fact that every paper in the country which prints pictures had published her photograph, not once but many times. It was Betty Blackwell at last, struggling against the drugs that had been forced on her, half conscious, but with one firm and acute feeling left--resistance to the end. Kennedy had dropped on his knees before her and was examining her closely. "Open the windows--more air," he ordered. "Walter, see if you can find some ice water and a little stimulant." While Craig was taking such restorative measures as were possible on the spur of the moment, Miss Kendall gently massaged her head and hands. She seemed to understand that she was in the hands of friends, and though she did not know us her mute look of thanks was touching. "Don't get excited, my dear," breathed Miss Kendall into her ear. "You will be all right soon." As the wronged girl relaxed from her constant tension of watching, it seemed as if she fell into a stupor. Now and then she moaned feebly, and words, half-formed, seemed to come to her lips only to die away. Suddenly she seemed to have a vision more vivid than the rest. "No--no--Mr. Ogleby--leave me. Where--my mother--oh, where is mother?" she cried hysterically, sitting bolt upright and staring at us without seeing us. Kennedy passed the broad palm of his hand over her forehead and murmured, "There, there, you are all right now." Then he added to us: "I did not send for her mother because I wasn't sure that we might find her even as well as this. Will someone find Carton? Get the address and send a messenger for Mrs. Blackwell." Sybil was on her knees by the bedside of the girl, holding Betty's hand in both of her own. "You poor, poor girl," she cried softly. "It is--dreadful." She had sunk her head into the worn and dirty covers of the bed. Kennedy reached over and took hold of her arm. "She will be all right, soon," he said reassuringly. "Miss Kendall will take good care of her." As we descended the stairs, we could see Carton at the foot. A patrol wagon had been backed up to the curb in front and the inmates of the place were being taken out, protesting violently at being detained. Further down the hall, by the "office," Dorgan and Ogleby were storming, protesting that "influence" would "break" everyone concerned, from Carton down to the innocent patrolmen. Kennedy listened a moment, then turned to Clare Kendall. "I will leave Miss Blackwell in your care," he said quietly. "It is on her we must rely to prove the contents of the Black Book." Clare nodded, as, with a clang, Carton drove off with his prisoners to see them safely entered on the "blotter." "Our work is over," remarked Kennedy, turning again to Miss Kendall, in a tone as if he might have said more, but refrained. Looking Craig frankly in the eye, she extended her hand in that same cordial straight-arm shake with which she had first greeted us, and added, "But not the memory of this fight we have won." XXVII THE ELECTION NIGHT It was election night. Kennedy and Carton had arranged between them that we were all to receive the returns at the headquarters of the Reform League, where one of the papers which was particularly interested, had installed several special wires. The polls had scarcely closed when Kennedy and I, who had voted early, if not often, in spite of our strenuous day, hastened up to the headquarters. Already it was a scene of activity. The first election district had come in, one on the lower East Side, which was a stronghold of Dorgan, where the count could be made quickly, for there were no split tickets there. Dorgan had drawn first blood. "I hope it isn't an omen," smiled Carton, like a good sport. Kennedy smiled quietly. We looked about, but Miss Ashton was not there. I wondered why not and where she was. The first returns had scarcely begun to filter in, though, when Craig leaned over and whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her home, or if not there, at a woman's club of which she was one of the leading members. I found her at home and sent up my card. She had apparently lost interest in the election and it was with difficulty that I could persuade her to accompany me to the League headquarters. However, I argued the case with what ability I had and finally she consented. The other members of the Ashton family had monopolized the cars and we were obliged to take a taxicab. As our driver threaded his way slowly and carefully through the thronged streets it gave us a splendid chance to see some of the enthusiasm. I think it did Margaret Ashton good, too, to get out, instead of brooding over the events of the past few days, as she had seen them. Her heightened colour made her more attractive than ever. The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance before this. Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans, hisses, and catcalls, or all together, with cheers, as the returns swung in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a crowd as this. Enterprising newspapers had established places at which they flashed out the returns on huge sheets on every prominent corner. Some of them had bands, and moving pictures, and elaborate forms of entertainment for the crowds. Now and then, where the crowd was more than usually dense, we had to make a wide detour. Even the quieter streets seemed alive. On some boys had built huge bonfires from barrels and boxes that had been saved religiously for weeks or surreptitiously purloined from the grocer or the patient house-holder. About the fires, they kept an ever watchful eye for the descent of their two sworn enemies--the policeman and the rival gang privateering in the name of a hostile candidate. Boys with armfuls of newspapers were everywhere, selling news that in the rapid-fire change of the statistics seemed almost archeologically old. Lights blazed on every side. Automobiles honked and ground their gears. The lobster palaces, where for weeks, Francois, Carl, and William had been taking small treasury notes for tables reserved against the occasion, were thronged. In theatres people squirmed uneasily until the ends of acts, in order to listen to returns read from the stage before the curtain. Police were everywhere. People with horns, and bells, and all manner of noise-making devices, with confetti and "ticklers" pushed up on one side of Broadway and down on the other. At every square they congested foot and vehicle traffic, as they paused ravenously to feed on the meagre bulletins of news. Yet back of all the noise and human energy, as a newspaperman, I could think only of the silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news, of the busy scenes that each journal's office presented, the haste, the excitement, the thrill in the very smell of the printer's ink. Miss Ashton, I was glad to note, as we proceeded downtown, fell more and more into the spirit of the adventure. High up in the League headquarters in the tower, when we arrived, it was almost like a newspaper office, to me. A corps of clerks was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports. As first the city swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and fell. I could not help noticing, however, after a while that Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease. There was such a crowd there of Leaguers and their friends that it was easily possible for her not to meet Carton. But as I circulated about in the throng, I came upon him. Carton looked worried and was paying less attention to the returns than seemed natural. It was evident that, in spite of the crowd, she had avoided him and he hesitated to seek her out. There were so many things to think of thrusting themselves into one's attention that I could follow none consistently. First I found myself wondering about Carton and Miss Ashton. Before I knew it I was delivering a snap judgment on whether the uptown residence district returns would be large enough to overcome the hostile downtown vote. I was frankly amazed, now, to see how strongly the city as a whole was turning to the Reform League. A boy, pushing through the crowd, came upon Kennedy and myself, talking to Miss Ashton. He shoved a message quickly into Craig's hand and disappeared. "For heaven's sake!" he exclaimed as he tore open the envelope and read. "What do you think of that? My shadows report that Martin Ogleby has been arrested and his confession will be enough, with the Black Book and Betty Blackwell, to indict Dorgan. Kahn has committed suicide! Hartley Langhorne has sailed for Paris on the French line, with Mrs. Ogleby!" "Mary Ogleby--eloped?" repeated Miss Ashton, aghast. The very name seemed to call up unpleasant associations and her face plainly showed it. Kennedy had said nothing to her since the day when he had pleaded with her to suspend judgment. "By the way," he said in a low voice, leaning over toward her, "have you heard that those pictures of her were faked? It was really Dorgan, and some crook photographer cut out his face and substituted Carton's. We got the Black Book, this morning, too, and it tells the story of Mrs. Ogleby's misadventures--as well as a lot of much more important things. We got it from Mr. Murtha and---" "Mr. Murtha?" she inquired, in surprise. "It is a secret, but I think I can violate it to a certain extent for Mr. Carton is a party to it and--" Kennedy paused. He was speaking with the assurance of one who assumed that John Carton and Margaret Ashton had no secrets. She saw it, and coloured deeply. Then he lowered his voice further to a whisper and when he finished, her face was even a deeper scarlet. But her eyes had a brightness they had lacked for days. And I could see the emotion she felt as her slight form quivered with excitement. Kennedy excused himself and we worked our way through the press toward Carton. "Dorgan has lost his nerve!" ejaculated Craig as we came up with him, watching district after district which showed that the Boss's usual pluralities were being seriously reduced. "Lost his nerve?" repeated Carton. "Yes. I told him I would publish the whole affair of the photographs just as I knew it, not caring whom it hit. I advised him to read his revised statutes again about money in elections and I added the threat, 'There will be no "dough day" or it will be carried to the limit, Dorgan, and I will resurrect Murtha in an hour!' You should have seen his face! There was no dough day. That's what I meant when I said it was to be a fair fight. You see the effect on the returns." Carton was absolutely speechless. The tears stood in his eyes as he grasped Kennedy's hand, then swung around to me. A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office. One of them rushed in with a still unblotted report. Kennedy seized it and read: "Dorgan concedes the city by a safe plurality to Carton, fifty-two election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform League victory." I turned to Carton. Behind us, through the crowd, had followed a young lady and now Carton had no ears for anything except the pretty apology of Margaret Ashton. Kennedy pulled me toward the door. "We might as well concede Miss Ashton to Carton," he beamed. "Let's go out and watch the crowd." THE END 
5054	----	THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES THE DREAM DOCTOR BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER Contents CHAPTER I The Dream Doctor II The Soul Analysis III The Sybarite IV The Beauty Shop V The Phantom Circuit VI The Detectaphone VII The Green Curse VIII The Mummy Case IX The Elixir of Life X The Toxin of Death XI The Opium Joint XII The "Dope Trust" XIII The Kleptomaniac XIV The Crimeometer XV The Vampire XVI The Blood Test XVII The Bomb Maker XVIII The "Coke" Fiend XIX The Submarine Mystery XX The Wireless Detector XXI The Ghouls XXII The X-Ray "Movies" XXIII The Death House XXIV The Final Day THE DREAM DOCTOR I THE DREAM DOCTOR "Jameson, I want you to get the real story about that friend of yours, Professor Kennedy," announced the managing editor of the Star, early one afternoon when I had been summoned into the sanctum. From a batch of letters that had accumulated in the litter on the top of his desk, he selected one and glanced over it hurriedly. "For instance," he went on reflectively, "here's a letter from a Constant Reader who asks, 'Is this Professor Craig Kennedy really all that you say he is, and, if so, how can I find out about his new scientific detective method?'" He paused and tipped back his chair. "Now, I don't want to file these letters in the waste basket. When people write letters to a newspaper, it means something. I might reply, in this case, that he is as real as science, as real as the fight of society against the criminal. But I want to do more than that." The editor had risen, as if shaking himself momentarily loose from the ordinary routine of the office. "You get me?" he went on, enthusiastically, "In other words, your assignment, Jameson, for the next month is to do nothing except follow your friend Kennedy. Start in right now, on the first, and cross-section out of his life just one month, an average month. Take things just as they come, set them down just as they happen, and when you get through give me an intimate picture of the man and his work." He picked up the schedule for the day and I knew that the interview was at an end. I was to "get" Kennedy. Often I had written snatches of Craig's adventures, but never before anything as ambitious as this assignment, for a whole month. At first it staggered me. But the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. I hastened uptown to the apartment on the Heights which Kennedy and I had occupied for some time. I say we occupied it. We did so during those hours when he was not at his laboratory at the Chemistry Building on the University campus, or working on one of those cases which fascinated him. Fortunately, he happened to be there as I burst in upon him. "Well?" he queried absently, looking up from a book, one of the latest untranslated treatises on the new psychology from the pen of the eminent scientist, Dr. Freud of Vienna, "what brings you uptown so early?" Briefly as I could, I explained to him what it was that I proposed to do. He listened without comment and I rattled on, determined not to allow him to negative it. "And," I added, warming up to the subject, "I think I owe a debt of gratitude to the managing editor. He has crystallised in my mind an idea that has long been latent. Why, Craig," I went on, "that is exactly what you want--to show people how they can never hope to beat the modern scientific detective, to show that the crime-hunters have gone ahead faster even than--" The telephone tinkled insistently. Without a word, Kennedy motioned to me to "listen in" on the extension on my desk, which he had placed there as a precaution so that I could corroborate any conversation that took place over our wire. His action was quite enough to indicate to me that, at least, he had no objection to the plan. "This is Dr. Leslie--the coroner. Can you come to the Municipal Hospital--right away?" "Right away, Doctor," answered Craig, hanging up the receiver. "Walter, you'll come, too?" A quarter of an hour later we were in the courtyard of the city's largest hospital. In the balmy sunshine the convalescing patients were sitting on benches or slowly trying their strength, walking over the grass, clad in faded hospital bathrobes. We entered the office and quickly were conducted by an orderly to a little laboratory in a distant wing. "What's the matter?" asked Craig, as we hurried along. "I don't know exactly," replied the man, "except that it seems that Price Maitland, the broker, you know, was picked up on the street and brought here dying. He died before the doctors could relieve him." Dr. Leslie was waiting impatiently for us. "What do you make of that, Professor Kennedy?" The coroner spread out on the table before us a folded half-sheet of typewriting and searched Craig's face eagerly to see what impression it made on him. "We found it stuffed in Maitland's outside coat pocket," he explained. It was dateless and brief: Dearest Madeline: May God in his mercy forgive me for what I am about to do. I have just seen Dr. Ross. He has told me the nature of your illness. I cannot bear to think that I am the cause, so I am going simply to drop out of your life. I cannot live with you, and I cannot live without you. Do not blame me. Always think the best you can of me, even if you could not give me all. Good-bye. Your distracted husband, PRICE. At once the idea flashed over me that Maitland had found himself suffering from some incurable disease and had taken the quickest means of settling his dilemma. Kennedy looked up suddenly from the note. "Do you think it was a suicide?" asked the coroner. "Suicide?" Craig repeated. "Suicides don't usually write on typewriters. A hasty note scrawled on a sheet of paper in trembling pen or pencil, that is what they usually leave. No, some one tried to escape the handwriting experts this way." "Exactly my idea," agreed Dr. Leslie, with evident satisfaction. "Now listen. Maitland was conscious almost up to the last moment, and yet the hospital doctors tell me they could not get a syllable of an ante-mortem statement from him." "You mean he refused to talk?" I asked. "No," he replied; "it was more perplexing than that Even if the police had not made the usual blunder of arresting him for intoxication instead of sending him immediately to the hospital, it would have made no difference. The doctors simply could not have saved him, apparently. For the truth is, Professor Kennedy, we don't even know what was the matter with him." Dr. Leslie seemed much excited by the case, as well he might be. "Maitland was found reeling and staggering on Broadway this morning," continued the coroner. "Perhaps the policeman was not really at fault at first for arresting him, but before the wagon came Maitland was speechless and absolutely unable to move a muscle." Dr. Leslie paused as he recited the strange facts, then resumed: "His eyes reacted, all right. He seemed to want to speak, to write, but couldn't. A frothy saliva dribbled from his mouth, but he could not frame a word. He was paralysed, and his breathing was peculiar. They then hurried him to the hospital as soon as they could. But it was of no use." Kennedy was regarding the doctor keenly as he proceeded. Dr. Leslie paused again to emphasise what he was about to say. "Here is another strange thing. It may or may not be of importance, but it is strange, nevertheless. Before Maitland died they sent for his wife. He was still conscious when she reached the hospital, could recognise her, seemed to want to speak, but could neither talk nor move. It was pathetic. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she did not faint. She is not of the fainting kind. It was what she said that impressed everyone. 'I knew it--I knew it,' she cried. She had dropped on her knees by the side of the bed. 'I felt it. Only the other night I had the horrible dream. I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could not see what it was--it seemed to be an invisible thing. I ran to him--then the scene shifted. I saw a funeral procession, and in the casket I could see through the wood--his face--oh, it was a warning! It has come true. I feared it, even though I knew it was only a dream. Often I have had the dream of that funeral procession and always I saw the same face, his face. Oh, it is horrible--terrible!'" It was evident that Dr. Leslie at least was impressed by the dream. "What have you done since?" asked Craig. "I have turned loose everyone I could find available," replied Dr. Leslie, handing over a sheaf of reports. Kennedy glanced keenly over them as they lay spread out on the table. "I should like to see the body," he said, at length. It was lying in the next room, awaiting Dr. Leslie's permission to be removed. "At first," explained the doctor, leading the way, "we thought it might be a case of knock-out drops, chloral, you know--or perhaps chloral and whiskey, a combination which might unite to make chloroform in the blood. But no. We have tested for everything we can think of. In fact there seems to be no trace of a drug present. It is inexplicable. If Maitland really committed suicide, he must have taken SOMETHING--and as far as we can find out there is no trace of anything. As far as we have gone we have always been forced back to the original idea that it was a natural death--perhaps due to shock of some kind, or organic weakness." Kennedy had thoughtfully raised one of the lifeless hands and was examining it. "Not that," he corrected. "Even if the autopsy shows nothing, it doesn't prove that it was a natural death. Look!" On the back of the hand was a tiny, red, swollen mark. Dr. Leslie regarded it with pursed-up lips as though not knowing whether it was significant or not. "The tissues seemed to be thickly infiltrated with a reddish serum and the blood-vessels congested," he remarked slowly. "There was a frothy mucus in the bronchial tubes. The blood was liquid, dark, and didn't clot. The fact of the matter is that the autopsical research revealed absolutely nothing but a general disorganisation of the blood-corpuscles, a most peculiar thing, but one the significance of which none of us here can fathom. If it was poison that he took or that had been given to him, it was the most subtle, intangible, elusive, that ever came to my knowledge. Why, there is absolutely no trace or clue--" "Nor any use in looking for one in that way," broke in Kennedy decisively. "If we are to make any progress in this case, we must look elsewhere than to an autopsy. There is no clue beyond what you have found, if I am right. And I think I am right. It was the venom of the cobra." "Cobra venom?" repeated the coroner, glancing up at a row of technical works. "Yes. No, it's no use trying to look it up. There is no way of verifying a case of cobra poisoning except by the symptoms. It is not like any other poisoning in the world." Dr. Leslie and I looked at each other, aghast at the thought of a poison so subtle that it defied detection. "You think he was bitten by a snake?" I blurted out, half incredulous. "Oh, Walter, on Broadway? No, of course not. But cobra venom has a medicinal value. It is sent here in small quantities for various medicinal purposes. Then, too, it would be easy to use it. A scratch on the hand in the passing crowd, a quick shoving of the letter into the pocket of the victim--and the murderer would probably think to go undetected." We stood dismayed at the horror of such a scientific murder and the meagreness of the materials to work on in tracing it out. "That dream was indeed peculiar," ruminated Craig, before we had really grasped the import of his quick revelation. "You don't mean to say that you attach any importance to a dream?" I asked hurriedly, trying to follow him. Kennedy merely shrugged his shoulders, but I could see plainly enough that he did. "You haven't given this letter out to the press?" he asked. "Not yet," answered Dr. Leslie. "Then don't, until I say to do so. I shall need to keep it." The cab in which we had come to the hospital was still waiting. "We must see Mrs. Maitland first," said Kennedy, as we left the nonplused coroner and his assistants. The Maitlands lived, we soon found, in a large old-fashioned brownstone house just off Fifth Avenue. Kennedy's card with the message that it was very urgent brought us in as far as the library, where we sat for a moment looking around at the quiet refinement of a more than well-to-do home. On a desk at one end of the long room was a typewriter. Kennedy rose. There was not a sound of any one in either the hallway or the adjoining rooms. A moment later he was bending quietly over the typewriter in the corner, running off a series of characters on a sheet of paper. A sound of a closing door upstairs, and he quickly jammed the paper into his pocket, retraced his steps, and was sitting quietly opposite me again. Mrs. Maitland was a tall, perfectly formed woman of baffling age, but with the impression of both youth and maturity which was very fascinating. She was calmer now, and although she seemed to be of anything but a hysterical nature, it was quite evident that her nervousness was due to much more than the shock of the recent tragic event, great as that must have been. It may have been that I recalled the words of the note, "Dr. Ross has told me the nature of your illness," but I fancied that she had been suffering from some nervous trouble. "There is no use prolonging our introduction, Mrs. Maitland," began Kennedy. "We have called because the authorities are not yet fully convinced that Mr. Maitland committed suicide." It was evident that she had seen the note, at least. "Not a suicide?" she repeated, looking from one to the other of us. "Mr. Masterson on the wire, ma'am," whispered a maid. "Do you wish to speak to him? He begged to say that he did not wish to intrude, but he felt that if there--" "Yes, I will talk to him--in my room," she interrupted. I thought that there was just a trace of well-concealed confusion, as she excused herself. We rose. Kennedy did not resume his seat immediately. Without a word or look he completed his work at the typewriter by abstracting several blank sheets of paper from the desk. A few moments later Mrs. Maitland returned, calmer. "In his note," resumed Kennedy, "he spoke of Dr. Ross and--" "Oh," she cried, "can't you see Dr. Ross about it? Really I--I oughtn't to be--questioned in this way--not now, so soon after what I've had to go through." It seemed that her nerves were getting unstrung again. Kennedy rose to go. "Later, come to see me," she pleaded. "But now--you must realise--it is too much. I cannot talk--I cannot." "Mr. Maitland had no enemies that you know of?" asked Kennedy, determined to learn something now, at least. "No, no. None that would--do that." "You had had no quarrel?" he added. "No--we never quarrelled. Oh, Price--why did you? How could you?" Her feelings were apparently rapidly getting the better of her. Kennedy bowed, and we withdrew silently. He had learned one thing. She believed or wanted others to believe in the note. At a public telephone, a few minutes later, Kennedy was running over the names in the telephone book. "Let me see--here's an Arnold Masterson," he considered. Then turning the pages he went on, "Now we must find this Dr. Ross. There--Dr. Sheldon Ross--specialist in nerve diseases--that must be the one. He lives only a few blocks further uptown." Handsome, well built, tall, dignified, in fact distinguished, Dr. Ross proved to be a man whose very face and manner were magnetic, as should be those of one who had chosen his branch of the profession. "You have heard, I suppose, of the strange death of Price Maitland?" began Kennedy when we were seated in the doctor's office. "Yes, about an hour ago." It was evident that he was studying us. "Mrs. Maitland, I believe, is a patient of yours?" "Yes, Mrs. Maitland is one of my patients," he admitted interrogatively. Then, as if considering that Kennedy's manner was not to be mollified by anything short of a show of confidence, he added: "She came to me several months ago. I have had her under treatment for nervous trouble since then, without a marked improvement." "And Mr. Maitland," asked Kennedy, "was he a patient, too?" "Mr. Maitland," admitted the doctor with some reticence, "had called on me this morning, but no, he was not a patient." "Did you notice anything unusual?" "He seemed to be much worried," Dr. Ross replied guardedly. Kennedy took the suicide note from his pocket and handed it to him. "I suppose you have heard of this?" asked Craig. The doctor read it hastily, then looked up, as if measuring from Kennedy's manner just how much he knew. "As nearly as I could make out," he said slowly, his reticence to outward appearance gone, "Maitland seemed to have something on his mind. He came inquiring as to the real cause of his wife's nervousness. Before I had talked to him long I gathered that he had a haunting fear that she did not love him any more, if ever. I fancied that he even doubted her fidelity." I wondered why the doctor was talking so freely, now, in contrast with his former secretiveness. "Do you think he was right?" shot out Kennedy quickly, eying Dr. Ross keenly. "No, emphatically, no; he was not right," replied the doctor, meeting Craig's scrutiny without flinching. "Mrs. Maitland," he went on more slowly as if carefully weighing every word, "belongs to a large and growing class of women in whom, to speak frankly, sex seems to be suppressed. She is a very handsome and attractive woman--you have seen her? Yes? You must have noticed, though, that she is really frigid, cold, intellectual." The doctor was so sharp and positive about his first statement and so careful in phrasing the second that I, at least, jumped to the conclusion that Maitland might have been right, after all. I imagined that Kennedy, too, had his suspicions of the doctor. "Have you ever heard of or used cobra venom in any of your medical work?" he asked casually. Dr. Ross wheeled in his chair, surprised. "Why, yes," he replied quickly. "You know that it is a test for blood diseases, one of the most recently discovered and used parallel to the old tests. It is known as the Weil cobra-venom test." "Do you use it often?" "N--no," he replied. "My practice ordinarily does not lie in that direction. I used it not long ago, once, though. I have a patient under my care, a well-known club-man. He came to me originally--" "Arnold Masterson?" asked Craig. "Yes--how did you know his name?" "Guessed it," replied Craig laconically, as if he knew much more than he cared to tell. "He was a friend of Mrs. Maitland's, was he not?" "I should say not," replied Dr. Ross, without hesitation. He was quite ready to talk without being urged. "Ordinarily," he explained confidentially, "professional ethics seals my lips, but in this instance, since you seem to know so much, I may as well tell more." I hardly knew whether to take him at his face value or not. Still he went on: "Mrs. Maitland is, as I have hinted at, what we specialists would call a consciously frigid but unconsciously passionate woman. As an intellectual woman she suppresses nature. But nature does and will assert herself, we believe. Often you will find an intellectual woman attracted unreasonably to a purely physical man--I mean, speaking generally, not in particular cases. You have read Ellen Key, I presume? Well, she expresses it well in some of the things she has written about affinities. Now, don't misunderstand me," he cautioned. "I am speaking generally, not of this individual case." I was following Dr. Ross closely. When he talked so, he was a most fascinating man. "Mrs. Maitland," he resumed, "has been much troubled by her dreams, as you have heard, doubtless. The other day she told me of another dream. In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull, which suddenly changed into a serpent. I may say that I had asked her to make a record of her dreams, as well as other data, which I thought might be of use in the study and treatment of her nervous troubles. I readily surmised that not the dream, but something else, perhaps some recollection which it recalled, worried her. By careful questioning I discovered that it was--a broken engagement." "Yes," prompted Kennedy. "The bull-serpent, she admitted, had a half-human face--the face of Arnold Masterson!" Was Dr. Ross desperately shifting suspicion from himself? I asked. "Very strange--very," ruminated Kennedy. "That reminds me again. I wonder if you could let me have a sample of this cobra venom?" "Surely. Excuse me; I'll get you some." The doctor had scarcely shut the door when Kennedy began prowling around quietly. In the waiting-room, which was now deserted, stood a typewriter. Quickly Craig ran over the keys of the machine until he had a sample of every character. Then he reached into drawer of the desk and hastily stuffed several blank sheets of paper into his pocket. "Of course I need hardly caution you in handling this," remarked Dr. Ross, as he returned. "You are as well acquainted as I am with the danger attending its careless and unscientific uses." "I am, and I thank you very much," said Kennedy. We were standing in the waiting-room. "You will keep me advised of any progress you make in the case?" the doctor asked. "It complicates, as you can well imagine, my treatment of Mrs. Maitland." "I shall be glad to do so," replied Kennedy, as we departed. An hour later found us in a handsomely appointed bachelor apartment in a fashionable hotel overlooking the lower entrance to the Park. "Mr. Masterson, I believe?" inquired Kennedy, as a slim, debonair, youngish-old man entered the room in which we had been waiting. "I am that same," he smiled. "To what am I indebted for this pleasure?" We had been gazing at the various curios with which he had made the room a veritable den of the connoisseur. "You have evidently travelled considerably," remarked Kennedy, avoiding the question for the time. "Yes, I have been back in this country only a few weeks," Masterson replied, awaiting the answer to the first question. "I called," proceeded Kennedy, "in the hope that you, Mr. Masterson, might be able to shed some light on the rather peculiar case of Mr. Maitland, of whose death, I suppose, you have already heard." "I?" "You have known Mrs. Maitland a long time?" ignored Kennedy. "We went to school together." "And were engaged, were you not?" Masterson looked at Kennedy in ill-concealed surprise. "Yes. But how did you know that? It was a secret--only between us two--I thought. She broke it off--not I." "She broke off the engagement?" prompted Kennedy. "Yes--a story about an escapade of mine and all that sort of thing, you know--but, by Jove! I like your nerve, sir." Masterson frowned, then added: "I prefer not to talk of that. There are some incidents in a man's life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that are forbidden." "Oh, I beg pardon," hastened Kennedy, "but, by the way, you would have no objection to making a statement regarding your trip abroad and your recent return to this country--subsequent to--ah--the incident which we will not refer to?" "None whatever. I left New York in 1908, disgusted with everything in general, and life here in particular--" "Would you object to jotting it down so that I can get it straight?" asked Kennedy. "Just a brief resume, you know." "No. Have you a pen or a pencil?" "I think you might as well dictate it; it will take only a minute to run it off on the typewriter." Masterson rang the bell. A young man appeared noiselessly. "Wix," he said, "take this: 'I left New York in 1908, travelling on the Continent, mostly in Paris, Vienna, and Rome. Latterly I have lived in London, until six weeks ago, when I returned to New York.' Will that serve?" "Yes, perfectly," said Kennedy, as he folded up the sheet of paper which the young secretary handed to him. "Thank you. I trust you won't consider it an impertinence if I ask you whether you were aware that Dr. Ross was Mrs. Maitland's physician?" "Of course I knew it," Masterson replied frankly. "I have given him up for that reason, although he does not know it yet. I most strenuously object to being the subject of--what shall I call it?--his mental vivisection." "Do you think he oversteps his position in trying to learn of the mental life of his patients?" queried Craig. "I would rather say nothing further on that, either," replied Masterson. "I was talking over the wire to Mrs. Maitland a few moments ago, giving her my condolences and asking if there was anything I could do for her immediately, just as I would have done in the old days--only then, of course, I should have gone to her directly. The reason I did not go, but telephoned, was because this Ross seems to have put some ridiculous notions into her head about me. Now, look here; I don't want to discuss this. I've told you more than I intended, anyway." Masterson had risen. His suavity masked a final determination to say no more. II The Soul Analysis The day was far advanced after this series of very unsatisfactory interviews. I looked at Kennedy blankly. We seemed to have uncovered so little that was tangible that I was much surprised to find that apparently he was well contented with what had happened in the case so far. "I shall be busy for a few hours in the laboratory, Walter," he remarked, as we parted at the subway. "I think, if you have nothing better to do, that you might employ the time in looking up some of the gossip about Mrs. Maitland and Masterson, to say nothing of Dr. Ross," he emphasised. "Drop in after dinner." There was not much that I could find. Of Mrs. Maitland there was practically nothing that I already did not know from having seen her name in the papers. She was a leader in a certain set which was devoting its activities to various social and moral propaganda. Masterson's early escapades were notorious even in the younger smart set in which he had moved, but his years abroad had mellowed the recollection of them. He had not distinguished himself in any way since his return to set gossip afloat, nor had any tales of his doings abroad filtered through to New York clubland. Dr. Ross, I found to my surprise, was rather better known than I had supposed, both as a specialist and as a man about town. He seemed to have risen rapidly in his profession as physician to the ills of society's nerves. I was amazed after dinner to find Kennedy doing nothing at all. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Have you struck a snag?" "No," he replied slowly, "I was only waiting. I told them to be here between half-past eight and nine." "Who?" I queried. "Dr. Leslie," he answered. "He has the authority to compel the attendance of Mrs. Maitland, Dr. Ross, and Masterson." The quickness with which he had worked out a case which was, to me, one of the most inexplicable he had had for a long time, left me standing speechless. One by one they dropped in during the next half-hour, and, as usual, it fell to me to receive them and smooth over the rough edges which always obtruded at these little enforced parties in the laboratory. Dr. Leslie and Dr. Ross were the first to arrive. They had not come together, but had met at the door. I fancied I saw a touch of professional jealousy in their manner, at least on the part of Dr. Ross. Masterson came, as usual ignoring the seriousness of the matter and accusing us all of conspiring to keep him from the first night of a light opera which was opening. Mrs. Maitland followed, the unaccustomed pallor of her face heightened by the plain black dress. I felt most uncomfortable, as indeed I think the rest did. She merely inclined her head to Masterson, seemed almost to avoid the eye of Dr. Ross, glared at Dr. Leslie, and absolutely ignored me. Craig had been standing aloof at his laboratory table, beyond a nod of recognition paying little attention to anything. He seemed to be in no hurry to begin. "Great as science is," he commenced, at length, "it is yet far removed from perfection. There are, for instance, substances so mysterious, subtle, and dangerous as to set the most delicate tests and powerful lenses at naught, while they carry death most horrible in their train." He could scarcely have chosen his opening words with more effect. "Chief among them," he proceeded, "are those from nature's own laboratory. There are some sixty species of serpents, for example, with deadly venom. Among these, as you doubtless have all heard, none has brought greater terror to mankind than the cobra-di-capello, the Naja tripudians of India. It is unnecessary for me to describe the cobra or to say anything about the countless thousands who have yielded up their lives to it. I have here a small quantity of the venom"--he indicated it in a glass beaker. "It was obtained in New York, and I have tested it on guinea-pigs. It has lost none of its potency." I fancied that there was a feeling of relief when Kennedy by his actions indicated that he was not going to repeat the test. "This venom," he continued, "dries in the air into a substance like small scales, soluble in water but not in alcohol. It has only a slightly acrid taste and odour, and, strange to say, is inoffensive on the tongue or mucous surfaces, even in considerable quantities. All we know about it is that in an open wound it is deadly swift in action." It was difficult to sit unmoved at the thought that before us, in only a few grains of the stuff, was enough to kill us all if it were introduced into a scratch of our skin. "Until recently chemistry was powerless to solve the enigma, the microscope to detect its presence, or pathology to explain the reason for its deadly effect. And even now, about all we know is that autopsical research reveals absolutely nothing but the general disorganisation of the blood corpuscles. In fact, such poisoning is best known by the peculiar symptoms--the vertigo, weak legs, and falling jaw. The victim is unable to speak or swallow, but is fully sensible. He has nausea, paralysis, an accelerated pulse at first followed rapidly by a weakening, with breath slow and laboured. The pupils are contracted, but react to the last, and he dies in convulsions like asphyxia. It is both a blood and a nerve poison." As Kennedy proceeded, Mrs. Maitland never took her large eyes from his face. Kennedy now drew from a large envelope in which he protected it, the typewritten note which had been found on Maitland. He said nothing about the "suicide" as he quietly began a new line of accumulating evidence. "There is an increasing use of the typewriting machine for the production of spurious papers," he began, rattling the note significantly. "It is partly due to the great increase in the use of the typewriter generally, but more than all is it due to the erroneous idea that fraudulent typewriting cannot be detected. The fact is that the typewriter is perhaps a worse means of concealing identity than is disguised handwriting. It does not afford the effective protection to the criminal that is supposed. On the contrary, the typewriting of a fraudulent document may be the direct means by which it can be traced to its source. First we have to determine what kind of machine a certain piece of writing was done with, then what particular machine." He paused and indicated a number of little instruments on the table. "For example," he resumed, "the Lovibond tintometer tells me its story of the colour of the ink used in the ribbon of the machine that wrote this note as well as several standard specimens which I have been able to obtain from three machines on which it might have been written. "That leads me to speak of the quality of the paper in this half-sheet that was found on Mr. Maitland. Sometimes such a half-sheet may be mated with the other half from which it was torn as accurately as if the act were performed before your eyes. There was no such good fortune in this case, but by measurements made by the vernier micrometer caliper I have found the precise thickness of several samples of paper as compared to that of the suicide note. I need hardly add that in thickness and quality, as well as in the tint of the ribbon, the note points to person as the author." No one moved. "And there are other proofs--unescapable," Kennedy hurried on. "For instance, I have counted the number of threads to the inch in the ribbon, as shown by the letters of this note. That also corresponds to the number in one of the three ribbons." Kennedy laid down a glass plate peculiarly ruled in little squares. "This," he explained, "is an alignment test plate, through which can be studied accurately the spacing and alignment of typewritten characters. There are in this pica type ten to the inch horizontally and six to the inch vertically. That is usual. Perhaps you are not acquainted with the fact that typewritten characters are in line both ways, horizontally and vertically. There are nine possible positions for each character which may be assumed with reference to one of these little standard squares of the test plate. You cannot fail to appreciate what an immense impossibility there is that one machine should duplicate the variations out of the true which the microscope detects for several characters on another. "Not only that, but the faces of many letters inevitably become broken, worn, battered, as well as out of alignment, or slightly shifted in their position on the type bar. The type faces are not flat, but a little concave to conform to the roller. There are thousands of possible divergences, scars, and deformities in each machine. "Such being the case," he concluded, "typewriting has an individuality like that of the Bertillon system, finger-prints, or the portrait parle." He paused, then added quickly: "What machine was it in this case? I have samples here from that of Dr. Boss, from a machine used by Mr. Masterson's secretary, and from a machine which was accessible to both Mr. and Mrs. Maitland." Kennedy stopped, but he was not yet prepared to relieve the suspense of two of those whom his investigation would absolve. "Just one other point," he resumed mercilessly, "a point which a few years ago would have been inexplicable--if not positively misleading and productive of actual mistake. I refer to the dreams of Mrs. Maitland." I had been expecting it, yet the words startled me. What must they have done to her? But she kept admirable control of herself. "Dreams used to be treated very seriously by the ancients, but until recently modern scientists, rejecting the ideas of the dark ages, have scouted dreams. To-day, however, we study them scientifically, for we believe that whatever is, has a reason. Dr. Ross, I think, is acquainted with the new and remarkable theories of Dr. Sigmund Freud, of Vienna?" Dr. Ross nodded. "I dissent vigorously from some of Freud's conclusions," he hastened. "Let me state them first," resumed Craig. "Dreams, says Freud, are very important. They give us the most reliable information concerning the individual. But that is only possible"--Kennedy emphasised the point--"if the patient is in entire rapport with the doctor. "Now, the dream is not an absurd and senseless jumble, but a perfect mechanism and has a definite meaning in penetrating the mind. It is as though we had two streams of thought, one of which we allow to flow freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back into the subconscious, or unconscious. This matter of the evolution of our individual mental life is too long a story to bore you with at such a critical moment. "But the resistances, the psychic censors of our ideas, are always active, except in sleep. Then the repressed material comes to the surface. But the resistances never entirely lose their power, and the dream shows the material distorted. Seldom does one recognise his own repressed thoughts or unattained wishes. The dream really is the guardian of sleep to satisfy the activity of the unconscious and repressed mental processes that would otherwise disturb sleep by keeping the censor busy. In the case of a nightmare the watchman or censor is aroused, finds himself overpowered, so to speak, and calls on consciousness for help. "There are three kinds of dreams--those which represent an unrepressed wish as fulfilled, those that represent the realisation of a repressed wish in an entirely concealed form, and those that represent the realisation of a repressed wish in a form insufficiently or only partially concealed. "Dreams are not of the future, but of the past, except as they show striving for unfulfilled wishes. Whatever may be denied in reality we nevertheless can realise in another way--in our dreams. And probably more of our daily life, conduct, moods, beliefs than we think, could be traced to preceding dreams." Dr. Ross was listening attentively, as Craig turned to him. "This is perhaps the part of Freud's theory from which you dissent most strongly. Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, the best indication of abnormality would be its absence. Sex is one of the strongest of human impulses, yet the one subjected to the greatest repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural development. In a normal life, he says, there are no neuroses. Let me proceed now with what the Freudists call the psychanalysis, the soul analysis, of Mrs. Maitland." It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it. "Mrs. Maitland," he continued, "your dream of fear was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a suppressed wish. Moreover, fear always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. The gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consciously you feared the death of your husband because unconsciously you wished it." It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps, merciless--this dissecting of the soul of the handsome woman before us; but it had come to a point where it was necessary to get at the truth. Mrs. Maitland, hitherto pale, was now flushed and indignant. Yet the very manner of her indignation showed the truth of the new psychology of dreams, for, as I learned afterward, people often become indignant when the Freudists strike what is called the "main complex." "There are other motives just as important," protested Dr. Boss. "Here in America the money motive, ambition--" "Let me finish," interposed Kennedy. "I want to consider the other dream also. Fear is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. It also, as I have said, denotes sex. In dreams animals are usually symbols. Now, in this second dream we find both the bull and the serpent, from time immemorial, symbols of the continuing of the life-force. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. You, Mrs. Maitland, dreamed of a man's face on these beasts. There was every chance of having him suggested to you. You think you hate him. Consciously you reject him; unconsciously you accept him. Any of the new psychologists who knows the intimate connection between love and hate, would understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate; or hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow." The situation was growing more tense as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy actually taxing her with loving another? "The dreamer," he proceeded remorselessly, "is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centres about the dreamer most intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that really concern others, but ourselves. "Years ago," he continued, "you suffered what the new psychologists call a 'psychic trauma'--a soul-wound. You were engaged, but your censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of your fiance. In pique you married Price Maitland. But you never lost your real, subconscious love for another." He stopped, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet which did not call for an answer, "Could you--be honest with yourself, for you need say not a word aloud--could you always be sure of yourself in the face of any situation?" She looked startled. Her ordinarily inscrutable face betrayed everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen only by Kennedy. She knew the truth that she strove to repress; she was afraid of herself. "It is dangerous," she murmured, "to be with a person who pays attention to such little things. If every one were like you, I would no longer breathe a syllable of my dreams." She was sobbing now. What was back of it all? I had heard of the so-called resolution dreams. I had heard of dreams that kill, of unconscious murder, of the terrible acts of the subconscious somnambulist of which the actor has no recollection in the waking state until put under hypnotism. Was it that which Kennedy was driving at disclosing? Dr. Ross moved nearer to Mrs. Maitland as if to reassure her. Craig was studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on her and on the other faces before him. Mrs. Maitland, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the long-suppressed emotion of the evening and of the tragic day, called for sympathy which, I could see, Craig would readily give when he had reached the climax he had planned. "Kennedy," exclaimed Masterson, pushing aside Dr. Ross, as he bounded to the side of Mrs. Maitland, unable to restrain himself longer, "Kennedy, you are a faker--nothing but a damned dream doctor--in scientific disguise." "Perhaps," replied Craig, with a quiet curl of the lip. "But the threads of the typewriter ribbon, the alignment of the letters, the paper, all the 'fingerprints' of that type-written note of suicide were those of the machine belonging to the man who caused the soul-wound, who knew Madeline Maitland's inmost heart better than herself--because he had heard of Freud undoubtedly, when he was in Vienna--who knew that he held her real love still, who posed as a patient of Dr. Ross to learn her secrets as well as to secure the subtle poison of the cobra. That man, perhaps, merely brushed against Price Maitland in the crowd, enough to scratch his hand with the needle, shove the false note into his pocket--anything to win the woman who he knew loved him, and whom he could win. Masterson, you are that man!" The next half hour was crowded kaleidoscopically with events--the call by Dr. Leslie for the police, the departure of the Coroner with Masterson in custody, and the efforts of Dr. Ross to calm his now almost hysterical patient, Mrs. Maitland. Then a calm seemed to settle down over the old laboratory which had so often been the scene of such events, tense with human interest. I could scarcely conceal my amazement, as I watched Kennedy quietly restoring to their places the pieces of apparatus he had used. "What's the matter?" he asked, catching my eye as he paused with the tintometer in his hand. "Why," I exclaimed, "that's a fine way to start a month! Here's just one day gone and you've caught your man. Are you going to keep that up? If you are--I'll quit and skip to February. I'll choose the shortest month, if that's the pace!" "Any month you please," he smiled grimly, as he reluctantly placed the tintometer in its cabinet. There was no use. I knew that any other month would have been just the same. "Well," I replied weakly, "all I can hope is that every day won't be as strenuous as this has been. I hope, at least, you will give me time to make some notes before you start off again." "Can't say," he answered, still busy returning paraphernalia to its accustomed place. "I have no control over the cases as they come to me--except that I fan turn down those that don't interest me." "Then," I sighed wearily, "turn down the next one. I must have rest. I'm going home to sleep." "Very well," he said, making no move to follow me. I shook my head doubtfully. It was impossible to force a card on Kennedy. Instead of showing any disposition to switch off the laboratory lights, he appeared to be regarding a row of half-filled test-tubes with the abstraction of a man who has been interrupted in the midst of an absorbing occupation. "Good night," I said at length. "Good night," he echoed mechanically. I know that he slept that night--at least his bed had been slept in when I awoke in the morning. But he was gone. But then, it was not unusual for him, when the fever for work was on him, to consider even five or fewer hours a night's rest. It made no difference when I argued with him. The fact that he thrived on it himself and could justify it by pointing to other scientists was refutation enough. Slowly I dressed, breakfasted, and began transcribing what I could from the hastily jotted down notes of the day before. I knew that the work, whatever it was, in which he was now engaged must be in the nature of research, dear to his heart. Otherwise, he would have left word for me. No word came from him, however, all day, and I had not only caught up in my notes, but, my appetite whetted by our first case, had become hungry for more. In fact I had begun to get a little worried at the continued silence. A hand on the knob of the door or a ring of the telephone would hare been a welcome relief. I was gradually becoming aware of the fact that I liked the excitement of the life as much as Kennedy did. I knew it when the sudden sharp tinkle of the telephone set my heart throbbing almost as quickly as the little bell hammer buzzed. "Jameson, for Heaven's sake find Kennedy immediately and bring him over here to the Novella Beauty Parlour. We've got the worst case I've been up against in a long time. Dr. Leslie, the coroner, is here, and says we must not make a move until Kennedy arrives." I doubt whether in all our long acquaintance I had ever heard First Deputy O'Connor more wildly excited and apparently more helpless than he seemed over the telephone that night. "What is it?" I asked. "Never mind, never mind. Find Kennedy," he called back almost brusquely. "It's Miss Blanche Blaisdell, the actress--she's been found dead here. The thing is an absolute mystery. Now get him, GET HIM." It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had not come in, nor had he sent any word to our apartment. O'Connor had already tried the laboratory. As for myself, I had not the slightest idea where Craig was. I knew the case must be urgent if both the deputy and the coroner were waiting for him. Still, after half an hour's vigorous telephoning, I was unable to find a trace of Kennedy in any of his usual haunts. In desperation I left a message for him with the hall-boy in case he called up, jumped into a cab, and rode over to the laboratory, hoping that some of the care-takers might still be about and might know something of his whereabouts. The janitor was able to enlighten me to the extent of telling me that a big limousine had called for Kennedy an hour or so before, and that he had left in great haste. I had given it up as hopeless and had driven back to the apartment to wait for him, when the hall-boy made a rush at me just as I was paying my fare. "Mr. Kennedy on the wire, sir," he cried as he half dragged me into the hall. "Walter," almost shouted Kennedy, "I'm over at the Washington Heights Hospital with Dr. Barron--you remember Barron, in our class at college? He has a very peculiar case of a poor girl whom he found wandering on the street and brought here. Most unusual thing. He came over to the laboratory after me in his car. Yes, I have the message that you left with the hall-boy. Come up here and pick me up, and we'll ride right down to the Novella. Goodbye." I had not stopped to ask questions and prolong the conversation, knowing as I did the fuming impatience of O'Connor. It was relief enough to know that Kennedy was located at last. He was in the psychopathic ward with Barron, as I hurried in. The girl whom he had mentioned over the telephone was then quietly sleeping under the influence of an opiate, and they were discussing the case outside in the hall. "What do you think of it yourself?" Barron was asking, nodding to me to join them. Then he added for my enlightenment: "I found this girl wandering bareheaded in the street. To tell the truth, I thought at first that she was intoxicated, but a good look showed me better than that. So I hustled the poor thing into my car and brought her here. All the way she kept crying over and over: 'Look, don't you see it? She's afire! Her lips shine--they shine, they shine.' I think the girl is demented and has had some hallucination." "Too vivid for a hallucination," remarked Kennedy decisively. "It was too real to her. Even the opiate couldn't remove the picture, whatever it was, from her mind until you had given her almost enough to kill her, normally. No, that wasn't any hallucination. Now, Walter, I'm ready." III THE SYBARITE We found the Novella Beauty Parlour on the top floor of an office-building just off Fifth Avenue on a side street not far from Forty-second Street. A special elevator, elaborately fitted up, wafted us up with express speed. As the door opened we saw a vista of dull-green lattices, little gateways hung with roses, windows of diamond-paned glass get in white wood, rooms with little white enamelled manicure-tables and chairs, amber lights glowing with soft incandescence in deep bowers of fireproof tissue flowers. There was a delightful warmth about the place, and the seductive scents and delicate odours betokened the haunt of the twentieth-century Sybarite. Both O'Connor and Leslie, strangely out of place in the enervating luxury of the now deserted beauty-parlour, were still waiting for Kennedy with a grim determination. "A most peculiar thing," whispered O'Connor, dashing forward the moment the elevator door opened. "We can't seem to find a single cause for her death. The people up here say it was a suicide, but I never accept the theory of suicide unless there are undoubted proofs. So far there have been none in this case. There was no reason for it." Seated in one of the large easy-chairs of the reception-room, in a corner with two of O'Connor's men standing watchfully near, was a man who was the embodiment of all that was nervous. He was alternately wringing his hands and rumpling his hair. Beside him was a middle-sized, middle-aged lady in a most amazing state of preservation, who evidently presided over the cosmetic mysteries beyond the male ken. She was so perfectly groomed that she looked as though her clothes were a mould into which she had literally been poured. "Professor and Madame Millefleur--otherwise Miller,"--whispered O'Connor, noting Kennedy's questioning gaze and taking his arm to hurry him down a long, softly carpeted corridor, flanked on either side by little doors. "They run the shop. They say one of the girls just opened the door and found her dead." Near the end, one of the doors stood open, and before it Dr. Leslie, who had preceded us, paused. He motioned to us to look in. It was a little dressing-room, containing a single white-enamelled bed, a dresser, and a mirror. But it was not the scant though elegant furniture that caused us to start back. There under the dull half-light of the corridor lay a woman, most superbly formed. She was dark, and the thick masses of her hair, ready for the hairdresser, fell in a tangle over her beautifully chiselled features and full, rounded shoulders and neck. A scarlet bathrobe, loosened at the throat, actually accentuated rather than covered the voluptuous lines of her figure, down to the slender ankle which had been the beginning of her fortune as a danseuse. Except for the marble pallor of her face it was difficult to believe that she was not sleeping. And yet there she was, the famous Blanche Blaisdell, dead--dead in the little dressing-room of the Novella Beauty Parlour, surrounded as in life by mystery and luxury. We stood for several moments speechless, stupefied. At last O'Connor silently drew a letter from his pocket. It was written on the latest and most delicate of scented stationery. "It was lying sealed on the dresser when we arrived," explained O'Connor, holding it so that we could not see the address. "I thought at first she had really committed suicide and that this was a note of explanation. But it is not. Listen. It is just a line or two. It reads: 'Am feeling better now, though that was a great party last night. Thanks for the newspaper puff which I have just read. It was very kind of you to get them to print it. Meet me at the same place and same time to-night. Your Blanche.' The note was not stamped, and was never sent. Perhaps she rang for a messenger. At any rate, she must have been dead before she could send it. But it was addressed to--Burke Collins." "Burke Collins!" exclaimed Kennedy and I together in amazement. He was one of the leading corporation lawyers in the country, director in a score of the largest companies, officer in half a dozen charities and social organisations, patron of art and opera. It seemed impossible, and I at least did not hesitate to say so. For answer O'Connor simply laid the letter and envelope down on the dresser. It seemed to take some time to convince Kennedy. There it was in black and white, however, in Blanche Blaisdell's own vertical hand. Try to figure it out as I could, there seemed to be only one conclusion, and that was to accept it. What it was that interested him I did not know, but finally he bent down and sniffed, not at the scented letter, but at the covering on the dresser. When he raised his head I saw that he had not been looking at the letter at all, but at a spot on the cover near it. "Sn-ff, sn-ff," he sniffed, thoughtfully closing his eyes as if considering something. "Yes--oil of turpentine." Suddenly he opened his eyes, and the blank look of abstraction that had masked his face was broken through by a gleam of comprehension that I knew flashed the truth to him intuitively. "Turn out that light in the corridor," he ordered quickly. Dr. Leslie found and turned the switch. There we were alone, in the now weird little dressing-room, alone with that horribly lovely thing lying there cold and motionless on the little white bed. Kennedy moved forward in the darkness. Gently, almost as if she were still the living, pulsing, sentient Blanche Blaisdell who had entranced thousands, he opened her mouth. A cry from O'Connor, who was standing in front of me, followed. "What's that, those little spots on her tongue and throat? They glow. It is the corpse light!" Surely enough, there were little luminous spots in her mouth. I had heard somewhere that there is a phosphorescence appearing during decay of organic substances which once gave rise to the ancient superstition of "corpse lights" and the will-o'-the-wisp. It was really due, I knew, to living bacteria. But there surely had been no time for such micro-organisms to develop, even in the almost tropic heat of the Novella. Could she have been poisoned by these phosphorescent bacilli? What was it--a strange new mouth-malady that had attacked this notorious adventuress and woman of luxury? Leslie had flashed up the light again before Craig spoke. We were all watching him keenly. "Phosphorus, phosphoric acid, or phosphoric salve," Craig said slowly, looking eagerly about the room as if in search of something that would explain it. He caught sight of the envelope still lying on the dresser. He picked it up, toyed with it, looked at the top where O'Connor had slit it, then deliberately tore the flap off the back where it had been glued in sealing the letter. "Put the light out again," he asked. Where the thin line of gum was on the back of the flap, in the darkness there glowed the same sort of brightness that we had seen in a speck here and there on Blanche Blaisdell's lips and in her mouth. The truth flashed over me. Some one had placed the stuff, whatever it was, on the flap of the envelope, knowing that she must touch her lips to it to seal it She had done so, and the deadly poison had entered her mouth. As the light went up again Kennedy added: "Oil of turpentine removes traces of phosphorus, phosphoric acid, or phosphoric salve, which are insoluble in anything else except ether and absolute alcohol. Some one who knew that tried to eradicate them, but did not wholly succeed. O'Connor, see if you can find either phosphorus, the oil, or the salve anywhere in the shop." Then as O'Connor and Leslie hurriedly disappeared he added to me: "Another of those strange coincidences, Walter. You remember the girl at the hospital? 'Look, don't you see it? She's afire. Her lips shine--they shine, they shine!'" Kennedy was still looking carefully over the room. In a little wicker basket was a newspaper which was open at the page of theatrical news, and as I glanced quickly at it I saw a most laudatory paragraph about her. Beneath the paper were some torn scraps. Kennedy picked them up and pieced them together. "Dearest Blanche," they read. "I hope you're feeling better after that dinner last night. Can you meet me to-night? Write me immediately. Collie." He placed the scraps carefully in his wallet. There was nothing more to be done here apparently. As we passed down the corridor we could hear a man apparently raving in good English and bad French. It proved to be Millefleur--or Miller--and his raving was as overdone as that of a third-rate actor. Madame was trying to calm him. "Henri, Henri, don't go on so," she was saying. "A suicide--in the Novella. It will be in all the papers. We shall be ruined. Oh--oh!" "Here, can that sob stuff," broke in one of O'Connor's officers. "You can tell it all when the chief takes you to headquarters, see?" Certainly the man made no very favourable impression by his actions. There seemed to be much that was forced about them, that was more incriminating than a stolid silence would have been. Between them Monsieur and Madame made out, however, to repeat to Kennedy their version of what had happened. It seemed that a note addressed to Miss Blaisdell had been left by some one on the desk in the reception-room. No one knew who left it, but one of the girls had picked it up and delivered it to her in her dressing-room. A moment later she rang her bell and called for one of the girls named Agnes, who was to dress her hair. Agnes was busy, and the actress asked her to get paper, a pen, and ink. At least it seemed that way, for Agnes got them for her. A few minutes later her bell rang again, and Agnes went down, apparently to tell her that she was now ready to dress her hair. The next thing any one knew was a piercing shriek from the girl. She ran down the corridor, still shrieking, out into the reception-room and rushed into the elevator, which happened to be up at the time. That was the last they had seen of her. The other girls saw Miss Blaisdell lying dead, and a panic followed. The customers dressed quickly and fled, almost in panic. All was confusion. By that time a policeman had arrived, and soon after O'Connor and the coroner had come. There was little use in cross-questioning the couple. They had evidently had time to agree on the story; that is, supposing it were not true. Only a scientific third degree could have shaken them, and such a thing was impossible just at that time. From the line of Kennedy's questions I could see that he believed that there was a hiatus somewhere in their glib story, at least some point where some one had tried to eradicate the marks of the poison. "Here it is. We found it," interrupted O'Connor, holding up in his excitement a bottle covered with black cloth to protect it from the light. "It was in the back of a cabinet in the operating-room, and it is marked 'Ether phosphore".' Another of oil of turpentine was on a shelf in another cabinet. Both seem to have been used lately, judging by the wetness of the bottoms of the glass stoppers." "Ether phosphore, phosphorated ether," commented Kennedy, reading the label to himself. "A remedy from the French Codex, composed, if I remember rightly, of one part phosphorus and fifty parts sulphuric ether. Phosphorus is often given as a remedy for loss of nerve power, neuralgia, hysteria, and melancholia. In quantities from a fiftieth to a tenth or so of a grain free phosphorus is a renovator of nerve tissue and nerve force, a drug for intense and long-sustained anxiety of mind and protracted emotional excitement--in short, for fast living." He uncorked the bottle, and we tasted the stuff. It was unpleasant and nauseous. "I don't see why it wasn't used in the form of pills. The liquid form of a few drops on gum arabic is hopelessly antiquated." The elevator door opened with a clang, and a well-built, athletic looking man of middle age with an acquired youngish look about his clothes and clean-shaven face stepped out. His face was pale, and his hand shook with emotion that showed that something had unstrung his usually cast-iron nerves. I recognised Burke Collins at once. In spite of his nervousness he strode forward with the air of a man accustomed to being obeyed, to having everything done for him merely because he, Burke Collins, could afford to pay for it and it was his right. He seemed to know whom he was seeking, for he immediately singled out O'Connor. "This is terrible, terrible," he whispered hoarsely. "No, no, no, I don't want to see her. I can't, not yet. You know I thought the world of that poor little girl. Only," and here the innate selfishness of the man cropped out, "only I called to ask you that nothing of my connection with her be given out. You understand? Spare nothing to get at the truth. Employ the best men you have. Get outside help if necessary. I'll pay for anything, anything. Perhaps I can use some influence for you some day, too. But, you understand--the scandal, you know. Not a word to the newspapers." At another time I feel sure that O'Connor would have succumbed. Collins was not without a great deal of political influence, and even a first deputy may be "broke" by a man with influence. But now here was Kennedy, and he wished to appear in the best light. He looked at Craig. "Let me introduce Professor Kennedy," he said. "I've already called him in." "Very happy to have the pleasure of meeting you," said Collins, grasping Kennedy's hand warmly. "I hope you will take me as your client in this case. I'll pay handsomely. I've always had a great admiration for your work, and I've heard a great deal about it." Kennedy is, if anything, as impervious to blandishment as a stone, as the Blarney Stone is itself, for instance. "On one condition," he replied slowly, "and that is that I go ahead exactly as if I were employed by the city itself to get at the truth." Collins bit his lip. It was evident that he was not accustomed to being met in this independent spirit. "Very well," he answered at last. "O'Connor has called you in. Work for him and--well, you know, if you need anything just draw on me for it. Only if you can, keep me out of it. I'll tell everything I can to help you--but not to the newspapers." He beckoned us outside. "Those people in there," he nodded his head back in the direction of the Millefleurs, "do you suspect them? By George, it does look badly for them, doesn't it, when you come to think of it? Well, now, you see, I'm frank and confidential about my relations with Blan--er--Miss Blaisdell. I was at a big dinner with her last night with a party of friends. I suppose she came here to get straightened out. I hadn't been able to get her on the wire to-day, but at the theatre when I called up they told me what had happened, and I came right over here. Now please remember, do everything, anything but create a scandal. You realise what that would mean for me." Kennedy said nothing. He simply laid down on the desk, piece by piece, the torn letter which he had picked up from the basket, and beside it he spread out the reply which Blanche had written. "What?" gasped Collins as he read the torn letter. "I send that? Why, man alive, you're crazy. Didn't I just tell you I hadn't heard from her until I called up the theatre just now?" I could not make out whether he was lying or not when he said that he had not sent the note. Kennedy picked up a pen. "Please write the same thing as you read in the note on this sheet of the Novella paper. It will be all right. You have plenty of witnesses to that." It must have irked Collins even to have his word doubted, but Kennedy was no respecter of persons. He took the pen and wrote. "I'll keep your name out of it as much as possible," remarked Kennedy, glancing intently at the writing and blotting it. "Thank you," said Collins simply, for once in his life at a loss for words. Once more he whispered to O'Connor, then he excused himself. The man was so obviously sincere, I felt, as far as his selfish and sensual limitations would permit, that I would not have blamed Kennedy for giving him much more encouragement than he had given. Kennedy was not through yet, and now turned quickly again to the cosmetic arcadia which had been so rudely stirred by the tragedy. "Who is this girl Agnes who discovered Miss Blaisdell?" he shot out at the Millefleurs. The beauty-doctor was now really painful in his excitement. Like his establishment, even his feelings were artificial. "Agnes?" he repeated. "Why, she was one of Madame's best hair-dressers. See--my dear--show the gentlemen the book of engagements." It was a large book full of girls' names, each an expert in curls, puffs, "reinforcements," hygienic rolls, transformators, and the numberless other things that made the fearful and wonderful hair-dresses of the day. Agnes's dates were full, for a day ahead. Kennedy ran his eye over the list of patrons. "Mrs. Burke Collins, 3:30," he read. "Was she a patron, too?" "Oh, yes," answered Madame. "She used to come here three times a week. It was not vanity. We all knew her, and we all liked her." Instantly I could read between the lines, and I felt that I had been too charitable to Burke Collins. Here was the wife slaving to secure that beauty which would win back the man with whom she had worked and toiled in the years before they came to New York and success. The "other woman" came here, too, but for a very different reason. Nothing but business seemed to impress Millefleur, however. "Oh, yes," he volunteered, "we have a fine class. Among my own patients I have Hugh Dayton, the actor, you know, leading man in Blanche Blaisdell's company. He is having his hair restored. Why, I gave him a treatment this afternoon. If ever there is a crazy man, it is he. I believe he would kill Mr. Collins for the way Blanche Blaisdell treats him. They were engaged--but, oh, well," he gave a very good imitation of a French shrug, "it is all over now. Neither of them will get her, and I--I am ruined. Who will come to the Novella now?" Adjoining Millefleur's own room was the writing room from which the poisoned envelope had been taken to Miss Blaisdell. Over the little secretary was the sign, "No woman need be plain who will visit the Novella," evidently the motto of the place. The hair-dressing room was next to the little writing-room. There were manicure rooms, steam-rooms, massage-rooms, rooms of all descriptions, all bearing mute testimony to the fundamental instinct, the feminine longing for personal beauty. Though it was late when Kennedy had finished his investigation, he insisted on going directly to his laboratory. There he pulled out from a corner a sort of little square table on which was fixed a powerful light such as might be used for a stereopticon. "This is a simple little machine," he explained, as be pasted together the torn bits of the letter which he had fished out of the scrap-basket, "which detectives use in studying forgeries. I don't know that it has a name, although it might be called a 'rayograph.' You see, all you have to do is to lay the thing you wish to study flat here, and the system of mirrors and lenses reflects it and enlarges it on a sheet." He had lowered a rolled-up sheet of white at the opposite end of the room, and there, in huge characters, stood forth plainly the writing of the note. "This letter," he resumed, studying the enlargement carefully, "is likely to prove crucial. It's very queer. Collins says he didn't write it, and if he did he surely is a wonder at disguising his hand. I doubt if any one could disguise what the rayograph shows. Now, for instance, this is very important. Do you see how those strokes of the long letters are--well, wobbly? You'd never see that in the original, but when it is enlarged you see how plainly visible the tremors of the hand become? Try as you may, you can't conceal them. The fact is that the writer of this note suffered from a form of heart disease. Now let us look at the copy that Collins made at the Novella." He placed the copy on the table of the rayograph. It was quite evident that the two had been written by entirely different persons. "I thought he was telling the truth," commented Craig, "by the surprised look on his face the moment I mentioned the note to Miss Blaisdell. Now I know he was. There is no such evidence of heart trouble in his writing as in the other. Of course that's all aside from what a study of the handwriting itself might disclose. They are not similar at all. But there is an important clue there. Find the writer of that note who has heart trouble, and we either have the murderer or some one close to the murderer." I remembered the tremulousness of the little beauty-doctor, his third-rate artificial acting of fear for the reputation of the Novella, and I must confess I agreed with O'Connor and Collins that it looked black for him. At one time I had suspected Collins himself, but now I could see perfectly why he had not concealed his anxiety to hush up his connection with the case, while at the same time his instinct as a lawyer, and I had almost added, lover, told him that justice must be done. I saw at once how, accustomed as he was to weigh evidence, he had immediately seen the justification for O'Connor's arrest of the Millefleurs. "More than that," added Kennedy, after examining the fibres of the paper under a microscope, "all these notes are written on the same kind of paper. That first torn note to Miss Blaisdell was written right in the Novella and left so as to seem to have been sent in from outside." It was early the following morning when Kennedy roused me with the remark: "I think I'll go up to the hospital. Do you want to come along? We'll stop for Barron on the way. There is a little experiment I want to try on that girl up there." When we arrived, the nurse in charge of the ward told us that her patient had passed a fairly good night, but that now that the influence of the drug had worn off she was again restless and still repeating the words that she had said over and over before. Nor had she been able to give any clearer account of herself. Apparently she had been alone in the city, for although there was a news item about her in the morning papers, so far no relative or friend had called to identify her. Kennedy had placed himself directly before her, listening intently to her ravings. Suddenly he managed to fix her eye, as if by a sort of hypnotic influence. "Agnes!" he called in a sharp tone. The name seemed to arrest her fugitive attention. Before she could escape from his mental grasp again he added: "Your date-book is full. Aren't you going to the Novella this morning?" The change in her was something wonderful to see. It was as though she had come out of a trance. She sat up in bed and gazed about blankly. "Yes, yes, I must go," she cried as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Then she realised the strange surroundings and faces. "Where is my hat--wh-where am I? What has happened?" "You are all right," soothed Kennedy gently. "Now rest. Try to forget everything for a little while, and you will be all right. You are among friends." As Kennedy led us out she fell back, now physically exhausted, on the pillow. "I told you, Barron," he whispered, "that there was more to this case than you imagined. Unwittingly you brought me a very important contribution to a case of which the papers are full this morning, the case of the murdered actress, Blanche Blaisdell." IV THE BEAUTY SHOP It was only after a few hours that Kennedy thought it wise to try to question the poor girl at the hospital. Her story was simple enough in itself, but it certainly complicated matters considerably without throwing much light on the case. She had been busy because her day was full, and she had yet to dress the hair of Miss Blaisdell for her play that night. Several times she had been interrupted by impatient messages from the actress in her little dressing-booth, and one of the girls had already demolished the previous hair-dressing in order to save time. Once Agnes had run down for a few seconds to reassure her that she would be through in time. She had found the actress reading a newspaper, and when Kennedy questioned her she remembered seeing a note lying on the dresser. "Agnes," Miss Blaisdell had said, "will you go into the writing-room and bring me some paper, a pen, and ink? I don't want to go in there this way. There's a dear good girl." Agnes had gone, though it was decidedly no part of her duty as one of the highest paid employes of the Novella. But they all envied the popular actress, and were ready to do anything for her. The next thing she remembered was finishing the coiffure she was working on and going to Miss Blaisdell. There lay the beautiful actress. The light in the corridor had not been lighted yet, and it was dark. Her lips and mouth seemed literally to shine. Agnes called her, but she did not move; she touched her, but she was cold. Then she screamed and fled. That was the last she remembered. "The little writing-room," reasoned Kennedy as we left the poor little hair-dresser quite exhausted by her narrative, "was next to the sanctum of Millefleur, where they found that bottle of ether phosphore and the oil of turpentine. Some one who knew of that note or perhaps wrote it must have reasoned that an answer would be written immediately. That person figured that the note would be the next thing written and that the top envelope of the pile would be used. That person knew of the deadly qualities of too much phosphorised ether, and painted the gummed flap of the envelope with several grains of it. The reasoning held good, for Agnes took the top envelope with its poisoned flap to Miss Blaisdell. No, there was no chance about that. It was all clever, quick reasoning." "But," I objected, "how about the oil of turpentine?" "Simply to remove the traces of the poison. I think you will see why that was attempted before we get through." Kennedy would say no more, but I was content because I could see that he was now ready to put his theories, whatever they were, to the final test. He spent the rest of the day working at the hospital with Dr. Barron, adjusting a very delicate piece of apparatus down in a special room, in the basement. I saw it, but I had no idea what it was or what its use might be. Close to the wall was a stereopticon which shot a beam of light through a tube to which I heard them refer as a galvanometer, about three feet distant. In front of this beam whirled a five-spindled wheel, governed by a chronometer which erred only a second a day. Between the poles of the galvanometer was stretched a slender thread of fused quartz plated with silver, only one one-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter, so tenuous that it could not be seen except in a bright light. It was a thread so slender that it might have been spun by a microscopic spider. Three feet farther away was a camera with a moving film of sensitised material, the turning of which was regulated by a little flywheel. The beam of light focused on the thread in the galvanometer passed to the photographic film, intercepted only by the five spindles of the wheel, which turned once a second, thus marking the picture off into exact fifths of a second. The vibrations of the microscopic quartz thread were enormously magnified on the sensitive film by a lens and resulted in producing a long zig-zag, wavy line. The whole was shielded by a wooden hood which permitted no light, except the slender ray, to strike it. The film revolved slowly across the field, its speed regulated by the flywheel, and all moved by an electric motor. I was quite surprised, then, when Kennedy told me that the final tests which he was arranging were not to be held at the hospital at all, but in his laboratory, the scene of so many of his scientific triumphs over the cleverest of criminals. While he and Dr. Barren were still fussing with the machine he despatched me on the rather ticklish errand of gathering together all those who had been at the Novella at the time and might possibly prove important in the case. My first visit was to Hugh Dayton, whom I found in his bachelor apartment on Madison Avenue, apparently waiting for me. One of O'Connor's men had already warned him that any attempt to evade putting in an appearance when he was wanted would be of no avail. He had been shadowed from the moment that it was learned that he was a patient of Millefleur's and had been at the Novella that fatal afternoon. He seemed to realise that escape was impossible. Dayton was one of those typical young fellows, tall, with sloping shoulders and a carefully acquired English manner, whom one sees in scores on Fifth Avenue late in the afternoon. His face, which on the stage was forceful and attractive, was not prepossessing at close range. Indeed it showed too evident marks of excesses, both physical and moral, and his hand was none too steady. Still, he was an interesting personality, if not engaging. I was also charged with delivering a note to Burke Collins at his office. The purport of it was, I knew, a request couched in language that veiled a summons that Mrs. Collins was of great importance in getting at the truth, and that if he needed an excuse himself for being present it was suggested that he appear as protecting his wife's interests as a lawyer. Kennedy had added that I might tell him orally that he would pass over the scandal as lightly as possible and spare the feelings of both as much as he could. I was rather relieved when this mission was accomplished, for I had expected Collins to demur violently. Those who gathered that night, sitting expectantly in the little armchairs which Kennedy's students used during his lectures, included nearly every one who could cast any light on what had happened at the Novella. Professor and Madame Millefleur were brought up from the house of detention, to which both O'Connor and Dr. Leslie had insisted that they be sent. Millefleur was still bewailing the fate of the Novella, and Madame had begun to show evidences of lack of the constant beautification which she was always preaching as of the utmost importance to her patrons. Agnes was so far recovered as to be able to be present, though I noticed that she avoided the Millefleurs and sat as far from them as possible. Burke Collins and Mrs. Collins arrived together. I had expected that there would be an icy coolness if not positive enmity between them. They were not exactly cordial, though somehow I seemed to feel that now that the cause of estrangement was removed a tactful mutual friend might have brought about a reconciliation. Hugh Dayton swaggered in, his nervousness gone or at least controlled. I passed behind him once, and the odour that smote my olfactory sense told me too plainly that he had fortified himself with a stimulant on his way from the apartment to the laboratory. Of course O'Connor and Dr. Leslie were there, though in the background. It was a silent gathering, and Kennedy did not attempt to relieve the tension even by small talk as he wrapped the forearms of each of us with cloths steeped in a solution of salt. Upon these cloths he placed little plates of German silver to which were attached wires which led back of a screen. At last he was ready to begin. "The long history of science," he began as he emerged from behind the screen, "is filled with instances of phenomena, noted at first only for their beauty or mystery, which have been later proved to be of great practical value to mankind. A new example is the striking phenomenon of luminescence. Phosphorus, discovered centuries ago, was first merely a curiosity. Now it is used for many practical things, and one of the latest uses is as a medicine. It is a constituent of the body, and many doctors believe that the lack of it causes, and that its presence will cure, many ills. But it is a virulent and toxic drug, and no physician except one who knows his business thoroughly should presume to handle it. Whoever made a practice of using it at the Novella did not know his business, or he would have used it in pills instead of in the nauseous liquid. It is not with phosphorised ether as a medicine that we have to deal in this case. It is with the stuff as a poison, a poison administered by a demon." Craig shot the word out so that it had its full effect on his little audience. Then he paused, lowered his voice, and resumed on a new subject. "Up in the Washington Heights Hospital," he went on, "is an apparatus which records the secrets of the human heart. That is no figure of speech, but a cold scientific fact. This machine records every variation of the pulsations of the heart with such exquisite accuracy that it gives Dr. Barron, who is up there now, not merely a diagram of the throbbing organ of each of you seated here in my laboratory a mile away, but a sort of moving-picture of the emotions by which each heart here is swayed. Not only can Dr. Barron diagnose disease, but he can detect love, hate, fear, joy, anger, and remorse. This machine is known as the Einthoven 'string galvanometer,' invented by that famous Dutch physiologist of Leyden." There was a perceptible movement in our little audience at the thought that the little wires that ran back of the screen from the arms of each were connected with this uncanny instrument so far away. "It is all done by the electric current that the heart itself generates," pursued Kennedy, hammering home the new and startling idea. "That current is one of the feeblest known to science, for the dynamo that generates it is no ponderous thing of copper wire and steel castings. It is just the heart itself. The heart sends over the wire its own telltale record to the machine which registers it. The thing takes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe and study animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth of a volt of electricity at each beat. It would take over two hundred thousand men to light one of these incandescent lamps, two million or more to run a trolley-car. Yet just that slight little current is enough to sway the gossamer strand of quartz fibre up there at what we call the 'heart station.' So fine is this machine that the pulse-tracings produced by the sphygmograph, which I have used in other cases up to this time, are clumsy and inexact." Again he paused as if to let the fear of discovery sink deep into the minds of all of us. "This current, as I have said, passes from each one of you in turn over a wire and vibrates a fine quartz fibre up there in unison with each heart here. It is one of the most delicate bits of mechanism ever made, beside which the hairspring of a watch is coarse. Each of you in turn, is being subjected to this test. More than that, the record up there shows not only the beats of the heart but the successive waves of emotion that vary the form of those beats. Every normal individual gives what we call an 'electro-cardiogram,' which follows a certain type. The photographic film on which this is being recorded is ruled so that at the heart station Dr. Barron can read it. There are five waves to each heart-beat, which he letters P, Q, R, S, and T, two below and three above a base line on the film. They have all been found to represent a contraction of a certain portion of the heart. Any change of the height, width, or time of any one of those lines shows that there is some defect or change in the contraction of that part of the heart. Thus Dr. Barron, who has studied this thing carefully, can tell infallibly not only disease but emotion." It seemed as if no one dared look at his neighbour, as if all were trying vainly to control the beating of their own hearts. "Now," concluded Kennedy solemnly as if to force the last secret from the wildly beating heart of some one in the room, "it is my belief that the person who had access to the operating-room of the Novella was a person whose nerves were run down, and in addition to any other treatment that person was familiar with the ether phosphore. This person knew Miss Blaisdell well, saw her there, knew she was there for the purpose of frustrating that person's own dearest hopes. That person wrote her the note, and knowing that she would ask for paper and an envelope in order to answer it, poisoned the flap of the envelope. Phosphorus is a remedy for hysteria, vexatious emotions, want of sympathy, disappointed and concealed affections--but not in the quantities that this person lavished on that flap. Whoever it was, not life, but death, and a ghastly death, was uppermost in that person's thoughts." Agnes screamed. "I saw him take something and rub it on her lips, and the brightness went away. I--I didn't mean to tell, but, God help me, I must." "Saw whom?" demanded Kennedy, fixing her eye as he had when he had called her back from aphasia. "Him--Millefleur--Miller," she sobbed, shrinking back as if the very confession appalled her. "Yes," added Kennedy coolly, "Miller did try to remove the traces of the poison after he discovered it, in order to protect himself and the reputation of the Novella." The telephone bell tinkled. Craig seized the receiver. "Yes, Barron, this is Kennedy. You received the impulses all right? Good. And have you had time to study the records? Yes? What's that? Number seven? All right. I'll see you very soon and go over the records again with you. Good-bye." "One word more," he continued, now facing us. "The normal heart traces its throbs in regular rhythm. The diseased or overwrought heart throbs in degrees of irregularity that vary according to the trouble that affects it, both organic and emotional. The expert like Barron can tell what each wave means, just as he can tell what the lines in a spectrum mean. He can see the invisible, hear the inaudible, feel the intangible, with mathematical precision. Barron has now read the electro-cardiograms. Each is a picture of the beating of the heart that made it, and each smallest variation has a meaning to him. Every passion, every emotion, every disease, is recorded with inexorable truth. The person with murder in his heart cannot hide it from the string galvanometer, nor can that person who wrote the false note in which the very lines of the letters betray a diseased heart hide that disease. The doctor tells me that that person was number--" Mrs. Collins had risen wildly and was standing before us with blazing eyes. "Yes," she cried, pressing her hands on her breast as if it were about to burst and tell the secret before her lips could frame the words, "yes, I killed her, and I would follow her to the end of the earth if I had not succeeded. She was there, the woman who had stolen from me what was more than life itself. Yes, I wrote the note, I poisoned the envelope. I killed her." All the intense hatred that she had felt for that other woman in the days that she had vainly striven to equal her in beauty and win back her husband's love broke forth. She was wonderful, magnificent, in her fury. She was passion personified; she was fate, retribution. Collins looked at his wife, and even he felt the spell. It was not crime that she had done; it was elemental justice. For a moment she stood, silent, facing Kennedy. Then the colour slowly faded from her cheeks. She reeled. Collins caught her and imprinted a kiss, the kiss that for years she had longed and striven for again. She looked rather than spoke forgiveness as he held her and showered them on her. "Before Heaven," I heard him whisper into her ear, "with all my power as a lawyer I will free you from this." Gently Dr. Leslie pushed him aside and felt her pulse as she dropped limply into the only easy chair in the laboratory. "O'Connor," he said at length, "all the evidence that we really have hangs on an invisible thread of quartz a mile away. If Professor Kennedy agrees, let us forget what has happened here to-night. I will direct my jury to bring in a verdict of suicide. Collins, take good care of her." He leaned over and whispered so she could not hear. "I wouldn't promise her six weeks otherwise." I could not help feeling deeply moved as the newly reunited Collinses left the laboratory together. Even the bluff deputy, O'Connor, was touched by it and under the circumstances did what seemed to him his higher duty with a tact of which I had believed him scarcely capable. Whatever the ethics of the case, he left it entirely to Dr. Leslie's coroner's jury to determine. Burke Collins was already making hasty preparations for the care of his wife so that she might have the best medical attention to prolong her life for the few weeks or months before nature exacted the penalty which was denied the law. "That's a marvellous piece of apparatus," I remarked, standing over the connections with the string galvanometer, after all had gone. "Just suppose the case had fallen into the hands of some of these old-fashioned detectives--" "I hate post-mortems--on my own cases," interrupted Kennedy brusquely. "To-morrow will be time enough to clear up this mess. Meanwhile, let us get this thing out of our minds." He clapped his hat on his head decisively and deliberately walked out of the laboratory, starting off at a brisk pace in the moonlight across the campus to the avenue where now the only sound was the noisy rattle of an occasional trolley car. How long we walked I do not know. But I do know that for genuine relaxation after a long period of keen mental stress, there is nothing like physical exercise. We turned into our apartment, roused the sleepy hall-boy, and rode up. "I suppose people think I never rest," remarked Kennedy, carefully avoiding any reference to the exciting events of the past two days. "But I do. Like every one else, I have to. When I am working hard on a case--well, I have my own violent reaction against it--more work of a different kind. Others choose white lights, red wines and blue feelings afterwards. But I find, when I reach that state, that the best anti-toxin is something that will chase the last case from your brain by getting you in trim for the next unexpected event." He had sunk into an easy chair where he was running over in his mind his own plans for the morrow. "Just now I must recuperate by doing no work at all," he went on slowly undressing. "That walk was just what I needed. When the fever of dissipation comes on again, I'll call on you. You won't miss anything, Walter." Like the famous Finnegan, however, he was on again and gone again in the morning. This time I had no misgivings, although I should have liked to accompany him, for on the library table he had scrawled a little note, "Studying East Side to-day. Will keep in touch with you. Craig." My daily task of transcribing my notes was completed and I thought I would run down to the Star to let the editor know how I was getting along on my assignment. I had scarcely entered the door when the office boy thrust a message into my hand. It stopped me even before I had a chance to get as far as my own desk. It was from Kennedy at the laboratory and bore a time stamp that showed that it must have been received only a few minutes before I came in. "Meet me at the Grand Central," it read, "immediately." Without going further into the office, I turned and dropped down in the elevator to the subway. As quickly as an express could take me, I hurried up to the new station. "Where away?" I asked breathlessly, as Craig met me at the entrance through which he had reasoned I would come. "The coast or Down East?" "Woodrock," he replied quickly, taking my arm and dragging me down a ramp to the train that was just leaving for that fashionable suburb. "Well," I queried eagerly, as the train started. "Why all this secrecy?" "I had a caller this afternoon," he began, running his eye over the other passengers to see if we were observed. "She is going back on this train. I am not to recognise her at the station, but you and I are to walk to the end of the platform and enter a limousine bearing that number." He produced a card on the back of which was written a number in six figures. Mechanically I glanced at the name as he handed the card to me. Craig was watching intently the expression on my face as I read, "Miss Yvonne Brixton." "Since when were you admitted into society?" I gasped, still staring at the name of the daughter of the millionaire banker, John Brixton. "She came to tell me that her father is in a virtual state of siege, as it were, up there in his own house," explained Kennedy in an undertone, "so much so that, apparently, she is the only person he felt he dared trust with a message to summon me. Practically everything he says or does is spied on; he can't even telephone without what he says being known." "Siege?" I repeated incredulously. "Impossible. Why, only this morning I was reading about his negotiations with a foreign syndicate of bankers from southeastern Europe for a ten-million-dollar loan to relieve the money stringency there. Surely there must be some mistake in all this. In fact, as I recall it, one of the foreign bankers who is trying to interest him is that Count Wachtmann who, everybody says, is engaged to Miss Brixton, and is staying at the house at Woodrock. Craig, are you sure nobody is hoaxing you?" "Read that," he replied laconically, handing me a piece of thin letter-paper such as is often used for foreign correspondence. "Such letters have been coming to Mr. Brixton, I understand, every day." The letter was in a cramped foreign scrawl: JOHN BRIXTON, Woodrock, New York. American dollars must not endanger the peace of Europe. Be warned in time. In the name of liberty and progress we have raised the standard of conflict without truce or quarter against reaction. If you and the American bankers associated with you take up these bonds you will never live to receive the first payment of interest. THE RED BROTHERHOOD OF THE BALKANS. I looked up inquiringly. "What is the Red Brotherhood?" I asked. "As nearly as I can make out," replied Kennedy, "it seems to be a sort of international secret society. I believe it preaches the gospel of terror and violence in the cause of liberty and union of some of the peoples of southeastern Europe. Anyhow, it keeps its secrets well. The identity of the members is a mystery, as well as the source of its funds, which, it is said, are immense." "And they operate so secretly that Brixton can trust no one about him?" I asked. "I believe he is ill," explained Craig. "At any rate, he evidently suspects almost every one about him except his daughter. As nearly as I could gather, however, he does not suspect Wachtmann himself. Miss Brixton seemed to think that there were some enemies of the Count at work. Her father is a secretive man. Even to her, the only message he would entrust was that he wanted to see me immediately." At Woodrock we took our time in getting off the train. Miss Brixton, a tall, dark-haired, athletic girl just out of college, had preceded us, and as her own car shot out from the station platform we leisurely walked down and entered another bearing the number she had given Kennedy. We seemed to be expected at the house. Hardly had we been admitted through the door from the porte-cochere, than we were led through a hall to a library at the side of the house. From the library we entered another door, then down a flight of steps which must have brought us below an open courtyard on the outside, under a rim of the terrace in front of the house for a short distance to a point where we descended three more steps. At the head of these three steps was a great steel and iron door with heavy bolts and a combination lock of a character ordinarily found only on a safe in a banking institution. The door was opened, and we descended the steps, going a little farther in the same direction away from the side of the house. Then we turned at a right angle facing toward the back of the house but well to one side of it. It must have been, I figured out later, underneath the open courtyard. A few steps farther brought us to a fair-sized, vaulted room. V THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT Brixton had evidently been waiting impatiently for our arrival. "Mr. Kennedy?" he inquired, adding quickly without waiting for an answer: "I am glad to see you. I suppose you have noticed the precautions we are taking against intruders? Yet it seems to be all of no avail. I can not be alone even here. If a telephone message comes to me over my private wire, if I talk with my own office in the city, it seems that it is known. I don't know what to make of it. It is terrible. I don't know what to expect next." Brixton had been standing beside a huge mahogany desk as we entered. I had seen him before at a distance as a somewhat pompous speaker at banquets and the cynosure of the financial district. But there was something different about his looks now. He seemed to have aged, to have grown yellower. Even the whites of his eyes were yellow. I thought at first that perhaps it might be the effect of the light in the centre of the room, a huge affair set in the ceiling in a sort of inverted hemisphere of glass, concealing and softening the rays of a powerful incandescent bulb which it enclosed. It was not the light that gave him the altered appearance, as I concluded from catching a casual confirmatory glance of perplexity from Kennedy himself. "My personal physician says I am suffering from jaundice," explained Brixton. Rather than seeming to be offended at our notice of his condition he seemed to take it as a good evidence of Kennedy's keenness that he had at once hit on one of the things that were weighing on Brixton's own mind. "I feel pretty badly, too. Curse it," he added bitterly, "coming at a time when it is absolutely necessary that I should have all my strength to carry through a negotiation that is only a beginning, important not so much for myself as for the whole world. It is one of the first times New York bankers have had a chance to engage in big dealings in that part of the world. I suppose Yvonne has shown you one of the letters I am receiving?" He rustled a sheaf of them which he drew from a drawer of his desk, and continued, not waiting for Kennedy even to nod: "Here are a dozen or more of them. I get one or two every day, either here or at my town house or at the office." Kennedy had moved forward to see them. "One moment more," Brixton interrupted, still holding them. "I shall come back to the letters. That is not the worst. I've had threatening letters before. Have you noticed this room?" We had both seen and been impressed by it. "Let me tell you more about it," he went on. "It was designed especially to be, among other things, absolutely soundproof." We gazed curiously about the strong room. It was beautifully decorated and furnished. On the walls was a sort of heavy, velvety green wall-paper. Exquisite hangings were draped about, and on the floor were thick rugs. In all I noticed that the prevailing tint was green. "I had experiments carried out," he explained languidly, "with the object of discovering methods and means for rendering walls and ceilings capable of effective resistance to sound transmission. One of the methods devised involved the use under the ceiling or parallel to the wall, as the case might be, of a network of wire stretched tightly by means of pulleys in the adjacent walls and not touching at any point the surface to be protected against sound. Upon the wire network is plastered a composition formed of strong glue, plaster of Paris, and granulated cork, so as to make a flat slab, between which and the wall or ceiling is a cushion of confined air. The method is good in two respects: the absence of contact between the protective and protected surfaces and the colloid nature of the composition used. I have gone into the thing at length because it will make all the more remarkable what I am about to tell you." Kennedy had been listening attentively. As Brixton proceeded I had noticed Kennedy's nostrils dilating almost as if he were a hound and had scented his quarry. I sniffed, too. Yes, there was a faint odour, almost as if of garlic in the room. It was unmistakable. Craig was looking about curiously, as if to discover a window by which the odour might have entered. Brixton, with his eyes following keenly every move, noticed him. "More than that" he added quickly, "I have had the most perfect system of modern ventilation installed in this room, absolutely independent from that in the house." Kennedy said nothing. "A moment ago, Mr. Kennedy, I saw you and Mr. Jameson glancing up at the ceiling. Sound-proof as this room is, or as I believe it to be, I--I hear voices, voices from--not through, you understand, but from--that very ceiling. I do not hear them now. It is only at certain times when I am alone. They repeat the words in some of these letters--'You must not take up those bonds. You must not endanger the peace of the world. You will never live to get the interest.' Over and over I have heard such sentences spoken in this very room. I have rushed out and up the corridor. There has been no one there. I have locked the steel door. Still I have heard the voices. And it is absolutely impossible that a human being could get close enough to say them without my knowing and finding out where he is." Kennedy betrayed by not so much as the motion of a muscle even a shade of a doubt of Brixton's incredible story. Whether because he believed it or because he was diplomatic, Craig took the thing at its face value. He moved a blotter so that he could stand on the top of Brixton's desk in the centre of the room. Then he unfastened and took down the glass hemisphere over the light. "It is an Osram lamp of about a hundred candlepower, I should judge," he observed. Apparently he had satisfied himself that there was nothing concealed in the light itself. Laboriously, with such assistance as the memory of Mr. Brixton could give, he began tracing out the course of both the electric light and telephone wires that led down into the den. Next came a close examination of the ceiling and side walls, the floor, the hangings, the pictures, the rugs, everything. Kennedy was tapping here and there all over the wall, as if to discover whether there was any such hollow sound as a cavity might make. There was none. A low exclamation from him attracted my attention, though it escaped Brixton. His tapping had raised the dust from the velvety wall-paper wherever he had tried it. Hastily, from a corner where it would not be noticed, he pulled off a piece of the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. Then followed a hasty examination of the intake of the ventilating apparatus. Apparently satisfied with his examination of things in the den, Craig now prepared to trace out the course of the telephone and light wires in the house. Brixton excused himself, asking us to join him in the library up-stairs after Craig had completed his investigation. Nothing was discovered by tracing the lines back, as best we could, from the den. Kennedy therefore began at the other end, and having found the points in the huge cellar of the house where the main trunk and feed wires entered, he began a systematic search in that direction. A separate line led, apparently, to the den, and where this line feeding the Osram lamp passed near a dark storeroom in a corner Craig examined more closely than ever. Seemingly his search was rewarded, for he dived into the dark storeroom and commenced lighting matches furiously to discover what was there. "Look, Walter," he exclaimed, holding a match so that I could see what he had unearthed. There, in a corner concealed by an old chest of drawers, stood a battery of five storage-cells connected with an instrument that looked very much like a telephone transmitter, a rheostat, and a small transformer coil. "I suppose this is a direct-current lighting circuit," he remarked, thoughtfully regarding his find. "I think I know what this is, all right. Any amateur could do it, with a little knowledge of electricity and a source of direct current. The thing is easily constructed, the materials are common, and a wonderfully complicated result can be obtained. What's this?" He had continued to poke about in the darkness as he was speaking. In another corner he had discovered two ordinary telephone receivers. "Connected up with something, too, by George!" he ejaculated. Evidently some one had tapped the regular telephone wires running into the house, had run extensions into the little storeroom, and was prepared to overhear everything that was said either to or by those in the house. Further examination disclosed that there were two separate telephone systems running into Brixton's house. One, with its many extensions, was used by the household and by the housekeeper; the other was the private wire which led, ultimately, down into Brixton's den. No sooner had he discovered it than Kennedy became intensely interested. For the moment he seemed entirely to forget the electric-light wires and became absorbed in tracing out the course of the telephone trunk-line and its extensions. Continued search rewarded him with the discovery that both the household line and the private line were connected by hastily improvised extensions with the two receivers he had discovered in the out-of-the-way corner of a little dark storeroom. "Don't disturb a thing," remarked Kennedy, cautiously picking up even the burnt matches he had dropped in his hasty search. "We must devise some means of catching the eavesdropper red handed. It has all the marks of being an inside job." We had completed our investigation of the basement without attracting any attention, and Craig was careful to make it seem that in entering the library we came from the den, not from the cellar. As we waited in the big leather chairs Kennedy was sketching roughly on a sheet of paper the plan of the house, drawing in the location of the various wires. The door opened. We had expected John Brixton. Instead, a tall, spare foreigner with a close-cropped moustache entered. I knew at once that it must be Count Wachtmann, although I had never seen him. "Ah, I beg your pardon," he exclaimed in English which betrayed that he had been under good teachers in London. "I thought Miss Brixton was here." "Count Wachtmann?" interrogated Kennedy, rising. "The same," he replied easily, with a glance of inquiry at us. "My friend and I are from the Star" said Kennedy. "Ah! Gentlemen of the press?" He elevated his eyebrows the fraction of an inch. It was so politely contemptuous that I could almost have throttled him. "We are waiting to see Mr. Brixton," explained Kennedy. "What is the latest from the Near East?" Wachtmann asked, with the air of a man expecting to hear what he could have told you yesterday if he had chosen. There was a movement of the portieres, and a woman entered. She stopped a moment. I knew it was Miss Brixton. She had recognised Kennedy, but her part was evidently to treat him as a total stranger. "Who are these men, Conrad?" she asked, turning to Wachtmann. "Gentlemen of the press, I believe, to see your father, Yvonne," replied the count. It was evident that it had not been mere newspaper talk about this latest rumored international engagement. "How did you enjoy it?" he asked, noticing the title of a history which she had come to replace in the library. "Very well--all but the assassinations and the intrigues," she replied with a little shudder. He shot a quick, searching look at her face. "They are a violent people--some of them," he commented quickly. "You are going into town to-morrow?" I heard him ask Miss Brixton, as they walked slowly down the wide hall to the conservatory a few moments later. "What do you think of him?" I whispered to Kennedy. I suppose my native distrust of his kind showed through, for Craig merely shrugged his shoulders. Before he could reply Mr. Brixton joined us. "There's another one--just came," he ejaculated, throwing a letter down on the library table. It was only a few lines this time: "The bonds will not be subject to a tax by the government, they say. No--because if there is a war there won't be any government to tax them!" The note did not appear to interest Kennedy as much as what he had discovered. "One thing is self-evident, Mr. Brixton," he remarked. "Some one inside this house is spying, is in constant communication with a person or persons outside. All the watchmen and Great Danes on the estate are of no avail against the subtle, underground connection that I believe exists. It is still early in the afternoon. I shall make a hasty trip to New York and return after dinner. I should like to watch with you in the den this evening." "Very well," agreed Brixton. "I shall arrange to have you met at the station and brought here as secretly as I can." He sighed, as if admitting that he was no longer master of even his own house. Kennedy was silent during most of our return trip to New York. As for myself, I was deeply mired in an attempt to fathom Wachtmann. He baffled me. However, I felt that if there was indeed some subtle, underground connection between some one inside and someone outside Brixton's house, Craig would prepare an equally subtle method of meeting it on his own account. Very little was said by either of us on the journey up to the laboratory, or on the return to Woodrock. I realised that there was very little excuse for a commuter not to be well informed. I, at least, had plenty of time to exhaust the newspapers I had bought. Whether or not we returned without being observed, I did not know, but at least we did find that the basement and dark storeroom were deserted, as we cautiously made our way again it to the corner where Craig had made his enigmatical discoveries of the afternoon. While I held a pocket flashlight Craig was busy concealing another instrument of his own in the little storeroom. It seemed to be a little black disk about as big as a watch, with a number of perforated holes in one face. Carelessly he tossed it into the top drawer of the chest under some old rubbish, shut the drawer tight and ran a flexible wire out of the back of the chest. It was a simple matter to lay the wire through some bins next the storeroom and then around to the passageway down to the subterranean den of Brixton. There Craig deposited a little black box about the size of an ordinary kodak. For an hour or so we sat with Brixton. Neither of us said anything, and Brixton was uncommunicatively engaged in reading a railroad report. Suddenly a sort of muttering, singing noise seemed to fill the room. "There it is!" cried Brixton, clapping the book shut and looking eagerly at Kennedy. Gradually the sound increased in pitch. It seemed to come from the ceiling, not from any particular part of the room, but merely from somewhere overhead. There was no hallucination about it. We all heard. As the vibrations increased it was evident that they were shaping themselves into words. Kennedy had grasped the black box the moment the sound began and was holding two black rubber disks to his ears. At last the sound from overhead became articulate It was weird, uncanny. Suddenly a voice said distinctly: "Let American dollars beware. They will not protect American daughters." Craig had dropped the two ear-pieces and was gazing intently at the Osram lamp in the ceiling. Was he, too, crazy? "Here, Mr. Brixton, take these two receivers of the detectaphone," said Kennedy. "Tell me whether you can recognise the voice." "Why, it's familiar," he remarked slowly. "I can't place it, but I've heard it before. Where is it? What is this thing, anyhow?" "It is someone hidden in the storeroom in the basement," answered Craig. "He is talking into a very sensitive telephone transmitter and--" "But the voice--here?" interrupted Brixton impatiently. Kennedy pointed to the incandescent lamp in the ceiling. "The incandescent lamp," he said, "is not always the mute electrical apparatus it is supposed to be. Under the right conditions it can be made to speak exactly as the famous 'speaking-arc,' as it was called by Professor Duddell, who investigated it. Both the arc-light and the metal-filament lamp can be made to act as telephone receivers." It seemed unbelievable, but Kennedy was positive. "In the case of the speaking-arc or 'arcophone,' as it might be called," he continued, "the fact that the electric arc is sensitive to such small variations in the current over a wide range of frequency has suggested that a direct-current arc might be used as a telephone receiver. All that is necessary is to superimpose a microphone current on the main arc current, and the arc reproduces sounds and speech distinctly, loud enough to be heard several feet. Indeed, the arc could be used as a transmitter, too, if a sensitive receiver replaced the transmitter at the other end. The things needed are an arc-lamp, an impedance coil, or small transformer-coil, a rheostat, and a source of energy. The alternating current is not adapted to reproduce speech, but the ordinary direct current is. Of course, the theory isn't half as simple as the apparatus I have described." He had unscrewed the Osram lamp. The talking ceased immediately. "Two investigators named Ort and Ridger have used a lamp like this as a receiver," he continued. "They found that words spoken were reproduced in the lamp. The telephonic current variations superposed on the current passing through the lamp produce corresponding variations of heat in the filament, which are radiated to the glass of the bulb, causing it to expand and contract proportionately, and thus transmitting vibrations to the exterior air. Of course, in sixteen-and thirty-two-candle-power lamps the glass is too thick, and the heat variations are too feeble." Who was it whose voice Brixton had recognised as familiar over Kennedy's hastily installed detectaphone? Certainly he must have been a scientist of no mean attainment. That did not surprise me, for I realised that from that part of Europe where this mystical Red Brotherhood operated some of the most famous scientists of the world had sprung. A hasty excursion into the basement netted us nothing. The place was deserted. We could only wait. With parting instructions to Brixton in the use of the detectaphone we said good night, were met by a watchman and escorted as far as the lodge safely. Only one remark did Kennedy make as we settled ourselves for the long ride in the accommodation train to the city. "That warning means that we have two people to protect--both Brixton and his daughter." Speculate as I might, I could find no answer to the mystery, nor to the question, which was also unsolved, as to the queer malady of Brixton himself, which his physician diagnosed as jaundice. VI THE DETECTAPHONE Far after midnight though it had been when we had at last turned in at our apartment, Kennedy was up even earlier than usual in the morning. I found him engrossed in work at the laboratory. "Just in time to see whether I'm right in my guess about the illness of Brixton," he remarked, scarcely looking up at me. He had taken a flask with a rubber stopper. Through one hole in it was fitted a long funnel; through another ran a glass tube, connecting with a large U-shaped drying-tube filled with calcium chloride, which in turn connected with a long open tube with an up-turned end. Into the flask Craig dropped some pure granulated zinc coated with platinum. Then he covered it with dilute sulphuric acid through the funnel tube. "That forms hydrogen gas," he explained, "which passes through the drying-tube and the ignition-tube. Wait a moment until all the air is expelled from the tubes." He lighted a match and touched it to the open upturned end. The hydrogen, now escaping freely, was ignited with a pale-blue flame. Next, he took the little piece of wall-paper I had seen him tear off in the den, scraped off some powder from it, dissolved it, and poured it into the funnel-tube. Almost immediately the pale, bluish flame turned to bluish white, and white fumes were formed. In the ignition-tube a sort of metallic deposit appeared. Quickly he made one test after another. I sniffed. There was an unmistakable smell of garlic in the air. "Arseniureted hydrogen," commented Craig. "This is the Marsh test for arsenic. That wall-paper in Brixton's den has been loaded down with arsenic, probably Paris green or Schweinfurth green, which is aceto-arsenite of copper. Every minute he is there he is breathing arseniureted hydrogen. Some one has contrived to introduce free hydrogen into the intake of his ventilator. That acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall-paper and hangings and sets free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of it. Besides, I could tell by the jaundiced look of his face that he was being poisoned. His liver was out of order, and arsenic seems to accumulate in the liver." "Slowly poisoned by minute quantities of gas," I repeated in amazement. "Some one in that Red Brotherhood is a diabolical genius. Think of it--poisoned wall-paper!" It was still early in the forenoon when Kennedy excused himself, and leaving me to my own devices disappeared on one of his excursions into the underworld of the foreign settlements on the East Side. About the middle of the afternoon he reappeared. As far as I could learn all that he had found out was that the famous, or rather infamous, Professor Michael Kumanova, one of the leaders of the Red Brotherhood, was known to be somewhere in this country. We lost no time in returning again to Woodrock late that afternoon. Craig hastened to warn Brixton of his peril from the contaminated atmosphere of the den, and at once a servant was set to work with a vacuum cleaner. Carefully Craig reconnoitred the basement where the eavesdropping storeroom was situated. Finding it deserted, he quickly set to work connecting the two wires of the general household telephone with what looked very much like a seamless iron tube, perhaps six inches long and three inches in diameter. Then he connected the tube also with the private wire of Brixton in a similar manner. "This is a special repeating-coil of high efficiency," he explained in answer to my inquiry. "It is absolutely balanced as to resistance, number of turns, and everything. I shall run this third line from the coil into Brixton's den, and then, if you like, you can accompany me on a little excursion down to the village where I am going to install another similar coil between the two lines at the local telephone central station opposite the railroad." Brixton met us about eight o'clock that night in his now renovated den. Apparently, even the little change from uncertainty to certainty so far had had a tonic effect on him. I had, however, almost given up the illusion that it was possible for us to be even in the den without being watched by an unseen eye. It seemed to me that to one who could conceive of talking through an incandescent lamp seeing, even through steel and masonry, was not impossible. Kennedy had brought with him a rectangular box of oak, in one of the large faces of which were two square boles. As he replaced the black camera-like box of the detectaphone with this oak box he remarked: "This is an intercommunicating telephone arrangement of the detectaphone. You see, it is more sensitive than anything of the sort ever made before. The arrangement of these little square holes is such as to make them act as horns or magnifiers of a double receiver. We can all hear at once what is going on by using this machine." We had not been waiting long before a peculiar noise seemed to issue from the detectaphone. It was as though a door had been opened and shut hastily. Some one had evidently entered the storeroom. A voice called up the railroad station and asked for Michael Kronski, Count Wachtmann's chauffeur. "It is the voice I heard last night," exclaimed Brixton. "By the Lord Harry, do you know, it is Janeff the engineer who has charge of the steam heating, the electric bells, and everything of the sort around the place. My own engineer--I'll land the fellow in jail before I'll--" Kennedy raised his hand. "Let us hear what he has to say," remonstrated Craig calmly. "I suppose you have wondered why I didn't just go down there last night and grab the fellow. Well, you see now. It is my invariable rule to get the man highest up. This fellow is only one tool. Arrest him, and as likely as not we should allow the big criminal to escape." "Hello, Kronski!" came over the detectaphone. "This is Janeff. How are things going?" Wachtmann's chauffeur must have answered that everything was all right. "You knew that they had discovered the poisoned wall-paper?" asked Janeff. A long parley followed. Finally, Janeff repeated what apparently had been his instructions. "Now, let me see," he said. "You want me to stay here until the last minute so that I can overhear whether any alarm is given for her? All right. You're sure it is the nine-o'clock train she is due on? Very well. I shall meet you at the ferry across the Hudson. I'll start from here as soon as I hear the train come in. We'll get the girl this time. That will bring Brixton to terms sure. You're right. Even if we fail this time, we'll succeed later. Don't fail me. I'll be at the ferry as soon as I can get past the guards and join you. There isn't a chance of an alarm from the house. I'll cut all the wires the last thing before I leave. Good-bye." All at once it dawned on me what they were planning--the kidnapping of Brixton's only daughter, to hold her, perhaps, as a hostage until he did the bidding of the gang. Wachtmann's chauffeur was doing it and using Wachtmann's car, too. Was Wachtmann a party to it? What was to be done? I looked at my watch. It was already only a couple of minutes of nine, when the train would be due. "If we could seize that fellow in the closet and start for the station immediately we might save Yvonne," cried Brixton, starting for the door. "And if they escape you make them more eager than ever to strike a blow at you and yours," put in Craig coolly. "No, let us get this thing straight. I didn't think it was as serious as this, but I'm prepared to meet any emergency." "But, man," shouted Brixton, "you don't suppose anything in the world counts beside her, do you?" "Exactly the point," urged Craig. "Save her and capture them--both at once." "How can you?" fumed Brixton. "If you attempt to telephone from here, that fellow Janeff will overhear and give a warning." Regardless of whether Janeff was listening or not, Kennedy was eagerly telephoning to the Woodrock central down in the village. He was using the transmitter and receiver that were connected with the iron tube which he had connected to the two regular house lines. "Have the ferry held at any cost," he was ordering. "Don't let the next boat go out until Mr. Brixton gets there, under any circumstances. Now put that to them straight, central. You know Mr. Brixton has just a little bit of influence around here, and somebody's head will drop if they let that boat go out before he gets there." "Humph!" ejaculated Brixton. "Much good that will do. Why, I suppose our friend Janeff down in the storeroom knows it all now. Come on, let's grab him." Nevertheless there was no sound from the detectaphone which would indicate that he had overheard and was spreading the alarm. He was there yet, for we could hear him clear his throat once or twice. "No," replied Kennedy calmly, "he knows nothing about it. I didn't use any ordinary means to prepare against the experts who have brought this situation about. That message you heard me send went out over what we call the 'phantom circuit.'" "The phantom circuit?" repeated Brixton, chafing at the delay. "Yes, it seems fantastic at first, I suppose," pursued Kennedy calmly; "but, after all, it is in accordance with the laws of electricity. It's no use fretting and fuming, Mr. Brixton. If Janeff can wait, we'll have to do so, too. Suppose we should start and this Kronski should change his plans at the last minute? How would we find it out? By telepathy? Believe me, sir, it is better to wait here a minute and trust to the phantom circuit than to mere chance." "But suppose he should cut the line," I put in. Kennedy smiled. "I have provided for that, Walter, in the way I installed the thing. I took good care that we could not be cut off that way. We can hear everything ourselves, but we cannot be overheard. He knows nothing. You see, I took advantage of the fact that additional telephones or so-called phantom lines can be superposed on existing physical lines. It is possible to obtain a third circuit from two similar metallic circuits by using for each side of this third circuit the two wires of each of the other circuits in multiple. All three circuits are independent, too. "The third telephone current enters the wires of the first circuit, as it were, and returns along the wires of the second circuit. There are several ways of doing it. One is to use retardation or choke-coils bridged across the two metallic circuits at both ends, with taps taken from the middle points of each. But the more desirable method is the one you saw me install this afternoon. I introduced repeating-coils into the circuits at both ends. Technically, the third circuit is then taken off from the mid-points of the secondaries or line windings of these repeating coils. "The current on a long-distance line is alternating in character, and it passes readily through a repeating-coil. The only effect it has on the transmission is slightly reducing the volume. The current passes into the repeating-coil, then divides and passes through the two line wires. At the other end the halves balance, so to speak. Thus, currents passing over a phantom circuit don't set up currents in the terminal apparatus of the side circuits. Consequently, a conversation carried on over the phantom circuit will not be heard in either side circuit, nor does a conversation on one side circuit affect the phantom. We could all talk at once without interfering with each other." "At any other time I should be more than interested," remarked Brixton grimly, curbing his impatience to be doing something. "I appreciate that, sir," rejoined Kennedy. "Ah, here it is. I have the central down in the village. Yes? They will hold the boat for us? Good. Thank you. The nine-o'clock train is five minutes late? Yes--what? Count Wachtmann's car is there? Oh, yes, the train is just pulling in. I see. Miss Brixton has entered his car alone. What's that? His chauffeur has started the car without waiting for the Count, who is coming down the platform?" Instantly Kennedy was on his feet. He was dashing up the corridor and the stairs from the den and down into the basement to the little storeroom. We burst into the place. It was empty. Janeff had cut the wires and fled. There was not a moment to lose. Craig hastily made sure that he had not discovered or injured the phantom circuit. "Call the fastest car you have in your garage, Mr. Brixton," ordered Kennedy. "Hello, hello, central! Get the lodge at the Brixton estate. Tell them if they see the engineer Janeff going out to stop him. Alarm the watchman and have the dogs ready. Catch him at any cost, dead, or alive." A moment later Brixton's car raced around, and we piled in and were off like a whirlwind. Already we could see lights moving about and hear the baying of dogs. Personally, I wouldn't have given much for Janeff's chances of escape. As we turned the bend in the road just before we reached the ferry, we almost ran into two cars standing before the ferry house. It looked as though one had run squarely in front of the other and blocked it off. In the slip the ferry boat was still steaming and waiting. Beside the wrecked car a man was lying on the ground groaning, while another man was quieting a girl whom he was leading to the waiting-room of the ferry. Brixton, weak though he was from his illness, leaped out of our car almost before we stopped and caught the girl in his arms. "Father!" she exclaimed, clinging to him. "What's this?" he demanded sternly, eying the man. It was Wachtmann himself. "Conrad saved me from that chauffeur of his," explained Miss Brixton. "I met him on the train, and we were going to ride up to the house together. But before Conrad could get into the car this fellow, who had the engine running, started it. Conrad jumped into another car that was waiting at the station. He overlook us and dodged in front so as to cut the chauffeur off from the ferry." "Curse that villain of a chauffeur," muttered Wachtmann, looking down at the wounded man. "Do you know who he is?" asked Craig with a searching glance at Wachtmann's face. "I ought to. His name is Kronski, and a blacker devil an employment bureau never furnished." "Kronski? No," corrected Kennedy. "It is Professor Kumanova, whom you perhaps have heard of as a leader of the Red Brotherhood, one of the cleverest scientific criminals who ever lived. I think you'll have no more trouble negotiating your loan or your love affair, Count," added Craig, turning on his heel. He was in no mood to receive the congratulations of the supercilious Wachtmann. As far as Craig was concerned, the case was finished, although I fancied from a flicker of his eye as he made some passing reference to the outcome that when he came to send in a bill to Brixton for his services he would not forget the high eyebrowed Count. I followed in silence as Craig climbed into the Brixton car and explained to the banker that it was imperative that he should get back to the city immediately. Nothing would do but that the car must take us all the way back, while Brixton summoned another from the house for himself. The ride was accomplished swiftly in record time. Kennedy said little. Apparently the exhilaration of the on-rush of cool air was quite in keeping with his mood, though for my part, I should have preferred something a little more relaxing of the nervous tension. "We've been at it five days, now," I remarked wearily as I dropped into an easy chair in our own quarters. "Are you going to keep up this debauch?" Kennedy laughed. "No," he said with a twinkle of scientific mischief, "no, I'm going to sleep it off." "Thank heaven!" I muttered. "Because," he went on seriously, "that case interrupted a long series of tests I am making on the sensitiveness of selenium to light, and I want to finish them up soon. There's no telling when I shall be called on to use the information." I swallowed hard. He really meant it. He was laying out more work for himself. Next morning I fully expected to find that he had gone. Instead he was preparing for what he called a quiet day in the laboratory. "Now for some REAL work," he smiled. "Sometimes, Walter, I feel that I ought to give up this outside activity and devote myself entirely to research. It is so much more important." I could only stare at him and reflect on how often men wanted to do something other than the very thing that nature had evidently intended them to do, and on how fortunate it was that we were not always free agents. He set out for the laboratory and I determined that as long as he would not stop working, neither would I. I tried to write. Somehow I was not in the mood. I wrote AT my story, but succeeded only in making it more unintelligible. I was in no fit condition for it. It was late in the afternoon. I had made up my mind to use force, if necessary, to separate Kennedy from his study of selenium. My idea was that anything from the Metropolitan to the "movies" would do him good, and I had almost carried my point when a big, severely plain black foreign limousine pulled up with a rush at the laboratory door. A large man in a huge fur coat jumped out and the next moment strode into the room. He needed no introduction, for we recognised at once J. Perry Spencer, one of the foremost of American financiers and a trustee of the university. With that characteristic directness which I have always thought accounted in large measure for his success, he wasted scarcely a word in coming straight to the object of his visit. "Professor Kennedy," he began, chewing his cigar and gazing about with evident interest at the apparatus Craig had collected in his warfare of science with crime, "I have dropped in here as a matter of patriotism. I want you to preserve to America those masterpieces of art and literature which I have collected all over the world during many years. They are the objects of one of the most curious pieces of vandalism of which I have ever heard. Professor Kennedy," he concluded earnestly, "could I ask you to call on Dr. Hugo Lith, the curator of my private museum, as soon as you can possibly find it convenient?" "Most assuredly, Mr. Spencer," replied Craig, with a whimsical side glance at me that told without words that this was better relaxation to him than either the Metropolitan or the "movies." "I shall be glad to see Dr. Lith at any time--right now, if it is convenient to him." The millionaire connoisseur consulted his watch. "Lith will be at the museum until six, at least. Yes, we can catch him there. I have a dinner engagement at seven myself. I can give you half an hour of the time before then. If you're ready, just jump into the car, both of you." The museum to which he referred was a handsome white marble building, in Renaissance, fronting on a side street just off Fifth Avenue and in the rear of the famous Spencer house, itself one of the show places of that wonderful thoroughfare. Spencer had built the museum at great cost simply to house those treasures which were too dear to him to entrust to a public institution. It was in the shape of a rectangle and planned with special care as to the lighting. Dr. Lith, a rather stout, mild-eyed German savant, plunged directly into the middle of things as soon as we had been introduced. "It is a most remarkable affair, gentlemen," he began, placing for us chairs that must have been hundreds of years old. "At first it was only those objects in the museum, that were green that were touched, like the collection of famous and historic French emeralds. But soon we found it was other things, too, that were missing--old Roman coins of gold, a collection of watches, and I know not what else until we have gone over the--" "Where is Miss White?" interrupted Spencer, who had been listening somewhat impatiently. "In the library, sir. Shall I call her?" "No, I will go myself. I want her to tell her experience to Professor Kennedy exactly as she told it to me. Explain while I am gone how impossible it would be for a visitor to do one, to say nothing of all, of the acts of vandalism we have discovered." VII THE GREEN CURSE The American Medici disappeared into his main library, where Miss White was making a minute examination to determine what damage had been done in the realm over which she presided. "Apparently every book with a green binding has been mutilated in some way," resumed Dr. Lith, "but that was only the beginning. Others have suffered, too, and some are even gone. It is impossible that any visitor could have done it. Only a few personal friends of Mr. Spencer are ever admitted here, and they are never alone. No, it is weird, mysterious." Just then Spencer returned with Miss White. She was an extremely attractive girl, slight of figure, but with an air about her that all the imported gowns in New York could not have conferred. They were engaged in animated conversation, so much in contrast with the bored air with which Spencer had listened to Dr. Lith that even I noticed that the connoisseur was completely obliterated in the man, whose love of beauty was by no means confined to the inanimate. I wondered if it was merely his interest in her story that impelled Spencer. The more I watched the girl the more I was convinced that she knew that she was interesting to the millionaire. "For example," Dr. Lith was saying, "the famous collection of emeralds which has disappeared has always been what you Americans call 'hoodooed.' They hare always brought ill luck, and, like many things of the sort to which superstition attaches, they have been 'banked,' so to speak, by their successive owners in museums." "Are they salable; that is, could any one dispose of the emeralds or the other curios with reasonable safety and at a good price?" "Oh, yes, yes," hastened Dr. Lith, "not as collections, but separately. The emeralds alone cost fifty thousand dollars. I believe Mr. Spencer bought them for Mrs. Spencer some years before she died. She did not care to wear them, however, and had them placed here." I thought I noticed a shade of annoyance cross the face of the magnate. "Never mind that," he interrupted. "Let me introduce Miss White. I think you will find her story one of the most uncanny you have ever heard." He had placed a chair for her and, still addressing us but looking at her, went on: "It seems that the morning the vandalism was first discovered she and Dr. Lith at once began a thorough search of the building to ascertain the extent of the depredations. The search lasted all day, and well into the night. I believe it was midnight before you finished?" "It was almost twelve," began the girl, in a musical voice that was too Parisian to harmonize with her plain Anglo-Saxon name, "when Dr. Lith was down here in his office checking off the objects in the catalogue which were either injured or missing. I had been working in the library. The noise of something like a shade flapping in the wind attracted my attention. I listened. It seemed to come from the art-gallery, a large room up-stairs where some of the greatest masterpieces in this country are hung. I hurried up there. "Just as I reached the door a strange feeling seemed to come over me that I was not alone in that room. I fumbled for the electric light switch, but in my nervousness could not find it. There was just enough light in the room to make out objects indistinctly. I thought I heard a low, moaning sound from an old Flemish copper ewer near me. I had heard that it was supposed to groan at night." She paused and shuddered at her recollection, and looked about as if grateful for the flood of electric light that now illuminated everything. Spencer reached over and touched her arm to encourage her to go on. She did not seem to resent the touch. "Opposite me, in the middle of the open floor," she resumed, her eyes dilated and her breath coming and going rapidly, "stood the mummy-case of Ka, an Egyptian priestess of Thebes, I think. The case was empty, but on the lid was painted a picture of the priestess! Such wonderful eyes! They seem to pierce right through your very soul. Often in the daytime I have stolen off to look at them. But at night--remember the hour of night, too--oh, it was awful, terrible. The lid of the mummy-case moved, yes, really moved, and seemed to float to one side. I could see it. And back of that carved and painted face with the piercing eyes was another face, a real face, real eyes, and they looked out at me with such hatred from the place that I knew was empty--" She had risen and was facing us with wild terror written on her face as if in appeal for protection against something she was powerless to name. Spencer, who had not taken his hand off her arm, gently pressed her back into the easy chair and finished the story. "She screamed and fainted. Dr. Lith heard it and rushed up-stairs. There she lay on the floor. The lid of the sarcophagus had really been moved. He saw it. Not a thing else had been disturbed. He carried her down here and revived her, told her to rest for a day or two, but--" "I cannot, I cannot," she cried. "It is the fascination of the thing. It brings me back here. I dream of it. I thought I saw those eyes the other night. They haunt me. I fear them, and yet I would not avoid them, if it killed me to look. I must meet and defy the power. What is it? Is it a curse four thousand years old that has fallen on me?" I had heard stories of mummies that rose from their sleep of centuries to tell the fate of some one when it was hanging in the balance, of mummies that groaned and gurgled and fought for breath, frantically beating with their swathed hands in the witching hours of the night. And I knew that the lure of these mummies was so strong for some people that they were drawn irresistibly to look upon and confer with them. Was this a case for the oculists, the spiritualists, the Egyptologists, or for a detective? "I should like to examine the art gallery, in fact, go over the whole museum," put in Kennedy in his most matter-of-fact tone. Spencer, with a glance at his watch, excused himself, nodding to Dr. Lith to show us about, and with a good night to Miss White which was noticeable for its sympathy with her fears, said, "I shall be at the house for another half-hour at least, in case anything really important develops." A few minutes later Miss White left for the night, with apparent reluctance, and yet, I thought, with just a little shudder as she looked back up the staircase that led to the art-gallery. Dr. Lith led us into a large vaulted marble hall and up a broad flight of steps, past beautiful carvings and frescoes that I should have liked to stop and admire. The art-gallery was a long room in the interior and at the top of the building, windowless but lighted by a huge double skylight each half of which must have been some eight or ten feet across. The light falling through this skylight passed through plate glass of marvellous transparency. One looked up at the sky as if through the air itself. Kennedy ignored the gallery's profusion of priceless art for the time and went directly to the mummy-case of the priestess Ka. "It has a weird history," remarked Dr. Lith. "No less than seven deaths, as well as many accidents, have been attributed to the malign influence of that greenish yellow coffin. You know the ancient Egyptians used to chant as they buried their sacred dead: 'Woe to him who injures the tomb. The dead shall point out the evildoer to the Devourer of the Underworld. Soul and body shall be destroyed.'" It was indeed an awesome thing. It represented a woman in the robes of an Egyptian priestess, a woman of medium height, with an inscrutable face. The slanting Egyptian eyes did, as Miss White had said, almost literally stare through you. I am sure that any one possessing a nature at all affected by such things might after a few minutes gazing at them in self-hypnotism really convince himself that the eyes moved and were real. Even as I turned and looked the other way I felt that those penetrating eyes were still looking at me, never asleep, always keen and searching. There was no awe about Kennedy. He carefully pushed aside the lid and peered inside. I almost expected to see some one in there. A moment later he pulled out his magnifying-glass and carefully examined the interior. At last he was apparently satisfied with his search. He had narrowed his attention down to a few marks on the stone, partly in the thin layer of dust that had collected on the bottom. "This was a very modern and material reincarnation," he remarked, as he rose. "If I am not mistaken, the apparition wore shoes, shoes with nails in the heels, and nails that are not like those in American shoes. I shall have to compare the marks I have found with marks I have copied from shoe-nails in the wonderful collection of M. Bertillon. Offhand, I should say that the shoes were of French make." The library having been gone over next without anything attracting Kennedy's attention particularly, he asked about the basement or cellar. Dr. Lith lighted the way, and we descended. Down there were innumerable huge packing-cases which had just arrived from abroad, full of the latest consignment of art treasures which Spencer had purchased. Apparently Dr. Lith and Miss White had been so engrossed in discovering what damage had been done to the art treasures above that they had not had time to examine the new ones in the basement. Kennedy's first move was to make a thorough search of all the little grated windows and a door which led out into a sort of little areaway for the removal of ashes and refuse. The door showed no evidence of having been tampered with, nor did any of the windows at first sight. A low exclamation from Kennedy brought us to his side. He had opened one of the windows and thrust his hand out against the grating, which had fallen on the outside pavement with a clang. The bars had been completely and laboriously sawed through, and the whole thing had been wedged back into place so that nothing would be detected at a cursory glance. He was regarding the lock on the window. Apparently it was all right; actually it had been sprung so that it was useless. "Most persons," he remarked, "don't know enough about jimmies. Against them an ordinary door-lock or window-catch is no protection. With a jimmy eighteen inches long even an anaemic burglar can exert a pressure sufficient to lift two tons. Not one window in a thousand can stand that strain. The only use of locks is to keep out sneak-thieves and compel the modern scientific educated burglar to make a noise. But making a noise isn't enough here, at night. This place with all its fabulous treasures must be guarded constantly, now, every hour, as if the front door were wide open." The bars replaced and the window apparently locked as before, Craig devoted his efforts to examining the packing cases in the basement. As yet apparently nothing down there had been disturbed. But while rummaging about, from an angle formed behind one of the cases he drew forth a cane, to all appearances an ordinary Malacca walking-stick. He balanced it in his hand a moment, then shook his head. "Too heavy for a Malacca," he ruminated. Then an idea seemed to occur to him. He gave the handle a twist. Sure enough, it came off, and as it did so a bright little light flashed up. "Well, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed. "For a scientific dark-lantern that is the neatest thing I have ever seen. An electric light cane, with a little incandescent lamp and a battery hidden in it. This grows interesting. We must at last have found the cache of a real gentleman burglar such as Bertillon says exists only in books. I wonder if he has anything else hidden back here." He reached down and pulled out a peculiar little instrument--a single blue steel cylinder. He fitted a hard rubber cap snugly into the palm of his hand, and with the first and middle fingers encircled the cylinder over a steel ring near the other end. A loud report followed, and a vase, just unpacked, at the opposite end of the basement was shattered as if by an explosion. "Phew!" exclaimed Kennedy. "I didn't mean to do that. I knew the thing was loaded, but I had no idea the hair-spring ring at the end was so delicate as to shoot it off at a touch. It's one of those aristocratic little Apache pistols that one can carry in his vest pocket and hide in his hand. Say, but that stung! And back here is a little box of cartridges, too." We looked at each other in amazement at the chance find. Apparently the vandal had planned a series of visits. "Now, let me see," resumed Kennedy. "I suppose our very human but none the less mysterious intruder expected to use these again. Well, let him try. I'll put them back here for the present. I want to watch in the art-gallery to-night." I could not help wondering whether, after all, it might not be an inside job and the fixing of the window merely a blind. Or was the vandal fascinated by the subtle influence of mysticism that so often seems to emanate from objects that have come down from the remote ages of the world? I could not help asking myself whether the story that Miss White had told was absolutely true. Had there been anything more than superstition in the girl's evident fright? She had seen something, I felt sure, for it was certain she was very much disturbed. But what was it she had really seen? So far all that Kennedy had found had proved that the reincarnation of the priestess Ka had been very material. Perhaps the "reincarnation" had got in in the daytime and had spent the hours until night in the mummy-case. It might well have been chosen as the safest and least suspicious hiding-place. Kennedy evidently had some ideas and plans, for no sooner had he completed arrangements with Dr. Lith so that we could get into the museum that night to watch, than he excused himself. Scarcely around the corner on the next business street he hurried into a telephone booth. "I called up First Deputy O'Connor," he explained as he left the booth a quarter of an hour later. "You know it is the duty of two of O'Connor's men to visit all the pawn-shops of the city at least once a week, looking over recent pledges and comparing them with descriptions of stolen articles. I gave him a list from that catalogue of Dr. Lith's and I think that if any of the emeralds, for instance, have been pawned his men will be on the alert and will find it out." We had a leisurely dinner at a near-by hotel, during most of which time Kennedy gazed vacantly at his food. Only once did he mention the case, and that was almost as if he were thinking aloud. "Nowadays," he remarked, "criminals are exceptionally well informed. They used to steal only money and jewels; to-day it is famous pictures and antiques also. They know something about the value of antique bronze and marble. In fact, the spread of a taste for art has taught the enterprising burglar that such things are worth money, and he, in turn, has educated up the receivers of stolen goods to pay a reasonable percentage of the value of his artistic plunder. The success of the European art thief is enlightening the American thief. That's why I think we'll find some of this stuff in the hands of the professional fences." It was still early in the evening when we returned to the museum and let ourselves in with the key that Dr. Lith had loaned Kennedy. He had been anxious to join us in the watch, but Craig had diplomatically declined, a circumstance that puzzled me and set me thinking that perhaps he suspected the curator himself. We posted ourselves in an angle where we could not possibly be seen even if the full force of the electrolier were switched on. Hour after hour we waited. But nothing happened. There were strange and weird noises in plenty, not calculated to reassure one, but Craig was always ready with an explanation. It was in the forenoon of the day after our long and unfruitful vigil in the art-gallery that Dr. Lith himself appeared at our apartment in a great state of perturbation. "Miss White has disappeared," he gasped, in answer to Craig's hurried question. "When I opened the museum, she was not there as she is usually. Instead, I found this note." He laid the following hastily written message on the table: Do not try to follow me. It is the green curse that has pursued me from Paris. I cannot escape it, but I may prevent it from affecting others. LUCILLE WHITE. That was all. We looked at each other at a loss to understand the enigmatic wording--"the green curse." "I rather expected something of the sort," observed Kennedy. "By the way, the shoenails were French, as I surmised. They show the marks of French heels. It was Miss White herself who hid in the mummy-case." "Impossible," exclaimed Dr. Lith incredulously. As for myself, I had learned that it was of no use being incredulous with Kennedy. A moment later the door opened, and one of O'Connor's men came in bursting with news. Some of the emeralds had been discovered in a Third Avenue pawn-shop. O'Connor, mindful of the historic fate of the Mexican Madonna and the stolen statue of the Egyptian goddess Neith, had instituted a thorough search with the result that at least part of the pilfered jewels had been located. There was only one clue to the thief, but it looked promising. The pawnbroker described him as "a crazy Frenchman of an artist," tall, with a pointed black beard. In pawning the jewels he had given the name of Edouard Delaverde, and the city detectives were making a canvass of the better known studios in hope of tracing him. Kennedy, Dr. Lith and myself walked around to the boarding-house where Miss White lived. There was nothing about it, from the landlady to the gossip, to distinguish it from scores of other places of the better sort. We had no trouble in finding out that Miss White had not returned home at all the night before. The landlady seemed to look on her as a woman of mystery, and confided to us that it was an open secret that she was not an American at all, but a French girl whose name, she believed, was really Lucille Leblanc--which, after all, was White. Kennedy made no comment, but I wavered between the conclusions that she had been the victim of foul play and that she might be the criminal herself, or at least a member of a band of criminals. No trace of her could be found through the usual agencies for locating missing persons. It was the middle of the afternoon, however, when word came to us that one of the city detectives had apparently located the studio of Delaverde. It was coupled with the interesting information that the day before a woman roughly answering the description of Miss White had been seen there. Delaverde himself was gone. The building to which the detective took us was down-town in a residence section which had remained as a sort of little eddy to one side of the current of business that had swept everything before it up-town. It was an old building and large, and was entirely given over to studios of artists. Into one of the cheapest of the suites we were directed. It was almost bare of furniture and in a peculiarly shiftless state of disorder. A half-finished picture stood in the centre of the room, and several completed ones were leaning against the wall. They were of the wildest character imaginable. Even the conceptions of the futurists looked tame in comparison. Kennedy at once began rummaging and exploring. In a corner of a cupboard near the door he disclosed a row of dark-colored bottles. One was filled halfway with an emerald-green liquid. He held it up to the light and read the label, "Absinthe." "Ah," he exclaimed with evident interest, looking first at the bottle and then at the wild, formless pictures. "Our crazy Frenchman was an absintheur. I thought the pictures were rather the product of a disordered mind than of genius." He replaced the bottle, adding: "It is only recently that our own government placed a ban on the importation of that stuff as a result of the decision of the Department of Agriculture that it was dangerous to health and conflicted with the pure food law. In France they call it the 'scourge,' the 'plague,' the 'enemy,' the 'queen of poisons.' Compared with other alcoholic beverages it has the greatest toxicity of all. There are laws against the stuff in France, Switzerland, and Belgium. It isn't the alcohol alone, although there is from fifty to eighty per cent. in it, that makes it so deadly. It is the absinthe, the oil of wormwood, whose bitterness has passed into a proverb. The active principle absinthin is a narcotic poison. The stuff creates a habit most insidious and difficult to break, a longing more exacting than hunger. It is almost as fatal as cocaine in its blasting effects on mind and body. "Wormwood," he pursued, still rummaging about, "has a special affinity for the brain-cells and the nervous system in general. It produces a special affliction of the mind, which might be called absinthism. Loss of will follows its use, brutishness, softening of the brain. It gives rise to the wildest hallucinations. Perhaps that was why our absintheur chose first to destroy or steal all things green, as if there were some merit in the colour, when he might have made away with so many more valuable things. Absintheurs have been known to perform some of the most intricate manoeuvres, requiring great skill and the use of delicate tools. They are given to disappearing, and have no memory of their actions afterward." On an ink-spattered desk lay some books, including Lombroso's "Degenerate Man" and "Criminal Woman." Kennedy glanced at them, then at a crumpled manuscript that was stuck into a pigeonhole. It was written in a trembling, cramped, foreign hand, evidently part of a book, or an article. "Oh, the wickedness of wealth!" it began. "While millions of the poor toilers slave and starve and shiver, the slave-drivers of to-day, like the slave-drivers of ancient Egypt, spend the money wrung from the blood of the people in useless and worthless toys of art while the people have no bread, in old books while the people have no homes, in jewels while the people have no clothes. Thousands are spent on dead artists, but a dollar is grudged to a living genius. Down with such art! I dedicate my life to righting the wrongs of the proletariat. Vive l'anarchism!" The thing was becoming more serious. But by far the most serious discovery in the now deserted studio was a number of large glass tubes in a corner, some broken, others not yet used and standing in rows as if waiting to be filled. A bottle labelled "Sulphuric Acid" stood at one end of a shelf, while at the other was a huge jar full of black grains, next a bottle of chlorate of potash. Kennedy took a few of the black grains and placed them on a metal ash-tray. He lighted a match. There was a puff and a little cloud of smoke. "Ah," he exclaimed, "black gunpowder. Our absintheur was a bomb-maker, an expert perhaps. Let me see. I imagine he was making an explosive bomb, ingeniously contrived of five glass tubes. The centre one, I venture, contained sulphuric acid and chlorate of potash separated by a close-packed wad of cotton wool. Then the two tubes on each side probably contained the powder, and perhaps the outside tubes were filled with spirits of turpentine. When it is placed in position, it is so arranged that the acid in the center tube is uppermost and will thus gradually soak through the cotton wool and cause great heat and an explosion by contact with the potash. That would ignite the powder in the next tubes, and that would scatter the blazing turpentine, causing a terrific explosion and a widespread fire. With an imperative idea of vengeance, such as that manuscript discloses, either for his own wrongs as an artist or for the fancied wrongs of the people, what may this absintheur not be planning now? He has disappeared, but perhaps he may be more dangerous if found than if lost." VIII THE MUMMY CASE The horrible thought occurred to me that perhaps he was not alone. I had seen Spencer's infatuation with his attractive librarian. The janitor of the studio-building was positive that a woman answering her description had been a visitor at the studio. Would she be used to get at the millionaire and his treasures? Was she herself part of the plot to victimise, perhaps kill, him? The woman had been much of an enigma to me at first. She was more so now. It was barely possible that she, too, was an absintheur, who had shaken off the curse for a time only to relapse into it again. If there were any thoughts like these passing through Kennedy's mind he did not show it, at least not in the shape of hesitating in the course he had evidently mapped out to follow. He said little, but hurried off from the studio in a cab up-town again to the laboratory. A few minutes later we were speeding down to the museum. There was not much time for Craig to work if he hoped to be ready for anything that might happen that night. He began by winding coil after coil of copper wire about the storeroom in the basement of the museum. It was not a very difficult matter to conceal it, so crowded was the room, or to lead the ends out through a window at the opposite side from that where the window had been broken open. Up-stairs in the art-gallery he next installed several boxes such as those which I had seen him experimenting with during his tests of selenium on the afternoon when Mr. Spencer had first called on us. They were camera-like boxes, about ten inches long, three inches or so wide, and four inches deep. One end was open, or at least looked as though the end had been shoved several inches into the interior of the box. I looked into one of the boxes and saw a slit in the wall that had been shoved in. Kennedy was busy adjusting the apparatus, and paused only to remark that the boxes contained two sensitive selenium surfaces balanced against two carbon resistances. There was also in the box a clockwork mechanism which Craig wound up and set ticking ever so softly. Then he moved a rod that seemed to cover the slit, until the apparatus was adjusted to his satisfaction, a delicate operation, judging by the care he took. Several of these boxes were installed, and by that time it was quite late. Wires from the apparatus in the art-gallery also led outside, and these as well as the wires from the coils down in the basement he led across the bit of garden back of the Spencer house and up to a room on the top floor. In the upper room he attached the wires from the storeroom to what looked like a piece of crystal and a telephone receiver. Those from the art-gallery terminated in something very much like the apparatus which a wireless operator wears over his head. Among other things which Craig had brought down from the laboratory was a package which he had not yet unwrapped. He placed it near the window, still wrapped. It was quite large, and must have weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. That done, he produced a tape-measure and began, as if he were a surveyor, to measure various distances and apparently to calculate the angles and distances from the window-sill of the Spencer house to the skylight, which was the exact centre of the museum. The straight distance, if I recall correctly, was in the neighborhood of four hundred feet. These preparations completed, there was nothing left to do but to wait for something to happen. Spencer had declined to get alarmed about our fears for his own safety, and only with difficulty had we been able to dissuade him from moving heaven and earth to find Miss White, a proceeding which must certainly have disarranged Kennedy's carefully laid plans. So interested was he that he postponed one of the most important business conferences of the year, growing out of the anti-trust suits, in order to be present with Dr. Lith and ourselves in the little upper back room. It was quite late when Kennedy completed his hasty arrangements, yet as the night advanced we grew more and more impatient for something to happen. Craig was apparently even more anxious than he had been the night before, when we watched in the art-gallery itself. Spencer was nervously smoking, lighting one cigar furiously from another until the air was almost blue. Scarcely a word was spoken as hour after hour Craig sat with the receiver to his ear, connected with the coils down in the storeroom. "You might call this an electric detective," he had explained to Spencer. "For example, if you suspected that anything out of the way was going on in a room anywhere this would report much to you even if you were miles away. It is the discovery of a student of Thorne Baker, the English electrical expert. He was experimenting with high-frequency electric currents, investigating the nature of the discharges used for electrifying certain things. Quite by accident he found that when the room on which he was experimenting was occupied by some person his measuring-instruments indicated that fact. He tested the degree of variation by passing the current first through the room and then through a sensitive crystal to a delicate telephone receiver. There was a distinct change in the buzzing sound heard through the telephone when the room was occupied or unoccupied. What I have done is to wind single loops of plain wire on each side of that room down there, as well as to wind around the room a few turns of concealed copper wire. These collectors are fitted to a crystal of carborundum and a telephone receiver." We had each tried the thing and could hear a distinct buzzing in the receiver. "The presence of a man or woman in that room would be evident to a person listening miles away," he went on. "A high-frequency current is constantly passing through that storeroom. That is what causes that normal buzzing." It was verging on midnight when Kennedy suddenly cried: "Here, Walter, take this receiver. You remember how the buzzing sounded. Listen. Tell me if you, too, can detect the change." I clapped the receiver quickly to my ear. Indeed I could tell the difference. In place of the load buzzing there was only a mild sound. It was slower and lower. "That means," he said excitedly, "that some one has entered that pitch-dark storeroom by the broken window. Let me take the receiver back again. Ah, the buzzing is coming back. He is leaving the room. I suppose he has found the electric light cane and the pistol where he left them. Now, Walter, since you have become accustomed to this thing take it and tell me what you hear." Craig had already seized the other apparatus connected with the art-gallery and had the wireless receiver over his head. He was listening with rapt attention, talking while he waited. "This is an apparatus," he was saying, "that was devised by Dr. Fournier d'Albe, lecturer on physics at Birmingham University, to aid the blind. It is known as the optophone. What I am literally doing now is to HEAR light. The optophone translates light into sound by means of that wonderful little element, selenium, which in darkness is a poor conductor of electricity, but in light is a good conductor. This property is used in the optophone in transmitting an electric current which is interrupted by a special clockwork interrupter. It makes light and darkness audible in the telephone. This thing over my head is like a wireless telephone receiver, capable of detecting a current of even a quarter of a microampere." We were all waiting expectantly for Craig to speak. Evidently the intruder was now mounting the stairs to the art-gallery. "Actually I can hear the light of the stars shining in through that wonderful plate glass skylight of yours, Mr. Spencer," he went on. "A few moments ago when the moon shone through I could hear it, like the rumble of a passing cart. I knew it was the moon both because I could see that it must be shining in and because I recognised the sound. The sun would thunder like a passing express-train if it were daytime now. I can distinguish a shadow passing between the optophone and the light. A hand moved across in front of it would give a purring sound, and a glimpse out of a window in daylight would sound like a cinematograph reeling off a film. "Ah, there he is." Craig was listening with intense excitement now. "Our intruder has entered the art-gallery. He is flashing his electric light cane about at various objects, reconnoitring. No doubt if I were expert enough and had had time to study it, I could tell you by the sound just what he is looking at." "Craig," I interrupted, this time very excited myself, "the buzzing from the high-frequency current is getting lower and lower." "By George, then, there is another of them," he replied. "I'm not surprised. Keep a sharp watch. Tell me the moment the buzzing increases again." Spencer could scarcely control his impatience. It had been a long time since he had been a mere spectator, and he did not seem to relish being held in check by anybody. "Now that you are sure the vandal is there," he cut in, his cigar out in his excitement, "can't we make a dash over there and get him before he has a chance to do any more damage? He might be destroying thousands of dollars' worth of stuff while we are waiting here." "And he could destroy the whole collection, building and all, including ourselves into the bargain, if he heard so much as a whisper from us," added Kennedy firmly. "That second person has left the storeroom, Craig," I put in. "The buzzing has returned again full force." Kennedy tore the wireless receiver from his ear. "Here, Walter, never mind about that electric detective any more, then. Take the optophone. Describe minutely to me just exactly what you hear." He had taken from his pocket a small metal ball. I seized the receiver from him and fitted it to my ear. It took me several instants to accustom my ears to the new sounds, but they were plain enough, and I shouted my impressions of their variations. Kennedy was busy at the window over the heavy package, from which he had torn the wrapping. His back was toward us, and we could not see what he was doing. A terrific din sounded in my ears, almost splitting my ear-drums. It was as though I had been suddenly hurled into a magnified cave of the winds and a cataract mightier than Niagara was thundering at me. It was so painful that I cried out in surprise and involuntarily dropped the receiver to the floor. "It was the switching on of the full glare of the electric lights in the art-gallery," Craig shouted. "The other person must have got up to the room quicker than I expected. Here goes." A loud explosion took place, apparently on the very window-sill of our room. Almost at the same instant there was a crash of glass from the museum. We sprang to the window, I expecting to see Kennedy injured, Spencer expecting to see his costly museum a mass of smoking ruins. Instead we saw nothing of the sort. On the window-ledge was a peculiar little instrument that looked like a miniature field-gun with an elaborate system of springs and levers to break the recoil. Craig had turned from it so suddenly that he actually ran full tilt into us. "Come on," he cried breathlessly, bolting from the room, and seizing Dr. Lith by the arm as he did so. "Dr. Lith, the keys to the museum, quick! We must get there before the fumes clear away." He was taking the stairs two at a time, dragging the dignified curator with him. In fewer seconds than I can tell it we were in the museum and mounting the broad staircase to the art-gallery. An overpowering gas seemed to permeate everything. "Stand back a moment," cautioned Kennedy as we neared the door. "I have just shot in here one of those asphyxiating bombs which the Paris police invented to war against the Apaches and the motor-car bandits. Open all the windows back here and let the air clear. Walter, breathe as little of it as you can--but--come here--do you see?--over there, near the other door--a figure lying on the floor? Make a dash in after me and carry it out. There is just one thing more. If I am not back in a minute come in and try to get me." He had already preceded me into the stifling fumes. With a last long breath of fresh air I plunged in after him, scarcely knowing what would happen to me. I saw the figure on the floor, seized it, and backed out of the room as fast as I could. Dizzy and giddy from the fumes I had been forced to inhale, I managed to drag the form to the nearest window. It was Lucille White. An instant later I felt myself unceremoniously pushed aside. Spencer had forgotten all about the millions of dollars' worth of curios, all about the suspicions that had been entertained against her, and had taken the half-conscious burden from me. "This is the second time I have found you here, Edouard," she was muttering in her half-delirium, still struggling. "The first time--that night I hid in the mummy-case, you fled when I called for help. I have followed you every moment since last night to prevent this. Edouard, don't, DON'T! Remember I was--I am your wife. Listen to me. Oh, it is the absinthe that has spoiled your art and made it worthless, not the critics. It is not Mr. Spencer who has enticed me away, but you who drove me away, first from Paris, and now from New York. He has been only--No! No!--" she was shrieking now, her eyes wide open as she realised it was Spencer himself she saw leaning over her. With a great effort she seemed to rouse herself. "Don't stay. Run--run. Leave me. He has a bomb that may go off at any moment. Oh--oh--it is the curse of absinthe that pursues me. Will you not go? Vite! Vite!" She had almost fainted and was lapsing into French, laughing and crying alternately, telling him to go, yet clinging to him. Spencer paid no attention to what she had said of the bomb. But I did. The minute was up, and Kennedy was in there yet. I turned to rush in again to warn him at any peril. Just then a half-conscious form staggered against me. It was Craig himself. He was holding the infernal machine of the five glass tubes that might at any instant blow us into eternity. Overcome himself, he stumbled. The sinking sensation in my heart I can never describe. It was just a second that I waited for the terrific explosion that was to end it all for us, one long interminable second. But it did not come. Limp as I was with the shock, I dropped down beside him and bent over. "A glass of water, Walter," he murmured, "and fan me a bit. I didn't dare trust myself to carry the thing complete, so I emptied the acid into the sarcophagus. I guess I must have stayed in there too long. But we are safe. See if you can drag out Delaverde. He is in there by the mummy-case." Spencer was still holding Lucille, although she was much better in the fresh air of the hall. "I understand," he was muttering. "You have been following this fiend of a husband of yours to protect the museum and myself from him. Lucille, Lucille--look at me. You are mine, not his, whether he is dead or alive. I will free you from him, from the curse of the absinthe that has pursued you." The fumes had cleared a great deal by this time. In the centre of the art-gallery we found a man, a tall, black-bearded Frenchman, crazy indeed from the curse of the green absinthe that had ruined him. He was scarcely breathing from a deadly wound in his chest. The hair-spring ring of the Apache pistol had exploded the cartridge as he fell. Spencer did not even look at him, as he carried his own burden down to the little office of Dr. Lith. "When a rich man marries a girl who has been earning her own living, the newspapers always distort it," he whispered aside to me a few minutes later. "Jameson, you're a newspaperman--I depend on you to get the facts straight this time." Outside, Kennedy grasped my arm. "You'll do that, Walter?" he asked persuasively. "Spencer is a client that one doesn't get every day. Just drop into the Star office and give them the straight story, I'll promise you I'll not take another case until you are free again to go on with me in it." There was no denying him. As briefly as I could I rehearsed the main facts to the managing editor late that night. I was too tired to write it at length, yet I could not help a feeling of satisfaction as he exclaimed, "Great stuff, Jameson,--great." "I know," I replied, "but this six-cylindered existence for a week wears you out." "My dear boy," he persisted, "if I had turned some one else loose on that story, he'd have been dead. Go to it--it's fine." It was a bit of blarney, I knew. But somehow or other I liked it. It was just what I needed to encourage me, and I hurried uptown promising myself a sound sleep at any rate. "Very good," remarked Kennedy the next morning, poking his head in at my door and holding up a copy of the Star into which a very accurate brief account of the affair had been dropped at the last moment. "I'm going over to the laboratory. See you there as soon as you can get over." "Craig," I remarked an hour or so later as I sauntered in on him, hard at work, "I don't see how you stand this feverish activity." "Stand it?" he repeated, holding up a beaker to the light to watch a reaction. "It's my very life. Stand it? Why, man, if you want me to pass away--stop it. As long as it lasts, I shall be all right. Let it quit and I'll--I'll go back to research work," he laughed. Evidently he had been waiting for me, for as he talked, he laid aside the materials with which he had been working and was preparing to go out. "Then, too," he went on, "I like to be with people like Spencer and Brixton. For example, while I was waiting here for you, there came a call from Emery Pitts." "Emery Pitts?" I echoed. "What does he want?" "The best way to find out is--to find out," he answered simply. "It's getting late and I promised to be there directly. I think we'd better take a taxi." A few minutes later we were ushered into a large Fifth Avenue mansion and were listening to a story which interested even Kennedy. "Not even a blood spot has been disturbed in the kitchen. Nothing has been altered since the discovery of the murdered chef, except that his body has been moved into the next room." Emery Pitts, one of the "thousand millionaires of steel," overwrought as he was by a murder in his own household, sank back in his easy-chair, exhausted. Pitts was not an old man; indeed, in years he was in the prime of life. Yet by his looks he might almost have been double his age, the more so in contrast with Minna Pitts, his young and very pretty wife, who stood near him in the quaint breakfast-room and solicitously moved a pillow back of his head. Kennedy and I looked on in amazement. We knew that he had recently retired from active business, giving as a reason his failing health. But neither of us had thought, when the hasty summons came early that morning to visit him immediately at his house, that his condition was as serious as it now appeared. "In the kitchen?" repeated Kennedy, evidently not prepared for any trouble in that part of the house. Pitts, who had closed his eyes, now reopened them slowly and I noticed how contracted were the pupils. "Yes," he answered somewhat wearily, "my private kitchen which I have had fitted up. You know, I am on a diet, have been ever since I offered the one hundred thousand dollars for the sure restoration of youth. I shall have you taken out there presently." He lapsed again into a half dreamy state, his head bowed on one hand resting on the arm of his chair. The morning's mail still lay on the table, some letters open, as they had been when the discovery had been announced. Mrs. Pitts was apparently much excited and unnerved by the gruesome discovery in the house. "You have no idea who the murderer might be?" asked Kennedy, addressing Pitts, but glancing keenly at his wife. "No," replied Pitts, "if I had I should have called the regular police. I wanted you to take it up before they spoiled any of the clues. In the first place we do not think it could have been done by any of the other servants. At least, Minna says that there was no quarrel." "How could any one have got in from the outside?" asked Craig. "There is a back way, a servants' entrance, but it is usually locked. Of course some one might have obtained a key to it." Mrs. Pitts had remained silent throughout the dialogue. I could not help thinking that she suspected something, perhaps was concealing something. Yet each of them seemed equally anxious to have the marauder apprehended, whoever he might be. "My dear," he said to her at length, "will you call some one and have them taken to the kitchen?" IX THE ELIXIR OF LIFE As Minna Pitts led us through the large mansion preparatory to turning us over to a servant she explained hastily that Mr. Pitts had long been ill and was now taking a new treatment under Dr. Thompson Lord. No one having answered her bell in the present state of excitement of the house, she stopped short at the pivoted door of the kitchen, with a little shudder at the tragedy, and stood only long enough to relate to us the story as she had heard it from the valet, Edward. Mr. Pitts, it seemed, had wanted an early breakfast and had sent Edward to order it. The valet had found the kitchen a veritable slaughter-house, with, the negro chef, Sam, lying dead on the floor. Sam had been dead, apparently, since the night before. As she hurried away, Kennedy pushed open the door. It was a marvellous place, that antiseptic or rather aseptic kitchen, with its white tiling and enamel, its huge ice-box, and cooking-utensils for every purpose, all of the most expensive and modern make. There were marks everywhere of a struggle, and by the side of the chef, whose body now lay in the next room awaiting the coroner, lay a long carving-knife with which he had evidently defended himself. On its blade and haft were huge coagulated spots of blood. The body of Sam bore marks of his having been clutched violently by the throat, and in his head was a single, deep wound that penetrated the skull in a most peculiar manner. It did not seem possible that a blow from a knife could have done it. It was a most unusual wound and not at all the sort that could have been made by a bullet. As Kennedy examined it, he remarked, shaking his head in confirmation of his own opinion, "That must have been done by a Behr bulletless gun." "A bulletless gun?" I repeated. "Yes, a sort of pistol with a spring-operated device that projects a sharp blade with great force. No bullet and no powder are used in it. But when it is placed directly over a vital point of the skull so that the aim is unerring, a trigger lets a long knife shoot out with tremendous force, and death is instantaneous." Near the door, leading to the courtyard that opened on the side street, were some spots of blood. They were so far from the place where the valet had discovered the body of the chef that there could be no doubt that they were blood from the murderer himself. Kennedy's reasoning in the matter seemed irresistible. He looked under the table near the door, covered with a large light cloth. Beneath the table and behind the cloth he found another blood spot. "How did that land there?" he mused aloud. "The table-cloth is bloodless." Craig appeared to think a moment. Then he unlocked and opened the door. A current of air was created and blew the cloth aside. "Clearly," he exclaimed, "that drop of blood was wafted under the table as the door was opened. The chances are all that it came from a cut on perhaps the hand or face of the murderer himself." It seemed to be entirely reasonable, for the bloodstains about the room were such as to indicate that he had been badly cut by the carving-knife. "Whoever attacked the chef must have been deeply wounded," I remarked, picking up the bloody knife and looking about at the stains, comparatively few of which could have come from the one deep fatal wound in the head of the victim. Kennedy was still engrossed in a study of the stains, evidently considering that their size, shape, and location might throw some light on what had occurred. "Walter," he said finally, "while I'm busy here, I wish you would find that valet, Edward. I want to talk to him." I found him at last, a clean-cut young fellow of much above average intelligence. "There are some things I have not yet got clearly, Edward," began Kennedy. "Now where was the body, exactly, when you opened the door?" Edward pointed out the exact spot, near the side of the kitchen toward the door leading out to the breakfast room and opposite the ice-box. "And the door to the side street?" asked Kennedy, to all appearances very favorably impressed by the young man. "It was locked, sir," he answered positively. Kennedy was quite apparently considering the honesty and faithfulness of the servant. At last he leaned over and asked quickly, "Can I trust you?" The frank, "Yes," of the young fellow was convincing enough. "What I want," pursued Kennedy, "is to have some one inside this house who can tell me as much as he can see of the visitors, the messengers that come here this morning. It will be an act of loyalty to your employer, so that you need have no fear about that." Edward bowed, and left us. While I had been seeking him, Kennedy had telephoned hastily to his laboratory and had found one of his students there. He had ordered him to bring down an apparatus which he described, and some other material. While we waited Kennedy sent word to Pitts that he wanted to see him alone for a few minutes. The instrument appeared to be a rubber bulb and cuff with a rubber bag attached to the inside. From it ran a tube which ended in another graduated glass tube with a thin line of mercury in it like a thermometer. Craig adjusted the thing over the brachial artery of Pitts, just above the elbow. "It may be a little uncomfortable, Mr. Pitts," he apologised, "but it will be for only a few minutes." Pressure through the rubber bulb shut off the artery so that Kennedy could no longer feel the pulse at the wrist. As he worked, I began to see what he was after. The reading on the graded scale of the height of the column of mercury indicated, I knew, blood pressure. This time, as he worked, I noted also the flabby skin of Pitts as well as the small and sluggish pupils of his eyes. He completed his test in silence and excused himself, although as we went back to the kitchen I was burning with curiosity. "What was it?" I asked. "What did you discover?" "That," he replied, "was a sphygmomanometer, something like the sphygmograph which we used once in another case. Normal blood pressure is 125 millimetres. Mr. Pitts shows a high pressure, very high. The large life insurance companies are now using this instrument. They would tell you that a high pressure like that indicates apoplexy. Mr. Pitts, young as he really is, is actually old. For, you know, the saying is that a man is as old as his arteries. Pitts has hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis--perhaps other heart and kidney troubles, in short pre-senility." Craig paused: then added sententiously as if to himself: "You have heard the latest theories about old age, that it is due to microbic poisons secreted in the intestines and penetrating the intestinal walls? Well, in premature senility the symptoms are the same as in senility, only mental acuteness is not so impaired." We had now reached the kitchen again. The student had also brought down to Kennedy a number of sterilised microscope slides and test-tubes, and from here and there in the masses of blood spots Kennedy was taking and preserving samples. He also took samples of the various foods, which he preserved in the sterilised tubes. While he was at work Edward joined us cautiously. "Has anything happened?" asked Craig. "A message came by a boy for Mrs. Pitts," whispered the valet. "What did she do with it?" "Tore it up." "And the pieces?" "She must have hidden them somewhere." "See if you can get them." Edward nodded and left us. "Yes," I remarked after he had gone, "it does seem as if the thing to do was to get on the trail of a person bearing wounds of some kind. I notice, for one thing, Craig, that Edward shows no such marks, nor does any one else in the house as far as I can see. If it were an 'inside job' I fancy Edward at least could clear himself. The point is to find the person with a bandaged hand or plastered face." Kennedy assented, but his mind was on another subject. "Before we go we must see Mrs. Pitts alone, if we can," he said simply. In answer to his inquiry through one of the servants she sent down word that she would see us immediately in her sitting-room. The events of the morning had quite naturally upset her, and she was, if anything, even paler than when we saw her before. "Mrs. Pitts," began Kennedy, "I suppose you are aware of the physical condition of your husband?" It seemed a little abrupt to me at first, but he intended it to be. "Why," she asked with real alarm, "is he so very badly?" "Pretty badly," remarked Kennedy mercilessly, observing the effect of his words. "So badly, I fear, that it would not require much more excitement like to-day's to bring on an attack of apoplexy. I should advise you to take especial care of him, Mrs. Pitts." Following his eyes, I tried to determine whether the agitation of the woman before us was genuine or not. It certainly looked so. But then, I knew that she had been an actress before her marriage. Was she acting a part now? "What do you mean?" she asked tremulously. "Mrs. Pitts," replied Kennedy quickly, observing still the play of emotion on her delicate features, "some one, I believe, either regularly in or employed in this house or who had a ready means of access to it must have entered that kitchen last night. For what purpose, I can leave you to judge. But Sam surprised the intruder there and was killed for his faithfulness." Her startled look told plainly that though she might have suspected something of the sort she did not think that any one else suspected, much less actually perhaps knew it. "I can't imagine who it could be, unless it might be one of the servants," she murmured hastily; adding, "and there is none of them that I have any right to suspect." She had in a measure regained her composure, and Kennedy felt that it was no use to pursue the conversation further, perhaps expose his hand before he was ready to play it. "That woman is concealing something," remarked Kennedy to me as we left the house a few minutes later. "She at least bears no marks of violence herself of any kind," I commented. "No," agreed Craig, "no, you are right so far." He added: "I shall be very busy in the laboratory this afternoon, and probably longer. However, drop in at dinner time, and in the meantime, don't say a word to any one, but just use your position on the Star to keep in touch with anything the police authorities may be doing." It was not a difficult commission, since they did nothing but issue a statement, the net import of which was to let the public know that they were very active, although they had nothing to report. Kennedy was still busy when I rejoined him, a little late purposely, since I knew that he would be over his head in work. "What's this--a zoo?" I asked, looking about me as I entered the sanctum that evening. There were dogs and guinea pigs, rats and mice, a menagerie that would have delighted a small boy. It did not look like the same old laboratory for the investigation of criminal science, though I saw on a second glance that it was the same, that there was the usual hurly-burly of microscopes, test-tubes, and all the paraphernalia that were so mystifying at first but in the end under his skilful hand made the most complicated cases seem stupidly simple. Craig smiled at my surprise. "I'm making a little study of intestinal poisons," he commented, "poisons produced by microbes which we keep under more or less control in healthy life. In death they are the little fellows that extend all over the body and putrefy it. We nourish within ourselves microbes which secrete very virulent poisons, and when those poisons are too much for us--well, we grow old. At least that is the theory of Metchnikoff, who says that old age is an infectious chronic, disease. Somehow," he added thoughtfully, "that beautiful white kitchen in the Pitts home had really become a factory for intestinal poisons." There was an air of suppressed excitement in his manner which told me that Kennedy was on the trail of something unusual. "Mouth murder," he cried at length, "that was what was being done in that wonderful kitchen. Do you know, the scientific slaying of human beings has far exceeded organised efforts at detection? Of course you expect me to say that; you think I look at such things through coloured glasses. But it is a fact, nevertheless. "It is a very simple matter for the police to apprehend the common murderer whose weapon is a knife or a gun, but it is a different thing when they investigate the death of a person who has been the victim of the modern murderer who slays, let us say, with some kind of deadly bacilli. Authorities say, and I agree with them, that hundreds of murders are committed in this country every year and are not detected because the detectives are not scientists, while the slayers have used the knowledge of the scientists both to commit and to cover up the crimes. I tell you, Walter, a murder science bureau not only would clear up nearly every poison mystery, but also it would inspire such a wholesome fear among would-be murderers that they would abandon many attempts to take life." He was as excited over the case as I had ever seen him. Indeed it was one that evidently taxed his utmost powers. "What have you found?" I asked, startled. "You remember my use of the sphygmomanometer?" he asked. "In the first place that put me on what seems to be a clear trail. The most dreaded of all the ills of the cardiac and vascular systems nowadays seems to be arterio-sclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. It is possible for a man of forty-odd, like Mr. Pitts, to have arteries in a condition which would not be encountered normally in persons under seventy years of age. "The hard or hardening artery means increased blood pressure, with a consequent increased strain on the heart. This may lead, has led in this case, to a long train of distressing symptoms, and, of course, to ultimate death. Heart disease, according to statistics, is carrying off a greater percentage of persons than formerly. This fact cannot be denied, and it is attributed largely to worry, the abnormal rush of the life of to-day, and sometimes to faulty methods of eating and bad nutrition. On the surface, these natural causes might seem to be at work with Mr. Pitts. But, Walter, I do not believe it, I do not believe it. There is more than that, here. Come, I can do nothing more to-night, until I learn more from these animals and the cultures which I have in these tubes. Let us take a turn or two, then dine, and perhaps we may get some word at our apartment from Edward." It was late that night when a gentle tap at the door proved that Kennedy's hope had not been unfounded. I opened it and let in Edward, the valet, who produced the fragments of a note, torn and crumpled. "There is nothing new, sir," he explained, "except that Mrs. Pitts seems more nervous than ever, and Mr. Pitts, I think, is feeling a little brighter." Kennedy said nothing, but was hard at work with puckered brows at piecing together the note which Edward had obtained after hunting through the house. It had been thrown into a fireplace in Mrs. Pitts's own room, and only by chance had part of it been unconsumed. The body of the note was gone altogether, but the first part and the last part remained. Apparently it had been written the very morning on which the murder was discovered. It read simply, "I have succeeded in having Thornton declared ..." Then there was a break. The last words were legible, and were,"... confined in a suitable institution where he can cause no future harm." There was no signature, as if the sender had perfectly understood that the receiver would understand. "Not difficult to supply some of the context, at any rate," mused Kennedy. "Whoever Thornton may be, some one has succeeded in having him declared 'insane,' I should supply. If he is in an institution near New York, we must be able to locate him. Edward, this is a very important clue. There is nothing else." Kennedy employed the remainder of the night in obtaining a list of all the institutions, both public and private, within a considerable radius of the city where the insane might be detained. The next morning, after an hour or so spent in the laboratory apparently in confirming some control tests which Kennedy had laid out to make sure that he was not going wrong in the line of inquiry he was pursuing, we started off in a series of flying visits to the various sanitaria about the city in search of an inmate named Thornton. I will not attempt to describe the many curious sights and experiences we saw and had. I could readily believe that any one who spent even as little time as we did might almost think that the very world was going rapidly insane. There were literally thousands of names in the lists which we examined patiently, going through them all, since Kennedy was not at all sure that Thornton might not be a first name, and we had no time to waste on taking any chances. It was not until long after dusk that, weary with the search and dust-covered from our hasty scouring of the country in an automobile which Kennedy had hired after exhausting the city institutions, we came to a small private asylum up in Westchester. I had almost been willing to give it up for the day, to start afresh on the morrow, but Kennedy seemed to feel that the case was too urgent to lose even twelve hours over. It was a peculiar place, isolated, out-of-the-way, and guarded by a high brick wall that enclosed a pretty good sized garden. A ring at the bell brought a sharp-eyed maid to the door. "Have you--er--any one here named Thornton--er--?" Kennedy paused in such a way that if it were the last name he might come to a full stop, and if it were a first name he could go on. "There is a Mr. Thornton who came yesterday," she snapped ungraciously, "but you can not see him, It's against the rules." "Yes--yesterday," repeated Kennedy eagerly, ignoring her tartness. "Could I--" he slipped a crumpled treasury note into her hand--"could I speak to Mr. Thornton's nurse?" The note seemed to render the acidity of the girl slightly alkaline. She opened the door a little further, and we found ourselves in a plainly furnished reception room, alone. We might have been in the reception-room of a prosperous country gentleman, so quiet was it. There was none of the raving, as far as I could make out, that I should have expected even in a twentieth century Bedlam, no material for a Poe story of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather. At length the hall door opened, and a man entered, not a prepossessing man, it is true, with his large and powerful hands and arms and slightly bowed, almost bulldog legs. Yet he was not of that aggressive kind which would make a show of physical strength without good and sufficient cause. "You have charge of Mr. Thornton?" inquired Kennedy. "Yes," was the curt response. "I trust he is all right here?" "He wouldn't be here if he was all right," was the quick reply. "And who might you be?" "I knew him in the old days," replied Craig evasively. "My friend here does not know him, but I was in this part of Westchester visiting and having heard he was here thought I would drop in, just for old time's sake. That is all." "How did you know he was here?" asked the man suspiciously. "I heard indirectly from a friend of mine, Mrs. Pitts." "Oh." The man seemed to accept the explanation at its face value. "Is he very--very badly?" asked Craig with well-feigned interest. "Well," replied the man, a little mollified by a good cigar which I produced, "don't you go a-telling her, but if he says the name Minna once a day it is a thousand times. Them drug-dopes has some strange delusions." "Strange delusions?" queried Craig. "Why, what do you mean?" "Say," ejaculated the man. "I don't know you, You come here saying you're friends of Mr. Thornton's. How do I know what you are?" "Well," ventured Kennedy, "suppose I should also tell you I am a friend of the man who committed him." "Of Dr. Thompson Lord?" "Exactly. My friend here knows Dr. Lord very well, don't you, Walter?" Thus appealed to I hastened to add, "Indeed I do." Then, improving the opening, I hastened: "Is this Mr. Thornton violent? I think this is one of the most quiet institutions I ever saw for so small a place." The man shook his head. "Because," I added, "I thought some drug fiends were violent and had to be restrained by force, often." "You won't find a mark or a scratch on him, sir," replied the man. "That ain't our system." "Not a mark or scratch on him," repeated Kennedy thoughtfully. "I wonder if he'd recognise me?" "Can't say," concluded the man. "What's more, can't try. It's against the rules. Only your knowing so many he knows has got you this far. You'll have to call on a regular day or by appointment to see him, gentlemen." There was an air of finality about the last statement that made Kennedy rise and move toward the door with a hearty "Thank you, for your kindness," and a wish to be remembered to "poor old Thornton." As we climbed into the car he poked me in the ribs. "Just as good for the present as if we had seen him," he exclaimed. "Drug-fiend, friend of Mrs. Pitts, committed by Dr. Lord, no wounds." Then he lapsed into silence as we sped back to the city. "The Pitts house," ordered Kennedy as we bowled along, after noting by his watch that it was after nine. Then to me he added, "We must see Mrs. Pitts once more, and alone." We waited some time after Kennedy sent up word that he would like to see Mrs. Pitts. At last she appeared. I thought she avoided Kennedy's eye, and I am sure that her intuition told her that he had some revelation to make, against which she was steeling herself. Craig greeted her as reassuringly as he could, but as she sat nervously before us, I could see that she was in reality pale, worn, and anxious. "We have had a rather hard day," began Kennedy after the usual polite inquiries about her own and her husband's health had been, I thought, a little prolonged by him. "Indeed?" she asked. "Have you come any closer to the truth?" Kennedy met her eyes, and she turned away. "Yes, Mr. Jameson and I have put in the better part of the day in going from one institution for the insane to another." He paused. The startled look on her face told as plainly as words that his remark had struck home. Without giving her a chance to reply, or to think of a verbal means of escape, Craig hurried on with an account of what we had done, saying nothing about the original letter which had started us on the search for Thornton, but leaving it to be inferred by her that he knew much more than he cared to tell. "In short, Mrs. Pitts," he concluded firmly, "I do not need to tell you that I already know much about the matter which you are concealing." The piling up of fact on fact, mystifying as it was to me who had as yet no inkling of what it was tending toward, proved too much for the woman who knew the truth, yet did not know how much Kennedy knew of it. Minna Pitts was pacing the floor wildly, all the assumed manner of the actress gone from her, yet with the native grace and feeling of the born actress playing unrestrained in her actions. "You know only part of my story," she cried, fixing him with her now tearless eyes. "It is only a question of time when you will worm it all out by your uncanny, occult methods. Mr. Kennedy, I cast myself on you." X THE TOXIN OF DEATH The note of appeal in her tone was powerful, but I could not so readily shake off my first suspicions of the woman. Whether or not she convinced Kennedy, he did not show. "I was only a young girl when I met Mr. Thornton," she raced on. "I was not yet eighteen when we were married. Too late, I found out the curse of his life--and of mine. He was a drug fiend. From the very first life with him was insupportable. I stood it as long as I could, but when he beat me because he had no money to buy drugs, I left him. I gave myself up to my career on the stage. Later I heard that he was dead--a suicide. I worked, day and night, slaved, and rose in the profession--until, at last, I met Mr. Pitts." She paused, and it was evident that it was with a struggle that she could talk so. "Three months after I was married to him, Thornton suddenly reappeared, from the dead it seemed to me. He did not want me back. No, indeed. All he wanted was money. I gave him money, my own money, for I made a great deal in my stage days. But his demands increased. To silence him I have paid him thousands. He squandered them faster than ever. And finally, when it became unbearable, I appealed to a friend. That friend has now succeeded in placing this man quietly in a sanitarium for the insane." "And the murder of the chef?" shot out Kennedy. She looked from one to the other of us in alarm. "Before God, I know no more of that than does Mr. Pitts." Was she telling the truth? Would she stop at anything to avoid the scandal and disgrace of the charge of bigamy? Was there not something still that she was concealing? She took refuge in the last resort--tears. Encouraging as it was to have made such progress, it did not seem to me that we were much nearer, after all, to the solution of the mystery. Kennedy, as usual, had nothing to say until he was absolutely sure of his ground. He spent the greater part of the next day hard at work over the minute investigations of his laboratory, leaving me to arrange the details of a meeting he planned for that night. There were present Mr. and Mrs. Pitts, the former in charge of Dr. Lord. The valet, Edward, was also there, and in a neighbouring room was Thornton in charge of two nurses from the sanitarium. Thornton was a sad wreck of a man now, whatever he might have been when his blackmail furnished him with an unlimited supply of his favourite drugs. "Let us go back to the very start of the case," began Kennedy when we had all assembled, "the murder of the chef, Sam." It seemed that the mere sound of his voice electrified his little audience. I fancied a shudder passed over the slight form of Mrs. Pitts, as she must have realised that this was the point where Kennedy had left off, in his questioning her the night before. "There is," he went on slowly, "a blood test so delicate that one might almost say that he could identify a criminal by his very blood-crystals--the fingerprints, so to speak, of his blood. It was by means of these 'hemoglobin clues,' if I may call them so, that I was able to get on the right trail. For the fact is that a man's blood is not like that of any other living creature. Blood of different men, of men and women differ. I believe that in time we shall be able to refine this test to tell the exact individual, too. "What is this principle? It is that the hemoglobin or red colouring-matter of the blood forms crystals. That has long been known, but working on this fact Dr. Reichert and Professor Brown of the University of Pennsylvania have made some wonderful discoveries. "We could distinguish human from animal blood before, it is true. But the discovery of these two scientists takes us much further. By means of blood-crystals we can distinguish the blood of man from that of the animals and in addition that of white men from that of negroes and other races. It is often the only way of differentiating between various kinds of blood. "The variations in crystals in the blood are in part of form and in part of molecular structure, the latter being discovered only by means of the polarising microscope. A blood-crystal is only one two-thousand-two-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch in length and one nine-thousandth of an inch in breadth. And yet minute as these crystals are, this discovery is of immense medico-legal importance. Crime may now be traced by blood-crystals." He displayed on his table a number of enlarged micro-photographs. Some were labelled, "Characteristic crystals of white man's blood"; others "Crystallisation of negro blood"; still others, "Blood-crystals of the cat." "I have here," he resumed, after we had all examined the photographs and had seen that there was indeed a vast amount of difference, "three characteristic kinds of crystals, all of which I found in the various spots in the kitchen of Mr. Pitts. There were three kinds of blood, by the infallible Reichert test." I had been prepared for his discovery of two kinds, but three heightened the mystery still more. "There was only a very little of the blood which was that of the poor, faithful, unfortunate Sam, the negro chef," Kennedy went on. "A little more, found far from his body, is that of a white person. But most of it is not human blood at all. It was the blood of a cat." The revelation was startling. Before any of us could ask, he hastened to explain. "It was placed there by some one who wished to exaggerate the struggle in order to divert suspicion. That person had indeed been wounded slightly, but wished it to appear that the wounds were very serious. The fact of the matter is that the carving-knife is spotted deeply with blood, but it is not human blood. It is the blood of a cat. A few years ago even a scientific detective would have concluded that a fierce hand-to-hand struggle had been waged and that the murderer was, perhaps, fatally wounded. Now, another conclusion stands, proved infallibly by this Reichert test. The murderer was wounded, but not badly. That person even went out of the room and returned later, probably with a can of animal blood, sprinkled it about to give the appearance of a struggle, perhaps thought of preparing in this way a plea of self-defence. If that latter was the case, this Reichert test completely destroys it, clever though it was." No one spoke, but the same thought was openly in all our minds. Who was this wounded criminal? I asked myself the usual query of the lawyers and the detectives--Who would benefit most by the death of Pitts? There was but one answer, apparently, to that. It was Minna Pitts. Yet it was difficult for me to believe that a woman of her ordinary gentleness could be here to-night, faced even by so great exposure, yet be so solicitous for him as she had been and then at the same time be plotting against him. I gave it up, determining to let Kennedy unravel it in his own way. Craig evidently had the same thought in his mind, however, for he continued: "Was it a woman who killed the chef? No, for the third specimen of blood, that of the white person, was the blood of a man; not of a woman." Pitts had been following closely, his unnatural eyes now gleaming. "You said he was wounded, you remember," he interrupted, as if casting about in his mind to recall some one who bore a recent wound. "Perhaps it was not a bad wound, but it was a wound nevertheless, and some one must have seen it, must know about it. It is not three days." Kennedy shook his head. It was a point that had bothered him a great deal. "As to the wounds," he added in a measured tone "although this occurred scarcely three days ago, there is no person even remotely suspected of the crime who can be said to bear on his hands or face others than old scars of wounds." He paused. Then he shot out in quick staccato, "Did you ever hear of Dr. Carrel's most recent discovery of accelerating the healing of wounds so that those which under ordinary circumstances might take ten days to heal might be healed in twenty-four hours?" Rapidly, now, he sketched the theory. "If the factors that bring about the multiplication of cells and the growth of tissues were discovered, Dr. Carrel said to himself, it would perhaps become possible to hasten artificially the process of repair of the body. Aseptic wounds could probably be made to cicatrise more rapidly. If the rate of reparation of tissue were hastened only ten times, a skin wound would heal in less than twenty-four hours and a fracture of the leg in four or five days. "For five years Dr. Carrel has been studying the subject, applying various extracts to wounded tissues. All of them increased the growth of connective tissue, but the degree of acceleration varied greatly. In some cases it was as high, as forty times the normal. Dr. Carrel's dream of ten times the normal was exceeded by himself." Astounded as we were by this revelation, Kennedy did not seem to consider it as important as one that he was now hastening to show us. He took a few cubic centimetres of some culture which he had been preparing, placed it in a tube, and poured in eight or ten drops of sulphuric acid. He shook it. "I have here a culture from some of the food that I found was being or had been prepared for Mr. Pitts. It was in the icebox." Then he took another tube. "This," he remarked, "is a one-to-one-thousand solution of sodium nitrite." He held it up carefully and poured three or four cubic centimetres of it into the first tube so that it ran carefully down the side in a manner such as to form a sharp line of contact between the heavier culture with the acid and the lighter nitrite solution. "You see," he said, "the reaction is very clear cut if you do it this way. The ordinary method in the laboratory and the text-books is crude and uncertain." "What is it?" asked Pitts eagerly, leaning forward with unwonted strength and noting the pink colour that appeared at the junction of the two liquids, contrasting sharply with the portions above and below. "The ring or contact test for indol," Kennedy replied, with evident satisfaction. "When the acid and the nitrites are mixed the colour reaction is unsatisfactory. The natural yellow tint masks that pink tint, or sometimes causes it to disappear, if the tube is shaken. But this is simple, clear, delicate--unescapable. There was indol in that food of yours, Mr. Pitts." "Indol?" repeated Pitts. "Is," explained Kennedy, "a chemical compound--one of the toxins secreted by intestinal bacteria and responsible for many of the symptoms of senility. It used to be thought that large doses of indol might be consumed with little or no effect on normal man, but now we know that headache, insomnia, confusion, irritability, decreased activity of the cells, and intoxication are possible from it. Comparatively small doses over a long time produce changes in organs that lead to serious results. "It is," went on Kennedy, as the full horror of the thing sank into our minds, "the indol-and phenol-producing bacteria which are the undesirable citizens of the body, while the lactic-acid producing germs check the production of indol and phenol. In my tests here to-day, I injected four one-hundredths of a grain of indol into a guinea-pig. The animal had sclerosis or hardening of the aorta. The liver, kidneys, and supra-renals were affected, and there was a hardening of the brain. In short, there were all the symptoms of old age." We sat aghast. Indol! What black magic was this? Who put it in the food? "It is present," continued Craig, "in much larger quantities than all the Metchnikoff germs could neutralise. What the chef was ordered to put into the food to benefit you, Mr. Pitts, was rendered valueless, and a deadly poison was added by what another--" Minna Pitts had been clutching for support at the arms of her chair as Kennedy proceeded. She now threw herself at the feet of Emery Pitts. "Forgive me," she sobbed. "I can stand it no longer. I had tried to keep this thing about Thornton from you. I have tried to make you happy and well--oh--tried so hard, so faithfully. Yet that old skeleton of my past which I thought was buried would not stay buried. I have bought Thornton off again and again, with money--my money--only to find him threatening again. But about this other thing, this poison, I am as innocent, and I believe Thornton is as--" Craig laid a gentle hand on her lips. She rose wildly and faced him in passionate appeal. "Who--who is this Thornton?" demanded Emery Pitts. Quickly, delicately, sparing her as much as he could, Craig hurried over our experiences. "He is in the next room," Craig went on, then facing Pitts added: "With you alive, Emery Pitts, this blackmail of your wife might have gone on, although there was always the danger that you might hear of it--and do as I see you have already done--forgive, and plan to right the unfortunate mistake. But with you dead, this Thornton, or rather some one using him, might take away from Minna Pitts her whole interest in your estate, at a word. The law, or your heirs at law, would never forgive as you would." Pitts, long poisoned by the subtle microbic poison, stared at Kennedy as if dazed. "Who was caught in your kitchen, Mr. Pitts, and, to escape detection, killed your faithful chef and covered his own traces so cleverly?" rapped out Kennedy. "Who would have known the new process of healing wounds? Who knew about the fatal properties of indol? Who was willing to forego a one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize in order to gain a fortune of many hundreds of thousands?" Kennedy paused, then finished with irresistibly dramatic logic; "Who else but the man who held the secret of Minna Pitts's past and power over her future so long as he could keep alive the unfortunate Thornton--the up-to-date doctor who substituted an elixir of death at night for the elixir of life prescribed for you by him in the daytime--Dr. Lord." Kennedy had moved quietly toward the door. It was unnecessary. Dr. Lord was cornered and knew it. He made no fight. In fact, instantly his keen mind was busy outlining his battle in court, relying on the conflicting testimony of hired experts. "Minna," murmured Pitts, falling back, exhausted by the excitement, on his pillows, "Minna--forgive? What is there to forgive? The only thing to do is to correct. I shall be well--soon now--my dear. Then all will be straightened out." "Walter," whispered Kennedy to me, "while we are waiting, you can arrange to have Thornton cared for at Dr. Hodge's Sanitarium." He handed me a card with the directions where to take the unfortunate man. When at last I had Thornton placed where no one else could do any harm through him, I hastened back to the laboratory. Craig was still there, waiting alone. "That Dr. Lord will be a tough customer," he remarked. "Of course you're not interested in what happens in a case after we have caught the criminal. But that often is really only the beginning of the fight. We've got him safely lodged in the Tombs now, however." "I wish there was some elixir for fatigue," I remarked, as we closed the laboratory that night. "There is," he replied. "A homeopathic remedy--more fatigue." We started on our usual brisk roundabout walk to the apartment. But instead of going to bed, Kennedy drew a book from the bookcase. "I shall read myself to sleep to-night," he explained, settling deeply in his chair. As for me, I went directly to my room, planning that to-morrow I would take several hours off and catch up in my notes. That morning Kennedy was summoned downtown and had to interrupt more important duties in order to appear before Dr. Leslie in the coroner's inquest over the death of the chef. Dr. Lord was held for the Grand Jury, but it was not until nearly noon that Craig returned. We were just about to go out to luncheon, when the door buzzer sounded. "A note for Mr. Kennedy," announced a man in a police uniform, with a blue anchor edged with white on his coat sleeve. Craig tore open the envelope quickly with his forefinger. Headed "Harbour Police, Station No. 3, Staten Island," was an urgent message from our old friend Deputy Commissioner O'Connor. "I have taken personal charge of a case here that is sufficiently out of the ordinary to interest you," I read when Kennedy tossed the note over to me and nodded to the man from the harbour squad to wait for us. "The Curtis family wish to retain a private detective to work in conjunction with the police in investigating the death of Bertha Curtis, whose body was found this morning in the waters of Kill van Kull." Kennedy and I lost no time in starting downtown with the policeman who had brought the note. The Curtises, as we knew, were among the prominent families of Manhattan and I recalled having heard that at one time Bertha Curtis had been an actress, in spite of the means and social position of her family, from whom she had become estranged as a result. At the station of the harbour police, O'Connor and another man, who was in a state of extreme excitement, greeted us almost before we had landed. "There have been some queer doings about here," exclaimed the deputy as he grasped Kennedy's hand, "but first of all let me introduce Mr. Walker Curtis." In a lower tone as we walked up the dock O'Connor continued, "He is the brother of the girl whose body the men in the launch at the station found in the Kill this morning. They thought at first that the girl had committed suicide, making it doubly sure by jumping into the water, but he will not believe it and,--well, if you'll just come over with us to the local undertaking establishment, I'd like to have you take a look at the body and see if your opinion coincides with mine. "Ordinarily," pursued O'Connor, "there isn't much romance in harbour police work nowadays, but in this case some other elements seem to be present which are not usually associated with violent deaths in the waters of the bay, and I have, as you will see, thought it necessary to take personal charge of the investigation. "Now, to shorten the story as much as possible, Kennedy, you know of course that the legislature at the last session enacted laws prohibiting the sale of such drugs as opium, morphine, cocaine, chloral and others, under much heavier penalties than before. The Health authorities not long ago reported to us that dope was being sold almost openly, without orders from physicians, at several scores of places and we have begun a crusade for the enforcement of the law. Of course you know how prohibition works in many places and how the law is beaten. The dope fiends seem to be doing the same thing with this law. "Of course nowadays everybody talks about a 'system' controlling everything, so I suppose people would say that there is a 'dope trust.' At any rate we have run up against at least a number of places that seem to be banded together in some way, from the lowest down in Chinatown to one very swell joint uptown around what the newspapers are calling 'Crime Square.' It is not that this place is pandering to criminals or the women of the Tenderloin that interests us so much as that its patrons are men and women of fashionable society whose jangled nerves seem to demand a strong narcotic. "This particular place seems to be a headquarters for obtaining them, especially opium and its derivatives. "One of the frequenters of the place was this unfortunate girl, Bertha Curtis. I have watched her go in and out myself, wild-eyed, nervous, mentally and physically wrecked for life. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty persons visit the place each day. It is run by a man known as 'Big Jack' Clendenin who was once an actor and, I believe, met and fascinated Miss Curtis during her brief career on the stage. He has an attendant there, a Jap, named Nichi Moto, who is a perfect enigma. I can't understand him on any reasonable theory. A long time ago we raided the place and packed up a lot of opium, pipes, material and other stuff. We found Clendenin there, this girl, several others, and the Jap. I never understood just how it was but somehow Clendenin got off with a nominal fine and a few days later opened up again. We were watching the place, getting ready to raid it again and present such evidence that Clendenin couldn't possibly beat it, when all of a sudden along came this--this tragedy." We had at last arrived at the private establishment which was doing duty as a morgue. The bedraggled form that had been bandied about by the tides all night lay covered up in the cold damp basement. Bertha Curtis had been a girl of striking beauty once. For a long time I gazed at the swollen features before I realised what it was that fascinated and puzzled me about her. Kennedy, however, after a casual glance had arrived at at least a part of her story. "That girl," he whispered to me so that her brother could not hear, "has led a pretty fast life. Look at those nails, yellow and dark. It isn't a weak face, either. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing, the Oriental glamour and all that, fascinated her as much as the drug." So far the case with its heartrending tragedy had all the earmarks of suicide. XI THE OPIUM JOINT O'Connor drew back the sheet which covered her and in the calf of the leg disclosed an ugly bullet hole. Ugly as it was, however, it was anything but dangerous and seemed to indicate nothing as to the real cause of her death. He drew from his pocket a slightly misshapen bullet which had been probed from the wound and handed it to Kennedy, who examined both the wound and the bullet carefully. It seemed to be an ordinary bullet except that in the pointed end were three or four little round, very shallow wells or depressions only the minutest fraction of an inch deep. "Very extraordinary," he remarked slowly. "No, I don't think this was a case of suicide. Nor was it a murder for money, else the jewels would have been taken." O'Connor looked approvingly at me. "Exactly what I said," he exclaimed. "She was dead before her body was thrown into the water." "No, I don't agree with you there," corrected Craig, continuing his examination of the body. "And yet it is not a case of drowning exactly, either." "Strangled?" suggested O'Connor. "By some jiu jitsu trick?" I put in, mindful of the queer-acting Jap at Clendenin's. Kennedy shook his head. "Perhaps the shock of the bullet wound rendered her unconscious and in that state she was thrown in," ventured Walker Curtis, apparently much relieved that Kennedy coincided with O'Connor in disagreeing with the harbour police as to the suicide theory. Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and looked at the bullet again. "It is very extraordinary," was all he replied. "I think you said a few moments ago, O'Connor, that there had been some queer doings about here. What did you mean?" "Well, as I said, the work of the harbour squad isn't ordinarily very remarkable. Harbour pirates aren't murderous as a rule any more. For the most part they are plain sneak thieves or bogus junk dealers who work with dishonest pier watchmen and crooked canal boat captains and lighter hands. "But in this instance," continued the deputy, his face knitting at the thought that he had to confess another mystery to which he had no solution, "it is something quite different. You know that all along the shore on this side of the island are old, dilapidated and, some of them, deserted houses. For several days the residents of the neighbourhood have been complaining of strange occurrences about one place in particular which was the home of a wealthy family in a past generation. It is about a mile from here, facing the road along the shore, and has in front of it and across the road the remains of an old dock sticking out a few feet into the water at high tide. "Now, as nearly as any one can get the story, there seems to have been a mysterious, phantom boat, very swift, without lights, and with an engine carefully muffled down which has been coming up to the old dock for the past few nights when the tide was high enough. A light has been seen moving on the dock, then suddenly extinguished, only to reappear again. Who carried it and why, no one knows. Any one who has tried to approach the place has had a scare thrown into him which he will not easily forget. For instance, one man crept up and though he did not think he was seen he was suddenly shot at from behind a tree. He felt the bullet pierce his arm, started to run, stumbled, and next morning woke up in the exact spot on which he had fallen, none the worse for his experience except that he had a slight wound that will prevent his using his right arm for some time for heavy work. "After each visit of the phantom boat there is heard, according to the story of the few neighbours who have observed it, the tramp of feet up the overgrown stone walk from the dock and some have said that they heard an automobile as silent and ghostly as the boat. We have been all through the weird old house, but have found nothing there, except enough loose boards and shutters to account for almost any noise or combination of noises. However, no one has said there was anything there except the tramp of feet going back and forth on the old pavements outside. Two or three times shots have been heard, and on the dock where most of the alleged mysterious doings have taken place we have found one very new exploded shell of a cartridge." Craig took the shell which O'Connor drew from another pocket and trying to fit the bullet and the cartridge together remarked "both from a .44, probably one of those old-fashioned, long-barrelled makes." "There," concluded O'Connor ruefully, "you know all we know of the thing so far." "I may keep these for the present?" inquired Kennedy, preparing to pocket the shell and the bullet, and from his very manner I could see that as a matter of fact he already knew a great deal more about the case than the police. "Take us down to this old house and dock, if you please." Over and over, Craig paced up and down the dilapidated dock, his keen eyes fastened to the ground, seeking some clue, anything that would point to the marauders. Real persons they certainly were, and not any ghostly crew of the bygone days of harbour pirates, for there was every evidence of some one who had gone up and down the walk recently, not once but many times. Suddenly Kennedy stumbled over what looked like a sardine tin can, except that it had no label or trace of one. It was lying in the thick long matted grass by the side of the walk as if it had tumbled there and had been left unnoticed. Yet there was nothing so very remarkable about it in itself. Tin cans were lying all about, those marks of decadent civilisation. But to Craig it had instantly presented an idea. It was a new can. The others were rusted. He had pried off the lid and inside was a blackish, viscous mass. "Smoking opium," Craig said at last. We retraced our steps pondering on the significance of the discovery. O'Connor had had men out endeavouring all day to get a clue to the motor car that had been mentioned in some of the accounts given by the natives. So far the best he had been able to find was a report of a large red touring car which crossed from New York on a late ferry. In it were a man and a girl as well as a chauffeur who wore goggles and a cap pulled down over his head so that he was practically unrecognisable. The girl might have been Miss Curtis and, as for the man, it might have been Clendenin. No one had bothered much with them; no one had taken their number; no one had paid any attention where they went after the ferry landed. In fact, there would have been no significance to the report if it had not been learned that early in the morning on the first ferry from the lower end of the island to New Jersey a large red touring car answering about the same description had crossed, with a single man and driver but no woman. "I should like to watch here with you to-night, O'Connor," said Craig as we parted. "Meet us here. In the meantime I shall call on Jameson with his well-known newspaper connections in the white light district," here he gave me a half facetious wink, "to see what he can do toward getting me admitted to this gilded palace of dope up there on Forty-fourth Street." After no little trouble Kennedy and I discovered our "hop joint" and were admitted by Nichi Moto, of whom we had heard. Kennedy gave me a final injunction to watch, but to be very careful not to seem to watch. Nichi Moto with an eye to business and not to our absorbing more than enough to whet our descriptive powers quickly conducted us into a large room where, on single bamboo couches or bunks, rather tastefully made, perhaps half a dozen habitues lay stretched at full length smoking their pipes in peace, or preparing them in great expectation from the implements on the trays before them. Kennedy relieved me of the responsibility of cooking the opium by doing it for both of us and, incidentally, dropping a hint not to inhale it and to breathe as little of it as possible. Even then it made me feel badly, though he must have contrived in some way to get even less of the stuff than I. A couple of pipes, and Kennedy beckoned to Nichi. "Where is Mr. Clendenin?" he asked familiarly. "I haven't seen him yet." The Japanese smiled his engaging smile. "Not know," was all he said, and yet I knew the fellow at least knew better English, if not more facts. Kennedy had about started on our faking a third "pipe" when a new, unexpected arrival beckoned excitedly to Nichi. I could not catch all that was said but two words that I did catch were "the boss" and "hop toy," the latter the word for opium. No sooner had the man disappeared without joining the smokers than Nichi seemed to grow very restless and anxious. Evidently he had received orders to do something. He seemed anxious to close the place and get away. I thought that some one might have given a tip that the place was to be raided, but Kennedy, who had been closer, had overheard more than I had and among other things he had caught the word, "meet him at the same place." It was not long before we were all politely hustled out. "At least we know this," commented Kennedy, as I congratulated myself on our fortunate escape, "Clendenin was not there, and there is something doing to-night, for he has sent for Nichi." We dropped into our apartment to freshen up a bit against the long vigil that we knew was coming that night. To our surprise Walker Curtis had left a message that he wished to see Kennedy immediately and alone, and although I was not present I give the substance of what he said. It seemed that he had not wished to tell O'Connor for fear that it would get into the papers and cause an even greater scandal, but it had come to his knowledge a few days before the tragedy that his sister was determined to marry a very wealthy Chinese merchant, an importer of tea, named Chin Jung. Whether or not this had any bearing on the case he did not know. He thought it had, because for a long time, both when she was on the stage and later, Clendenin had had a great influence over her and had watched with a jealous eye the advances of every one else. Curtis was especially bitter against Clendenin. As Kennedy related the conversation to me on our way over to Staten Island I tried to piece the thing together, but like one of the famous Chinese puzzles, it would not come out. I had to admit the possibility that it was Clendenin who might have quarrelled over her attachment to Chin Jung, even though I have never yet been able to understand what the fascination is that some Orientals have over certain American girls. All that night we watched patiently from a vantage point of an old shed near both the house and the decayed pier. It was weird in the extreme, especially as we had no idea what might happen if we had success and saw something. But there was no reward for our patience. Absolutely nothing happened. It was as though they knew, whoever they were, that we were there. During the hours that passed O'Connor whiled away the time in a subdued whisper now and then in telling us of his experiences in Chinatown which he was now engaged in trying to clean up. From Chinatown, its dens, its gamblers and its tongs we drifted to the legitimate business interests there, and I, at least, was surprised to find that there were some of the merchants for whom even O'Connor had a great deal of respect. Kennedy evidently did not wish to violate in any way the confidence of Walker Curtis, and mention of the name of Chin Jung, but by a judicious question as to who the best men were in the Celestial settlement he did get a list of half a dozen or so from O'Connor. Chin Jung was well up in the list. However, the night wore away and still nothing happened. It was in the middle of the morning when we were taking a snatch of sleep in our own rooms uptown that the telephone began to ring insistently. Kennedy, who was resting, I verily believe, merely out of consideration for my own human frailties, was at the receiver in an instant. It proved to be O'Connor. He had just gone back to his office at headquarters and there he had found a report of another murder. "Who is it?" asked Kennedy, "and why do you connect it with this case?" O'Connor's answer must have been a poser, judging from the look of surprise on Craig's face. "The Jap--Nichi Moto?" he repeated. "And it is the same sort of non-fatal wound, the same evidence of asphyxia, the same circumstances, even down to the red car reported by residents in the neighbourhood." Nothing further happened that day except this thickening of the plot by the murder of the peculiar-acting Nichi. We saw his body and it was as O'Connor said. "That fellow wasn't on the level toward Clendenin," Craig mused after we had viewed the second murder in the case. "The question is, who and what was he working for?" There was as yet no hint of answer, and our only plan was to watch again that night. This time O'Connor, not knowing where the lightning would strike next, took Craig's suggestion and we determined to spend the time cruising about in the fastest of the police motor boats, while the force of watchers along the entire shore front of the city was quietly augmented and ordered to be extra vigilant. O'Connor at the last moment had to withdraw and let us go alone, for the worst, and not the unexpected, happened in his effort to clean up Chinatown. The war between the old rivals, the Hep Sing Tong and the On Leong Tong, those ancient societies of troublemakers in the little district, had broken out afresh during the day and three Orientals had been killed already. It is not a particularly pleasant occupation cruising aimlessly up and down the harbour in a fifty-foot police boat, staunch and fast as she may be. Every hour we called at a police post to report and to keep in touch with anything that might interest us. It came at about two o'clock in the morning and of all places, near the Battery itself. From the front of a ferry boat that ran far down on the Brooklyn side, what looked like two flashlights gleamed out over the water once, then twice. "Headlights of an automobile," remarked Craig, scarcely taking more notice of it, for they might have simply been turned up and down twice by a late returning traveller to test them. We were ourselves near the Brooklyn shore. Imagine our surprise to see an answering light from a small boat in the river which was otherwise lightless. We promptly put out our own lights and with every cylinder working made for the spot where the light had flashed up on the river. There was something there all right and we went for it. On we raced after the strange craft, the phantom that had scared Staten Island. For a mile or so we seemed to be gaining, but one of our cylinders began to miss--the boat turned sharply around a bend in the shore. We had to give it up as well as trying to overtake the ferry boat going in the opposite direction. Kennedy's equanimity in our apparent defeat surprised me. "Oh, it's nothing, Walter," he said. "They slipped away to-night, but I have found the clue. To-morrow as soon as the Customs House is open you will understand. It all centres about opium." At least a large part of the secret was cleared, too, as a result of Kennedy's visit to the Customs House. After years of fighting with the opium ring on the Pacific coast, the ring had tried to "put one over" on the revenue officers and smuggle the drug in through New York. It did not take long to find the right man among the revenue officers to talk with. Nor was Kennedy surprised to learn that Nichi Moto had been in fact a Japanese detective, a sort of stool pigeon in Clendenin's establishment working to keep the government in touch with the latest scheme. The finding of the can of opium on the scene of the murder of Bertha Curtis, and the chase after the lightless motor boat had at last placed Kennedy on the right track. With one of the revenue officers we made a quick trip to Brooklyn and spent the morning inspecting the ships from South American ports docked in the neighbourhood where the phantom boat had disappeared. From ship to ship we journeyed until at last we came to one on which, down in the chain locker, we found a false floor with a locker under that. There was a compartment six feet square and in it lay, neatly packed, fourteen large hermetically sealed cylinders, each full of the little oblong tins such as Kennedy had picked up the other day--forty thousand dollars' worth of the stuff at one haul, to say nothing of the thousands that had already been landed at one place or another. It had been a good day's work, but as yet it had not caught the slayer or cleared up the mystery of Bertha Curtis. Some one or something had had a power over the girl to lure her on. Was it Clendenin? The place in Forty-fourth Street, on inquiry, proved to be really closed as tight as a drum. Where was he? All the deaths had been mysterious, were still mysterious. Bertha Curtis had carried her secret with her to the grave to which she had been borne, willingly it seemed, in the red car with the unknown companion and the goggled chauffeur. I found myself still asking what possible connection she could have with smuggling opium. Kennedy, however, was indulging in no such speculations. It was enough for him that the scene had suddenly shifted and in a most unexpected manner. I found him voraciously reading practically everything that was being printed in the papers about the revival of the tong war. "They say much about the war, but little about the cause," was his dry comment. "I wish I could make up my mind whether it is due to the closing of the joints by O'Connor, or the belief that one tong is informing on the other about opium smuggling." Kennedy passed over all the picturesque features in the newspapers, and from it all picked out the one point that was most important for the case which he was working to clear up. One tong used revolvers of a certain make; the other of a different make. The bullet which had killed Bertha Curtis and later Nichi Moto was from a pistol like that of the Hep Sings. The difference in the makes of guns seemed at once to suggest something to Kennedy and instead of mixing actively in the war of the highbinders he retired to his unfailing laboratory, leaving me to pass the time gathering such information as I could. Once I dropped in on him but found him unsociably surrounded by microscopes and a very sensitive arrangement for taking microphotographs. Some of his negatives were nearly a foot in diameter, and might have been, for all I knew, pictures of the surface of the moon. While I was there O'Connor came in. Craig questioned him about the war of the tongs. "Why," O'Connor cried, almost bubbling over with satisfaction, "this afternoon I was waited on by Chin Jung, you remember?--one of the leading merchants down there. Of course you know that Chinatown doesn't believe in hurting business and it seems that he and some of the others like him are afraid that if the tong war is not hushed up pretty soon it will cost a lot--in money. They are going to have an anniversary of the founding of the Chinese republic soon and of the Chinese New Year and they are afraid that if the war doesn't stop they'll be ruined." "Which tong does he belong to?" asked Kennedy, still scrutinising a photograph through his lens. "Neither," replied O'Connor. "With his aid and that of a Judge of one of our courts who knows the Chinaman like a book we have had a conference this afternoon between the two tongs and the truce is restored again for two weeks." "Very good," answered Kennedy, "but it doesn't catch the murderer of Bertha Curtis and the Jap. Where is Clendenin, do you suppose?" "I don't know, but it at least leaves me free to carry on that case. What are all these pictures?" "Well," began Kennedy, taking his glass from his eye and wiping it carefully, "a Paris crime specialist has formulated a system for identifying revolver bullets which is very like that of Dr. Bertillon for identifying human beings." He picked up a handful of the greatly enlarged photographs. "These are photographs of bullets which he has sent me. The barrel of every gun leaves marks on the bullet that are always the same for the same barrel but never identical for two different barrels. In these big negatives every detail appears very distinctly and it can be decided with absolute certainty whether a given bullet was fired from a given revolver. Now, using this same method, I have made similar greatly enlarged photographs of the two bullets that have figured so far in this case. The bullet that killed Miss Curtis shows the same marks as that which killed Nichi." He picked up another bunch of prints. "Now," he continued, "taking up the firing pin of a rifle or the hammer of a revolver, you may not know it but they are different in every case. Even among the same makes they are different, and can be detected. "The cartridge in either a gun or revolver is struck at a point which is never in the exact centre or edge, as the case may be, but is always the same for the same weapon. Now the end of the hammer when examined with the microscope bears certain irregularities of marking different from those of every other gun and the shell fired in it is impressed with the particular markings of that hammer, just as paper is by type. On making microphotographs of firing pins or hammers, with special reference to the rounded ends and also photographs of the corresponding rounded depressions in the primers fired by them it is forced on any one that cartridges fired by each individual rifle or pistol can positively be identified. "You will see on the edge of the photographs I have made a rough sketch calling attention to the 'L'-shaped mark which is the chief characteristic of this hammer, although there are other detailed markings which show well under the microscope but not well in a photograph. You will notice that the characters on the firing hammer are reversed on the cartridge in the same way that a metal type and the character printed by it are reversed as regards one another. Again, depressions on the end of the hammer become raised characters on the cartridge, and raised characters on the hammer become depressions on the cartridge. "Look at some of these old photographs and you will see that they differ from this. They lack the 'L' mark. Some have circles, others a very different series of pits and elevations, a set of characters when examined and measured under the microscope utterly different from those in every other case. Each is unique, in its pits, lines, circles and irregularities. The laws of chance are as much against two of them having the same markings as they are against the thumb prints of two human subjects being identical. The firing-pin theory, which was used in a famous case in Maine, is just as infallible as the finger-print theory. In this case when we find the owner of the gun making an 'L' mark we shall have the murderer." Something, I could see, was working on O'Connor's mind. "That's all right," he interjected, "but you know in neither case was the victim shot to death. They were asphyxiated." "I was coming to that," rejoined Craig. "You recall the peculiar marking on the nose of those bullets? They were what is known as narcotic bullets, an invention of a Pittsburg scientist. They have the property of lulling their victims to almost instant slumber. A slight scratch from these sleep-producing bullets is all that is necessary, as it was in the case of the man who spied on the queer doings on Staten Island. The drug, usually morphia, is carried in tiny wells on the cap of the bullet, is absorbed by the system and acts almost instantly." The door burst open and Walker Curtis strode in excitedly. He seemed surprised to see us all there, hesitated, then motioned to Kennedy that he wished to see him. For a few moments they talked and finally I caught the remark from Kennedy, "But, Mr. Curtis, I must do it. It is the only way." Curtis gave a resigned nod and Kennedy turned to us. "Gentlemen," he said, "Mr. Curtis in going over the effects of his sister has found a note from Clendenin which mentions another opium joint down in Chinatown. He wished me to investigate privately, but I have told him it would be impossible." At the mention of a den in the district he was cleaning up O'Connor had pricked up his ears. "Where is it?" he demanded. Curtis mentioned a number on Dover Street. "The Amoy restaurant," ejaculated O'Connor, seizing the telephone. A moment later he was arranging with the captain at the Elizabeth Street station for the warrants for an instant raid. XII THE "DOPE TRUST" As we hurried into Chinatown from Chatham Square we could see that the district was celebrating its holidays with long ropes of firecrackers, and was feasting to reed discords from the pipes of its most famous musicians, and was gay with the hanging out of many sunflags, red with an eighteen-rayed white sun in the blue union. Both the new tong truce and the anniversary were more than cause for rejoicing. Hurried though it was, the raid on the Hep Sing joint had been carefully prepared by O'Connor. The house we were after was one of the oldest of the rookeries, with a gaudy restaurant on the second floor, a curio shop on the street level, while in the basement all that was visible was a view of a huge and orderly pile of tea chests. A moment before the windows of the dwellings above the restaurant had been full of people. All had faded away even before the axes began to swing on the basement door which had the appearance of a storeroom for the shop above. The flimsy outside door went down quickly. But it was only a blind. Another door greeted the raiders. The axes swung noisily and the crowbars tore at the fortified, iron-clad, "ice box" door inside. After breaking it down they had to claw their way through another just like it. The thick doors and tea chests piled up showed why no sounds of gambling and other practices ever were heard outside. Pushing aside a curtain we were in the main room. The scene was one of confusion showing the hasty departure of the occupants. Kennedy did not stop here. Within was still another room, for smokers, anything but like the fashionable place we had seen uptown. It was low, common, disgusting. The odour everywhere was offensive; everywhere was filth that should naturally breed disease. It was an inferno reeking with unwholesome sweat and still obscured with dense fumes of smoke. Three tiers of bunks of hardwood were built along the walls. There was no glamour here; all was sordid. Several Chinamen in various stages of dazed indolence were jabbering in incoherent oblivion, a state I suppose of "Oriental calm." There, in a bunk, lay Clendenin. His slow and uncertain breathing told of his being under the influence of the drug, and he lay on his back beside a "layout" with a half-cooked pill still in the bowl of his pipe. The question was to wake him up. Craig began slapping him with a wet towel, directing us how to keep him roused. We walked him about, up and down, dazed, less than half sensible, dreaming, muttering, raving. A hasty exclamation from O'Connor followed as he drew from the scant cushions of the bunk a long-barreled pistol, a .44 such as the tong leaders used, the same make as had shot Bertha Curtis and Nichi. Craig seized it and stuck it into his pocket. All the gamblers had fled, all except those too drugged to escape. Where they had gone was indicated by a door leading up to the kitchen of the restaurant. Craig did not stop but leaped upstairs and then down again into a little back court by means of a fire-escape. Through a sort of short alley we groped our way, or rather through an intricate maze of alleys and a labyrinth of blind recesses. We were apparently back of a store on Pell Street. It was the work of only a moment to go through another door and into another room, filled with smoky, dirty, unpleasant, fetid air. This room, too, seemed to be piled with tea chests. Craig opened one. There lay piles and piles of opium tins, a veritable fortune in the drug. Mysterious pots and pans, strainers, wooden vessels, and testing instruments were about. The odour of opium in the manufacture was unmistakable, for smoking opium is different from the medicinal drug. There it appeared the supplies of thousands of smokers all over the country were stored and prepared. In a corner a mass of the finished product lay weltering in a basin like treacle. In another corner was the apparatus for remaking yen-shee or once-smoked opium. This I felt was at last the home of the "dope trust," as O'Connor had once called it, the secret realm of a real opium king, the American end of the rich Shanghai syndicate. A door opened and there stood a Chinaman, stoical, secretive, indifferent, with all the Oriental cunning and cruelty hall-marked on his face. Yet there was a fascination and air of Eastern culture about him in spite of that strange and typical Oriental depth of intrigue and cunning that shone through, great characteristics of the East. No one said a word as Kennedy continued to ransack the place. At last under a rubbish heap he found a revolver wrapped up loosely in an old sweater. Quickly, under the bright light, Craig drew Clendenin's pistol, fitted a cartridge into it and fired at the wall. Again into the second gun he fitted another and a second shot rang out. Out of his pocket came next the small magnifying glass and two unmounted microphotographs. He bent down over the exploded shells. "There it is," cried Craig scarcely able to restrain himself with the keenness of his chase, "there it is--the mark like an 'L.' This cartridge bears the one mark, distinct, not possible to have been made by any other pistol in the world. None of the Hep Sings, all with the same make of weapons, none of the gunmen in their employ, could duplicate that mark." "Some bullets," reported a policeman who had been rummaging further in the rubbish. "Be careful, man," cautioned Craig. "They are doped. Lay them down. Yes, this is the same gun that fired the shot at Bertha Curtis and Nichi Moto--fired narcotic bullets in order to stop any one who interfered with the opium smuggling, without killing the victim." "What's the matter?" asked O'Connor, arriving breathless from the gambling room after hearing the shots. The Chinaman stood, still silent, impassive. At sight of him O'Connor gasped out, "Chin Jung!" "Real tong leader," added Craig, "and the murderer of the white girl to whom he was engaged. This is the goggled chauffeur of the red car that met the smuggling boat, and in which Bertha Curtis rode, unsuspecting, to her death." "And Clendenin?" asked Walker Curtis, not comprehending. "A tool--poor wretch. So keen had the hunt for him become that he had to hide in the only safe place, with the coolies of his employer. He must have been in such abject terror that he has almost smoked himself to death." "But why should the Chinaman shoot my sister?" asked Walker Curtis amazed at the turn of events. "Your sister," replied Craig, almost reverently, "wrecked though she was by the drug, was at last conscience stricken when she saw the vast plot to debauch thousands of others. It was from her that the Japanese detective in the revenue service got his information--and both of them have paid the price. But they have smashed the new opium ring--we have captured the ring-leaders of the gang." Out of the maze of streets, on Chatham Square again, we lost no time in mounting to the safety of the elevated station before some murderous tong member might seek revenge on us. The celebration in Chinatown was stilled. It was as though the nerves of the place had been paralysed by our sudden, sharp blow. A downtown train took me to the office to write a "beat," for the Star always made a special feature of the picturesque in Chinatown news. Kennedy went uptown. Except for a few moments in the morning, I did not see Kennedy again until the following afternoon, for the tong war proved to be such an interesting feature that I had to help lay out and direct the assignments covering its various details. I managed to get away again as soon as possible, however, for I knew that it would not be long before some one else in trouble would commandeer Kennedy to untangle a mystery, and I wanted to be on the spot when it started. Sure enough, it turned out that I was right. Seated with him in our living room, when I came in from my hasty journey uptown in the subway, was a man, tall, thick-set, with a crop of closely curling dark hair, a sharp, pointed nose, ferret eyes, and a reddish moustache, curled at the ends. I had no difficulty in deciding what he was, if not who he was. He was the typical detective who, for the very reason that he looked the part, destroyed much of his own usefulness. "We have lost so much lately at Trimble's," he was saying, "that it is long past the stage of being merely interesting. It is downright serious--for me, at least. I've got to make good or lose my job. And I'm up against one of the cleverest shoplifters that ever entered a department-store, apparently. Only Heaven knows how much she has got away with in various departments so far, but when it comes to lifting valuable things like pieces of jewelry which run into the thousands, that is too much." At the mention of the name of the big Trimble store I had recognised at once what the man was, and it did not need Kennedy's rapid-fire introduction of Michael Donnelly to tell me that he was a department store detective. "Have you no clue, no suspicions?" inquired Kennedy. "Well, yes, suspicions," measured Donnelly slowly. "For instance, one day not long ago a beautifully dressed and refined-looking woman called at the jewellery department and asked to see a diamond necklace which we had just imported from Paris. She seemed to admire it very much, studied it, tried it on, but finally went away without making up her mind. A couple of days later she returned and asked to see it again. This time there happened to be another woman beside her who was looking at some pendants. The two fell to talking about the necklace, according to the best recollection of the clerk, and the second woman began to examine it critically. Again the prospective buyer went away. But this time after she had gone, and when he was putting the things back into the safe, the clerk examined the necklace, thinking that perhaps a flaw had been discovered in it which had decided the woman against it. It was a replica in paste; probably substituted by one of these clever and smartly dressed women for the real necklace." Before Craig had a chance to put another question, the buzzer on our door sounded, and I admitted a dapper, soft-spoken man of middle size, who might have been a travelling salesman or a bookkeeper. He pulled a card from his case and stood facing us, evidently in doubt how to proceed. "Professor Kennedy?" he asked at length, balancing the pasteboard between his fingers. "Yes," answered Craig. "What can I do for you?" "I am from Shorham, the Fifth Avenue jeweller, you know," he began brusquely, as he handed the card to Kennedy. "I thought I'd drop in to consult you about a peculiar thing that happened at the store recently, but if you are engaged, I can wait. You see, we had on exhibition a very handsome pearl dogcollar, and a few days ago two women came to--" "Say," interrupted Kennedy, glancing from the card to the face of Joseph Bentley, and then at Donnelly. "What is this--a gathering of the clans? There seems to be an epidemic of shoplifting. How much were you stung for?" "About twenty thousand altogether," replied Bentley with rueful frankness. "Why? Has some one else been victimised, too?" XIII THE KLEPTOMANIAC Quickly Kennedy outlined, with Donnelly's permission, the story we had just heard. The two store detectives saw the humour of the situation, as well as the seriousness of it, and fell to comparing notes. "The professional as well as the amateur shop-lifter has always presented to me an interesting phase of criminality," remarked Kennedy tentatively, during a lull in their mutual commiseration. "With thousands of dollars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the counters, it is really no wonder that some are tempted to reach out and take what they want." "Yes," explained Donnelly, "the shop-lifter is the department-store's greatest unsolved problem. Why, sir, she gets more plunder in a year than the burglar. She's costing the stores over two million dollars. And she is at her busiest just now with the season's shopping in full swing. It's the price the stores have to pay for displaying their goods, but we have to do it, and we are at the mercy of the thieves. I don't mean by that the occasional shoplifter who, when she gets caught, confesses, cries, pleads, and begs to return the stolen article. They often get off. It is the regulars who get the two million, those known to the police, whose pictures are, many of them, in the Rogues' Gallery, whose careers and haunts are known to every probation officer. They are getting away with loot that means for them a sumptuous living." "Of course we are not up against the same sort of swindlers that you are," put in Bentley, "but let me tell you that when the big jewelers do get up against anything of the sort they are up against it hard." "Have you any idea who it could be?" asked Kennedy, who had been following the discussion keenly. "Well, some idea," spoke up Donnelly. "From what Bentley says I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was the same person in both cases. Of course you know how rushed all the stores are just now. It is much easier for these light-fingered individuals to operate during the rush than at any other time. In the summer, for instance, there is almost no shop-lifting at all. I thought that perhaps we could discover this particular shoplifter by ordinary means, that perhaps some of the clerks in the jewellery department might be able to identify her. We found one who said that he thought he might recognise one of the women if he saw her again. Perhaps you did not know that we have our own little rogues' gallery in most of the big department-stores. But there didn't happen to be anything there that he recognised. So I took him down to Police Headquarters. Through plate after plate of pictures among the shoplifters in the regular Rogues' Gallery the clerk went. At last he came to one picture that caused him to stop. 'That is one of the women I saw in the store that day,' he said. 'I'm sure of it.'" Donnelly produced a copy of the Bertillon picture. "What?" exclaimed Bentley, as he glanced at it and then at the name and history on the back. "Annie Grayson? Why, she is known as the queen of shoplifters. She has operated from Christie's in London to the little curio-shops of San Francisco. She has worked under a dozen aliases and has the art of alibi down to perfection. Oh, I've heard of her many times before. I wonder if she really is the person we're looking for. They say that Annie Grayson has forgotten more about shoplifting than the others will ever know." "Yes," continued Donnelly, "and here's the queer part of it. The clerk was ready to swear that he had seen the woman in the store at some time or other, but whether she had been near the counter where the necklace was displayed was another matter. He wasn't so sure about that." "Then how did she get it?" I asked, much interested. "I don't say that she did get it," cautioned Donnelly. "I don't know anything about it. That is why I am here consulting Professor Kennedy." "Then who did get it, do you think?" I demanded. "We have a great deal of very conflicting testimony from the various clerks," Donnelly continued. "Among those who are known to have visited the department and to have seen the necklace is another woman, of an entirely different character, well known in the city." He glanced sharply at us, as if to impress us with what he was about to say, then he leaned over and almost whispered the name. "As nearly as I can gather out of the mass of evidence, Mrs. William Willoughby, the wife of the broker down in Wall Street, was the last person who was seen looking at the diamonds." The mere breath of such a suspicion would have been enough, without his stage-whisper method of imparting the information. I felt that it was no wonder that, having even a suspicion of this sort, he should be in doubt how to go ahead and should wish Kennedy's advice. Ella Willoughby, besides being the wife of one of the best known operators in high-class stocks and bonds, was well known in the society columns of the newspapers. She lived in Glenclair, where she was a leader of the smarter set at both the church and the country club. The group who preserved this neat balance between higher things and the world, the flesh and the devil, I knew to be a very exclusive group, which, under the calm suburban surface, led a sufficiently rapid life. Mrs. Willoughby, in addition to being a leader, was a very striking woman and a beautiful dresser, who set a fast pace for the semi-millionaires who composed the group. Here indeed was a puzzle at the very start of the case. It was in all probability Mrs. Willoughby who had looked at the jewels in both cases. On the other hand, it was Annie Grayson who had been seen on at least one occasion, yet apparently had had nothing whatever to do with the missing jewels, at least not so far as any tangible evidence yet showed. More than that, Donnelly vouchsafed the information that he had gone further and that some of the men work-ing under him had endeavoured to follow the movements of the two women and had found what looked to be a curious crossing of trails. Both of them, he had found, had been in the habit of visiting, while shopping, the same little tea-room on Thirty-third Street, though no one had ever seen them together there, and the coincidence might be accounted for by the fact that many Glenclair ladies on shopping expeditions made this tea-room a sort of rendezvous. By inquiring about among his own fraternity Donnelly had found that other stores also had reported losses recently, mostly of diamonds and pearls, both black and white. Kennedy had been pondering the situation for some time, scarcely uttering a word. Both detectives were now growing restless, waiting for him to say something. As for me, I knew that if anything were said or done it would be in Kennedy's own good time. I had learned to have implicit faith and confidence in him, for I doubt if Craig could have been placed in a situation where he would not know just what to do after he had looked over the ground. At length he leisurely reached across the table for the suburban telephone book, turned the pages quickly, snapped it shut, and observed wearily and, as it seemed, irrelevantly: "The same old trouble again about accurate testimony. I doubt whether if I should suddenly pull a revolver and shoot Jameson, either of you two men could give a strictly accurate account of just what happened." No one said anything, as he raised his hands from his habitual thinking posture with finger-tips together, placed both hands back of his head, and leaned back facing us squarely. "The first step," he said slowly, "must be to arrange a 'plant.' As nearly as I can make out the shoplifters or shoplifter, whichever it may prove to be, have no hint that any one is watching them yet. Now, Donnelly, it is still very early. I want you to telephone around to the newspapers, and either in the Trimble advertisements or in the news columns have it announced that your jewellery department has on exhibition a new and special importation of South African stones among which is one--let me see, let's call it the 'Kimberley Queen.' That will sound attractive. In the meantime find the largest and most perfect paste jewel in town and have it fixed up for exhibition and labelled the Kimberley Queen. Give it a history if you can; anything to attract attention. I'll see you in the morning. Good-night, and thank you for coming to me with this case." It was quite late, but Kennedy, now thoroughly interested in following the chase, had no intention of waiting until the morrow before taking action on his own account. In fact he was just beginning the evening's work by sending Donnelly off to arrange the "plant." No less interested in the case than himself, I needed no second invitation, and in a few minutes we were headed from our rooms toward the laboratory, where Kennedy had apparatus to meet almost any conceivable emergency. From a shelf in the corner he took down an oblong oak box, perhaps eighteen inches in length, in the front of which was set a circular metal disk with a sort of pointer and dial. He lifted the lid of the box, and inside I could see two shiny caps which in turn he lifted, disclosing what looked like two good-sized spools of wire. Apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he snapped the lid shut and wrapped up the box carefully, consigning it to my care, while he hunted some copper wire. From long experience with Kennedy I knew better than to ask what he had in mind to do. It was enough to know that he had already, in those few minutes of apparent dreaming while Donnelly and Bentley were fidgeting for words, mapped out a complete course of action. We bent our steps toward the under-river tube, which carried a few late travellers to the railroad terminal where Kennedy purchased tickets for Glenclair. I noticed that the conductor on the suburban train eyed us rather suspiciously as though the mere fact that we were not travelling with commutation tickets at such an hour constituted an offence. Although I did not yet know the precise nature of our adventure, I remembered with some misgiving that I had read of police dogs in Glenclair which were uncomfortably familiar with strangers carrying bundles. However, we got along all right, perhaps because the dogs knew that in a town of commuters every one was privileged to carry a bundle. "If the Willoughbys had been on a party line," remarked Craig as we strode up Woodridge Avenue trying to look as if it was familiar to us, "we might have arranged this thing by stratagem. As it is, we shall have to resort to another method, and perhaps better, since we shall have to take no one into our confidence." The avenue was indeed a fine thoroughfare, lined on both sides with large and often imposing mansions, surrounded with trees and shrubbery, which served somewhat to screen them. We came at last to the Willoughby house, a sizable colonial residence set up on a hill. It was dark, except for one dim light in an upper story. In the shadow of the hedge, Craig silently vaulted the low fence and slipped up the terraces, as noiselessly as an Indian, scarcely crackling a twig or rustling a dead leaf on the ground. He paused as he came to a wing on the right of the house. I had followed more laboriously, carrying the box and noting that he was not looking so much at the house as at the sky, apparently. It did not take long to fathom what he was after. It was not a star-gazing expedition; he was following the telephone wire that ran in from the street to the corner of the house near which we were now standing. A moment's inspection showed him where the wire was led down, on the outside and entered through the top of a window. Quickly he worked, though in a rather awkward position, attaching two wires carefully to the telephone wires. Next he relieved me of the oak box with its strange contents, and placed it under the porch where it was completely hidden by some lattice-work which extended down to the ground on this side. Then he attached the new wires from the telephone to it and hid the connecting wires as best he could behind the swaying runners of a vine. At last, when he had finished to his satisfaction, we retraced our steps, to find that our only chance of getting out of town that night was by trolley that landed us, after many changes, in our apartment in New York, thoroughly convinced of the disadvantages of suburban detective work. Nevertheless the next day found us out sleuthing about Glenclair, this time in a more pleasant role. We had a newspaper friend or two out there who was willing to introduce us about without asking too many questions. Kennedy, of course, insisted on beginning at the very headquarters of gossip, the country club. We spent several enjoyable hours about the town, picking up a good deal of miscellaneous and useless information. It was, however, as Kennedy had suspected. Annie Grayson had taken up her residence in an artistic little house on one of the best side streets of the town. But her name was no longer Annie Grayson. She was Mrs. Maud Emery, a dashing young widow of some means, living in a very quiet but altogether comfortable style, cutting quite a figure in the exclusive suburban community, a leading member of the church circle, an officer of the Civic League, prominent in the women's club, and popular with those to whom the established order of things was so perfect that the only new bulwark of their rights was an anti-suffrage society. In fact, every one was talking of the valuable social acquisition in the person of this attractive young woman who entertained lavishly and was bracing up an otherwise drooping season. No one knew much about her, but then, that was not necessary. It was enough to accept one whose opinions and actions were not subversive of the social order in any way. The Willoughbys, of course, were among the most prominent people in the town. William Willoughby was head of the firm of Willoughby & Walton, and it was the general opinion that Mrs. Willoughby was the head of the firm of Ella & William Willoughby. The Willoughbys were good mixers, and were spoken well of even by the set who occupied the social stratum just one degree below that in which they themselves moved. In fact, when Mrs. Willoughby had been severely injured in an automobile accident during the previous summer Glenclair had shown real solicitude for her and had forgotten a good deal of its artificiality in genuine human interest. Kennedy was impatiently waiting for an opportunity to recover the box which he had left under the Willoughby porch. Several times we walked past the house, but it was not until nightfall that he considered it wise to make the recovery. Again we slipped silently up the terraces. It was the work of only a moment to cut the wires, and in triumph Craig bore off the precious oak box and its batteries. He said little on our journey back to the city, but the moment we had reached the laboratory he set the box on a table with an attachment which seemed to be controlled by pedals operated by the feet. "Walter," he explained, holding what looked like an earpiece in his hand, "this is another of those new little instruments that scientific detectives to-day are using. A poet might write a clever little verse en-titled, 'The telegraphone'll get you, if you don't watch out.' This is the latest improved telegraphone, a little electromagnetic wizard in a box, which we detectives are now using to take down and 'can' telephone conversations and other records. It is based on an entirely new principle in every way different from the phonograph. It was discovered by an inventor several years ago, while experimenting in telephony. "There are no disks or cylinders of wax, as in the phonograph, but two large spools of extremely fine steel wire. The record is not made mechanically on a cylinder, but electromagnetically on this wire. Small portions of magnetism are imparted to fractions of the steel wire as it passes between two carbon electric magnets. Each impression represents a sound wave. There is no apparent difference in the wire, no surface abrasion or other change, yet each particle of steel undergoes an electromagnetic transformation by which the sound is indelibly imprinted on it until it is wiped out by the erasing magnet. There are no cylinders to be shaved; all that is needed to use the wire again is to pass a magnet over it, automatically erasing any previous record that you do not wish to preserve. You can dictate into it, or, with this plug in, you can record a telephone conversation on it. Even rust or other deterioration of the steel wire by time will not affect this electromagnetic registry of sound. It can be read as long as steel will last. It is as effective for long distances as for short, and there is wire enough on one of these spools for thirty minutes of uninterrupted record." Craig continued to tinker tantalisingly with the machine. "The principle on which it is based," he added, "is that a mass of tempered steel may be impressed with and will retain magnetic fluxes varying in density and in sign in adjacent portions of its mass. There are no indentations on the wire or the steel disk. Instead there is a deposit of magnetic impulse on the wire, which is made by connecting up an ordinary telephone transmitter with the electromagnets and talking through the coil. The disturbance set up in the coils by the vibration of the diaphragm of the transmitter causes a deposit of magnetic impulse on the wire, the coils being connected with dry batteries. When the wire is again run past these coils, with a receiver such as I have here in circuit with the coils, a light vibration is set up in the receiver diaphragm which reproduces the sound of speech." He turned a switch and placed an ear-piece over his head, giving me another connected with it. We listened eagerly. There were no foreign noises in the machine, no grating or thumping sounds, as he controlled the running off of the steel wire by means of a foot-pedal. We were listening to everything that had been said over the Willoughby telephone during the day. Several local calls to tradesmen came first, and these we passed over quickly. Finally we heard the following conversation: "Hello. Is that you, Ella? Yes, this is Maud. Good-morning. How do you feel to-day?" "Good-morning, Maud. I don't feel very well. I have a splitting headache." "Oh, that's too bad, dear. What are you doing for it?" "Nothing--yet. If it doesn't get better I shall have Mr. Willoughby call up Dr. Guthrie." "Oh, I hope it gets better soon. You poor creature, don't you think a little trip into town might make you feel better? Had you thought of going to-day?" "Why, no. I hadn't thought of going in. Are you going?" "Did you see the Trimble ad. in the morning paper?" "No, I didn't see the papers this morning. My head felt too bad." "Well, just glance at it. It will interest you. They have the Kimberley Queen, the great new South African diamond on exhibition there." "They have? I never heard of it before, but isn't that interesting. I certainly would like to see it. Have you ever seen it?" "No, but I have made up my mind not to miss a sight of it. They say it is wonderful. You'd better come along. I may have something interesting to tell you, too." "Well, I believe I will go. Thank you, Maud, for suggesting it. Perhaps the little change will make me feel better. What train are you going to take? The ten-two? All right, I'll try to meet you at the station. Good-bye, Maud." "Good-bye, Ella." Craig stopped the machine, ran it back again and repeated the record. "So," he commented at the conclusion of the repetition, "the 'plant' has taken root. Annie Grayson has bitten at the bait." A few other local calls and a long-distance call from Mr. Willoughby cut short by his not finding his wife at home followed. Then there seemed to have been nothing more until after dinner. It was a call by Mr. Willoughby himself that now interested us. "Hello! hello! Is that you, Dr. Guthrie? Well, Doctor, this is Mr. Willoughby talking. I'd like to make an appointment for my wife to-morrow." "Why, what's the trouble, Mr. Willoughby? Nothing serious, I hope." "Oh, no, I guess not. But then I want to be sure, and I guess you can fix her up all right. She complains of not being able to sleep and has been having pretty bad headaches now and then." "Is that so? Well, that's too bad. These women and their headaches--even as a doctor they puzzle me. They often go away as suddenly as they come. However, it will do no harm to see me." "And then she complains of noises in her ears, seems to hear things, though as far as I can make out, there is nothing--at least nothing that I hear." "Um-m, hallucinations in hearing, I suppose. Any dizziness?" "Why, yes, a little once in a while." "How is she now?" "Well, she's been into town this afternoon and is pretty tired, but she says she feels a little better for the excitement of the trip." "Well, let me see. I've got to come down Woodridge Avenue to see a patient in a few minutes anyhow. Suppose I just drop off at your place?" "That will be fine. You don't think it is anything serious, do you, Doctor?" "Oh, no. Probably it's her nerves. Perhaps a little rest would do her good. We'll see." The telegraphone stopped, and that seemed to be the last conversation recorded. So far we had learned nothing very startling, I thought, and was just a little disappointed. Kennedy seemed well satisfied, however. Our own telephone rang, and it proved to be Donnelly on the wire. He had been trying to get Kennedy all day, in order to report that at various times his men at Trimble's had observed Mrs. Willoughby and later Annie Grayson looking with much interest at the Kimberley Queen, and other jewels in the exhibit. There was nothing more to report. "Keep it on view another day or two," ordered Kennedy. "Advertise it, but in a quiet way. We don't want too many people interested. I'll see you in the morning at the store--early." "I think I'll just run back to Glenclair again to-night," remarked Kennedy as he hung up the receiver. "You needn't bother about coming, Walter. I want to see Dr. Guthrie a moment. You remember him? We met him to-day at the country club, a kindly looking, middle-aged fellow?" I would willingly have gone back with him, but I felt that I could be of no particular use. While he was gone I pondered a good deal over the situation. Twice, at least, previously some one had pilfered jewellery from stores, leaving in its place worthless imitations. Twice the evidence had been so conflicting that no one could judge of its value. What reason, I asked myself, was there to suppose that it would be different now? No shoplifter in her senses was likely to lift the great Kimberley Queen gem with the eagle eyes of clerks and detectives on her, even if she did not discover that it was only a paste jewel. And if Craig gave the woman, whoever she was, a good opportunity to get away with it, it would be a case of the same conflicting evidence; or worse, no evidence. Yet the more I thought of it, the more apparent to me was it that Kennedy must have thought the whole thing out before. So far all that had been evident was that he was merely preparing a "plant." Still, I meant to caution him when he returned that one could not believe his eyes, certainly not his ears, as to what might happen, unless he was unusually skilful or lucky. It would not do to rely on anything so fallible as the human eye or ear, and I meant to impress it on him. What, after all, had been the net result of our activities so far? We had found next to nothing. Indeed, it was all a greater mystery than ever. It was very late when Craig returned, but I gathered from the still fresh look on his face that he had been successful in whatever it was he had had in mind when he made the trip. "I saw Dr. Guthrie," he reported laconically, as we prepared to turn in. "He says that he isn't quite sure but that Mrs. Willoughby may have a touch of vertigo. At any rate, he has consented to let me come out to-morrow with him and visit her as a specialist in nervous diseases from New York. I had to tell him just enough about the case to get him interested, but that will do no harm. I think I'll set this alarm an hour ahead. I want to get up early to-morrow, and if I shouldn't be here when you wake, you'll find me at Trimble's." XIV THE CRIMEOMETER The alarm wakened me all right, but to my surprise Kennedy had already gone, ahead of it. I dressed hurriedly, bolted an early breakfast, and made my way to Trimble's. He was not there, and I had about concluded to try the laboratory, when I saw him pulling up in a cab from which he took several packages. Donnelly had joined us by this time, and together we rode up in the elevator to the jewelry department. I had never seen a department-store when it was empty, but I think I should like to shop in one under those conditions. It seemed incredible to get into the elevator and go directly to the floor you wanted. The jewelry department was in the front of the building on one of the upper floors, with wide windows through which the bright morning light streamed attractively on the glittering wares that the clerks were taking out of the safes and disposing to their best advantage. The store had not opened yet, and we could work unhampered. From his packages, Kennedy took three black boxes. They seemed to have an opening in front, while at one side was a little crank, which, as nearly as I could make out, was operated by clockwork released by an electric contact. His first problem seemed to be to dispose the boxes to the best advantage at various angles about the counter where the Kimberley Queen was on exhibition. With so much bric-a-brac and other large articles about, it did not appear to be very difficult to conceal the boxes, which were perhaps four inches square on the ends and eight inches deep. From the boxes with the clockwork attachment at the side he led wires, centring at a point at the interior end of the aisle where we could see but would hardly be observed by any one standing at the jewelry counter. Customers had now begun to arrive, and we took a position in the background, prepared for a long wait. Now and then Donnelly casually sauntered past us. He and Craig had disposed the store detectives in a certain way so as to make their presence less obvious, while the clerks had received instructions how to act under the circumstance that a suspicious person was observed. Once when Donnelly came up he was quite excited. He had just received a message from Bentley that some of the stolen property, the pearls, probably, from the dog collar that had been taken from Shorham's, had been offered for sale by a "fence" known to the police as a former confederate of Annie Grayson. "You see, that is one great trouble with them all," he remarked, with his eye roving about the store in search of anything irregular. "A shoplifter rarely becomes a habitual criminal until after she passes the age of twenty-five. If they pass that age without quitting, there is little hope of their getting right again, as you see. For by that time they have long since begun to consort with thieves of the other sex." The hours dragged heavily, though it was a splendid chance to observe at leisure the psychology of the shopper who looked at much and bought little, the uncomfortableness of the men who had been dragged to the department store slaughter to say "Yes" and foot the bills, a kaleidoscopic throng which might have been interesting if we had not been so intent on only one matter. Kennedy grasped my elbow in vise-like fingers. Involuntarily I looked down at the counter where the Kimberley Queen reposed in all the trappings of genuineness. Mrs. Willoughby had arrived again. We were too far off to observe distinctly just what was taking place, but evidently Mrs. Willoughby was looking at the gem. A moment later another woman sauntered casually up to the counter. Even at a distance I recognised Annie Grayson. As nearly as I could make out they seemed to exchange remarks. The clerk answered a question or two, then began to search for something apparently to show them. Every one about them was busy, and, obedient to instructions from Donnelly, the store detectives were in the background. Kennedy was leaning forward watching as intently as the distance would permit. He reached over and pressed the button near him. After a minute or two the second woman left, followed shortly by Mrs. Willoughby herself. We hurried over to the counter, and Kennedy seized the box containing the Kimberley Queen. He examined it carefully. A flaw in the paste jewel caught his eye. "There has been a substitution here," he cried. "See! The paste jewel which we used was flawless; this has a little carbon spot here on the side." "One of my men has been detailed to follow each of them," whispered Donnelly. "Shall I order them to bring Mrs. Willoughby and Annie Grayson to the superintendent's office and have them searched?" "No," Craig almost shouted. "That would spoil everything. Don't make a move until I get at the real truth of this affair." The case was becoming more than ever a puzzle to me, but there was nothing left for me to do but to wait until Kennedy was ready to accompany Dr. Guthrie to the Willoughby house. Several times he tried to reach the doctor by telephone, but it was not until the middle of the afternoon that he succeeded. "I shall be quite busy the rest of the afternoon, Walter," remarked Craig, after he had made his appointment with Dr. Guthrie. "If you will meet me out at the Willoughbys' at about eight o'clock, I shall be much obliged to you." I promised, and tried to devote myself to catching up with my notes, which were always sadly behind when Kennedy had an important case. I did not succeed in accomplishing much, however. Dr. Guthrie himself met me at the door of the beautiful house on Woodridge Avenue and with a hearty handshake ushered me into the large room in the right wing outside of which we had placed the telegraphone two nights before. It was the library. We found Kennedy arranging an instrument in the music-room which adjoined the library. From what little knowledge I have of electricity I should have said it was, in part at least, a galvanometer, one of those instruments which register the intensity of minute electric currents. As nearly as I could make out, in this case the galvanometer was so arranged that its action swung to one side or the other a little concave mirror hung from a framework which rested on the table. Directly in front of it was an electric light, and the reflection of the light was caught in the mirror and focused by its concavity upon a point to one side of the light. Back of it was a long strip of ground glass and an arrow point, attached to which was a pen which touched a roll of paper. On the large table in the library itself Kennedy had placed in the centre a transverse board partition, high enough so that two people seated could see each other's faces and converse over it, but could not see each other's hands. On one side of the partition were two metal domes which were fixed to a board set on the table. On the other side, in addition to space on which he could write, Kennedy had arranged what looked like one of these new miniature moving-picture apparatuses operated by electricity. Indeed, I felt that it must be that, for directly in front of it, hanging on the wall, in plain view of any one seated on the side of the table containing the metal domes, was a large white sheet. The time for the experiment, whatever its nature might be, had at last arrived, and Dr. Guthrie introduced Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby to us as specialists whom he had persuaded with great difficulty to come down from New York. Mr. Willoughby he requested to remain outside until after the tests. She seemed perfectly calm as she greeted us, and looked with curiosity at the paraphernalia which Kennedy had installed in her library. Kennedy, who was putting some finishing touches on it, was talking in a low voice to reassure her. "If you will sit here, please, Mrs. Willoughby, and place your hands on these two brass domes--there, that's it. This is just a little arrangement to test your nervous condition. Dr. Guthrie, who understands it, will take his position outside in the music-room at that other table. Walter, just switch off that light, please. "Mrs. Willoughby, I may say that in testing, say, the memory, we psychologists have recently developed two tests, the event test, where something is made to happen before a person's eyes and later he is asked to describe it, and the picture test, where a picture is shown for a certain length of time, after which the patient is also asked to describe what was in the picture. I have endeavoured to combine these two ideas by using the moving-picture machine which you see here. I am going to show three reels of films." As nearly as I could make out Kennedy had turned on the light in the lantern on his side of the table. As he worked over the machine, which for the present served to distract Mrs. Willoughby's attention from herself, he was asking her a series of questions. From my position I could see that by the light of the machine he was recording both the questions and the answers, as well as the time registered to the fifth of a second by a stop-watch. Mrs. Willoughby could not see what he was doing under the pretence of working over his little moving-picture machine. He had at last finished the questioning. Suddenly, without any warning, a picture began to play on the sheet. I must say that I was startled myself. It represented the jewelry counter at Trimble's, and in it I could see Mrs. Willoughby herself in animated conversation with one of the clerks. I looked intently, dividing my attention between the picture and the woman. But so far as I could see there was nothing in this first film that incriminated either of them. Kennedy started on the second without stopping. It was practically the same as the first, only taken from a different angle. He had scarcely run it half through when Dr. Guthrie opened the door. "I think Mrs. Willoughby must have taken her hands off the metal domes," he remarked; "I can get no record out here." I had turned when he opened the door, and now I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Willoughby standing, her hands pressed tightly to her head as if it were bursting, and swaying as if she would faint. I do not know what the film was showing at this point, for Kennedy with a quick movement shut it off and sprang to her side. "There, that will do, Mrs. Willoughby. I see that you are not well," he soothed. "Doctor, a little something to quiet her nerves. I think we can complete our work merely by comparing notes. Call Mr. Willoughby, Walter. There, sir, if you will take charge of your wife and perhaps take her for a turn or two in the fresh air, I think we can tell you in a few moments whether her condition is in any way serious or not." Mrs. Willoughby was on the verge of hysterics as her husband supported her out of the room. The door had scarcely shut before Kennedy threw open a window and seemed to beckon into the darkness. As if from nowhere, Donnelly and Bentley sprang no and were admitted. Dr. Guthrie had now returned from the music-room, bearing a sheet of paper on which was traced a long irregular curve at various points on which marginal notes had been written hastily. Kennedy leaped directly into the middle of things with his characteristic ardour. "You recall," he began, "that no one seemed to know just who took the jewels in both the cases you first reported? 'Seeing is believing,' is an old saying, but in the face of such reports as you detectives gathered it is in a fair way to lose its force. And you were not at fault, either, for modern psychology is proving by experiments that people do not see even a fraction of the things they confidently believe they see. "For example, a friend of mine, a professor in a Western university, has carried on experiments with scores of people and has not found one who could give a completely accurate description of what he had seen, even in the direct testimony; while under the influence of questions, particularly if they were at all leading, witnesses all showed extensive inaccuracies in one or more particulars, and that even though they are in a more advantageous position for giving reports than were your clerks who were not prepared. Indeed, it is often a wonder to me that witnesses of ordinary events who are called upon in court to relate what they saw after a considerable lapse of time are as accurate as they are, considering the questioning they often go through from interested parties, neighbours and friends, and the constant and often biased rehearsing of the event. The court asks the witness to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. How can he? In fact, I am often surprised that there is such a resemblance between the testimony and the actual facts of the case! "But I have here a little witness that never lies, and, mindful of the fallibility of ordinary witnesses, I called it in. It is a new, compact, little motion camera which has just been perfected to do automatically what the big moving-picture making cameras do." He touched one of the little black boxes such as we had seen him install in the jewelry department at Trimble's. "Each of these holds one hundred and sixty feet of film," he resumed, "enough to last three minutes, taking, say, sixteen pictures to the foot and running about one foot a second. You know that less than ten or eleven pictures a second affect the retina as separate, broken pictures. The use of this compact little motion camera was suggested to me by an ingenious but cumbersome invention recently offered to the police in Paris--the installation on the clock-towers in various streets of cinematograph apparatus directed by wireless. The motion camera as a detective has now proved its value. I have here three films taken at Trimble's, from different angles, and they clearly show exactly what actually occurred while Mrs. Willoughby and Annie Grayson were looking at the Kimberley Queen." He paused as if analysing the steps in his own mind. "The telegraphone gave me the first hint of the truth," he said. "The motion camera brought me a step nearer, but without this third instrument, while I should have been successful, I would not have got at the whole truth." He was fingering the apparatus on the library table connected with that in the music-room. "This is the psychometer for testing mental aberrations," he explained. "The scientists who are using it to-day are working, not with a view to aiding criminal jurisprudence, but with the hope of making such discoveries that the mental health of the race may be bettered. Still, I believe that in the study of mental diseases these men are furnishing the knowledge upon which future criminologists will build to make the detection of crime an absolute certainty. Some day there will be no jury, no detectives, no witnesses, no attorneys. The state will merely submit all suspects to tests of scientific instruments like these, and as these instruments can not make mistakes or tell lies their evidence will be conclusive of guilt or innocence. "Already the psychometer is an actual working fact. No living man can conceal his emotions from the uncanny instrument. He may bring the most gigantic of will-powers into play to conceal his inner feelings and the psychometer will record the very work which he makes this will-power do. "The machine is based upon the fact that experiments have proved that the human body's resistance to an electrical current is increased with the increase of the emotions. Dr. Jung, of Zurich, thought that it would be a very simple matter to record these varying emotions, and the psychometer is the result--simple and crude to-day compared with what we have a right to expect in the future. "A galvanometer is so arranged that its action swings a mirror from side to side, reflecting a light. This light falls on a ground-glass scale marked off into centimetres, and the arrow is made to follow the beam of light. A pen pressing down on a metal drum carrying a long roll of paper revolved by machinery records the variations. Dr. Guthrie, who had charge of the recording, simply sat in front of the ground glass and with the arrow point followed the reflection of the light as it moved along the scale, in this way making a record on the paper on the drum, which I see he is now holding in his hand. "Mrs. Willoughby, the subject, and myself, the examiner, sat here, facing each other over this table. Through those metal domes on which she was to keep her hands she received an electric current so weak that it could not be felt even by the most sensitive nerves. Now with every increase in her emotion, either while I was putting questions to her or showing her the pictures, whether she showed it outwardly or not, she increased her body's resistance to the current that was being passed in through her hands. The increase was felt by the galvanometer connected by wires in the music-room, the mirror swung, the light travelled on the scale, the arrow was moved by Dr. Guthrie, and her varying emotions were recorded indelibly upon the revolving sheet of paper, recorded in such a way as to show their intensity and reveal to the trained scientist much of the mental condition of the subject." Kennedy and Dr. Guthrie now conversed in low tones. Once in a while I could catch a scrap of the conversation--"not an epileptic," "no abnormal conformation of the head," "certain mental defects," "often the result of sickness or accident." "Every time that woman appeared there was a most peculiar disturbance," remarked Dr. Guthrie as Kennedy took the roll of paper from him and studied it carefully. At length the light seemed to break through his face. "Among the various kinds of insanity," he said, slowly measuring his words, "there is one that manifests itself as an irresistible impulse to steal. Such terms as neuropath and kleptomaniac are often regarded as rather elegant names for contemptible excuses invented by medical men to cover up stealing. People are prone to say cynically, 'Poor man's sins; rich man's diseases.' Yet kleptomania does exist, and it is easy to make it seem like crime when it is really persistent, incorrigible, and irrational stealing. Often it is so great as to be incurable. Cases have been recorded of clergymen who were kleptomaniacs and in one instance a dying victim stole the snuffbox of his confessor. "It is the pleasure and excitement of stealing, not the desire for the object stolen, which distinguishes the kleptomaniac from the ordinary thief. Usually the kleptomaniac is a woman, with an insane desire to steal for the mere sake of stealing. The morbid craving for excitement which is at the bottom of so many motiveless and useless crimes, again and again has driven apparently sensible men and women to ruin and even to suicide. It is a form of emotional insanity, not loss of control of the will, but perversion of the will. Some are models in their lucid intervals, but when the mania is on them they cannot resist. The very act of taking constitutes the pleasure, not possession. One must take into consideration many things, for such diseases as kleptomania belong exclusively to civilisation; they are the product of an age of sensationalism. Naturally enough, woman, with her delicately balanced nervous organisation, is the first and chief offender." Kennedy had seated himself at the table and was writing hastily. When he had finished, he held the papers in his hand to dry. He handed one sheet each to Bentley and Donnelly. We crowded about. Kennedy had simply written out two bills for the necklace and the collar of pearls. "Send them in to Mr. Willoughby," he added. "I think he will be glad to pay them to hush up the scandal." We looked at each other in amazement at the revelation. "But what about Annie Grayson?" persisted Donnelly. "I have taken care of her," responded Kennedy laconically. "She is already under arrest. Would you like to see why?" A moment later we had all piled into Dr. Guthrie's car, standing at the door. At the cosy little Grayson villa we found two large eyed detectives and a very angry woman waiting impatiently. Heaped up on a table in the living room was a store of loot that readily accounted for the ocular peculiarity of the detectives. The jumble on the table contained a most magnificent collection of diamonds, sapphires, ropes of pearls, emeralds, statuettes, and bronze and ivory antiques, books in rare bindings, and other baubles which wealth alone can command. It dazzled our eyes as we made a mental inventory of the heap. Yet it was a most miscellaneous collection. Beside a pearl collar with a diamond clasp were a pair of plain leather slippers and a pair of silk stockings. Things of value and things of no value were mixed as if by a lunatic. A beautiful neck ornament of carved coral lay near a half-dozen common linen handkerchiefs. A strip of silk hid a valuable collection of antique jewellery. Besides diamonds and precious stones by the score were gold and silver ornaments, silks, satins, laces, draperies, articles of virtu, plumes, even cutlery and bric-a-brac. All this must have been the result of countless excursions to the stores of New York and innumerable clever thefts. We could only look at each other in amazement and wonder at the defiance written on the face of Annie Grayson. "In all this strange tangle of events," remarked Kennedy, surveying the pile with obvious satisfaction, "I find that the precise instruments of science have told me one more thing. Some one else discovered Mrs. Willoughby's weakness, led her on, suggested opportunities to her, used her again and again, profited by her malady, probably to the extent of thousands of dollars. My telegraphone record hinted at that. In some way Annie Grayson secured the confidence of Mrs. Willoughby. The one took for the sake of taking; the other received for the sake of money. Mrs. Willoughby was easily persuaded by her new friend to leave here what she had stolen. Besides, having taken it, she had no further interest in it. "The rule of law is that every one is responsible who knows the nature and consequences of his act. We have absolute proof that you, Annie Grayson, although you did not actually commit any of the thefts yourself, led Mrs. Willoughby on and profited by her. Dr. Guthrie will take care of the case of Mrs. Willoughby. But the law must deal with you for playing on the insanity of a kleptomaniac--the cleverest scheme yet of the queen of shoplifters." As Kennedy turned nonchalantly from the detectives who had seized Annie Grayson, he drew a little red folder from his pocket. "You see, Walter," he smiled, "how soon one gets into a habit? I'm almost a regular commuter, now. You know, they are always bringing out these little red folders just when things grow interesting." I glanced over his shoulder. He was studying the local timetable. "We can get the last train from Glenclair if we hurry," he announced, stuffing the folder back into his pocket. "They will take her to Newark by trolley, I suppose. Come on." We made our hasty adieux and escaped as best we could the shower of congratulations. "Now for a rest," he said, settling back into the plush covered seat for the long ride into town, his hat down over his eyes and his legs hunched up against the back of the next seat. Across in the tube and uptown in a nighthawk cab we went and at last we were home for a good sleep. "This promises to be an off-day," Craig remarked, the next morning over the breakfast table. "Meet me in the forenoon and we'll take a long, swinging walk. I feel the need of physical exercise." "A mark of returning sanity!" I exclaimed. I had become so used to being called out on the unexpected, now, that I almost felt that some one might stop us on our tramp. Nothing of the sort happened, however, until our return. Then a middle-aged man and a young girl, heavily veiled, were waiting for Kennedy, as we turned in from the brisk finish in the cutting river wind along the Drive. "Winslow is my name, sir," the man began, rising nervously as we entered the room, "and this is my only daughter, Ruth." Kennedy bowed and we waited for the man to proceed. He drew his hand over his forehead which was moist with perspiration in spite of the season. Ruth Winslow was an attractive young woman, I could see at a glance, although her face was almost completely hidden by the thick veil. "Perhaps, Ruth, I had better--ah--see these gentlemen alone?" suggested her father gently. "No, father," she answered in a tone of forced bravery, "I think not. I can stand it. I must stand it. Perhaps I can help you in telling about the--the case." Mr. Winslow cleared his throat. "We are from Goodyear, a little mill-town," he proceeded slowly, "and as you doubtless can see we have just arrived after travelling all day." "Goodyear," repeated Kennedy slowly as the man paused. "The chief industry, of course, is rubber, I suppose." "Yes," assented Mr. Winslow, "the town centres about rubber. Our factories are not the largest but are very large, nevertheless, and are all that keep the town going. It is on rubber, also, I fear, that the tragedy which I am about to relate hangs. I suppose the New York papers have had nothing to say of the strange death of Bradley Cushing, a young chemist in Goodyear who was formerly employed by the mills but had lately set up a little laboratory of his own?" Kennedy turned to me. "Nothing unless the late editions of the evening papers have it," I replied. "Perhaps it is just as well," continued Mr. Winslow. "They wouldn't have it straight. In fact, no one has it straight yet. That is why we have come to you. You see, to my way of thinking Bradley Cushing was on the road to changing the name of the town from Goodyear to Cushing. He was not the inventor of synthetic rubber about which you hear nowadays, but he had improved the process so much that there is no doubt that synthetic rubber would soon have been on the market cheaper and better than the best natural rubber from Para. "Goodyear is not a large place, but it is famous for its rubber and uses a great deal of raw material. We have sent out some of the best men in the business, seeking new sources in South America, in Mexico, in Ceylon, Malaysia and the Congo. What our people do not know about rubber is hardly worth knowing, from the crude gum to the thousands of forms of finished products. Goodyear is a wealthy little town, too, for its size. Naturally all its investments are in rubber, not only in our own mills but in companies all over the world. Last year several of our leading citizens became interested in a new concession in the Congo granted to a group of American capitalists, among whom was Lewis Borland, who is easily the local magnate of our town. When this group organised an expedition to explore the region preparatory to taking up the concession, several of the best known people in Goodyear accompanied the party and later subscribed for large blocks of stock. "I say all this so that you will understand at the start just what part rubber plays in the life of our little community. You can readily see that such being the case, whatever advantage the world at large might gain from cheap synthetic rubber would scarcely benefit those whose money and labour had been expended on the assumption that rubber would be scarce and dear. Naturally, then, Bradley Cushing was not precisely popular with a certain set in Goodyear. As for myself, I am frank to admit that I might have shared the opinion of many others regarding him, for I have a small investment in this Congo enterprise myself. But the fact is that Cushing, when he came to our town fresh from his college fellowship in industrial chemistry, met my daughter." Without taking his eyes off Kennedy, he reached over and patted the gloved hand that clutched the arm of the chair alongside his own. "They were engaged and often they used to talk over what they would do when Bradley's invention of a new way to polymerise isoprene, as the process is called, had solved the rubber question and had made him rich. I firmly believe that their dreams were not day dreams, either. The thing was done. I have seen his products and I know something about rubber. There were no impurities in his rubber." Mr. Winslow paused. Ruth was sobbing quietly. "This morning," he resumed hastily, "Bradley Cushing was found dead in his laboratory under the most peculiar circumstances. I do not know whether his secret died with him or whether some one has stolen it. From the indications I concluded that he had been murdered." Such was the case as Kennedy and I heard it then. Ruth looked up at him with tearful eyes wistful with pain, "Would Mr. Kennedy work on it?" There was only one answer. XV THE VAMPIRE As we sped out to the little mill-town on the last train, after Kennedy had insisted on taking us all to a quiet little restaurant, he placed us so that Miss Winslow was furthest from him and her father nearest. I could hear now and then scraps of their conversation as he resumed his questioning, and knew that Mr. Winslow was proving to be a good observer. "Cushing used to hire a young fellow of some scientific experience, named Strong," said Mr. Winslow as he endeavoured to piece the facts together as logically as it was possible to do. "Strong used to open his laboratory for him in the morning, clean up the dirty apparatus, and often assist him in some of his experiments. This morning when Strong approached the laboratory at the usual time he was surprised to see that though it was broad daylight there was a light burning. He was alarmed and before going in looked through the window. The sight that he saw froze him. There lay Cushing on a workbench and beside him and around him pools of coagulating blood. The door was not locked, as we found afterward, but the young man did not stop to enter. He ran to me and, fortunately, I met him at our door. I went back. "We opened the unlocked door. The first thing, as I recall it, that greeted me was an unmistakable odour of oranges. It was a very penetrating and very peculiar odour. I didn't understand it, for there seemed to be something else in it besides the orange smell. However, I soon found out what it was, or at least Strong did. I don't know whether you know anything about it, but it seems that when you melt real rubber in the effort to reduce it to carbon and hydrogen, you get a liquid substance which is known as isoprene. Well, isoprene, according to Strong, gives out an odour something like ether. Cushing, or some one else, had apparently been heating isoprene. As soon as Strong mentioned the smell of ether I recognised that that was what made the smell of oranges so peculiar. "However, that's not the point. There lay Cushing on his back on the workbench, just as Strong had said. I bent over him, and in his arm, which was bare, I saw a little gash made by some sharp instrument and laying bare an artery, I think, which was cut. Long spurts of blood covered the floor for some distance around and from the veins in his arm, which had also been severed, a long stream of blood led to a hollow in the cement floor where it had collected. I believe that he bled to death." "And the motive for such a terrible crime?" queried Craig. Mr. Winslow shook his head helplessly. "I suppose there are plenty of motives," he answered slowly, "as many motives as there are big investments in rubber-producing ventures in Goodyear." "But have you any idea who would go so far to protect his investments as to kill?" persisted Kennedy. Mr. Winslow made no reply. "Who," asked Kennedy, "was chiefly interested in the rubber works where Cushing was formerly employed?" "The president of the company is the Mr. Borland whom I mentioned," replied Mr. Winslow. "He is a man of about forty, I should say, and is reputed to own a majority of the--" "Oh, father," interrupted Miss Winslow, who had caught the drift of the conversation in spite of the pains that had been taken to keep it away from her, "Mr. Borland would never dream of such a thing. It is wrong even to think of it." "I didn't say that he would, my dear," corrected Mr. Winslow gently. "Professor Kennedy asked me who was chiefly interested in the rubber works and Mr. Borland owns a majority of the stock." He leaned over and whispered to Kennedy, "Borland is a visitor at our home, and between you and me, he thinks a great deal of Ruth." I looked quickly at Kennedy, but he was absorbed in looking out of the car window at the landscape which he did not and could not see. "You said there were others who had an interest in outside companies," cross-questioned Kennedy. "I take it that you mean companies dealing in crude rubber, the raw material, people with investments in plantations and concessions, perhaps. Who are they? Who were the men who went on that expedition to the Congo with Borland which you mentioned?" "Of course, there was Borland himself," answered Winslow. "Then there was a young chemist named Lathrop, a very clever and ambitious fellow who succeeded Cushing when he resigned from the works, and Dr. Harris, who was persuaded to go because of his friendship for Borland. After they took up the concession I believe all of them put money into it, though how much I can't say." I was curious to ask whether there were any other visitors at the Winslow house who might be rivals for Ruth's affections, but there was no opportunity. Nothing more was said until we arrived at Goodyear. We found the body of Cushing lying in a modest little mortuary chapel of an undertaking establishment on the main street. Kennedy at once began his investigation by discovering what seemed to have escaped others. About the throat were light discolourations that showed that the young inventor had been choked by a man with a powerful grasp, although the fact that the marks had escaped observation led quite obviously to the conclusion that he had not met his death in that way, and that the marks probably played only a minor part in the tragedy. Kennedy passed over the doubtful evidence of strangulation for the more profitable examination of the little gash in the wrist. "The radial artery has been cut," he mused. A low exclamation from him brought us all bending over him as he stooped and examined the cold form. He was holding in the palm of his hand a little piece of something that shone like silver. It was in the form of a minute hollow cylinder with two grooves on it, a cylinder so tiny that it would scarcely have slipped over the point of a pencil. "Where did you find it?" I asked eagerly. He pointed to the wound. "Sticking in the severed end of a piece of vein," he replied, half to himself, "cuffed over the end of the radial artery which had been severed, and done so neatly as to be practically hidden. It was done so cleverly that the inner linings of the vein and artery, the endothelium as it is called, were in complete contact with each other." As I looked at the little silver thing and at Kennedy's face, which betrayed nothing, I felt that here indeed was a mystery. What new scientific engine of death was that little hollow cylinder? "Next I should like to visit the laboratory," he remarked simply. Fortunately, the laboratory had been shut and nothing had been disturbed except by the undertaker and his men who had carried the body away. Strong had left word that he had gone to Boston, where, in a safe deposit box, was a sealed envelope in which Cushing kept a copy of the combination of his safe, which had died with him. There was, therefore, no hope of seeing the assistant until the morning. Kennedy found plenty to occupy his time in his minute investigation of the laboratory. There, for instance, was the pool of blood leading back by a thin dark stream to the workbench and its terrible figure, which I could almost picture to myself lying there through the silent hours of the night before, with its life blood slowly oozing away, unconscious, powerless to save itself. There were spurts of arterial blood on the floor and on the nearby laboratory furniture, and beside the workbench another smaller and isolated pool of blood. On a table in a corner by the window stood a microscope which Cushing evidently used, and near it a box of fresh sterilised slides. Kennedy, who had been casting his eye carefully about taking in the whole laboratory, seemed delighted to find the slides. He opened the box and gingerly took out some of the little oblong pieces of glass, on each of which he dropped a couple of minute drops of blood from the arterial spurts and the venous pools on the floor. Near the workbench were circular marks, much as if some jars had been set down there. We were watching him, almost in awe at the matter of fact manner in which, he was proceeding in what to us was nothing but a hopeless enigma, when I saw him stoop and pick up a few little broken pieces of glass. There seemed to be blood spots on the glass, as on other things, but particularly interesting to him. A moment later I saw that he was holding in his hand what were apparently the remains of a little broken vial which he had fitted together from the pieces. Evidently it had been used and dropped in haste. "A vial for a local anesthetic," he remarked. "This is the sort of thing that might be injected into an arm or leg and deaden the pain of a cut, but that is all. It wouldn't affect the consciousness or prevent any one from resisting a murderer to the last. I doubt if that had anything directly to do with his death, or perhaps even that this is Cushing's blood on it." Unlike Winslow I had seen Kennedy in action so many times that I knew it was useless to speculate. But I was fascinated, for the deeper we got into the case, the more unusual and inexplicable it seemed. I gave that end of it up, but the fact that Strong had gone to secure the combination of the safe suggested to me to examine that article. There was certainly no evidence of robbery or even of an attempt at robbery there. "Was any doctor called?" asked Kennedy. "Yes," he replied. "Though I knew it was of no use I called in Dr. Howe, who lives up the street from the laboratory. I should have called Dr. Harris, who used to be my own physician, but since his return from Africa with the Borland expedition, he has not been in very good health and has practically given up his practice. Dr. Howe is the best practising physician in town, I think." "We shall call on him to-morrow," said Craig, snapping his watch, which already marked far after midnight. Dr. Howe proved, the next day, to be an athletic-looking man, and I could not help noticing and admiring his powerful frame and his hearty handshake, as he greeted us when we dropped into his office with a card from Winslow. The doctor's theory was that Cushing had committed suicide. "But why should a young man who had invented a new method of polymerising isoprene, who was going to become wealthy, and was engaged to a beautiful young girl, commit suicide?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders. It was evident that he, too, belonged to the "natural rubber set" which dominated Goodyear. "I haven't looked into the case very deeply, but I'm not so sure that he had the secret, are you?" Kennedy smiled. "That is what I'd like to know. I suppose that an expert like Mr. Borland could tell me, perhaps?" "I should think so." "Where is his office?" asked Craig. "Could you point it out to me from the window?" Kennedy was standing by one of the windows of the doctor's office, and as he spoke he turned and drew a little field glass from his pocket. "Which end of the rubber works is it?" Dr. Howe tried to direct him but Kennedy appeared unwarrantably obtuse, requiring the doctor to raise the window, and it was some moments before he got his glasses on the right spot. Kennedy and I thanked the doctor for his courtesy and left the office. We went at once to the office of Dr. Harris, to whom Winslow had also given us cards. We found him an anaemic man, half asleep. Kennedy tentatively suggested the murder of Cushing. "Well, if you ask me my opinion," snapped out the doctor, "although I wasn't called into the case, from what I hear, I'd say that he was murdered." "Some seem to think it was suicide," prompted Kennedy. "People who have brilliant prospects and are engaged to pretty girls don't usually die of their own accord," rasped Harris. "So you think he really did have the secret of artificial rubber?" asked Craig. "Not artificial rubber. Synthetic rubber. It was the real thing, I believe." "Did Mr. Borland and his new chemist Lathrop believe it, too?" "I can't say. But I should surely advise you to see them." The doctor's face was twitching nervously. "Where is Borland's office?" repeated Kennedy, again taking from his pocket the field glass and adjusting it carefully by the window. "Over there," directed Harris, indicating the corner of the works to which we had already been directed. Kennedy had stepped closer to the window before him and I stood beside him looking out also. "The cut was a very peculiar one," remarked Kennedy, still adjusting the glasses. "An artery and a vein had been placed together so that the endothelium, or inner lining of each, was in contact with the other, giving a continuous serous surface. Which window did you say was Borland's? I wish you'd step to the other window and raise it, so that I can be sure. I don't want to go wandering all over the works looking for him." "Yes," the doctor said as he went, leaving him standing beside the window from which he had been directing us, "yes, you surely should see Mr. Borland. And don't forget that young chemist of his, Lathrop, either, If I can be of any more help to you, come back again." It was a long walk through the village and factory yards to the office of Lewis Borland, but we were amply repaid by finding him in and ready to see us. Borland was a typical Yankee, tall, thin, evidently predisposed to indigestion, a man of tremendous mental and nervous energy and with a hidden wiry strength. "Mr. Borland," introduced Kennedy, changing his tactics and adopting a new role, "I've come down to you as an authority on rubber to ask you what your opinion is regarding the invention of a townsman of yours named Cushing." "Cushing?" repeated Borland in some surprise. "Why--" "Yes," interrupted Kennedy, "I understand all about it. I had heard of his invention in New York and would have put some money into it if I could have been convinced. I was to see him to-day, but of course, as you were going to say, his death prevents it. Still, I should like to know what you think about it." "Well," Borland added, jerking out his words nervously, as seemed to be his habit, "Cushing was a bright young fellow. He used to work for me until he began to know too much about the rubber business." "Do you know anything about his scheme?" insinuated Kennedy. "Very little, except that it was not patented yet, I believe, though he told every one that the patent was applied for and he expected to get a basic patent in some way without any interference." "Well," drawled Kennedy, affecting as nearly as possible the air of a promoter, "if I could get his assistant, or some one who had authority to be present, would you, as a practical rubber man, go over to his laboratory with me? I'd join you in making an offer to his estate for the rights to the process, if it seemed any good." "You're a cool one," ejaculated Borland, with a peculiar avaricious twinkle in the corners of his eyes. "His body is scarcely cold and yet you come around proposing to buy out his invention and--and, of all persons, you come to me." "To you?" inquired Kennedy blandly. "Yes, to me. Don't you know that synthetic rubber would ruin the business system that I have built up here?" Still Craig persisted and argued. "Young man," said Borland rising at length as if an idea had struck him, "I like your nerve. Yes, I will go. I'll show you that I don't fear any competition from rubber made out of fusel oil or any other old kind of oil." He rang a bell and a boy answered. "Call Lathrop," he ordered. The young chemist, Lathrop, proved to be a bright and active man of the new school, though a good deal of a rubber stamp. Whenever it was compatible with science and art, he readily assented to every proposition that his employer laid down. Kennedy had already telephoned to the Winslows and Miss Winslow had answered that Strong had returned from Boston. After a little parleying, the second visit to the laboratory was arranged and Miss Winslow was allowed to be present with her father, after Kennedy had been assured by Strong that the gruesome relics of the tragedy would be cleared away. It was in the forenoon that we arrived with Borland and Lathrop. I could not help noticing the cordial manner with which Borland greeted Miss Winslow. There was something obtrusive even in his sympathy. Strong, whom we met now for the first time, seemed rather suspicious of the presence of Borland and his chemist, but made an effort to talk freely without telling too much. "Of course you know," commenced Strong after proper urging, "that it has long been the desire of chemists to synthesise rubber by a method that will make possible its cheap production on a large scale. In a general way I know what Mr. Cushing had done, but there are parts of the process which are covered in the patents applied for, of which I am not at liberty to speak yet." "Where are the papers in the case, the documents showing the application for the patent, for instance?" asked Kennedy. "In the safe, sir," replied Strong. Strong set to work on the combination which he had obtained from the safe deposit vault. I could see that Borland and Miss Winslow were talking in a low tone. "Are you sure that it is a fact?" I overheard him ask, though I had no idea what they were talking about. "As sure as I am that the Borland Rubber Works are a fact," she replied. Craig also seemed to have overheard, for he turned quickly. Borland had taken out his penknife and was moistening the blade carefully preparing to cut into a piece Of the synthetic rubber. In spite of his expressed scepticism, I could see that he was eager to learn what the product was really like. Strong, meanwhile, had opened the safe and was going over the papers. A low exclamation from him brought us around the little pile of documents. He was holding a will in which nearly everything belonging to Cushing was left to Miss Winslow. Not a word was said, although I noticed that Kennedy moved quickly to her side, fearing that the shock of the discovery might have a bad effect on her, but she took it with remarkable calmness. It was apparent that Cushing had taken the step of his own accord and had said nothing to her about it. "What does anything amount to?" she said tremulously at last. "The dream is dead without him in it." "Come," urged Kennedy gently. "This is enough for to-day." An hour later we were speeding back to New York. Kennedy had no apparatus to work with out at Goodyear and could not improvise it. Winslow agreed to keep us in touch with any new developments during the few hours that Craig felt it was necessary to leave the scene of action. Back again in New York, Craig took a cab directly for his laboratory, leaving me marooned with instructions not to bother him for several hours. I employed the time in a little sleuthing on my own account, endeavouring to look up the records of those involved in the case. I did not discover much, except an interview that had been given at the time of the return of his expedition by Borland to the Star, in which he gave a graphic description of the dangers from disease that they had encountered. I mention it because, though it did not impress me much when I read it, it at once leaped into my mind when the interminable hours were over and I rejoined Kennedy. He was bending over a new microscope. "This is a rubber age, Walter," he began, "and the stories of men who have been interested in rubber often sound like fiction." He slipped a slide under the microscope, looked at it and then motioned to me to do the same. "Here is a very peculiar culture which I have found in some of that blood," he commented. "The germs are much larger than bacteria and they can be seen with a comparatively low power microscope swiftly darting between the blood cells, brushing them aside, but not penetrating them as some parasites, like that of malaria, do. Besides, spectroscope tests show the presence of a rather well-known chemical in that blood." "A poisoning, then?" I ventured. "Perhaps he suffered from the disease that many rubber workers get from the bisulphide of carbon. He must have done a good deal of vulcanising of his own rubber, you know." "No," smiled Craig enigmatically, "it wasn't that. It was an arsenic derivative. Here's another thing. You remember the field glass I used?" He had picked it up from the table and was pointing at a little hole in the side, that had escaped my notice before. "This is what you might call a right-angled camera. I point the glass out of the window and while you think I am looking through it I am really focusing it on you and taking your picture standing there beside me and out of my apparent line of vision. It would deceive the most wary." Just then a long-distance call from Winslow told us that Borland had been to call on Miss Ruth and, in as kindly a way as could be, had offered her half a million dollars for her rights in the new patent. At once it flashed over me that he was trying to get control of and suppress the invention in the interests of his own company, a thing that has been done hundreds of times. Or could it all have been part of a conspiracy? And if it was his conspiracy, would he succeed in tempting his friend, Miss Winslow, to fall in with this glittering offer? Kennedy evidently thought, also, that the time for action had come, for without a word he set to work packing his apparatus and we were again headed for Goodyear. XVI THE BLOOD TEST We arrived late at night, or rather in the morning, but in spite of the late hour Kennedy was up early urging me to help him carry the stuff over to Cushing's laboratory. By the middle of the morning he was ready and had me scouring about town collecting his audience, which consisted of the Winslows, Borland and Lathrop, Dr. Howe, Dr. Harris, Strong and myself. The laboratory was darkened and Kennedy took his place beside an electric moving picture apparatus. The first picture was different from anything any of us had ever seen on a screen before. It seemed to be a mass of little dancing globules. "This," explained Kennedy, "is what you would call an educational moving picture, I suppose. It shows normal blood corpuscles as they are in motion in the blood of a healthy man. Those little round cells are the red corpuscles and the larger irregular cells are the white corpuscles." He stopped the film. The next picture was a sort of enlarged and elongated house fly, apparently, of sombre grey color, with a narrow body, thick proboscis and wings that overlapped like the blades of a pair of shears. "This," he went on, "is a picture of the now well known tse-tse fly found over a large area of Africa. It has a bite something like a horse-fly and is a perfect blood-sucker. Vast territories of thickly populated, fertile country near the shores of lakes and rivers are now depopulated as a result of the death-dealing bite of these flies, more deadly than the blood-sucking, vampirish ghosts with which, in the middle ages, people supposed night air to be inhabited. For this fly carries with it germs which it leaves in the blood of its victims, which I shall show next." A new film started. "Here is a picture of some blood so infected. Notice that worm-like sheath of undulating membrane terminating in a slender whip-like process by which it moves about. That thing wriggling about like a minute electric eel, always in motion, is known as the trypanosome. "Isn't this a marvellous picture? To see the micro-organism move, evolve and revolve in the midst of normal cells, uncoil and undulate in the fluids which they inhabit, to see them play hide and seek with the blood corpuscles and clumps of fibrin, turn, twist, and rotate as if in a cage, to see these deadly little trypanosomes moving back and forth in every direction displaying their delicate undulating membranes and shoving aside the blood cells that are in their way while by their side the leucocytes, or white corpuscles, lazily extend or retract their pseudopods of protoplasm. To see all this as it is shown before us here is to realise that we are in the presence of an unknown world, a world infinitesimally small, but as real and as complex as that about us. With the cinematograph and the ultra-microscope we can see what no other forms of photography can reproduce. "I have secured these pictures so that I can better mass up the evidence against a certain person in this room. For in the blood of one of you is now going on the fight which you have here seen portrayed by the picture machine. Notice how the blood corpuscles in this infected blood have lost their smooth, glossy appearance, become granular and incapable of nourishing the tissues. The trypanosomes are fighting with the normal blood cells. Here we have the lowest group of animal life, the protozoa, at work killing the highest, man." Kennedy needed nothing more than the breathless stillness to convince him of the effectiveness of his method of presenting his case. "Now," he resumed, "let us leave this blood-sucking, vampirish tse-tse fly for the moment. I have another revelation to make." He laid down on the table under the lights, which now flashed up again, the little hollow silver cylinder. "This little instrument," Kennedy explained, "which I have here is known as a canula, a little canal, for leading off blood from the veins of one person to another--in other words, blood transfusion. Modern doctors are proving themselves quite successful in its use. "Of course, like everything, it has its own peculiar dangers. But the one point I wish to make is this: In the selection of a donor for transfusion, people fall into definite groups. Tests of blood must be made first to see whether it 'agglutinates,' and in this respect there are four classes of persons. In our case this matter had to be neglected. For, gentlemen, there were two kinds of blood on that laboratory floor, and they do not agglutinate. This, in short, was what actually happened. An attempt was made to transfuse Cushing's blood as donor to another person as recipient. A man suffering from the disease caught from the bite of the tse-tse fly--the deadly sleeping sickness so well known in Africa--has deliberately tried a form of robbery which I believe to be without parallel. He has stolen the blood of another! "He stole it in a desperate attempt to stay an incurable disease. This man had used an arsenic compound called atoxyl, till his blood was filled with it and its effects on the trypanosomes nil. There was but one wild experiment more to try--the stolen blood of another." Craig paused to let the horror of the crime sink into our minds. "Some one in the party which went to look over the concession in the Congo contracted the sleeping sickness from the bites of those blood-sucking flies. That person has now reached the stage of insanity, and his blood is full of the germs and overloaded with atoxyl. "Everything had been tried and had failed. He was doomed. He saw his fortune menaced by the discovery of the way to make synthetic rubber. Life and money were at stake. One night, nerved up by a fit of insane fury, with a power far beyond what one would expect in his ordinary weakened condition, he saw a light in Cushing's laboratory. He stole in stealthily. He seized the inventor with his momentarily superhuman strength and choked him. As they struggled he must have shoved a sponge soaked with ether and orange essence under his nose. Cushing went under. "Resistance overcome by the anesthetic, he dragged the now insensible form to the work bench. Frantically he must have worked. He made an incision and exposed the radial artery, the pulse. Then he must have administered a local anesthetic to himself in his arm or leg. He secured a vein and pushed the cut end over this little canula. Then he fitted the artery of Cushing over that and the blood that was, perhaps, to save his life began flowing into his depleted veins. "Who was this madman? I have watched the actions of those whom I suspected when they did not know they were being watched. I did it by using this neat little device which looks like a field glass, but is really a camera that takes pictures of things at right angles to the direction in which the glass seems to be pointed. One person, I found, had a wound on his leg, the wrapping of which he adjusted nervously when he thought no one was looking. He had difficulty in limping even a short distance to open a window." Kennedy uncorked a bottle and the subtle odor of oranges mingled with ether stole through the room. "Some one here will recognize that odour immediately. It is the new orange-essence vapour anesthetic, a mixture of essence of orange with ether and chloroform. The odour hidden by the orange which lingered in the laboratory, Mr. Winslow and Mr. Strong, was not isoprene, but really ether. "I am letting some of the odour escape here because in this very laboratory it was that the thing took place, and it is one of the well-known principles of psychology that odours are powerfully suggestive. In this case the odour now must suggest the terrible scene of the other night to some one before me. More than that, I have to tell that person that the blood transfusion did not and could not save him. His illness is due to a condition that is incurable and cannot be altered by transfusion of new blood. That person is just as doomed to-day as he was before he committed--" A figure was groping blindly about. The arsenic compounds with which his blood was surcharged had brought on one of the attacks of blindness to which users of the drug are subject. In his insane frenzy he was evidently reaching desperately for Kennedy himself. As he groped he limped painfully from the soreness of his wound. "Dr. Harris," accused Kennedy, avoiding the mad rush at himself, and speaking in a tone that thrilled us, "you are the man who sucked the blood of Cushing into your own veins and left him to die. But the state will never be able to exact from you the penalty of your crime. Nature will do that too soon for justice. Gentlemen, this is the murderer of Bradley Cushing, a maniac, a modern scientific vampire." I regarded the broken, doomed man with mingled pity and loathing, rather than with the usual feelings one has toward a criminal. "Come," said Craig. "The local authorities can take care of this case now." He paused just long enough for a word of comfort to the poor, broken-hearted girl. Both Winslow answered with a mute look of gratitude and despair. In fact, in the confusion we were only too glad to escape any more such mournful congratulations. "Well," Craig remarked, as we walked quickly down the street, "if we have to wait here for a train, I prefer to wait in the railroad station. I have done my part. Now my only interest is to get away before they either offer me a banquet or lynch me." Actually, I think he would have preferred the novelty of dealing with a lynching party, if he had had to choose between the two. We caught a train soon, however, and fortunately it had a diner attached. Kennedy whiled away the time between courses by reading the graft exposures in the city. As we rolled into the station late in the afternoon, he tossed aside the paper with an air of relief. "Now for a quiet evening in the laboratory," he exclaimed, almost gleefully. By what stretch of imagination he could call that recreation, I could not see. But as for quietness, I needed it, too. I had fallen wofully behind in my record of the startling events through which he was conducting me. Consequently, until late that night I pecked away at my typewriter trying to get order out of the chaos of my hastily scribbled notes. Under ordinary circumstances, I remembered, the morrow would have been my day of rest on the Star. I had gone far enough with Kennedy to realise that on this assignment there was no such thing as rest. "District Attorney Carton wants to see me immediately at the Criminal Courts Building, Walter," announced Kennedy, early the following morning. Clothed, and as much in my right mind as possible after the arduous literary labours of the night before, I needed no urging, for Carton was an old friend of all the newspaper men. I joined Craig quickly in a hasty ride down-town in the rush hour. On the table before the square-jawed, close-cropped, fighting prosecutor, whom I knew already after many a long and hard-fought campaign both before and after election, lay a little package which had evidently come to him in the morning's mail by parcel-post. "What do you suppose is in that, Kennedy?" he asked, tapping it gingerly. "I haven't opened it yet, but I think it's a bomb. Wait--I'll have a pail of water sent in here so that you can open it, if you will. You understand such things." "No--no," hastened Kennedy, "that's exactly the wrong thing to do. Some of these modern chemical bombs are set off in precisely that way. No. Let me dissect the thing carefully. I think you may be right. It does look as if it might be an infernal machine. You see the evident disguise of the roughly written address?" Carton nodded, for it was that that had excited his suspicion in the first place. Meanwhile, Kennedy, without further ceremony, began carefully to remove the wrapper of brown Manila paper, preserving everything as he did so. Carton and I instinctively backed away. Inside, Craig had disclosed an oblong wooden box. "I realise that opening a bomb is dangerous business," he pursued slowly, engrossed in his work and almost oblivious to us, "but I think I can take a chance safely with this fellow. The dangerous part is what might be called drawing the fangs. No bombs are exactly safe toys to have around until they are wholly destroyed, and before you can say you have destroyed one, it is rather a ticklish business to take out the dangerous element." He had removed the cover in the deftest manner without friction, and seemingly without disturbing the contents in the least. I do not pretend to know how he did it; but the proof was that we could see him still working from our end of the room. On the inside of the cover was roughly drawn a skull and cross-bones, showing that the miscreant who sent the thing had at least a sort of grim humour. For, where the teeth should have been in the skull were innumerable match-heads. Kennedy picked them out with as much sang-froid as if he were not playing jackstraws with life and death. Then he removed the explosive itself and the various murderous slugs and bits of metal embedded in it, carefully separating each as if to be labelled "Exhibit A," "B," and so on for a class in bomb dissection. Finally, he studied the sides and bottom of the box. "Evidence of chlorate-of-potash mixture," Kennedy muttered to himself, still examining the bomb. "The inside was a veritable arsenal--a very unusual and clever construction." "My heavens!" breathed Carton. "I would rather go through a campaign again." XVII THE BOMB MAKER We stared at each other in blank awe, at the various parts, so innocent looking in the heaps on the table, now safely separated, but together a combination ticket to perdition. "Who do you suppose could have sent it?" I blurted out when I found my voice, then, suddenly recollecting the political and legal fight that Carton was engaged in at the time, I added, "The white slavers?" "Not a doubt," he returned laconically. "And," he exclaimed, bringing down both hands vigorously in characteristic emphasis on the arms of his office chair, "I've got to win this fight against the vice trust, as I call it, or the whole work of the district attorney's office in clearing up the city will be discredited--to say nothing of the risk the present incumbent runs at having such grateful friends about the city send marks of their affection and esteem like this." I knew something already of the situation, and Carton continued thoughtfully: "All the powers of vice are fighting a last-ditch battle against me now. I think I am on the trail of the man or men higher up in this commercialised-vice business--and it is a business, big business, too. You know, I suppose, that they seem to have a string of hotels in the city, of the worst character. There is nothing that they will stop at to protect themselves. Why, they are using gangs of thugs to terrorise any one who informs on them. The gunmen, of course, hate a snitch worse than poison. There have been bomb outrages, too--nearly a bomb a day lately--against some of those who look shaky and seem to be likely to do business with my office. But I'm getting closer all the time." "How do you mean?" asked Kennedy. "Well, one of the best witnesses, if I can break him down by pressure and promises, ought to be a man named Haddon, who is running a place in the Fifties, known as the Mayfair. Haddon knows all these people. I can get him in half an hour if you think it worth while--not here, but somewhere uptown, say at the Prince Henry." Kennedy nodded. We had heard of Haddon before, a notorious character in the white-light district. A moment later Carton had telephoned to the Mayfair and had found Haddon. "How did you get him so that he is even considering turning state's evidence?" asked Craig. "Well," answered Carton slowly, "I suppose it was partly through a cabaret singer and dancer, Loraine Keith, at the Mayfair. You know you never get the truth about things in the underworld except in pieces. As much as any one, I think we have been able to use her to weave a web about him. Besides, she seems to think that Haddon has treated her shamefully. According to her story, he seems to have been lavishing everything on her, but lately, for some reason, has deserted her. Still, even in her jealousy she does not accuse any other woman of winning him away." "Perhaps it is the opposite--another man winning her," suggested Craig dryly. "It's a peculiar situation," shrugged Carton. "There is another man. As nearly as I can make out there is a fellow named Brodie who does a dance with her. But he seems to annoy her, yet at the same time exercises a sort of fascination over her." "Then she is dancing at the Mayfair yet?" hastily asked Craig. "Yes. I told her to stay, not to excite suspicion." "And Haddon knows?" "Oh, no. But she has told us enough about him already so that we can worry him, apparently, just as what he can tell us would worry the others interested in the hotels. To tell the truth, I think she is a drug fiend. Why, my men tell me that they have seen her take just a sniff of something and change instantly--become a willing tool." "That's the way it happens," commented Kennedy. "Now, I'll go up there and meet Haddon," resumed Carton. "After I have been with him long enough to get into his confidence, suppose you two just happen along." Half an hour later Kennedy and I sauntered into the Prince Henry, where Carton had made the appointment in order to avoid suspicion that might arise if he were seen with Haddon at the Mayfair. The two men were waiting for us--Haddon, by contrast with Carton, a weak-faced, nervous man, with bulgy eyes. "Mr. Haddon," introduced Carton, "let me present a couple of reporters from the Star--off duty, so that we can talk freely before them, I can assure you. Good fellows, too, Haddon." The hotel and cabaret keeper smiled a sickly smile and greeted us with a covert, questioning glance. "This attack on Mr. Carton has unnerved me," he shivered. "If any one dares to do that to him, what will they do to me?" "Don't get cold feet, Haddon," urged Carton. "You'll be all right. I'll swing it for you." Haddon made no reply. At length he remarked: "You'll excuse me for a moment. I must telephone to my hotel." He entered a booth in the shadow of the back of the cafe, where there was a slot-machine pay-station. "I think Haddon has his suspicions," remarked Carton, "although he is too prudent to say anything yet." A moment later he returned. Something seemed to have happened. He looked less nervous. His face was brighter and his eyes clearer. What was it, I wondered? Could it be that he was playing a game with Carton and had given him a double cross? I was quite surprised at his next remark. "Carton," he said confidently, "I'll stick." "Good," exclaimed the district attorney, as they fell into a conversation in low tones. "By the way," drawled Kennedy, "I must telephone to the office in case they need me." He had risen and entered the same booth. Haddon and Carton were still talking earnestly. It was evident that, for some reason, Haddon had lost his former halting manner. Perhaps, I reasoned, the bomb episode had, after all, thrown a scare into him, and he felt that he needed protection against his own associates, who were quick to discover such dealings as Carton had forced him into. I rose and lounged back to the booth and Kennedy. "Whom did he call?" I whispered, when Craig emerged perspiring from the booth, for I knew that that was his purpose. Craig glanced at Haddon, who now seemed absorbed in talking to Carton. "No one," he answered quickly. "Central told me there had not been a call from this pay-station for half an hour." "No one?" I echoed almost incredulously. "Then what did he do? Something happened, all right." Kennedy was evidently engrossed in his own thoughts, for he said nothing. "Haddon says he wants to do some scouting about," announced Carton, when we rejoined them. "There are several people whom he says he might suspect. I've arranged to meet him this afternoon to get the first part of this story about the inside working of the vice trust, and he will let me know if anything develops then. You will be at your office?" "Yes, one or the other of us," returned Craig, in a tone which Haddon could not hear. In the meantime we took occasion to make some inquiries of our own about Haddon and Loraine Keith. They were evidently well known in the select circle in which they travelled. Haddon had many curious characteristics, chief of which to interest Kennedy was his speed mania. Time and again he had been arrested for exceeding the speed limit in taxicabs and in a car of his own, often in the past with Loraine Keith, but lately alone. It was toward the close of the afternoon that Carton called up hurriedly. As Kennedy hung up the receiver, I read on his face that something had gone wrong. "Haddon has disappeared," he announced, "mysteriously and suddenly, without leaving so much as a clue. It seems that he found in his office a package exactly like that which was sent to Carton earlier in the day. He didn't wait to say anything about it, but left. Carton is bringing it over here." Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Carton himself deposited the package on the laboratory table with an air of relief. We looked eagerly. It was addressed to Haddon at the Mayfair in the same disguised handwriting and was done up in precisely the same fashion. "Lots of bombs are just scare bombs," observed Craig. "But you never can tell." Again Kennedy had started to dissect. "Ah," he went on, "this is the real thing, though, only a little different from the other. A dry battery gives a spark when the lid is slipped back. See, the explosive is in a steel pipe. Sliding the lid off is supposed to explode it. Why, there is enough explosive in this to have silenced a dozen Haddons." "Do you think he could have been kidnapped or murdered?" I asked. "What is this, anyhow--gang-war?" "Or perhaps bribed?" suggested Carton. "I can't say," ruminated Kennedy. "But I can say this: that there is at large in this city a man of great mechanical skill and practical knowledge of electricity and explosives. He is trying to make sure of hiding something from exposure. We must find him." "And especially Haddon," Carton added quickly. "He is the missing link. His testimony is absolutely essential to the case I am building up." "I think I shall want to observe Loraine Keith without being observed," planned Kennedy, with a hasty glance at his watch. "I think I'll drop around at this Mayfair I have heard so much about. Will you come?" "I'd better not," refused Carton. "You know they all know me, and everything quits wherever I go. I'll see you soon." As we drove in a cab over to the Mayfair, Kennedy said nothing. I wondered how and where Haddon had disappeared. Had the powers of evil in the city learned that he was weakening and hurried him out of the way at the last moment? Just what had Loraine Keith to do with it? Was she in any way responsible? I felt that there were, indeed, no bounds to what a jealous woman might dare. Beside the ornate grilled doorway of the carriage entrance of the Mayfair stood a gilt-and-black easel with the words, "Tango Tea at Four." Although it was considerably after that time, there was a line of taxi-cabs before the place and, inside, a brave array of late-afternoon and early-evening revellers. The public dancing had ceased, and a cabaret had taken its place. We entered and sat down at one of the more inconspicuous of the little round tables. On a stage, at one side, a girl was singing one of the latest syncopated airs. "We'll just stick around a while, Walter," whispered Craig. "Perhaps this Loraine Keith will come in." Behind us, protected both by the music and the rustle of people coming and going, a couple talked in low tones. Now and then a word floated over to me in a language which was English, sure enough, but not of a kind that I could understand. "Dropped by a flatty," I caught once, then something about a "mouthpiece," and the "bulls," and "making a plant." "A dip--pickpocket--and his girl, or gun-moll, as they call them," translated Kennedy. "One of their number has evidently been picked up by a detective and he looks to them for a good lawyer, or mouth-piece." Besides these two there were innumerable other interesting glimpses into the life of this meeting-place for the half-and underworlds. A motion in the audience attracted me, as if some favourite performer were about to appear, and I heard the "gun-moll" whisper, "Loraine Keith." There she was, a petite, dark-haired, snappy-eyed girl, chic, well groomed, and gowned so daringly that every woman in the audience envied and every man craned his neck to see her better. Loraine wore a tight-fitting black dress, slashed to the knee. In fact, everything was calculated to set her off at best advantage, and on the stage, at least, there was something recherche about her. Yet, there was also something gross about her, too. Accompanying her was a nervous-looking fellow whose washed-out face was particularly unattractive. It seemed as if the bone in his nose was going, due to the shrinkage of the blood-vessels. Once, just before the dance began, I saw him rub something on the back of his hand, raise it to his nose, and sniff. Then he took a sip of a liqueur. The dance began, wild from the first step, and as it developed, Kennedy leaned over and whispered, "The danse des Apaches." It was acrobatic. The man expressed brutish passion and jealousy; the woman, affection and fear. It seemed to tell a story--the struggle of love, the love of the woman against the brutal instincts of the thug, her lover. She was terrified as well as fascinated by him in his mad temper and tremendous superhuman strength. I wondered if the dance portrayed the fact. The music was a popular air with many rapid changes, but through all there was a constant rhythm which accorded well with the abandon of the swaying dance. Indeed, I could think of nothing so much as of Bill Sykes and Nancy as I watched these two. It was the fight of two frenzied young animals. He would approach stealthily, seize her, and whirl her about, lifting her to his shoulder. She was agile, docile, and fearful. He untied a scarf and passed it about her; she leaned against it, and they whirled giddily about. Suddenly, it seemed that he became jealous. She would run; he follow and catch her. She would try to pacify him; he would become more enraged. The dance became faster and more furious. His violent efforts seemed to be to throw her to the floor, and her streaming hair now made it seem more like a fight than a dance. The audience hung breathless. It ended with her dropping exhausted, a proper finale to this lowest and most brutal dance. Panting, flushed, with an unnatural light in their eyes, they descended to the audience and, scorning the roar of applause to repeat the performance, sat at a little table. I saw a couple of girls come over toward the man. "Give us a deck, Coke," said one, in a harsh voice. He nodded. A silver quarter gleamed momentarily from hand to hand, and he passed to one girl stealthily a small white-paper packet. Others came to him, both men and women. It seemed to be an established thing. "Who is that?" asked Kennedy, in a low tone, of the pickpocket back of us. "Coke Brodie," was the laconic reply. "A cocaine fiend?" "Yes, and a lobbygow for the grapevine system of selling the dope under this new law." "Where does he get the supply to sell?" asked Kennedy, casually. The pickpocket shrugged his shoulders. "No one knows, I suppose," Kennedy commented to me. "But he gets it in spite of the added restrictions and peddles it in little packets, adulterated, and at a fabulous price for such cheap stuff. The habit is spreading like wildfire. It is a fertile means of recruiting the inmates in the vice-trust hotels. A veritable epidemic it is, too. Cocaine is one of the most harmful of all habit-forming drugs. It used to be a habit of the underworld, but now it is creeping up, and gradually and surely reaching the higher strata of society. One thing that causes its spread is the ease with which it can be taken. It requires no smoking-dens, no syringe, no paraphernalia--only the drug itself." Another singer had taken the place of the dancers. Kennedy leaned over and whispered to the dip. "Say, do you and your gun-moll want to pick up a piece of change to get that mouthpiece I heard you talking about?" The pickpocket looked at Craig suspiciously. "Oh, don't worry; I'm all right," laughed Craig. "You see that fellow, Coke Brodie? I want to get something on him. If you will frame that sucker to get away with a whole front, there's a fifty in it." The dip looked, rather than spoke, his amazement. Apparently Kennedy satisfied his suspicions. "I'm on," he said quickly. "When he goes, I'll follow him. You keep behind us, and we'll deliver the goods." "What's it all about?" I whispered. "Why," he answered, "I want to get Brodie, only I don't want to figure in the thing so that he will know me or suspect anything but a plain hold-up. They will get him; take everything he has. There must be something on that man that will help us." Several performers had done their turns, and the supply of the drug seemed to have been exhausted. Brodie rose and, with a nod to Loraine, went out, unsteadily, now that the effect of the cocaine had worn off. One wondered how this shuffling person could ever have carried through the wild dance. It was not Brodie who danced. It was the drug. The dip slipped out after him, followed by the woman. We rose and followed also. Across the city Brodie slouched his way, with an evident purpose, it seemed, of replenishing his supply and continuing his round of peddling the stuff. He stopped under the brow of a thickly populated tenement row on the upper East Side, as though this was his destination. There he stood at the gate that led down to a cellar, looking up and down as if wondering whether he was observed. We had slunk into a doorway. A woman coming down the street, swinging a chatelaine, walked close to him, spoke, and for a moment they talked. "It's the gun-moll," remarked Kennedy. "She's getting Brodie off his guard. This must be the root of that grapevine system, as they call it." Suddenly from the shadow of the next house a stealthy figure sprang out on Brodie. It was our dip, a dip no longer but a regular stick-up man, with a gun jammed into the face of his victim and a broad hand over his mouth. Skilfully the woman went through Brodie's pockets, her nimble fingers missing not a thing. "Now--beat it," we heard the dip whisper hoarsely, "and if you raise a holler, we'll get you right, next time." Brodie fled as fast as his weakened nerves would permit his shaky limbs to move. As he disappeared, the dip sent something dark hurtling over the roof of the house across the street and hurried toward us. "What was that?" I asked. "I think it was the pistol on the end of a stout cord. That is a favourite trick of the gunmen after a job. It destroys at least a part of the evidence. You can't throw a gun very far alone, you know. But with it at the end of a string you can lift it up over the roof of a tenement. If Brodie squeals to a copper and these people are caught, they can't hold them under the pistol law, anyhow." The dip had caught sight of us, with his ferret eyes in the doorway. Quickly Kennedy passed over the money in return for the motley array of objects taken from Brodie. The dip and his gun-moll disappeared into the darkness as quickly as they had emerged. There was a curious assortment--the paraphernalia of a drug fiend, old letters, a key, and several other useless articles. The pickpocket had retained the money from the sale of the dope as his own particular honorarium. "Brodie has led us up to the source of his supply," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully regarding the stuff. "And the dip has given us the key to it. Are you game to go in?" A glance up and down the street showed it still deserted. We wormed our way in the shadow to the cellar before which Brodie had stood. The outside door was open. We entered, and Craig stealthily struck a match, shading it in his hands. At one end we were confronted by a little door of mystery, barred with iron and held by an innocent enough looking padlock. It was this lock, evidently, to which the key fitted, opening the way into the subterranean vault of brick and stone. Kennedy opened it and pushed back the door. There was a little square compartment, dark as pitch and delightfully cool and damp. He lighted a match, then hastily blew it out and switched on an electric bulb which it disclosed. "Can't afford risks like that here," he exclaimed, carefully disposing of the match, as our eyes became accustomed to the light. On every side were pieces of gas-pipe, boxes, and paper, and on shelves were jars of various materials. There was a work-table littered with tools, pieces of wire, boxes, and scraps of metal. "My word!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he surveyed the curious scene before us, "this is a regular bomb factory--one of the most amazing exhibits that the history of crime has ever produced." XVIII THE "COKE" FIEND I followed him in awe as he made a hasty inventory of what we had discovered. There were as many as a dozen finished and partly finished infernal machines of various sizes and kinds, some of tremendous destructive capacity. Kennedy did not even attempt to study them. All about were high explosives, chemicals, dynamite. There was gunpowder of all varieties, antimony, blasting-powder, mercury cyanide, chloral hydrate, chlorate of potash, samples of various kinds of shot, some of the outlawed soft-nosed dumdum bullets, cartridges, shells, pieces of metal purposely left with jagged edges, platinum, aluminum, iron, steel--a conglomerate mass of stuff that would have gladdened an anarchist. Kennedy was examining a little quartz-lined electric furnace, which was evidently used for heating soldering irons and other tools. Everything had been done, it seemed, to prevent explosions. There were no open lights and practically no chance for heat to be communicated far among the explosives. Indeed, everything had been arranged to protect the operator himself in his diabolical work. Kennedy had switched on the electric furnace, and from the various pieces of metal on the table selected several. These he was placing together in a peculiar manner, and to them he attached some copper wire which lay in a corner in a roll. Under the work-table, beneath the furnace, one could feel the warmth of the thing slightly. Quickly he took the curious affair, which he had hastily shaped, and fastened it under the table at that point, then led the wires out through a little barred window to an air-shaft, the only means of ventilation of the place except the door. While he was working I had been gingerly inspecting the rest of the den. In a corner, just beside the door, I had found a set of shelves and a cabinet. On both were innumerable packets done up in white paper. I opened one and found it contained several pinches of a white, crystalline substance. "Little portions of cocaine," commented Kennedy, when I showed him what I had found. "In the slang of the fiends, 'decks.'" On the top of the cabinet he discovered a little enamelled box, much like a snuff-box, in which were also some of the white flakes. Quickly he emptied them out and replaced them with others from jars which had not been made up into packets. "Why, there must be hundreds of ounces of the stuff here, to say nothing of the various things they adulterate it with," remarked Kennedy. "No wonder they are so careful when it is a felony even to have it in your possession in such quantities. See how careful they are about the adulteration, too. You could never tell except from the effect whether it was the pure or only a few-per-cent.-pure article." Kennedy took a last look at the den, to make sure that nothing had been disturbed that would arouse suspicion. "We may as well go," he remarked. "To-morrow, I want to be free to make the connection outside with that wire in the shaft." Imagine our surprise, the next morning, when a tap at our door revealed Loraine Keith herself. "Is this Professor Kennedy?" she asked, gazing at us with a half-wild expression which she was making a tremendous effort to control. "Because if it is, I have something to tell him that may interest Mr. Carton." We looked at her curiously. Without her make-up she was pallid and yellow in spots, her hands trembling, cold, and sweaty, her eyes sunken and glistening, with pupils dilated, her breathing short and hurried, restless, irresolute, and careless of her personal appearance. "Perhaps you wonder how I heard of you and why I have come to you," she went on. "It is because I have a confession to make. I saw Mr. Haddon just before he was--kidnapped." She seemed to hesitate over the word. "How did you know I was interested?" asked Kennedy keenly. "I heard him mention your name with Mr. Carton's." "Then he knew that I was more than a reporter for the Star," remarked Kennedy. "Kidnapped, you say? How?" She shot a glance half of suspicion, half of frankness, at us. "That's what I must confess. Whoever did it must have used me as a tool. Mr. Haddon and I used to be good friends--I would be yet." There was evident feeling in her tone which she did not have to assume. "All I remember yesterday was that, after lunch, I was in the office of the Mayfair when he came in. On his desk was a package. I don't know what has become of it. But he gave one look at it, seemed to turn pale, then caught sight of me. 'Loraine,' he whispered, 'we used to be good friends. Forgive me for turning you down. But you don't understand. Get me away from here--come with me--call a cab.' "Well, I got into the cab with him. We had a chauffeur whom we used to have in the old days. We drove furiously, avoiding the traffic men. He told the driver to take us to my apartment--and--and that is the last I remember, except a scuffle in which I was dragged from the cab on one side and he on the other." She had opened her handbag and taken from it a little snuff-box, like that which we had seen in the den. "I--I can't go on," she apologised, "without this stuff." "So you are a cocaine fiend, also?" remarked Kennedy. "Yes, I can't help it. There is an indescribable excitement to do something great, to make a mark, that goes with it. It's soon gone, but while it lasts I can sing and dance, do anything until every part of my body begins crying for it again. I was full of the stuff when this happened yesterday; had taken too much, I guess." The change in her after she had snuffed some of the crystals was magical. From a quivering wretch she had become now a self-confident neurasthenic. "You know where that stuff will land you, I presume?" questioned Kennedy. "I don't care," she laughed hollowly. "Yes, I know what you are going to tell me. Soon I'll be hunting for the cocaine bug, as they call it, imagining that in my skin, under the flesh, are worms crawling, perhaps see them, see the little animals running around and biting me. Oh, you don't know. There are two souls to the cocainist. One is tortured by the suffering which the stuff brings; the other laughs at the fears and pains. But it brings such thoughts! It stimulates my mind, makes it work without, against my will, gives me such visions--oh, I can not go on. They would kill me if they knew I had come to you. Why have I? Has not Haddon cast me off? What is he to me, now?" It was evident that she was growing hysterical. I wondered whether, after all, the story of the kidnapping of Haddon might not be a figment of her brain, simply an hallucination due to the drug. "They?" inquired Kennedy, observing her narrowly. "Who?" "I can't tell. I don't know. Why did I come? Why did I come?" She was reaching again for the snuff-box, but Kennedy restrained her. "Miss Keith," he remarked, "you are concealing something from me. There is some one," he paused a moment, "whom you are shielding." "No, no," she cried. "He was taken. Brodie had nothing to do with it, nothing. That is what you mean. I know. This stuff increases my sensitiveness. Yet I hate Coke Brodie--oh--let me go. I am all unstrung. Let me see a doctor. To-night, when I am better, I will tell all." Loraine Keith had torn herself from him, had instantly taken a pinch of the fatal crystals, with that same ominous change from fear to self-confidence. What had been her purpose in coming at all? It had seemed at first to implicate Brodie, but she had been quick to shield him when she saw that danger. I wondered what the fascination might be which the wretch exercised over her. "To-night--I will see you to-night," she cried, and a moment later she was gone, as unexpectedly as she had come. I looked at Kennedy blankly. "What was the purpose of that outburst?" I asked. "I can't say," he replied. "It was all so incoherent that, from what I know of drug fiends, I am sure she had a deep-laid purpose in it all. It does not change my plans." Two hours later we had paid a deposit on an empty flat in the tenement-house in which the bomb-maker had his headquarters, and had received a key to the apartment from the janitor. After considerable difficulty, owing to the narrowness of the air-shaft, Kennedy managed to pick up the loose ends of the wire which had been led out of the little window at the base of the shaft, and had attached it to a couple of curious arrangements which he had brought with him. One looked like a large taximeter from a motor cab; the other was a diminutive gas-metre, in looks at least. Attached to them were several bells and lights. He had scarcely completed installing the thing, whatever it was, when a gentle tap at the door startled me. Kennedy nodded, and I opened it. It was Carton. "I have had my men watching the Mayfair," he announced. "There seems to be a general feeling of alarm there, now. They can't even find Loraine Keith. Brodie, apparently, has not shown up in his usual haunts since the episode of last night." "I wonder if the long arm of this vice trust could have reached out and gathered them in, too?" I asked. "Quite likely," replied Carton, absorbed in watching Kennedy. "What's this?" A little bell had tinkled sharply, and a light had flashed up on the attachments to the apparatus. "Nothing. I was just testing it to see if it works. It does, although the end which I installed down below was necessarily only a makeshift. It is not this red light with the shrill bell that we are interested in. It is the green light and the low-toned bell. This is a thermopile." "And what is a thermopile?"' queried Carton. "For the sake of one who has forgotten his physics," smiled Kennedy, "I may say this is only another illustration of how all science ultimately finds practical application. You probably have forgotten that when two half-rings of dissimilar metals are joined together and one is suddenly heated or chilled, there is produced at the opposite connecting point a feeble current which will flow until the junctures are both at the same temperature. You might call this a thermo-electric thermometer, or a telethermometer, or a microthermometer, or any of a dozen names." "Yes," I agreed mechanically, only vaguely guessing at what he had in mind. "The accurate measurement of temperature is still a problem of considerable difficulty," he resumed, adjusting the thermometer. "A heated mass can impart vibratory motion to the ether which fills space, and the wave-motions of ether are able to reproduce in other bodies motions similar to those by which they are caused. At this end of the line I merely measure the electromotive force developed by the difference in temperature of two similar thermo-electric junctions, opposed. We call those junctions in a thermopile 'couples,' and by getting the recording instruments sensitive enough, we can measure one one-thousandth of a degree. "Becquerel was the first, I believe, to use this property. But the machine which you see here was one recently invented for registering the temperature of sea water so as to detect the approach of an iceberg. I saw no reason why it should not be used to measure heat as well as cold. "You see, down there I placed the couples of the thermopile beneath the electric furnace on the table. Here I have the mechanism, operated by the feeble current from the thermopile, opening and closing switches, and actuating bells and lights. Then, too, I have the recording instrument. The thing is fundamentally very simple and is based on well-known phenomena. It is not uncertain and can be tested at any time, just as I did then, when I showed a slight fall in temperature. Of course it is not the slight changes I am after, not the gradual but the sudden changes in temperature." "I see," said Carton. "If there is a drop, the current goes one way and we see the red light; a rise and it goes the other, and we see a green light." "Exactly," agreed Kennedy. "No one is going to approach that chamber down-stairs as long as he thinks any one is watching, and we do not know where they are watching. But the moment any sudden great change is registered, such as turning on that electric furnace, we shall know it here." It must have been an hour that we sat there discussing the merits of the case and speculating on the strange actions of Loraine Keith. Suddenly the red light flashed out brilliantly. "What's that?" asked Carton quickly. "I can't tell, yet," remarked Kennedy. "Perhaps it is nothing at all. Perhaps it is a draught of cold air from opening the door. We shall have to wait and see." We bent over the little machine, straining our eyes and ears to catch the visual and audible signals which it gave. Gradually the light faded, as the thermopile adjusted itself to the change in temperature. Suddenly, without warning, a low-toned bell rang before us and a bright-green light flashed up. "That can have only one meaning," cried Craig excitedly. "Some one is down there in that inferno--perhaps the bomb-maker himself." The bell continued to ring and the light to glow, showing that whoever was there had actually started the electric furnace. What was he preparing to do? I felt that, even though we knew there was some one there, it did us little good. I, for one, had no relish for the job of bearding such a lion in his den. We looked at Kennedy, wondering what he would do next. From the package in which he had brought the two registering machines he quietly took another package, wrapped up, about eighteen inches long and apparently very heavy. As he did so he kept his attention fixed on the telethermometer. Was he going to wait until the bomb-maker had finished what he had come to accomplish? It was perhaps fifteen minutes after our first alarm that the signals began to weaken. "Does that mean that he has gone--escaped?" inquired Carton anxiously. "No. It means that his furnace is going at full power and that he has forgotten it. It is what I am waiting for. Come on." Seizing the package as he hurried from the room, Kennedy dashed out on the street and down the outside cellar stairs, followed by us. He paused at the thick door and listened. Apparently there was not a sound from the other side, except a whir of a motor and a roar which might have been from the furnace. Softly he tried the door. It was locked on the inside. Was the bomb-maker there still? He must be. Suppose he heard us. Would he hesitate a moment to send us all to perdition along with himself? How were we to get past that door? Really, the deathlike stillness on the other side was more mysterious than would have been the detonation of some of the criminal's explosive. Kennedy had evidently satisfied himself on one point. If we were to get into that chamber we must do it ourselves, and we must do it quickly. From the package which he carried he pulled out a stubby little cylinder, perhaps eighteen inches long, very heavy, with a short stump of a lever projecting from one side. Between the stonework of a chimney and the barred door he laid it horizontally, jamming in some pieces of wood to wedge it tighter. Then he began to pump on the handle vigorously. The almost impregnable door seemed slowly to bulge. Still there was no sign of life from within. Had the bomb-maker left before we arrived? "This is my scientific sledge-hammer," panted Kennedy, as he worked the little lever backward and forward more quickly--"a hydraulic ram. There is no swinging of axes or wielding of crowbars necessary in breaking down an obstruction like this, nowadays. Such things are obsolete. This little jimmy, if you want to call it that, has a power of ten tons. That ought to be enough." It seemed as if the door were slowly being crushed in before the irresistible ten-ton punch of the hydraulic ram. Kennedy stopped. Evidently he did not dare to crush the door in altogether. Quickly he released the ram and placed it vertically. Under the now-yawning door jamb he inserted a powerful claw of the ram and again he began to work the handle. A moment later the powerful door buckled, and Kennedy deftly swung it outward so that it fell with a crash on the cellar floor. As the noise reverberated, there came a sound of a muttered curse from the cavern. Some one was there. We pressed forward. On the floor, in the weird glare of the little furnace, lay a man and a woman, the light playing over their ghastly, set features. Kennedy knelt over the man, who was nearest the door. "Call a doctor, quick," he ordered, reaching over and feeling the pulse of the woman, who had half fallen out of her chair. "They will, be all right soon. They took what they thought was their usual adulterated cocaine--see, here is the box in which it was. Instead, I filled the box with the pure drug. They'll come around. Besides, Carton needs both of them in his fight." "Don't take any more," muttered the woman, half conscious. "There's something wrong with it, Haddon." I looked more closely at the face in the half-darkness. It was Haddon himself. "I knew he'd come back when the craving for the drug became intense enough," remarked Kennedy. Carton looked at Kennedy in amazement. Haddon was the last person in the world whom he had evidently expected to discover here. "How--what do you mean?" "The episode of the telephone booth gave me the first hint. That is the favourite stunt of the drug fiend--a few minutes alone, and he thinks no one is the wiser about his habit. Then, too, there was the story about his speed mania. That is a frequent failing of the cocainist. The drug, too, was killing his interest in Loraine Keith--that is the last stage. "Yet under its influence, just as with his lobbygow and lieutenant, Brodie, he found power and inspiration. With him it took the form of bombs to protect himself in his graft." "He can't--escape this time--Loraine. We'll leave it--at his house--you know--Carton--" We looked quickly at the work-table. On it was a gigantic bomb of clockwork over which Haddon had been working. The cocaine which was to have given him inspiration had, thanks to Kennedy, overcome him. Beside Loraine Keith were a suit-case and a Gladstone. She had evidently been stuffing the corners full of their favourite nepenthe, for, as Kennedy reached down and turned over the closely packed woman's finery and the few articles belonging to Haddon, innumerable packets from the cabinet dropped out. "Hulloa--what's this?" he exclaimed, as he came to a huge roll of bills and a mass of silver and gold coin. "Trying to double-cross us all the time. That was her clever game--to give him the hours he needed to gather what money he could save and make a clean getaway. Even cocaine doesn't destroy the interest of men and women in that," he concluded, turning over to Carton the wealth which Haddon had amassed as one of the meanest grafters of the city of graft. Here was a case which I could not help letting the Star have immediately. Notes or no notes, it was local news of the first order. Besides, anything that concerned Carton was of the highest political significance. It kept me late at the office and I overslept. Consequently I did not see much of Craig the next morning, especially as he told me he had nothing special, having turned down a case of a robbery of a safe, on the ground that the police were much better fitted to catch ordinary yeggmen than he was. During the day, therefore, I helped in directing the following up of the Haddon case for the Star. Then, suddenly, a new front page story crowded this one of the main headlines. With a sigh of relief, I glanced at the new thriller, found it had something to do with the Navy Department, and that it came from as far away as Washington. There was no reason now why others could not carry on the graft story, and I left, not unwillingly. My special work just now was keeping on the trail of Kennedy, and I was glad to go back to the apartment and wait for him. "I suppose you saw that despatch from Washington in this afternoon's papers?" he queried, as he came in, tossing a late edition of the Record down on my desk. Across the front page extended a huge black scare-head: "NAVY'S MOST VITAL SECRET STOLEN." "Yes," I shrugged, "but you can't get me much excited by what the rewrite men on the Record say." "Why?" he asked, going directly into his own room. "Well," I replied, glancing through the text of the story, "the actual facts are practically the same as in the other papers. Take this, for instance, 'On the night of the celebration of the anniversary of the battle of Manila there were stolen from the Navy Department plans which the Record learns exclusively represent the greatest naval secret in the world.' So much for that paragraph--written in the office. Then it goes on: "The whole secret-service machinery of the Government has been put in operation. No one has been able to extract from the authorities the exact secret which was stolen, but it is believed to be an invention which will revolutionise the structure and construction of the most modern monster battleships. Such knowledge, it is said, in the hands of experts might prove fatal in almost any fight in which our newer ships met others of about equal fighting power, as with it marksmen might direct a shot that would disable our ships. "It is the opinion of the experts that the theft was executed by a skilled draughtsman or other civilian employe. At any rate, the thief knew what to take and its value. There is, at least, one nation, it is asserted, which faces the problem of bringing its ships up to the standard of our own to which the plans would be very valuable. "The building had been thrown open to the public for the display of fireworks on the Monument grounds before it. The plans are said to have been on one of the draughting-tables, drawn upon linen to be made into blue-prints. They are known to have been on the tables when the draughting-room was locked for the night. "The room is on the third floor of the Department and has a balcony looking out on the Monument. Many officers and officials had their families and friends on the balcony to witness the celebration, though it is not known that any one was in the draughting-room itself. All were admitted to the building on passes. The plans were tacked to a draughting-board in the room, but when it was opened in the morning the linen sheet was gone, and so were the thumb-tacks. The plans could readily have been rolled into a small bundle and carried under a coat or wrap. "While the authorities are trying to minimise the actual loss, it is believed that this position is only an attempt to allay the great public concern." I paused. "Now then," I added, picking up one of the other papers I had brought up-town myself, "take the Express. It says that the plans were important, but would have been made public in a few months, anyhow. Here: "The theft--or mislaying, as the Department hopes it will prove to be--took place several days ago. Official confirmation of the report is lacking, but from trustworthy unofficial sources it is learned that only unimportant parts of plans are missing, presumably minor structural details of battle-ship construction, and other things of a really trivial character, such as copies of naval regulations, etc. "The attempt to make a sensational connection between the loss and a controversy which is now going on with a foreign government is greatly to be deplored and is emphatically asserted to be utterly baseless. It bears traces of the jingoism of those 'interests' which are urging naval increases. "There is usually very little about a battle-ship that is not known before her keel is laid, or even before the signing of the contracts. At any rate, when it is asserted that the plans represent the dernier cri in some form of war preparation, it is well to remember that a 'last cry' is last only until there is a later. Naval secrets are few, anyway, and as it takes some years to apply them, this loss cannot be of superlative value to any one. Still, there is, of course, a market for such information in spite of the progress toward disarmament, but the rule in this case will be the rule as in a horse trade, 'Caveat emptor.'" "So there you are," I concluded. "You pay your penny for a paper, and you take your choice." "And the Star," inquired Kennedy, coming to the door and adding with an aggravating grin, "the infallible?" "The Star," I replied, unruffled, "hits the point squarely when it says that whether the plans were of immediate importance or not, the real point is that if they could be stolen, really important things could be taken also. For instance, 'The thought of what the thief might have stolen has caused much more alarm than the knowledge of what he has succeeded in taking.' I think it is about time those people in Washington stopped the leak if--" The telephone rang insistently. "I think that's for me," exclaimed Craig, bounding out of his room and forgetting his quiz of me. "Hello--yes--is that you, Burke? At the Grand Central--half an hour--all right. I'm bringing Jameson. Good-bye." Kennedy jammed down the receiver on the hook. XIX THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY "The Star was not far from right, Walter," he added, seriously. "If the battleship plans could be stolen, other things could be--other things were. You remember Burke of the secret service? I'm going up to Lookout Hill on the Connecticut shore of the Sound with him to-night. The rewrite men on the Record didn't have the facts, but they had accurate imaginations. The most vital secret that any navy ever had, that would have enabled us in a couple of years to whip the navies of the world combined against us, has been stolen." "And that is?" I asked. "The practical working-out of the newest of sciences, the science of telautomatics." "Telautomatics?" I repeated. "Yes. There is something weird, fascinating about the very idea. I sit up here safely in this room, turning switches, pressing buttons, depressing levers. Ten miles away a vehicle, a ship, an aeroplane, a submarine obeys me. It may carry enough of the latest and most powerful explosive that modern science can invent, enough, if exploded, to rival the worst of earthquakes. Yet it obeys my will. It goes where I direct it. It explodes where I want it. And it wipes off the face of the earth anything which I want annihilated. "That's telautomatics, and that is what has been stolen from our navy and dimly sensed by you clever newspaper men, from whom even the secret service can't quite hide everything. The publication of the rumour alone that the government knows it has lost something has put the secret service in a hole. What might have been done quietly and in a few days has got to be done in the glare of the limelight and with the blare of a brass band--and it has got to be done right away, too. Come on, Walter. I've thrown together all we shall need for one night--and it doesn't include any pajamas, either." A few minutes later we met our friend Burke of the secret service at the new terminal. He had wired Kennedy earlier in the day saying that he would be in New York and would call him up. "The plans, as I told you in my message," began Burke, when we had seated ourselves in a compartment of the Pullman, "were those of Captain Shirley, covering the wireless-controlled submarine. The old captain is a thoroughbred, too. I've known him in Washington. Comes of an old New England, family with plenty of money but more brains. For years he has been working on this science of radio-telautomatics, has all kinds of patents, which he has dedicated to the United States, too. Of course the basic, pioneer patents are not his. His work has been in the practical application of them. And, Kennedy, there are some secrets about his latest work that he has not patented; he has given them outright to the Navy Department, because they are too valuable even to patent." Burke, who liked a good detective tale himself, seemed pleased at holding Kennedy spellbound. "For instance," he went on, "he has on the bay up here a submarine which can be made into a crewless dirigible. He calls it the Turtle, I believe, because that was the name of the first American submarine built by Dr. Bushnell during the Revolution, even before Fulton." "You have theories of your own on the case?" asked Craig. "Well, there are several possibilities. You know there are submarine companies in this country, bitter rivals. They might like to have those plans. Then, too, there are foreign governments." He paused. Though he said nothing, I felt that there was no doubt what he hinted at. At least one government occurred to me which would like the plans above all others. "Once some plans of a submarine were stolen, I recall," ruminated Kennedy. "But that theft, I am satisfied, was committed in behalf of a rival company." "But, Kennedy," exclaimed Burke, "it was bad enough when the plans were stolen. Now Captain Shirley wires me that some one must have tampered with his model. It doesn't work right. He even believes that his own life may be threatened. And there is scarcely a real clue," he added dejectedly. "Of course we are watching all the employes who had access to the draughting-room and tracing everybody who was in the building that night. I have a complete list of them. There are three or four who will bear watching. For instance, there is a young attache of one of the embassies, named Nordheim." "Nordheim!" I echoed, involuntarily. I had expected an Oriental name. "Yes, a German. I have been looking up his record, and I find that once he was connected in some way with the famous Titan Iron Works, at Kiel, Germany. We began watching him day before yesterday, but suddenly he disappeared. Then, there is a society woman in Washington, a Mrs. Bayard Brainard, who was at the Department that night. We have been trying to find her. To-day I got word that she was summering in the cottage colony across the bay from Lookout Hill. At any rate, I had to go up there to see the captain, and I thought I'd kill a whole flock of birds with one stone. The chief thought, too, that if you'd take the case with us you had best start on it up there. Next, you will no doubt want to go back to Washington with me." Lookout Hill was the name of the famous old estate of the Shirleys, on a point of land jutting out into Long Island Sound and with a neighbouring point enclosing a large, deep, safe harbour. On the highest ground of the estate, with a perfect view of both harbour and sound, stood a large stone house, the home of Captain Shirley, of the United States navy, retired. Captain Shirley, a man of sixty-two or three, bronzed and wiry, met us eagerly. "So this is Professor Kennedy; I'm glad to meet you, sir," he welcomed, clasping Craig's hand in both of his--a fine figure as he stood erect in the light of the portecochere. "What's the news from Washington, Burke? Any clues?" "I can hardly tell," replied the secret service man, with assumed cheerfulness. "By the way, you'll have to excuse me for a few minutes while I run back into town on a little errand. Meanwhile, Captain, will you explain to Professor Kennedy just how things are? Perhaps he'd better begin by seeing the Turtle herself." Burke had not waited longer than to take leave. "The Turtle," repeated the captain, leading the way into the house. "Well, I did call it that at first. But I prefer to call it the Z99. You know the first submarines, abroad at least, were sometimes called Al, A2, A3, and so on. They were of the diving, plunging type, that is, they submerged on an inclined keel, nose down, like the Hollands. Then came the B type, in which the hydroplane appeared; the C type, in which it was more prominent, and a D type, where submergence is on a perfectly even keel, somewhat like our Lakes. Well, this boat of mine is a last word--the Z99. Call it the Turtle, if you like." We were standing for a moment in a wide Colonial hall in which a fire was crackling in a huge brick fireplace, taking the chill off the night air. "Let me give you a demonstration, first," added the captain. "Perhaps Z99 will work--perhaps not." There was an air of disappointment about the old veteran as he spoke, uncertainly now, of what a short time ago he had known to be a certainty and one of the greatest it had ever been given the inventive mind of man to know. A slip of a girl entered from the library, saw us, paused, and was about to turn back. Silhouetted against the curtained door, there was health, animation, gracefulness, in every line of her wavy chestnut hair, her soft, sparkling brown eyes, her white dress and hat to match, which contrasted with the healthy glow of tan on her full neck and arms, and her dainty little white shoes, ready for anything from tennis to tango. "My daughter Gladys, Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," introduced the captain. "We are going to try the Z99 again, Gladys." A moment later we four were walking to the edge of the cliff where Captain Shirley had a sort of workshop and signal-station. He lighted the gas, for Lookout Hill was only on the edge of the town and boasted gas, electricity, and all modern improvements, as well as the atmosphere of old New England. "The Z99 is moored just below us at my private dock," began the captain. "I have a shed down there where we usually keep her, but I expected you, and she is waiting, thoroughly overhauled. I have signalled to my men--fellows I can trust, too, who used to be with me in the navy--to cast her off. There--now we are ready." The captain turned a switch. Instantly a couple of hundred feet below us, on the dark and rippling water, a light broke forth. Another signal, and the light changed. It was moving. "The principle of the thing," said Captain Shirley, talking to us but watching the moving light intently, "briefly, is that I use the Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the Z99. That is, I send a child with a message, the grown man, through the relay, so to speak, does the work. So, you see, I can sit up here and send my little David out anywhere to strike down a huge Goliath. "I won't bore you, yet, with explanations of my radio-combinator, the telecommutator, the aerial coherer relay, and the rest of the technicalities of wireless control of dirigible, self-propelled vessels. They are well known, beginning with pioneers like Wilson and Gardner in England, Roberts in Australia, Wirth and Lirpa in Germany, Gabet in France, and Tesla, Edison, Sims, and the younger Hammond in our own country. "The one thing, you may not know, that has kept us back while wireless telegraphy has gone ahead so fast is that in wireless we have been able to discard coherers and relays and use detectors and microphones in their places. But in telautomatics we have to keep the coherer. That has been the barrier. The coherer until recently has been spasmodic, until we had Hammond's mercury steel-disc coherer and now my own. Why," he cried, "we are just on the threshold, now, of this great science which Tesla has named telautomatics--the electric arm that we can stretch out through space to do our work and fight our battles." It was not difficult to feel the enthusiasm of the captain over an invention of such momentous possibilities, especially as the Z99 was well out in the harbour now and we could see her flashing her red and green signal-lights back to us. "You see," the captain resumed, "I have twelve numbers here on the keys of this radio-combinator--forward, back, stop propeller motor, rudder right, rudder left, stop steering motor, light signals front, light signals rear, launch torpedoes, and so on. The idea is that of a delayed contact. The machinery is always ready, but it delays a few seconds until the right impulse is given, a purely mechanical problem. I take advantage of the delay to have the message repeated by a signal back to me. I can even change it, then. You can see for yourself that it really takes no experience to run the thing when all is going right. Gladys has done it frequently herself. All you have to do is to pay attention, and press the right key for the necessary change. It is when things go wrong that even an expert like myself--confound it--there's something wrong!" The Z99 had suddenly swerved. Captain Shirley's brow knitted. We gathered around closer, Gladys next to her father and leaning anxiously over the transmitting apparatus. "I wanted to turn her to port yet she goes to starboard, and signals starboard, too. There--now--she has stopped altogether. What do you think of that?" Gladys stroked the old seafarer's hand gently, as he sat silently at the table, peering with contracted brows out into the now brilliantly moonlit night. Shirley looked up at his daughter, and the lines on his face relaxed as though he would hide his disappointment from her eager eyes. "Confound that light! What's the matter with it?" he exclaimed, changing the subject, and glancing up at the gas-fixture. Kennedy had already been intently looking at the Welsbach burner overhead, which had been flickering incessantly. "That gas company!" added the Captain, shaking his head in disgust, and showing annoyance over a trivial thing to hide deep concern over a greater, as some men do. "I shall use the electricity altogether after this contract with the company expires. I suppose you literary men, Mr. Jameson, would call that the light that failed." There was a forced air about his attempt to be facetious that did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the undercurrent of feelings in him. "On the contrary," broke in Kennedy, "I shouldn't be surprised to find that it is the light that succeeded." "How do you mean?" "I wouldn't have said anything about it if you hadn't noticed it yourself. In fact, I may be wrong. It suggests something to me, but it will need a good deal of work to verify it, and then it may not be of any significance. Is that the way the Z99 has behaved always lately?" "Yes, but I know that she hasn't broken down of herself," Captain Shirley asserted. "It never did before, not since I perfected that new coherer. And now it always does, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes after I start her out." Shirley was watching the lights as they serpentined their way to us across the nearly calm water of the bay, idly toying with the now useless combinator. "Wait here," he said, rising hurriedly. "I must send my motor-boat out there to pick her up and tow her in." He was gone down the flight of rustic steps on the face of the cliff before we could reply. "I wish father wouldn't take it to heart so," murmured Gladys. "Sometimes I fear that success or failure of this boat means life or death to him." "That is exactly why we are here," reassured Kennedy, turning earnestly to her, "to help him to settle this thing at once. This is a beautiful spot," he added, as we stood on the edge of the cliff and looked far out over the tossing waves of the sound. "What is on that other point?" asked Kennedy, turning again toward the harbour itself. "There is a large cottage colony there," she replied. "Of course many of the houses are still closed so early in the season, but it is a beautiful place in the summer. The hotel over there is open now, though." "You must have a lively time when the season is at its height," ventured Kennedy. "Do you know a cottager there, a Mrs. Brainard?" "Oh, yes, indeed. I have known her in Washington for some time." "No doubt the cottagers envy you your isolation here," remarked Kennedy, turning and surveying the beautifully kept grounds. "I should think it would be pleasant, too, to have an old Washington friend here." "It is. We often invite our friends over for lawn-parties and other little entertainments. Mrs. Brainard has just arrived and has only had time to return my first visit to her, but I expect we shall have some good times this summer." It was evident, at least, that Gladys was not concealing anything about her friend, whether there was any suspicion or not of her. We had gone into the house to await the return of Captain Shirley. Burke had just returned, his face betraying that he was bursting with news. "She's here, all right," he remarked in an undertone to Kennedy, "in the Stamford cottage--quite an outfit. French chauffeur, two Japanese servants, maids, and all." "The Stamford cottage?" repeated Gladys. "Why, that is where Mrs. Brainard lives." She gave a startled glance at Kennedy, as she suddenly seemed to realise that both he and the secret-service man had spoken about her friend. "Yes," said Burke, noting on the instant the perfect innocence of her concern. "What do you know about Mrs. Brainard? Who, where is, Mr. Brainard?" "Dead, I believe," Gladys hesitated. "Mrs. Brainard has been well known in Washington circles for years. Indeed, I invited her with us the night of the Manila display." "And Mr. Nordheim?" broke in Burke. "N-no," she hesitated. "He was there, but I don't know as whose guest." "Did he seem very friendly with. Mrs. Brainard?" pursued the detective. I thought I saw a shade of relief pass over her face as she answered, "Yes." I could only interpret it that perhaps Nordheim had been attentive to Gladys herself and that she had not welcomed his attentions. "I may as well tell you," she said, at length. "It is no secret in our set, and I suppose you would find it out soon, anyhow. It is said that he is engaged to Mrs. Brainard--that is all." "Engaged?" repeated Burke. "Then that would account for his being at the hotel here. At least, it would offer an excuse." Gladys was not slow to note the stress that Burke laid on the last word. "Oh, impossible," she began hurriedly, "impossible that he could have known anything about this other matter. Why, she told me he was to sail suddenly for Germany and came up here for a last visit before he went, and to arrange to come back on his return. Oh, he could know nothing--impossible." "Why impossible?" persisted Burke. "They have submarines in Germany, don't they? And rival companies, too." "Who have rival companies?" inquired a familiar voice. It was Captain Shirley, who had returned out of breath from his long climb up the steps from the shore. "The Germans. I was speaking of an attache named Nordheim." "Who is Nordheim?" inquired the captain. "You met him at the Naval building, that night, don't you remember?" replied Gladys. "Oh, yes, I believe I do--dimly. He was the man who seemed so devoted to Mrs. Brainard." "I think he is, too, father," she replied hastily. "He has been suddenly called to Berlin and planned to spend the last few days here, at the hotel, so as to be near her. She told me that he had been ordered back to Washington again before he sailed and had had to cut his visit short." "When did you first notice the interference with the Turtle?" asked Burke. "I received your message this morning." "Yesterday morning was the first," replied the captain. "He arrived the night before and did not leave until yesterday afternoon," remarked Burke. "And we arrived to-night," put in Craig quietly. "The interference is going on yet." "Then the Japs," I cut in, at last giving voice to the suspicion I had of the clever little Orientals. "They could not have stolen the plans," asserted Burke, shaking his head. "No, Nordheim and Mrs. Brainard were the only ones who could have got into the draughting room the night of the Manila celebration." "Burke," said Kennedy, rising, "I wish you would take me into town. There are a few messages I would like to send. You will excuse us, Captain, for a few hours? Good evening, Miss Shirley." As he bowed I heard Kennedy add to her: "Don't worry about your father. Everything will come out all right soon." Outside, in the car which Burke had hired, Craig added: "Not to town. That was an excuse not to alarm Miss Shirley too much over her friend. Take us over past the Stamford cottage, first." The Stamford cottage was on the beach, between the shore front and the road. It was not a new place but was built in the hideous style of some thirty years ago with all sorts of little turned and knobby ornaments. We paused down the road a bit, though not long enough to attract attention. There were lights on every floor of the cottage, although most of the neighbouring cottages were dark. "Well protected by lightning-rods," remarked Kennedy, as he looked the Stamford cottage over narrowly. "We might as well drive on. Keep an eye on the hotel, Burke. It may be that Nordheim intends to return, after all." "Assuming that he has left," returned the secret-service man. "But you said he had left," said Kennedy. "What do you mean?" "I hardly know myself," wearily remarked Burke, on whom the strain of the case, to which we were still fresh, had begun to tell. "I only know that I called up Washington after I heard he had been at the hotel, and no one at our headquarters knew that he had returned. They may have fallen down, but they were to watch both his rooms and the embassy." "H-m," mused Kennedy. "Why didn't you say that before?" "Why, I assumed that he had gone back, until you told me there was interference to-night, too. Now, until I can locate him definitely I'm all at sea--that's all." It was now getting late in the evening, but Kennedy had evidently no intention of returning yet to Lookout Hill. We paused at the hotel, which was in the centre of the cottage colony, and flanked by a hill that ran back of the colony diagonally and from which a view of both the hotel and the cottages could be obtained. Burke's inquiries developed the fact that Nordheim had left very hurriedly and in some agitation. "To tell you the truth," confided the clerk, with whom Burke had ingratiated himself, "I thought he acted like a man who was watched." Late as it was, Kennedy insisted on motoring to the railroad station and catching the last train to New York. As there seemed to be nothing that I could do at Lookout Hill, I accompanied him on the long and tedious ride, which brought us back to the city in the early hours of the morning. We stopped just long enough to run up to the laboratory and to secure a couple of little instruments which looked very much like small incandescent lamps in a box. Then, by the earliest train from New York, we returned to Lookout Hill, with only such sleep as Kennedy had predicted, snatched in the day coaches of the trains and during a brief wait in the station. A half-hour's freshening up with a dip in the biting cold water of the bay, breakfast with Captain Shirley and Miss Gladys, and a return to the excitement of the case, had to serve in place of rest. Burke disappeared, after a hasty conference with Kennedy, presumably to watch Mrs. Brainard, the hotel, and the Stamford cottage to see who went in and out. "I've had the Z99 brought out of its shed," remarked the captain, as we rose from the breakfast-table. "There was nothing wrong as far as I could discover last night or by a more careful inspection this morning. I'd like to have you take a look at her now, in the daylight." "I was about to suggest," remarked Kennedy, as we descended the steps to the shore, "that perhaps, first, it might be well to take a short run in her with the crew, just to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the machinery." "A good idea," agreed the captain. We came to the submarine, lying alongside the dock and looking like a huge cigar. The captain preceded us down the narrow hatchway, and I followed Craig. The deck was cleared, the hatch closed, and the vessel sealed. XX THE WIRELESS DETECTOR Remembering Jules Verne's enticing picture of life on the palatial Nautilus, I may as well admit that I was not prepared for a real submarine. My first impression, as I entered the hold, was that of discomfort and suffocation. I felt, too, that I was too close to too much whirring machinery. I gazed about curiously. On all sides were electrical devices and machines to operate the craft and the torpedoes. I thought, also, that the water outside was uncomfortably close; one could almost feel it. The Z99 was low roofed, damp, with an intricate system of rods, controls, engines, tanks, stop-cocks, compasses, gauges--more things than it seemed the human mind, to say nothing of wireless, could possibly attend to at once. "The policy of secrecy which governments keep in regard to submarines," remarked the captain, running his eye over everything at once, it seemed, "has led them to be looked upon as something mysterious. But whatever you may think of telautomatics, there is really no mystery about an ordinary submarine." I did not agree with our "Captain Nemo," as, the examination completed, he threw in a switch. The motor started. The Z99 hummed and trembled. The fumes of gasoline were almost suffocating at first, in spite of the prompt ventilation to clear them off. There was no escape from the smell. I had heard of "gasoline heart," but the odour only made me sick and dizzy. Like most novices, I suppose, I was suffering excruciating torture. Not so, Kennedy. He got used to it in no time; indeed, seemed to enjoy the very discomfort. I felt that there was only one thing necessary to add to it, and that was the odour of cooking. Cooking, by the way, on a submarine is uncertain and disagreeable. There was a little electric heater, I found, which might possibly have heated enough water for one cup of coffee at a time. In fact, space was economised to the utmost. Only the necessaries of life were there. Every inch that could be spared was given over to machinery. It was everywhere, compact, efficient--everything for running the boat under water, guiding it above and below, controlling its submersion, compressing air, firing torpedoes, and a thousand other things. It was wonderful as it was. But when one reflected that all could be done automatically, or rather telautomatically, it was simply astounding. "You see," observed Captain Shirley, "when she is working automatically neither the periscope nor the wireless-mast shows. The wireless impulses are carried down to her from an inconspicuous float which trails along the surface and carries a short aerial with a wire running down, like a mast, forming practically invisible antennae." As he was talking the boat was being "trimmed" by admitting water as ballast into the proper tanks. "The Z99," he went on, "is a submersible, not a diving, submarine. That is to say, the rudder guides it and changes the angle of the boat. But the hydroplanes pull it up and down, two pairs of them set fore and aft of the centre of gravity. They lift or lower the boat bodily on an even keel, not by plunging and diving. I will now set the hydroplanes at ten degrees down and the horizontal rudder two degrees up, and the boat will submerge to a depth of thirty feet and run constant at that depth." He had shut off the gasoline motor and started the storage-battery electric motor, which was used when running submerged. The great motors gave out a strange, humming sound. The crew conversed in low, constrained tones. There was a slightly perceptible jar, and the boat seemed to quiver just a bit from stem to stern. In front of Shirley was a gauge which showed the depth of submergence and a spirit-level which showed any inclination. "Submerged," he remarked, "is like running on the surface under dense-fog conditions." I did not agree with those who have said there is no difference running submerged or on the surface. Under way on the surface was one thing. But when we dived it was most unpleasant. I had been reassured at the start when I heard that there were ten compressed-air tanks under a pressure of two thousand pounds to the square inch. But only once before had I breathed compressed air and that was when one of our cases once took us down into the tunnels below the rivers of New York. It was not a new sensation, but at fifty feet depth I felt a little tingling all over my body, a pounding of the ear-drums, and just a trace of nausea. Kennedy smiled as I moved about. "Never mind, Walter," he said. "I know how you feel on a first trip. One minute you are choking from lack of oxygen, then in another part of the boat you are exhilarated by too much of it. Still," he winked, "don't forget that it is regulated." "Well," I returned, "all I can say is that if war is hell, a submarine is war." I had, however, been much interested in the things about me. Forward, the torpedo-discharge tubes and other apparatus about the little doors in the vessel's nose made it look somewhat like the shield used in boring a tunnel under compressed air. "Ordinary torpedo-boats use the regular automobile torpedo," remarked Captain Shirley, coming ubiquitously up behind me. "I improve on that. I can discharge the telautomobile torpedo, and guide it either from the boat, as we are now, or from the land station where we were last night, at will." There was something more than pride in his manner. He was deadly in earnest about his invention. We had come over to the periscope, the "eye" of the submarine when she is running just under the surface, but of no use that we were below. "Yes," he remarked, in answer to my half-spoken question, "that is the periscope. Usually there is one fixed to look ahead and another that is movable, in order to take in what is on the sides and in the rear. I have both of those. But, in addition, I have the universal periscope, the eye that sees all around, three hundred and sixty degrees--a very clever application of an annular prism with objectives, condenser, and two eyepieces of low and high power." A call from one of the crew took him into the stern to watch the operation of something, leaving me to myself, for Kennedy was roaming about on a still hunt for anything that might suggest itself. The safety devices, probably more than any other single thing, interested me, for I had read with peculiar fascination of the great disasters to the Lutin, the Pluviose, the Farfardet, the A8, the Foca, the Kambala, the Japanese No 6, the German U3, and others. Below us I knew there was a keel that could be dropped, lightening the boat considerably. Also, there was the submarine bell, immersed in a tank of water, with telephone receivers attached by which one could "listen in," for example, before rising, say, from sixty feet to twenty feet, and thus "hear" the hulls of other ships. The bell was struck by means of air pressure, and was the same as that used for submarine signalling on ships. Water, being dense, is an excellent conductor of sound. Even in the submarine itself, I could hear the muffled clang of the gong. Then there were buoys which could be released and would fly to the surface, carrying within them a telephone, a light, and a whistle. I knew also something of the explosion dangers on a submarine, both from the fuel oil used when running on the surface, and from the storage batteries used when running submerged. Once in a while a sailor would take from a jar a piece of litmus paper and expose it, showing only a slight discolouration due to carbon dioxide. That was the least of my troubles. For a few moments, also, the white mice in a cage interested me. White mice were carried because they dislike the odour of gasoline and give warning of any leakage by loud squeals. The fact was that there was so much of interest that, the first discomfort over, I was, like Kennedy, beginning really to enjoy the trip. I was startled suddenly to hear the motors stop. There was no more of that interminable buzzing. The Z99 responded promptly to the air pressure that was forcing the water out of the tanks. The gauge showed that we were gradually rising on an even keel. A man sprang up the narrow hatchway and opened the cover through which we could see a little patch of blue sky again. The gasoline motor was started, and we ran leisurely back to the dock. The trip was over--safely. As we landed I felt a sense of gladness to get away from that feeling of being cut off from the world. It was not fear of death or of the water, as nearly as I could analyse it, but merely that terrible sense of isolation from man and nature as we know it. A message from Burke was waiting for Kennedy at the wharf. He read it quickly, then handed it to Captain Shirley and myself. Have just received a telegram from Washington. Great excitement at the embassy. Cipher telegram has been despatched to the Titan Iron Works. One of my men in Washington reports a queer experience. He had been following one of the members of the embassy staff, who saw he was being shadowed, turned suddenly on the man, and exclaimed, "Why are you hounding us still?" What do you make of it? No trace yet of Nordheim BURKE. The lines in Craig's face deepened in thought as he folded the message and remarked abstractedly, "She works all right when you are aboard." Then he recalled himself. "Let us try her again without a crew." Five minutes later we had ascended to the aerial conning-tower, and all was in readiness to repeat the trial of the night before. Vicious and sly the Z99 looked in the daytime as she slipped off, under the unseen guidance of the wireless, with death hidden under her nose. Just as during the first trial we had witnessed, she began by fulfilling the highest expectations. Straight as an arrow she shot out of the harbour's mouth, half submerged, with her periscope sticking up and bearing the flag proudly flapping, leaving behind a wake of white foam. She turned and re-entered the harbour, obeying Captain Shirley's every whim, twisting in and out of the shipping much to the amazement of the old salts, who had never become used to the weird sight. She cut a figure eight, stopped, started again. Suddenly I could see by the look on Captain Shirley's face that something was wrong. Before either of us could speak, there was a spurt of water out in the harbour, a cloud of spray, and the Z99 sank in a mass of bubbles. She had heeled over and was resting on the mud and ooze of the harbour bottom. The water had closed over her, and she was gone. Instantly all the terrible details of the sinking of the Lutin and other submarines flashed over me. I fancied I could see on the Z99 the overturned accumulators. I imagined the stifling fumes, the struggle for breath in the suddenly darkened hull. Almost as if it had happened half an hour ago, I saw it. "Thank God for telautomatics," I murmured, as the thought swept over me of what we had escaped. "No one was aboard her, at least." Chlorine was escaping rapidly from the overturned storage batteries, for a grave danger lurks in the presence of sea water, in a submarine, in combination with any of the sulphuric acid. Salt water and sulphuric acid produce chlorine gas, and a pint of it inside a good-sized submarine would be sufficient to render unconscious the crew of a boat. I began to realise the risks we had run, which my confidence in Captain Shirley had minimised. I wondered whether hydrogen in dangerous quantities might not be given off, and with the short-circuiting of the batteries perhaps explode. Nothing more happened, however. All kinds of theories suggested themselves. Perhaps in some way the gasoline motor had been started while the boat was depressed, the "gas" had escaped, combined with air, and a spark had caused an explosion. There were so many possibilities that it staggered me. Captain Shirley sat stunned. Yet here was the one great question, Whence had come the impulse that had sent the famous Z99 to her fate? "Could it have been through something internal?" I asked. "Could a current from one of the batteries have influenced the receiving apparatus?" "No," replied the captain mechanically. "I have a secret method of protecting my receiving instruments from such impulses within the hull." Kennedy was sitting silently in the corner, oblivious to us up to this point. "But not to impulses from outside the hull," he broke in. Unobserved, he had been bending over one of the little instruments which had kept us up all night and bad cost a tedious trip to New York and back. "What's that?" I asked. "This? This is a little instrument known as the audion, a wireless electric-wave detector." "Outside the hull?" repeated Shirley, still dazed. "Yes," cried Kennedy excitedly. "I got my first clue from that flickering Welsbach mantle last night. Of course it flickered from the wireless we were using, but it kept on. You know in the gas-mantle there is matter in a most mobile and tenuous state, very sensitive to heat and sound vibrations. "Now, the audion, as you see, consists of two platinum wings, parallel to the plane of a bowed filament of an incandescent light in a vacuum. It was invented by Dr. Lee DeForest to detect wireless. When the light is turned on and the little tantalum filament glows, it is ready for business. "It can be used for all systems of wireless--singing spark, quenched spark, arc sets, telephone sets; in fact, it will detect a wireless wave from whatever source it is sent. It is so susceptible that a man with one attached to an ordinary steel-rod umbrella on a rainy night can pick up wireless messages that are being transmitted within some hundreds of miles radius." The audion buzzed. "There--see? Our wireless is not working. But with the audion you can see that some wireless is, and a fairly near and powerful source it is, too." Kennedy was absorbed in watching the audion. Suddenly he turned and faced us. He had evidently reached a conclusion. "Captain," he cried, "can you send a wireless message? Yes? Well, this is to Burke. He is over there back of the hotel on the hill with some of his men. He has one there who understands wireless, and to whom I have given another audion. Quick, before this other wireless cuts in on us again. I want others to get the message as well as Burke. Send this: 'Have your men watch the railroad station and every road to it. Surround the Stamford cottage. There is some wireless interference from that direction.'" As Shirley, with a half-insane light in his eyes, flashed the message mechanically through space, Craig rose and signalled to the house. Under the portecochere I saw a waiting automobile, which an instant later tore up the broken-stone path and whirled around almost on two wheels near the edge of the cliff. Glowing with health and excitement, Gladys Shirley was at the wheel herself. In spite of the tenseness of the situation, I could not help stopping to admire the change in the graceful, girlish figure of the night before, which was now all lithe energy and alertness in her eager devotion to carrying out the minutest detail of Kennedy's plan to aid her father. "Excellent, Miss Shirley," exclaimed Kennedy, "but when I asked Burke to have you keep a car in readiness, I had no idea you would drive it yourself." "I like it," she remonstrated, as he offered to take the wheel. "Please--please--let me drive. I shall go crazy if I'm not doing something. I saw the Z99 go down. What was it? Who--" "Captain," called Craig. "Quick--into the car. We must hurry. To the Stamford house, Miss Shirley. No one can get away from it before we arrive. It is surrounded." Everything was quiet, apparently, about the house as our wild ride around the edge of the harbour ended under the deft guidance of Gladys Shirley. Here and there, behind a hedge or tree, I could see a lurking secret-service man. Burke joined us from behind a barn next door. "Not a soul has gone in or out," he whispered. "There does not seem to be a sign of life there." Craig and Burke had by this time reached the broad veranda. They did not wait to ring the bell, but carried the door down literally off its hinges. We followed closely. A scream from the drawing-room brought us to a halt. It was Mrs. Brainard, tall, almost imperial in her loose morning gown, her dark eyes snapping fire at the sudden intrusion. I could not tell whether she had really noticed that the house was watched or was acting a part. "What does this mean?" she demanded. "What--Gladys--you--" "Florence--tell them--it isn't so--is it? You don't know a thing about those plans of father's that were--stolen--that night." "Where is Nordheim?" interjected Burke quickly, a little of his "third degree" training getting the upper hand. "Nordheim?" "Yes--you know. Tell me. Is he here?" "Here? Isn't it bad enough to hound him, without hounding me, too? Will you merciless detectives drive us all from, place to place with your brutal suspicions?" "Merciless?" inquired Burke, smiling with sarcasm. "Who has been hounding him?" "You know very well what I mean," she repeated, drawing herself up to her full height and patting Gladys's hand to reassure her. "Read that message on the table." Burke picked up a yellow telegram dated New York, two days before. It was as I feared when I left you. The secret service must have rummaged my baggage both here and at the hotel. They have taken some very valuable papers of mine. "Secret service--rummage baggage?" repeated Burke, himself now in perplexity. "That is news to me. We have rummaged no trunks or bags, least of all Nordheim's. In fact, we have never been able to find them at all." "Upstairs, Burke--the servants' quarters," interrupted Craig impatiently. "We are wasting time here." Mrs. Brainard offered no protest. I began to think that the whole thing was indeed a surprise to her, and that she had, in fact, been reading, instead of making a studied effort to appear surprised at our intrusion. Room after room was flung open without finding any one, until we reached the attic, which had been finished off into several rooms. One door was closed. Craig opened it cautiously. It was pitch dark in spite of the broad daylight outside. We entered gingerly. On the floor lay two dark piles of something. My foot touched one of them. I drew back in horror at the feeling. It was the body of a man. Kennedy struck a light, and as he bent over in its little circle of radiance, he disclosed a ghastly scene. "Hari-kiri!" he ejaculated. "They must have got my message to Burke and have seen that the house was surrounded." The two Japanese servants had committed suicide. "Wh-what does it all mean?" gasped Mrs. Brainard, who had followed us upstairs with Gladys. Burke's lip curled slightly and he was about to speak. "It means," hastened Kennedy, "that you have been double crossed, Mrs. Brainard. Nordheim stole those plans of Captain Shirley's submarine for his Titan Iron Works. Then the Japs stole them from his baggage at the hotel. He thought the secret service had them. The Japs waited here just long enough to try the plans against the Z99 herself--to destroy Captain Shirley's work by his own method of destruction. It was clever, clever. It would make his labours seem like a failure and would discourage others from keeping up the experiments. They had planned to steal a march on the world. Every time the Z99 was out they worked up here with their improvised wireless until they found the wave-length Shirley was using. It took fifteen or twenty minutes, but they managed, finally, to interfere so that they sent the submarine to the bottom of the harbour. Instead of being the criminal, Burke, Mrs. Brainard is the victim, the victim both of Nordheim and of her servants." Craig had thrown open a window and had dropped down on his knees before a little stove by which the room was heated. He was poking eagerly in a pile of charred paper and linen. "Shirley," he cried, "your secret is safe, even though the duplicate plans were stolen. There will be no more interference." The Captain seized Craig by both hands and wrung them like the handle of a pump. "Oh, thank you--thank you--thank you," cried Gladys, running up and almost dancing with joy at the change in her father. "I--I could almost--kiss you!" "I could let you," twinkled Craig, promptly, as she blushed deeply. "Thank you, too, Mrs. Brainard," he added, turning to acknowledge her congratulations also. "I am glad I have been able to be of service to you." "Won't you come back to the house for dinner?" urged the Captain. Kennedy looked at me and smiled. "Walter," he said, "this is no place for two old bachelors like us." Then turning, he added, "Many thanks, sir,--but, seriously, last night we slept principally in day coaches. Really I must turn the case over to Burke now and get back to the city to-night early." They insisted on accompanying us to the station, and there the congratulations were done all over again. "Why," exclaimed Kennedy, as we settled ourselves in the Pullman after waving a final good-bye, "I shall be afraid to go back to that town again. I--I almost did kiss her!" Then his face settled into its usual stern lines, although softened, I thought. I am sure that it was not the New England landscape, with its quaint stone fences, that he looked at out of the window, but the recollection of the bright dashing figure of Gladys Shirley. It was seldom that a girl made so forcible an impression on Kennedy, I know, for on our return he fairly dived into work, like the Z99 herself, and I did not see him all the next day until just before dinner time. Then he came in and spent half an hour restoring his acid-stained fingers to something like human semblance. He said nothing about his research work of the day, and I was just about to remark that a day had passed without its usual fresh alarum and excursion, when a tap on the door buzzer was followed by the entrance of our old friend Andrews, head of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company's own detective service. "Kennedy," he began, "I have a startling case for you. Can you help me out with it?" As he sat down heavily, he pulled from his immense black wallet some scraps of paper and newspaper cuttings. "You recall, I suppose," he went on, unfolding the papers without waiting for an answer, "the recent death of young Montague Phelps, at Woodbine, just outside the city?" Kennedy nodded. The death of Phelps, about ten days before, had attracted nation-wide attention because of the heroic fight for life he had made against what the doctors admitted had puzzled them--a new and baffling manifestation of coma. They had laboured hard to keep him awake, but had not succeeded, and after several days of lying in a comatose state he had finally succumbed. It was one of those strange but rather frequent cases of long sleeps reported in the newspapers, although it was by no means one which might be classed as record-breaking. The interest in Phelps lay, a great deal, in the fact that the young man had married the popular dancer, Anginette Petrovska, a few months previously. His honeymoon trip around the world had suddenly been interrupted, while the couple were crossing Siberia, by the news of the failure of the Phelps banking-house in Wall Street and the practical wiping-out of his fortune. He had returned, only to fall a victim to a greater misfortune. "A few days before his death," continued Andrews, measuring his words carefully, "I, or rather the Great Eastern, which had been secretly investigating the case, received this letter. What do you think of it?" He spread out on the table a crumpled note in a palpably disguised handwriting: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: You would do well to look Into the death of Montague Phelps, Jr. I accuse no one, assert nothing. But when a young man apparently in the best of health, drops off so mysteriously and even the physician in the case can give no very convincing information, that case warrants attention. I know what I know. AN OUTSIDER. XXI THE GHOULS "H-M," mused Kennedy, weighing the contents of the note carefully, "one of the family, I'll be bound--unless the whole thing is a hoax. By the way, who else is there in the immediate family?" "Only a brother, Dana Phelps, younger and somewhat inclined to wildness, I believe. At least, his father did not trust him with a large inheritance, but left most of his money in trust. But before we go any further, read that." Andrews pulled from the papers a newspaper cutting on which he had drawn a circle about the following item. As we read, he eyed us sharply. PHELPS TOMB DESECRATED Last night, John Shaughnessy, a night watchman employed by the town of Woodbine, while on his rounds, was attracted by noises as of a violent struggle near the back road in the Woodbine Cemetery, on the outskirts of the town. He had varied his regular rounds because of the recent depredations of motor-car yeggmen who had timed him in pulling off several jobs lately. As he hurried toward the large mausoleum of the Phelps family, he saw two figures slink away in opposite directions in the darkness. One of them, he asserts positively, seemed to be a woman in black, the other a man whom he could not see clearly. They readily eluded pursuit in the shadows, and a moment later he heard the whir of a high-powered car, apparently bearing them away. At the tomb there was every evidence of a struggle. Things had been thrown about; the casket had been broken open, but the body of Montague Phelps, Jr., which had been interred there about ten days ago, was not touched or mutilated. It was a shocking and extraordinary violation. Shaughnessy believes that some personal jewels may have been buried with Phelps and that the thieves were after them, that they fought over the loot, and in the midst of the fight were scared away. The vault is of peculiar construction, a costly tomb in which repose the bodies of the late Montague Phelps, Sr., of his wife, and now of his eldest son. The raid had evidently been carefully planned to coincide with a time when Shaughnessy would ordinarily have been on the other side of the town. The entrance to the tomb had been barred, but during the commotion the ghouls were surprised and managed to escape without accomplishing their object and leaving no trace. Mrs. Phelps, when informed of the vandalism, was shocked, and has been in a very nervous state since the tomb was forced open. The local authorities seem extremely anxious that every precaution should be taken to prevent a repetition of the ghoulish visit to the tomb, but as yet the Phelps family has taken no steps. "Are you aware of any scandal, any skeleton in the closet in the family?" asked Craig, looking up. "No--not yet," considered Andrews. "As soon as I heard of the vandalism, I began to wonder what could have happened in the Phelps tomb, as far as our company's interests were concerned. You see, that was yesterday. To-day this letter came along," he added, laying down a second very dirty and wrinkled note beside the first. It was quite patently written by a different person from the first; its purport was different, indeed quite the opposite of the other. "It was sent to Mrs. Phelps," explained Andrews, "and she gave it out herself to the police." Do not show this to the police. Unless you leave $5000 in gold in the old stump in the swamp across from the cemetery, you will have reason to regret it. If you respect the memory of the dead, do this, and do it quietly. BLACK HAND. "Well," I ejaculated, "that's cool. What threat would be used to back this demand on the Phelpses?" "Here's the situation," resumed Andrews, puffing violently on his inevitable cigar and toying with the letters and clippings. "We have already held up payment of the half-million dollars of insurance to the widow as long as we can consistently do so. But we must pay soon, scandal or not, unless we can get something more than mere conjecture." "You are already holding it up?" queried Craig. "Yes. You see, we investigate thoroughly every suspicious death. In most cases, no body is found. This case is different in that respect. There is a body, and it is the body of the insured, apparently. But a death like this, involving the least mystery, receives careful examination, especially if, as in this case, it has recently been covered by heavy policies. My work has often served to reverse the decision of doctors and coroners' juries. "An insurance detective, as you can readily appreciate, Kennedy, soon comes to recognise the characteristics in the crimes with which he deals. For example, writing of the insurance plotted for rarely precedes the conspiracy to defraud. That is, I know of few cases in which a policy originally taken out in good faith has subsequently become the means of a swindle. "In outright-murder cases, the assassin induces the victim to take out insurance in his favour. In suicide cases, the insured does so himself. Just after his return home, young Phelps, who carried fifty thousand dollars already, applied for and was granted one of the largest policies we have ever written--half a million." "Was it incontestible without the suicide clause?" asked Kennedy. "Yes," replied Andrews, "and suicide is the first and easiest theory. Why, you have no idea how common the crime of suicide for the sake of the life insurance is becoming. Nowadays, we insurance men almost believe that every one who contemplates ending his existence takes out a policy so as to make his life, which is useless to him, a benefit, at least, to some one--and a nightmare to the insurance detective." "I know," I cut in, for I recalled having been rather interested in the Phelps case at the time, "but I thought the doctors said finally that death was due to heart failure." "Doctor Forden who signed the papers said so," corrected Andrews. "Heart failure--what does that mean? As well say breath failure, or nerve failure. I'll tell you what kind of failure I think it was. It was money failure. Hard times and poor investments struck Phelps before he really knew how to handle his small fortune. It called him home and--pouf!--he is off--to leave to his family a cool half-million by his death. But did he do it himself or did some one else do it? That's the question." "What is your theory," inquired Kennedy absently, "assuming there is no scandal hidden in the life of Phelps before or after he married the Russian dancer?" "I don't know, Kennedy," confessed Andrews. "I have had so many theories and have changed them so rapidly that all I lay claim to believing, outside of the bald facts that I have stated, is that there must have been some poison. I rather sense it, feel that there is no doubt of it, in fact. That is why I have come to you. I want you to clear it up, one way or another. The company has no interest except in getting at the truth." "The body is really there?" asked Kennedy. "You saw it?" "It was there no later than this afternoon, and in an almost perfect state of preservation, too." Kennedy seemed to be looking at and through Andrews as if he would hypnotise the truth out of him. "Let me see," he said quickly. "It is not very late now. Can we visit the mausoleum to-night?" "Easily. My car is down-stairs. Woodbine is not far, and you'll find it a very attractive suburb, aside from this mystery." Andrews lost no time in getting us out to Woodbine, and on the fringe of the little town, one of the wealthiest around the city, he deposited us at the least likely place of all, the cemetery. A visit to a cemetery is none too enjoyable even on a bright day. In the early night it is positively uncanny. What was gruesome in the daylight became doubly so under the shroud of darkness. We made our way into the grounds through a gate, and I, at least, even with all the enlightenment of modern science, could not restrain a weird and creepy sensation. "Here is the Phelps tomb," directed Andrews, pausing beside a marble structure of Grecian lines and pulling out a duplicate key of a new lock which had been placed on the heavy door of grated iron. As we entered, it was with a shudder at the damp odour of decay. Kennedy had brought his little electric bull's-eye, and, as he flashed it about, we could see at a glance that the reports had not been exaggerated. Everything showed marks of a struggle. Some of the ornaments had been broken, and the coffin itself had been forced open. "I have had things kept just as we found them," explained Andrews. Kennedy peered into the broken coffin long and attentively. With a little effort I, too, followed the course of the circle of light. The body was, as Andrews had said, in an excellent, indeed a perfect, state of preservation. There were, strange to say, no marks of decay. "Strange, very strange," muttered Kennedy to himself. "Could it have been some medical students, body-snatchers?" I asked musingly. "Or was it simply a piece of vandalism? I wonder if there could have been any jewels buried with him, as Shaughnessy said? That would make the motive plain robbery." "There were no jewels," said Andrews, his mind not on the first part of my question, but watching Kennedy intently. Craig had dropped on his knees on the damp, mildewed floor, and bringing his bull's-eye close to the stones, was examining some spots here and there. "There could not have been any substitution?" I whispered, with, my mind still on the broken coffin. "That would cover up the evidence of a poisoning, you know." "No," replied Andrews positively, "although bodies can be obtained cheaply enough from a morgue, ostensibly for medical purposes. No, that is Phelps, all right." "Well, then," I persisted, "body-snatchers, medical students?" "Not likely, for the same reason," he rejected. We bent over closer to watch Kennedy. Apparently he had found a number of round, flat spots with little spatters beside them. He was carefully trying to scrape them up with as little of the surrounding mould as possible. Suddenly, without warning, there was a noise outside, as if a person were moving through the underbrush. It was fearsome in its suddenness. Was it human or wraith? Kennedy darted to the door in time to see a shadow glide silently away, lost in the darkness of the fine old willows. Some one had approached the mausoleum for a second time, not knowing we were there, and had escaped. Down the road we could hear the purr of an almost silent motor. "Somebody is trying to get in to conceal something here," muttered Kennedy, stifling his disappointment at not getting a closer view of the intruder. "Then it was not a suicide," I exclaimed. "It was a murder!" Craig shook his head sententiously. Evidently he not prepared yet to talk. With another look at the body in the broken casket he remarked: "To-morrow I want to call on Mrs. Phelps and Doctor Forden, and, if it is possible to find him, Dana Phelps. Meanwhile, Andrews, if you and Walter will stand guard here, there is an apparatus which I should like to get from my laboratory and set up here before it is too late." It was far past the witching hour of midnight, when graveyards proverbially yawn, before Craig returned in the car. Nothing had happened in the meantime except those usual eery noises that one may hear in the country at night anywhere. Our visitor of the early evening seemed to have been scared away for good. Inside the mausoleum, Kennedy set up a peculiar machine which he attached to the electric-light circuit in the street by a long wire which he ran loosely over the ground. Part of the apparatus consisted of an elongated box lined with lead, to which were several other attachments, the nature of which I did not understand, and a crank-handle. "What's that?" asked Andrews curiously, as Craig set up a screen between the apparatus and the body. "This is a calcium-tungsten screen," remarked Kennedy, adjusting now what I know to be a Crookes' tube on the other side of the body itself, so that the order was: the tube, the body, the screen, and the oblong box. Without a further word we continued to watch him. At last, the apparatus adjusted apparently to his satisfaction, he brought out a jar of thick white liquid and a bottle of powder. "Buttermilk and a couple of ounces of bismuth sub-carbonate," he remarked, as he mixed some in a glass, and with a pump forced it down the throat of the body, now lying so that the abdomen was almost flat against the screen. He turned a switch and the peculiar bluish effulgence, which always appears when a Crookes' tube is being used, burst forth, accompanied by the droning of his induction-coil and the welcome smell of ozone produced by the electrical discharge in the almost fetid air of the tomb. Meanwhile, he was gradually turning the handle of the crank attached to the oblong box. He seemed so engrossed in the delicateness of the operation that we did not question him, in fact did not move. For Andrews, at least, it was enough to know that he had succeeded in enlisting Kennedy's services. Well along toward morning it was before Kennedy had concluded his tests, whatever they were, and had packed away his paraphernalia. "I'm afraid it will take me two or three days to get at this evidence, even now," he remarked, impatient at even the limitations science put on his activity. We had started back for a quick run to the city and rest. "But, anyhow, it will give us a chance to do some investigating along other lines." Early the next day, in spite of the late session of the night before, Kennedy started me with him on a second visit to Woodbine. This time he was armed with a letter of introduction from Andrews to Mrs. Phelps. She proved to be a young woman of most extraordinary grace and beauty, with a superb carriage such as only years of closest training under the best dancers of the world could give. There was a peculiar velvety softness about her flesh and skin, a witching stoop to her shoulders that was decidedly continental, and in her deep, soulful eyes a half-wistful look that was most alluring. In fact, she was as attractive a widow as the best Fifth Avenue dealers in mourning goods could have produced. I knew that 'Ginette Phelps had been, both as dancer and wife, always the centre of a group of actors, artists, and men of letters as well as of the world and affairs. The Phelpses had lived well, although they were not extremely wealthy, as fortunes go. When the blow fell, I could well fancy that the loss of his money had been most serious to young Montague, who had showered everything as lavishly as he was able upon his captivating bride. Mrs. Phelps did not seem to be overjoyed at receiving us, yet made no open effort to refuse. "How long ago did the coma first show itself?" asked Kennedy, after our introductions were completed. "Was your husband a man of neurotic tendency, as far as you could judge?" "Oh, I couldn't say when it began," she answered, in a voice that was soft and musical and under perfect control. "The doctor would know that better. No, he was not neurotic, I think." "Did you ever see Mr. Phelps take any drugs--not habitually, but just before this sleep came on?" Kennedy was seeking his information in a manner and tone that would cause as little offence as possible "Oh, no," she hastened. "No, never--absolutely." "You called in Dr. Forden the last night?" "Yes, he had been Montague's physician many years ago, you know." "I see," remarked Kennedy, who was thrusting about aimlessly to get her off her guard. "By the way, you know there is a great deal of gossip about the almost perfect state of preservation of the body, Mrs. Phelps. I see it was not embalmed." She bit her lip and looked at Kennedy sharply. "Why, why do you and Mr. Andrews worry me? Can't you see Doctor Forden?" In her annoyance I fancied that there was a surprising lack of sorrow. She seemed preoccupied. I could not escape the feeling that she was putting some obstacle in our way, or that from the day of the discovery of the vandalism, some one had been making an effort to keep the real facts concealed. Was she shielding some one? It flashed over me that perhaps, after all, she had submitted to the blackmail and had buried the money at the appointed place. There seemed to be little use in pursuing the inquiry, so we excused ourselves, much, I thought, to her relief. We found Doctor Forden, who lived on the same street as the Phelpses several squares away, most fortunately at home. Forden was an extremely interesting man, as is, indeed, the rule with physicians. I could not but fancy, however, that his hearty assurance that he would be glad to talk freely on the case was somewhat forced. "You were sent for by Mrs. Phelps, that last night, I believe, while Phelps was still alive?" asked Kennedy. "Yes. During the day it had been impossible to arouse him, and that night, when Mrs. Phelps and the nurse found him sinking even deeper into the comatose state, I was summoned again. He was beyond hope then. I did everything I could, but he died a few moments after I arrived." "Did you try artificial respiration?" asked Kennedy. "N-no," replied Forden. "I telephoned here for my respirator, but by the time it arrived at the house it was too late. Nothing had been omitted while he was still struggling with the spark of life. When that went out what was the use?" "You were his personal physician?" "Yes." "Had you ever noticed that he took any drug?" Doctor Forden shot a quick glance at Kennedy. "Of course not. He was not a drug fiend." "I didn't mean that he was addicted to any drug. But had he taken anything lately, either of his own volition or with the advice or knowledge of any one else?" "Of course not." "There's another strange thing I wish to ask your opinion about," pursued Kennedy, not to be rebuffed. "I have seen his body. It is in an excellent state of preservation, almost lifelike. And yet I understand, or at least it seems, that it was not embalmed." "You'll have to ask the undertaker about that," answered the doctor brusquely. It was evident that he was getting more and more constrained in his answers. Kennedy did not seem to mind it, but to me it seemed that he must be hiding something. Was there some secret which medical ethics kept locked in his breast? Kennedy had risen and excused himself. The interviews had not resulted in much, I felt, yet Kennedy did not seem to care. Back in the city again, he buried himself in his laboratory for the rest of the day, most of the time in his dark room, where he was developing photographic plates or films, I did not know which. During the afternoon Andrews dropped in for a few moments to report that he had nothing to add to what had already developed. He was not much impressed by the interviews. "There's just one thing I want to speak about, though," he said at length, unburdening his mind. "That tomb and the swamp, too, ought to be watched. Last night showed me that there seems to be a regular nocturnal visitor and that we cannot depend on that town night watchman to scare him off. Yet if we watch up there, he will be warned and will lie low. How can we watch both places at once and yet remain hidden?" Kennedy nodded approval of the suggestion. "I'll fix that," he replied, anxious to return to his photographic labours. "Meet me, both of you, on the road from the station at Woodbine, just as it is getting dusk." Without another word he disappeared into the dark room. We met him that night as he had requested. He had come up to Woodbine in the baggage-car of the train with a powerful dog, for all the world like a huge, grey wolf. "Down, Schaef," he ordered, as the dog began to show an uncanny interest in me. "Let me introduce my new dog-detective," he chuckled. "She has a wonderful record as a police-dog." We were making our way now through the thickening shadows of the town to the outskirts. "She's a German sheep-dog, a Schaferhund," he explained. "For my part, it is the English bloodhound in the open country and the sheep-dog in the city and the suburbs." Schaef seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, upstanding dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed though she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy's control, and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience. At the cemetery we established a strict watch about the Phelps mausoleum and the swamp which lay across the road, not a difficult thing to do as far as concealment went, owing to the foliage. Still, for the same reason, it was hard to cover the whole ground. In the shadow of a thicket we waited. Now and then we could hear Schaef scouting about in the underbrush, crouching and hiding, watching and guarding. As the hours of waiting in the heavily laden night air wore on, I wondered whether our vigil in this weird place would be rewarded. The soughing of the night wind in the evergreens, mournful at best, was doubly so now. Hour after hour we waited patiently. At last there was a slight noise from the direction opposite the mausoleum and toward the swamp next to the cemetery. Kennedy reached out and drew us back into the shadow deeper. "Some one is prowling about, approaching the mausoleum on that side, I think," he whispered. Instantly there recurred to me the thought I had had earlier in the day that perhaps, after all, the five thousand dollars of hush money, for whatever purpose it might be extorted, had been buried in the swamp by Mrs. Phelps in her anxiety. Had that been what she was concealing? Perhaps the blackmailer had come to reconnoitre, and, if the money was there, to take it away. Schaef, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too, even before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle tense. Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant later, the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Schaef kept right on, never stopping a second, except, perhaps, for surprise. "Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no attention to it. "One of the few animals that show no fear of gunfire," muttered Kennedy, in undisguised admiration. "G-R-R-R," we heard from the police-dog. "She has made a leap at the hand that holds the gun," cried Kennedy, now rising and moving rapidly in the same direction. "She has been taught that a man once badly bitten in the hand is nearly out of the fight." We followed, too. As we approached we were just in time to see Schaef running in and out between the legs of a man who had heard us approach and was hastily making tracks for the road. As he tripped, she lunged for his back. Kennedy blew shrilly on a police whistle. Reluctantly, Schaef let go. One could see that with all her canine instinct she wanted to "get" that man. Her jaws were open, as, with longing eyes, she stood over the prostrate form in the grass. The whistle was a signal, and she had been taught to obey unquestioningly. "Don't move until we get to you, or you are a dead man," shouted Kennedy, pulling an automatic as he ran. "Are you hurt?" There was no answer, but as we approached, the man moved, ever so little, through curiosity to see his pursuers. Schaef shot forward. Again the whistle sounded and she dropped back. We bent over to seize him as Kennedy secured the dog. "She's a devil," ground out the prone figure on the grass. "Dana Phelps!" exclaimed Andrews, as the man turned his face toward us. "What are you doing, mixed up in this?" Suddenly there was a movement in the rear, toward the mausoleum itself. We turned, but it was too late. Two dark figures slunk through the gloom, bearing something between them. Kennedy slipped the leash off Schaef and she shot out like a unchained bolt of lightning. There was the whir of a high-powered machine which must have sneaked up with the muffler on during the excitement. They had taken a desperate chance and had succeeded. They were gone! XXII THE X-RAY "MOVIES" Still holding Dana Phelps between us, we hurried toward the tomb and entered. While our attention had been diverted in the direction of the swamp, the body of Montague Phelps had been stolen. Dana Phelps was still deliberately brushing off his clothes. Had he been in league with them, executing a flank movement to divert our attention? Or had it all been pure chance? "Well?" demanded Andrews. "Well?" replied Dana. Kennedy said nothing, and I felt that, with our capture, the mystery seemed to have deepened rather than cleared. As Andrews and Phelps faced each other, I noticed that the latter was now and then endeavouring to cover his wrist, where the dog had torn his coat sleeve. "Are you hurt badly?" inquired Kennedy. Dana said nothing, but backed away. Kennedy advanced, insisting on looking at the wounds. As he looked he disclosed a semicircle of marks. "Not a dog bite," he whispered, turning to me and fumbling in his pocket. "Besides, those marks are a couple of days old. They have scabs on them." He had pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper, and, unknown to Phelps, was writing in the darkness. I leaned over. Near the point, in the tube through which the point for writing was, protruded a small accumulator and tiny electric lamp which threw a little disc of light, so small that it could be hidden by the hand, yet quite sufficient to guide Craig in moving the point of his pencil for the proper formation of whatever he was recording on the surface of the paper. "An electric-light pencil," he remarked laconically, in an undertone. "Who were the others?" demanded Andrews of Dana. There was a pause as though he were debating whether or not to answer at all. "I don't know," he said at length. "I wish I did." "You don't know?" queried Andrews, with incredulity. "No, I say I wish I did know. You and your dog interrupted me just as I was about to find out, too." We looked at each other in amazement. Andrews was frankly skeptical of the coolness of the young man. Kennedy said nothing for some moments. "I see you don't want to talk," he put in shortly. "Nothing to talk about," grunted Dana, in disgust. "Then why are you here?" "Nothing but conjecture. No facts, only suspicions," said Dana, half to himself. "You expect us to believe that?" insinuated Andrews. "I can't help what you believe. That is the fact." "And you were not with them?" "No." "You'll be within call, if we let you go now, any time that we want you?" interrupted Kennedy, much to the surprise of Andrews. "I shall stay in Woodbine as long as there is any hope of clearing up this case. If you want me, I suppose I shall have to stay anyhow, even if there is a clue somewhere else." "I'll take your word for it," offered Kennedy. "I'll give it." I must say that I rather liked the young chap, although I could make nothing out of him. As Dana Phelps disappeared down the road, Andrews turned to Kennedy. "What did you do that for?" he asked, half critically. "Because we can watch him, anyway," answered Craig, with a significant glance at the now empty casket. "Have him shadowed, Andrews. It may lead to something and it may not. But in any case don't let him get out of reach." "Here we are in a worse mystery than ever," grumbled Andrews. "We have caught a prisoner, but the body is gone, and we can't even show that he was an accomplice." "What were you writing?" I asked Craig, endeavouring to change the subject to one more promising. "Just copying the peculiar shape of those marks on Phelps' arm. Perhaps we can improve on the finger-print method of identification. Those were the marks of human teeth." He was glancing casually at his sketch as he displayed it to us. I wondered whether he really expected to obtain proof of the identity of at least one of the ghouls by the tooth-marks. "It shows eight teeth, one of them decayed," he remarked. "By the way, there's no use watching here any longer. I have some more work to do in the laboratory which will keep me another day. To-morrow night I shall be ready. Andrews, in the mean time I leave the shadowing of Dana to you, and with the help of Jameson I want you to arrange to have all those connected with the case at my laboratory to-morrow night without fail." Andrews and I had to do some clever scheming to bring pressure to bear on the various persons interested to insure their attendance, now that Craig was ready to act. Of course there was no difficulty in getting Dana Phelps. Andrews's shadows reported nothing in his actions of the following day that indicated anything. Mrs. Phelps came down to town by train and Doctor Forden motored in. Andrews even took the precaution to secure Shaughnessy and the trained nurse, Miss Tracy, who had been with Montague Phelps during his illness but had not contributed anything toward untangling the case. Andrews and myself completed the little audience. We found Kennedy heating a large mass of some composition such as dentists use in taking impressions of the teeth. "I shall be ready in a moment," he excused himself, still bending over his Bunsen flame. "By the way, Mr. Phelps, if you will permit me." He had detached a wad of the softened material. Phelps, taken by surprise, allowed him to make an impression of his teeth, almost before he realised what Kennedy was doing. The precedent set, so to speak, Kennedy approached Doctor Forden. He demurred, but finally consented. Mrs. Phelps followed, then the nurse, and even Shaughnessy. With a quick glance at each impression, Kennedy laid them aside to harden. "I am ready to begin," he remarked at length, turning to a peculiar looking instrument, something like three telescopes pointing at a centre in which was a series of glass prisms. "These five senses of ours are pretty dull detectives sometimes," Kennedy began. "But I find that when we are able to call in outside aid we usually find that there are no more mysteries." He placed something in a test-tube in line before one of the barrels of the telescopes, near a brilliant electric light. "What do you see, Walter?" he asked, indicating an eyepiece. I looked. "A series of lines," I replied. "What is it?" "That," he explained, "is a spectroscope, and those are the lines of the absorption spectrum. Each of those lines, by its presence, denotes a different substance. Now, on the pavement of the Phelps mausoleum I found, you will recall, some roundish spots. I have made a very diluted solution of them which is placed in this tube. "The applicability of the spectroscope to the differentiation of various substances is too well known to need explanation. Its value lies in the exact nature of the evidence furnished. Even the very dilute solution which I have been able to make of the material scraped from these spots gives characteristic absorption bands between the D and E lines, as they are called. Their wave-lengths are between 5774 and 5390. It is such a distinct absorption spectrum that it is possible to determine with certainty that the fluid actually contains a certain substance, even though the microscope might fail to give sure proof. Blood--human blood--that was what those stains were." He paused. "The spectra of the blood pigments," he added, "of the extremely minute quantities of blood and the decomposition products of hemoglobin in the blood are here infallibly shown, varying very distinctly with the chemical changes which the pigments may undergo." Whose blood was it? I asked myself. Was it of some one who had visited the tomb, who was surprised there or surprised some one else there? I was hardly ready for Kennedy's quick remark. "There were two kinds of blood there. One was contained in the spots on the floor all about the mausoleum. There are marks on the arm of Dana Phelps which he probably might say were made by the teeth of my police-dog, Schaef. They are human tooth-marks, however. He was bitten by some one in a struggle. It was his blood on the floor of the mausoleum. Whose were the teeth?" Kennedy fingered the now set impressions, then resumed: "Before I answer that question, what else does the spectroscope show? I found some spots near the coffin, which has been broken open by a heavy object. It had slipped and had injured the body of Montague Phelps. From the injury some drops had oozed. My spectroscope tells me that that, too, is blood. The blood and other muscular and nervous fluids of the body had remained in an aqueous condition instead of becoming pectous. That is a remarkable circumstance." It flashed over me what Kennedy had been driving at in his inquiry regarding embalming. If the poisons of the embalming fluid had not been injected, he had now clear proof regarding anything his spectroscope discovered. "I had expected to find a poison, perhaps an alkaloid," he continued slowly, as he outlined his discoveries by the use of one of the most fascinating branches of modern science, spectroscopy. "In cases of poisoning by these substances, the spectroscope often has obvious advantages over chemical methods, for minute amounts will produce a well-defined spectrum. The spectroscope 'spots' the substance, to use a police idiom, the moment the case is turned over to it. There was no poison there." He had raised his voice to emphasise the startling revelation. "Instead, I found an extraordinary amount of the substance and products of glycogen. The liver, where this substance is stored, is literally surcharged in the body of Phelps." He had started his moving-picture machine. "Here I have one of the latest developments in the moving-picture art," he resumed, "an X-ray moving picture, a feat which was until recently visionary, a science now in its infancy, bearing the formidable names of biorontgenography, or kinematoradiography." Kennedy was holding his little audience breathless as he proceeded. I fancied I could see Anginette Phelps give a little shudder at the prospect of looking into the very interior of a human body. But she was pale with the fascination of it. Neither Forden nor the nurse looked to the right or to the left. Dana Phelps was open-eyed with wonder. "In one X-ray photograph, or even in several," continued Kennedy, "it is difficult to discover slight motions. Not so in a moving picture. For instance, here I have a picture which will show you a living body in all its moving details." On the screen before us was projected a huge shadowgraph of a chest and abdomen. We could see the vertebrae of the spinal column, the ribs, and the various organs. "It is difficult to get a series of photographs directly from a fluorescent screen," Kennedy went on. "I overcome the difficulty by having lenses of sufficient rapidity to photograph even faint images on that screen. It is better than the so-called serial method, by which a number of separate X-ray pictures are taken and then pieced together and rephotographed to make the film. I can focus the X-rays first on the screen by means of a special quartz objective which I have devised. Then I take the pictures. "Here, you see, are the lungs in slow or rapid respiration. There is the rhythmically beating heart, distinctly pulsating in perfect outline. There is the liver, moving up and down with the diaphragm, the intestines, and the stomach. You can see the bones moving with the limbs, as well as the inner visceral life. All that is hidden to the eye by the flesh is now made visible in striking manner." Never have I seen an audience at the "movies" so thrilled as we were now, as Kennedy swayed our interest at his will. I had been dividing my attention between Kennedy and the extraordinary beauty of the famous Russian dancer. I forgot Anginette Phelps entirely. Kennedy placed another film in the holder. "You are now looking into the body of Montague Phelps," he announced suddenly. We leaned forward eagerly. Mrs. Phelps gave a half-suppressed gasp. What was the secret hidden in it? There was the stomach, a curved sack something like a bagpipe or a badly made boot, with a tiny canal at the toe connecting it with the small intestine. There were the heart and lungs. "I have rendered the stomach visible," resumed Kennedy, "made it 'metallic,' so to speak, by injecting a solution of bismuth in buttermilk, the usual method, by which it becomes more impervious to the X-rays and hence darker in the skiagraph. I took these pictures not at the rate of fourteen or so a second, like the others, but at intervals of a few seconds. I did that so that, when I run them off, I get a sort of compressed moving picture. What you see in a short space of time actually took much longer to occur. I could have either kind of picture, but I prefer the latter. "For, you will take notice that there is movement here--of the heart, of the lungs, of the stomach--faint, imperceptible under ordinary circumstances, but nevertheless, movement." He was pointing at the lungs. "A single peristaltic contraction takes place normally in a very few seconds. Here it takes minutes. And the stomach. Notice what the bismuth mixture shows. There is a very slow series of regular wave-contractions from the fundus to the pylorus. Ordinarily one wave takes ten seconds to traverse it; here it is so slow as almost to be unnoticed." What was the implication of his startling, almost gruesome, discovery? I saw it clearly, yet hung on his words, afraid to admit even to myself the logical interpretation of what I saw. "Reconstruct the case," continued Craig excitedly. "Mr. Phelps, always a bon vivant and now so situated by marriage that he must be so, comes back to America to find his personal fortune--gone. "What was left? He did as many have done. He took out a new large policy on his life. How was he to profit by it? Others have committed suicide, have died to win. Cases are common now where men have ended their lives under such circumstances by swallowing bichloride-of-mercury tablets, a favourite method, it seems, lately. "But Phelps did not want to die to win. Life was too sweet to him. He had another scheme." Kennedy dropped his voice. "One of the most fascinating problems in speculation as to the future of the race under the influence of science is that of suspended animation. The usual attitude is one of reserve or scepticism. There is no necessity for it. Records exist of cases where vital functions have been practically suspended, with no food and little air. Every day science is getting closer to the control of metabolism. In the trance the body functions are so slowed as to simulate death. You have heard of the Indian fakirs who bury themselves alive and are dug up days later? You have doubted it. But there is nothing improbable in it. "Experiments have been made with toads which have been imprisoned in porous rock where they could get the necessary air. They have lived for months in a stupor. In impervious rock they have died. Frozen fish can revive; bears and other animals hibernate. There are all gradations from ordinary sleep to the torpor of death. Science can slow down almost to a standstill the vital processes so that excretions disappear and respiration and heart-beat are almost nil. "What the Indian fakir does in a cataleptic condition may be duplicated. It is not incredible that they may possess some vegetable extract by which they perform their as yet unexplained feats of prolonged living burial. For, if an animal free from disease is subjected to the action of some chemical and physical agencies which have the property of reducing to the extreme limit the motor forces and nervous stimulus, the body of even a warm-blooded animal may be brought down to a condition so closely resembling death that the most careful examination may fail to detect any signs of life. The heart will continue working regularly at low tension, supplying muscles and other parts with sufficient blood to sustain molecular life, and the stomach would naturally react to artificial stimulus. At any time before decomposition of tissue has set in, the heart might be made to resume its work and life come back. "Phelps had travelled extensively. In Siberia he must undoubtedly have heard of the Buriats, a tribe of natives who hibernate, almost like the animals, during the winters, succumbing to a long sleep known as the 'leshka.' He must have heard of the experiments of Professor Bakhmetieff, who studied the Buriats and found that they subsisted on foods rich in glycogen, a substance in the liver which science has discovered makes possible life during suspended animation. He must have heard of 'anabiose,' as the famous Russian calls it, by which consciousness can be totally removed and respiration and digestion cease almost completely." "But--the body--is gone!" some one interrupted. I turned. It was Dana Phelps, now leaning forward in wide-eyed excitement. "Yes," exclaimed Craig. "Time was passing rapidly. The insurance had not been paid. He had expected to be revived and to disappear with Anginette Phelps long before this. Should the confederates of Phelps wait? They did not dare. To wait longer might be to sacrifice him, if indeed they had not taken a long chance already. Besides, you yourself had your suspicions and had written the insurance company hinting at murder." Dana nodded, involuntarily confessing. "You were watching them, as well as the insurance investigator, Mr. Andrews. It was an awful dilemma. What was to be done? He must be resuscitated at any risk. "Ah--an idea! Rifle the grave--that was the way to solve it. That would still leave it possible to collect the insurance, too. The blackmail letter about the five thousand dollars was only a blind, to lay on the mythical Black Hand the blame for the desecration. Brought into light, humidity, and warmth, the body would recover consciousness and the life-functions resume their normal state after the anabiotic coma into which Phelps had drugged himself. "But the very first night the supposed ghouls were discovered. Dana Phelps, already suspicious regarding the death of his brother, wondering at the lack of sentiment which Mrs. Phelps showed, since she felt that her husband was not really dead--Dana was there. His suspicions were confirmed, he thought. Montague had been, in reality, murdered, and his murderers were now making away with the evidence. He fought with the ghouls, yet apparently, in the darkness, he did not discover their identity. The struggle was bitter, but they were two to one. Dana was bitten by one of them. Here are the marks of teeth--teeth--of a woman." Anginette Phelps was sobbing convulsively. She had risen and was facing Doctor Forden with outstretched hands. "Tell them!" she cried wildly. Forden seemed to have maintained his composure only by a superhuman effort. "The--body is--at my office," he said, as we faced him with deathlike stillness. "Phelps had told us to get him within ten days. We did get him, finally. Gentlemen, you, who were seeking murderers, are, in effect, murderers. You kept us away two days too long. It was too late. We could not revive him. Phelps is really dead!" "The deuce!" exclaimed Andrews, "the policy is incontestible!" As he turned to us in disgust, his eyes fell on Anginette Phelps, sobered down by the terrible tragedy and nearly a physical wreck from real grief. "Still," he added hastily, "we'll pay without a protest." She did not even hear him. It seemed that the butterfly in her was crushed, as Dr. Forden and Miss Tracy gently led her away. They had all left, and the laboratory was again in its normal state of silence, except for the occasional step of Kennedy as he stowed away the apparatus he had used. "I must say that I was one of the most surprised in the room at the outcome of that case," I confessed at length. "I fully expected an arrest." He said nothing, but went on methodically restoring his apparatus to its proper place. "What a peculiar life you lead, Craig," I pursued reflectively. "One day it is a case that ends with such a bright spot in our lives as the recollection of the Shirleys; the next goes to the other extreme of gruesomeness and one can hardly think about it without a shudder. And then, through it all, you go with the high speed power of a racing motor." "That last case appealed to me, like many others," he ruminated, "just because it was so unusual, so gruesome, as you call it." He reached into the pocket of his coat, hung over the back of a chair. "Now, here's another most unusual case, apparently. It begins, really, at the other end, so to speak, with the conviction, begins at the very place where we detectives send a man as the last act of our little dramas." "What?" I gasped, "another case before even this one is fairly cleaned up? Craig--you are impossible. You get worse instead of better." "Read it," he said, simply. Kennedy handed me a letter in the angular hand affected by many women. It was dated at Sing Sing, or rather Ossining. Craig seemed to appreciate the surprise which my face must have betrayed at the curious combination of circumstances. "Nearly always there is the wife or mother of a condemned man who lives in the shadow of the prison," he remarked quietly, adding, "where she can look down at the grim walls, hoping and fearing." I said nothing, for the letter spoke for itself. I have read of your success as a scientific detective and hope that you will pardon me for writing to you, but it is a matter of life or death for one who is dearer to me than all the world. Perhaps you recall reading of the trial and conviction of my husband, Sanford Godwin, at East Point. The case did not attract much attention in New York papers, although he was defended by an able lawyer from the city. Since the trial, I have taken up my residence here in Ossining in order to be near him. As I write I can see the cold, grey walls of the state prison that holds all that is dear to me. Day after day, I have watched and waited, hoped against hope. The courts are so slow, and lawyers are so technical. There have been executions since I came here, too--and I shudder at them. Will this appeal be denied, also? My husband was accused of murdering by poison--hemlock, they alleged--his adoptive parent, the retired merchant, Parker Godwin, whose family name he took when he was a boy. After the death of the old man, a later will was discovered in which my husband's inheritance was reduced to a small annuity. The other heirs, the Elmores, asserted, and the state made out its case on the assumption, that the new will furnished a motive for killing old Mr. Godwin, and that only by accident had it been discovered. Sanford is innocent. He could not have done it. It is not in him to do such a thing. I am only a woman, but about some things I know more than all the lawyers and scientists, and I KNOW that he is innocent. I cannot write all. My heart is too full. Cannot you come and advise me? Even if you cannot take up the case to which I have devoted my life, tell me what to do. I am enclosing a check for expenses, all I can spare at present. Sincerely yours, NELLA GODWIN. "Are you going?" I asked, watching Kennedy as he tapped the check thoughtfully on the desk. "I can hardly resist an appeal like that," he replied, absently replacing the check in the envelope with the letter. XXIII THE DEATH HOUSE In the early forenoon, we were on our way by train "up the river" to Sing Sing, where, at the station, a line of old-fashioned cabs and red-faced cabbies greeted us, for the town itself is hilly. The house to which we had been directed was on the hill, and from its windows one could look down on the barracks-like pile of stone with the evil little black-barred slits of windows, below and perhaps a quarter of a mile away. There was no need to be told what it was. Its very atmosphere breathed the word "prison." Even the ugly clutter of tall-chimneyed workshops did not destroy it. Every stone, every grill, every glint of a sentry's rifle spelt "prison." Mrs. Godwin was a pale, slight little woman, in whose face shone an indomitable spirit, unconquered even by the slow torture of her lonely vigil. Except for such few hours that she had to engage in her simple household duties, with now and then a short walk in the country, she was always watching that bleak stone house of atonement. Yet, though her spirit was unconquered, it needed no physician to tell one that the dimming of the lights at the prison on the morning set for the execution would fill two graves instead of one. For she had come to know that this sudden dimming of the corridor lights, and then their almost as sudden flaring-up, had a terrible meaning, well known to the men inside. Hers was no less an agony than that of the men in the curtained cells, since she had learned that when the lights grow dim at dawn at Sing Sing, it means that the electric power has been borrowed for just that little while to send a body straining against the straps of the electric chair, snuffing out the life of a man. To-day she had evidently been watching in both directions, watching eagerly the carriages as they climbed the hill, as well as in the direction of the prison. "How can I ever thank you, Professor Kennedy," she greeted us at the door, keeping back with difficulty the tears that showed how much it meant to have any one interest himself in her husband's case. There was that gentleness about Mrs. Godwin that comes only to those who have suffered much. "It has been a long fight," she began, as we talked in her modest little sitting-room, into which the sun streamed brightly with no thought of the cold shadows in the grim building below. "Oh, and such a hard, heartbreaking fight! Often it seems as if we had exhausted every means at our disposal, and yet we shall never give up. Why cannot we make the world see our case as we see it? Everything seems to have conspired against us--and yet I cannot, I will not believe that the law and the science that have condemned him are the last words in law and science." "You said in your letter that the courts were so slow and the lawyers so--" "Yes, so cold, so technical. They do not seem to realise that a human life is at stake. With them it is almost like a game in which we are the pawns. And sometimes I fear, in spite of what the lawyers say, that without some new evidence, it--it will go hard with him." "You have not given up hope in the appeal?" asked Kennedy gently. "It is merely on technicalities of the law," she replied with quiet fortitude, "that is, as nearly as I can make out from the language of the papers. Our lawyer is Salo Kahn, of the big firm of criminal lawyers, Smith, Kahn." "Conine," mused Kennedy, half to himself. I could not tell whether he was thinking of what he repeated or of the little woman. "Yes, the active principle of hemlock," she went on. "That was what the experts discovered, they swore. In the pure state, I believe, it is more poisonous than anything except the cyanides. And it was absolutely scientific evidence. They repeated the tests in court. There was no doubt of it. But, oh, he did not do it. Some one else did it. He did not--he could not." Kennedy said nothing for a few minutes, but from his tone when he did speak it was evident that he was deeply touched. "Since our marriage we lived with old Mr. Godwin in the historic Godwin House at East Point," she resumed, as he renewed his questioning. "Sanford--that was my husband's real last name until he came as a boy to work for Mr. Godwin in the office of the factory and was adopted by his employer--Sanford and I kept house for him. "About a year ago he began to grow feeble and seldom went to the factory, which Sanford managed for him. One night Mr. Godwin was taken suddenly ill. I don't know how long he had been ill before we heard him groaning, but he died almost before we could summon a doctor. There was really nothing suspicious about it, but there had always been a great deal of jealousy of my husband in the town and especially among the few distant relatives of Mr. Godwin. What must have started as an idle, gossipy rumour developed into a serious charge that my husband had hastened his old guardian's death. "The original will--THE will, I call it--had been placed in the safe of the factory several years ago. But when the gossip in the town grew bitter, one day when we were out, some private detectives entered the house with a warrant--and they did actually find a will, another will about which we knew nothing, dated later than the first and hidden with some papers in the back of a closet, or sort of fire proof box, built into the wall of the library. The second will was identical with the first in language except that its terms were reversed and instead of being the residuary legatee, Sanford was given a comparatively small annuity, and the Elmores were made residuary legatees instead of annuitants." "And who are these Elmores?" asked Kennedy curiously. "There are three, two grandnephews and a grandniece, Bradford, Lambert, and their sister Miriam." "And they live--" "In East Point, also. Old Mr. Godwin was not very friendly with his sister, whose grandchildren they were. They were the only other heirs living, and although Sanford never had anything to do with it, I think they always imagined that he tried to prejudice the old man against them." "I shall want to see the Elmores, or at least some one who represents them, as well as the district attorney up there who conducted the case. But now that I am here, I wonder if it is possible that I could bring any influence to bear to see your husband?" Mrs. Godwin sighed. "Once a month," she replied, "I leave this window, walk to the prison, where the warden is very kind to me, and then I can see Sanford. Of course there are bars between us besides the regular screen. But I can have an hour's talk, and in those talks he has described to me exactly every detail of his life in the--the prison. We have even agreed on certain hours when we think of each other. In those hours I know almost what he is thinking." She paused to collect herself. "Perhaps there may be some way if I plead with the warden. Perhaps--you may be considered his counsel now--you may see him." A half hour later we sat in the big registry room of the prison and talked with the big-hearted, big-handed warden. Every argument that Kennedy could summon was brought to bear. He even talked over long distance with the lawyers in New York. At last the rules were relaxed and Kennedy was admitted on some technicality as counsel. Counsel can see the condemned as often as necessary. We were conducted down a flight of steps and past huge steel-barred doors, along corridors and through the regular prison until at last we were in what the prison officials called the section for the condemned. Every one else calls this secret heart of the grim place, the death house. It is made up of two rows of cells, some eighteen or twenty in all, a little more modern in construction than the twelve hundred archaic caverns that pass for cells in the main prison. At each end of the corridor sat a guard, armed, with eyes never off the rows of cells day or night. In the wall, on one side, was a door--the little green door--the door from the death house to the death chamber. While Kennedy was talking to the prisoner, a guard volunteered to show me the death chamber and the "chair." No other furniture was there in the little brick house of one room except this awful chair, of yellow oak with broad, leather straps. There it stood, the sole article in the brightly varnished room of about twenty-five feet square with walls of clean blue, this grim acolyte of modern scientific death. There were the wet electrodes that are fastened to the legs through slits in the trousers at the calves; above was the pipe-like fixture, like a gruesome helmet of leather that fits over the head, carrying the other electrode. Back of the condemned was the switch which lets loose a lethal store of energy, and back of that the prison morgue where the bodies are taken. I looked about. In the wall to the left toward the death house was also a door, on this side yellow. Somehow I could not get from my mind the fascination of that door--the threshold of the grave. Meanwhile Kennedy sat in the little cage and talked with the convicted man across the three-foot distance between cell and screen. I did not see him at that time, but Kennedy repeated afterward what passed, and it so impressed me that I will set it down as if I had been present. Sanford Godwin was a tall, ashen-faced man, in the prison pallor of whose face was written the determination of despair, a man in whose blue eyes was a queer, half-insane light of hope. One knew that if it had not been for the little woman at the window at the top of the hill, the hope would probably long ago have faded. But this man knew she was always there, thinking, watching, eagerly planning in aid of any new scheme in the long fight for freedom. "The alkaloid was present, that is certain," he told Kennedy. "My wife has told you that. It was scientifically proved. There is no use in attacking that." Later on he remarked: "Perhaps you think it strange that one in the very shadow of the death chair"--the word stuck in his throat--"can talk so impersonally of his own case. Sometimes I think it is not my case, but some one else's. And then--that door." He shuddered and turned away from it. On one side was life, such as it was; on the other, instant death. No wonder he pleaded with Kennedy. "Why, Walter," exclaimed Craig, as we walked back to the warden's office to telephone to town for a car to take us up to East Point, "whenever he looks out of that cage he sees it. He may close his eyes--and still see it. When he exercises, he sees it. Thinking by day and dreaming by night, it is always there. Think of the terrible hours that man must pass, knowing of the little woman eating her heart out. Is he really guilty? I must find out. If he is not, I never saw a greater tragedy than this slow, remorseless approach of death, in that daily, hourly shadow of the little green door." East Point was a queer old town on the upper Hudson, with a varying assortment of industries. Just outside, the old house of the Godwins stood on a bluff overlooking the majestic river. Kennedy had wanted to see it before any one suspected his mission, and a note from Mrs. Godwin to a friend had been sufficient. Carefully he went over the deserted and now half-wrecked house, for the authorities had spared nothing in their search for poison, even going over the garden and the lawns in the hope of finding some of the poisonous shrub, hemlock, which it was contended had been used to put an end to Mr. Godwin. As yet nothing had been done to put the house in order again and, as we walked about, we noticed a pile of old tins in the yard which had not been removed. Kennedy turned them over with his stick. Then he picked one up and examined it attentively. "H-m--a blown can," he remarked. "Blown?" I repeated. "Yes. When the contents of a tin begin to deteriorate they sometimes give off gases which press out the ends of the tin. You can see how these ends bulge." Our next visit was to the district attorney, a young man, Gordon Kilgore, who seemed not unwilling to discuss the case frankly. "I want to make arrangements for disinterring the body," explained Kennedy. "Would you fight such a move?" "Not at all, not at all," he answered brusquely. "Simply make the arrangements through Kahn. I shall interpose no objection. It is the strongest, most impregnable part of the case, the discovery of the poison. If you can break that down you will do more than any one else has dared to hope. But it can't be done. The proof was too strong. Of course it is none of my business, but I'd advise some other point of attack." I must confess to a feeling of disappointment when Kennedy announced after leaving Kilgore that, for the present, there was nothing more to be done at East Point until Kahn had made the arrangements for reopening the grave. We motored back to Ossining, and Kennedy tried to be reassuring to Mrs. Godwin. "By the way," he remarked, just before we left, "you used a good deal of canned goods at the Godwin house, didn't you?" "Yes, but not more than other people, I think," she said. "Do you recall using any that were--well, perhaps not exactly spoiled, but that had anything peculiar about them?" "I remember once we thought we found some cans that seemed to have been attacked by mice--at least they smelt so, though how mice could get through a tin can we couldn't see." "Mice?" queried Kennedy. "Had a mousey smell? That's interesting. Well, Mrs. Godwin, keep up a good heart. Depend on me. What you have told me to-day has made me more than interested in your case. I shall waste no time in letting you know when anything encouraging develops." Craig had never had much patience with red tape that barred the way to the truth, yet there were times when law and legal procedure had to be respected, no matter how much they hampered, and this was one of them. The next day the order was obtained permitting the opening again of the grave of old Mr. Godwin. The body was exhumed, and Kennedy set about his examination of what secrets it might hide. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that the suspense was terrible. Kennedy was moving slowly, I thought. Not even the courts themselves could have been more deliberate. Also, he was keeping much to himself. Still, for another whole day, there was the slow, inevitable approach of the thing that now, I, too, had come to dread--the handing down of the final decision on the appeal. Yet what could Craig do otherwise, I asked myself. I had become deeply interested in the case by this time and spent the time reading all the evidence, hundreds of pages of it. It was cold, hard, brutal, scientific fact, and as I read I felt that hope faded for the ashen-faced man and the pallid little woman. It seemed the last word in science. Was there any way of escape? Impatient as I was, I often wondered what must have been the suspense of those to whom the case meant everything. "How are the tests coming along?" I ventured one night, after Kahn had arranged for the uncovering of the grave. It was now two days since Kennedy had gone up to East Point to superintend the exhumation and had returned to the city with the materials which had caused him to keep later hours in the laboratory than I had ever known even the indefatigable Craig to spend on a stretch before. He shook his head doubtfully. "Walter," he admitted, "I'm afraid I have reached the limit on the line of investigation I had planned at the start." I looked at him in dismay. "What then?" I managed to gasp. "I am going up to East Point again to-morrow to look over that house and start a new line. You can go." No urging was needed, and the following day saw us again on the ground. The house, as I have said, had been almost torn to pieces in the search for the will and the poison evidence. As before, we went to it unannounced, and this time we had no difficulty in getting in. Kennedy, who had brought with him a large package, made his way directly to a sort of drawing-room next to the large library, in the closet of which the will had been discovered. He unwrapped the package and took from it a huge brace and bit, the bit a long, thin, murderous looking affair such as might have come from a burglar's kit. I regarded it much in that light. "What's the lay?" I asked, as he tapped over the walls to ascertain of just what they were composed. Without a word he was now down on his knees, drilling a hole in the plaster and lath. When he struck an obstruction he stopped, removed the bit, inserted another, and began again. "Are you going to put in a detectaphone?" I asked again. He shook his head. "A detectaphone wouldn't be of any use here," he replied. "No one is going to do any talking in that room." Again the brace and bit were at work. At last the wall had been penetrated, and he quickly removed every trace from the other side that would have attracted attention to a little hole in an obscure corner of the flowered wall-paper. Next, he drew out what looked like a long putty-blower, perhaps a foot long and three-eighths of an inch in diameter. "What's that?" I asked, as he rose after carefully inserting it. "Look through it," he replied simply, still at work on some other apparatus he had brought. I looked. In spite of the smallness of the opening at the other end, I was amazed to find that I could see nearly the whole room on the other side of the wall. "It's a detectascope," he explained, "a tube with a fish-eye lens which I had an expert optician make for me." "A fish-eye lens?" I repeated. "Yes. The focus may be altered in range so that any one in the room may be seen and recognised and any action of his may be detected. The original of this was devised by Gaillard Smith, the adapter of the detectaphone. The instrument is something like the cytoscope, which the doctors use to look into the human interior. Now, look through it again. Do you see the closet?" Again I looked. "Yes," I said, "but will one of us have to watch here all the time?" He had been working on a black box in the meantime, and now he began to set it up, adjusting it to the hole in the wall which he enlarged on our side. "No, that is my own improvement on it. You remember once we used a quick-shutter camera with an electric attachment, which moved the shutter on the contact of a person with an object in the room? Well, this camera has that quick shutter. But, in addition, I have adapted to the detectascope an invention by Professor Robert Wood, of Johns Hopkins. He has devised a fish-eye camera that 'sees' over a radius of one hundred and eighty degrees--not only straight in front, but over half a circle, every point in that room. "You know the refracting power of a drop of water. Since it is a globe, it refracts the light which reaches it from all directions. If it is placed like the lens of a camera, as Dr. Wood tried it, so that one-half of it catches the light, all the light caught will be refracted through it. Fishes, too, have a wide range of vision. Some have eyes that see over half a circle. So the lens gets its name. Ordinary cameras, because of the flatness of their lenses, have a range of only a few degrees, the widest in use, I believe, taking in only ninety-six, or a little more than a quarter of a circle. So, you see, my detectascope has a range almost twice as wide as that of any other." Though I did not know what he expected to discover and knew that it was useless to ask, the thing seemed very interesting. Craig did not pause, however, to enlarge on the new machine, but gathered up his tools and announced that our next step would be a visit to a lawyer whom the Elmores had retained as their personal counsel to look after their interests, now that the district attorney seemed to hare cleared up the criminal end of the case. Hollins was one of the prominent attorneys of East Point, and before the election of Kilgore as prosecutor had been his partner. Unlike Kilgore, we found him especially uncommunicative and inclined to resent our presence in the case as intruders. The interview did not seem to me to be productive of anything. In fact, it seemed as if Craig were giving Hollins much more than he was getting. "I shall be in town over night," remarked Craig. "In fact, I am thinking of going over the library up at the Godwin house soon, very carefully." He spoke casually. "There may be, you know, some finger-prints on the walls around that closet which might prove interesting." A quick look from Hollins was the only answer. In fact, it was seldom that he uttered more than a monosyllable as we talked over the various aspects of the case. A half-hour later, when he had left and had gone to the hotel, I asked Kennedy suspiciously, "Why did you expose your hand to Hollins, Craig?" He laughed. "Oh, Walter," he remonstrated, "don't you know that it is nearly always useless to look for finger-prints, except under some circumstances, even a few days afterward? This is months, not days. Why on iron and steel they last with tolerable certainty only a short time, and not much longer on silver, glass, or wood. But they are seldom permanent unless they are made with ink or blood or something that leaves a more or less indelible mark. That was a 'plant.'" "But what do you expect to gain by it?" "Well," he replied enigmatically, "no one is necessarily honest." It was late in the afternoon when Kennedy again visited the Godwin house and examined the camera. Without a word he pulled the detectascope from the wall and carried the whole thing to the developing-room of the local photographer. There he set to work on the film and I watched him in silence. He seemed very much excited as he watched the film develop, until at last he held it up, dripping, to the red light. "Some one has entered that room this afternoon and attempted to wipe off the walls and woodwork of that closet, as I expected," he exclaimed. "Who was it?" I asked, leaning over. Kennedy said nothing, but pointed to a figure on the film. I bent closer. It was the figure of a woman. "Miriam!" I exclaimed in surprise. XXIV THE FINAL DAY I looked aghast at him. If it had been either Bradford or Lambert, both of whom we had come to know since Kennedy had interested himself in the case, or even Hollins or Kilgore, I should not have been surprised. But Miriam! "How could she have any connection with the case?" I asked incredulously. Kennedy did not attempt to explain. "It is a fatal mistake, Walter, for a detective to assume that he knows what anybody would do in any given circumstances. The only safe course for him is to find out what the persons in question did do. People are always doing the unexpected. This is a case of it, as you see. I am merely trying to get back at facts. Come; I think we might as well not stay over night, after all. I should like to drop off on the way back to the city to see Mrs. Godwin." As we rode up the hill I was surprised to see that there was no one at the window, nor did any one seem to pay attention to our knocking at the door. Kennedy turned the knob quickly and strode in. Seated in a chair, as white as a wraith from the grave, was Mrs. Godwin, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. "What's the matter?" demanded Kennedy, leaping to her side and grasping her icy hand. The stare on her face seemed to change slightly as she recognised him. "Walter--some water--and a little brandy--if there is any. Tell me--what has happened?" From her lap a yellow telegram had fluttered to the floor, but before he could pick it up, she gasped, "The appeal--it has been denied." Kennedy picked up the paper. It was a message, unsigned, but not from Kahn, as its wording and in fact the circumstances plainly showed. "The execution is set for the week beginning the fifth," she continued, in the same hollow, mechanical voice. "My God--that's next Monday!" She had risen now and was pacing the room. "No! I'm not going to faint. I wish I could. I wish I could cry. I wish I could do something. Oh, those Elmores--they must have sent it. No one would have been so cruel but they." She stopped and gazed wildly out of the window at the prison. Neither of us knew what to say for the moment. "Many times from this window," she cried, "I have seen a man walk out of that prison gate. I always watch to see what he does, though I know it is no use. If he stands in the free air, stops short, and looks up suddenly, taking a long look at every house--I hope. But he always turns for a quick, backward look at the prison and goes half running down the hill. They always stop in that fashion, when the steel door opens outward. Yet I have always looked and hoped. But I can hope no more--no more. The last chance is gone." "No--not the last chance," exclaimed Craig, springing to her side lest she should fall. Then he added gently, "You must come with me to East Point--immediately." "What--leave him here--alone--in the last days? No--no--no. Never. I must see him. I wonder if they have told him yet." It was evident that she had lost faith in Kennedy, in everybody, now. "Mrs. Godwin," he urged. "Come--you must. It is a last chance." Eagerly he was pouring out the story of the discovery of the afternoon by the little detectascope. "Miriam?" she repeated, dazed. "She--know anything--it can't be. No--don't raise a false hope now." "It is the last chance," he urged again. "Come. There is not an hour to waste now." There was no delay, no deliberation about Kennedy now. He had been forced out into the open by the course of events, and he meant to take advantage of every precious moment. Down the hill our car sped to the town, with Mrs. Godwin still protesting, but hardly realising what was going on. Regardless of tolls, Kennedy called up his laboratory in New York and had two of his most careful students pack up the stuff which he described minutely to be carried to East Point immediately by train. Kahn, too, was at last found and summoned to meet us there also. Miles never seemed longer than they did to us as we tore over the country from Ossining to East Point, a silent party, yet keyed up by an excitement that none of us had ever felt before. Impatiently we awaited the arrival of the men from Kennedy's laboratory, while we made Mrs. Godwin as comfortable as possible in a room at the hotel. In one of the parlours Kennedy was improvising a laboratory as best he could. Meanwhile, Kahn had arrived, and together we were seeking those whose connection with, or interest in, the case made necessary their presence. It was well along toward midnight before the hasty conference had been gathered; besides Mrs. Godwin, Salo Kahn, and ourselves, the three Elmores, Kilgore, and Hollins. Strange though it was, the room seemed to me almost to have assumed the familiar look of the laboratory in New York. There was the same clutter of tubes and jars on the tables, but above all that same feeling of suspense in the air which I had come to associate with the clearing up of a case. There was something else in the air, too. It was a peculiar mousey smell, disagreeable, and one which made it a relief to have Kennedy begin in a low voice to tell why he had called us together so hastily. "I shall start," announced Kennedy, "at the point where the state left off--with the proof that Mr. Godwin died of conine, or hemlock poisoning. Conine, as every chemist knows, has a long and well-known history. It was the first alkaloid to be synthesised. Here is a sample, this colourless, oily fluid. No doubt you have noticed the mousey odour in this room. As little as one part of conine to fifty thousand of water gives off that odour--it is characteristic. "I have proceeded with extraordinary caution in my investigation of this case," he went on. "In fact, there would have been no value in it, otherwise, for the experts for the people seem to have established the presence of conine in the body with absolute certainty." He paused and we waited expectantly. "I have had the body exhumed and have repeated the tests. The alkaloid which I discovered had given precisely the same results as in their tests." My heart sank. What was he doing--convicting the man over again? "There is one other test which I tried," he continued, "but which I can not take time to duplicate tonight. It was testified at the trial that conine, the active principle of hemlock, is intensely poisonous. No chemical antidote is known. A fifth of a grain has serious results; a drop is fatal. An injection of a most minute quantity of real conine will kill a mouse, for instance, almost instantly. But the conine which I have isolated in the body is inert!" It came like a bombshell to the prosecution, so bewildering was the discovery. "Inert?" cried Kilgore and Hollins almost together. "It can't be. You are making sport of the best chemical experts that money could obtain. Inert? Read the evidence--read the books." "On the contrary," resumed Craig, ignoring the interruption, "all the reactions obtained by the experts have been duplicated by me. But, in addition, I tried this one test which they did not try. I repeat: the conine isolated in the body is inert." We were too perplexed to question him. "Alkaloids," he continued quietly, "as you know, have names that end in 'in' or 'ine'--morphine, strychnine, and so on. Now there are two kinds of alkaloids which are sometimes called vegetable and animal. Moreover, there is a large class of which we are learning much which are called the ptomaines--from ptoma, a corpse. Ptomaine poisoning, as every one knows, results when we eat food that has begun to decay. "Ptomaines are chemical compounds of an alkaloidal nature formed in protein substances during putrefaction. They are purely chemical bodies and differ from the toxins. There are also what are called leucomaines, formed in living tissues, and when not given off by the body they produce auto-intoxication. "There are more than three score ptomaines, and half of them are poisonous. In fact, illness due to eating infected foods is much more common than is generally supposed. Often there is only one case in a number of those eating the food, due merely to that person's inability to throw off the poison. Such cases are difficult to distinguish. They are usually supposed to be gastro-enteritis. Ptomaines, as their name shows, are found in dead bodies. They are found in all dead matter after a time, whether it is decayed food or a decaying corpse. "No general reaction is known by which the ptomaines can be distinguished from the vegetable alkaloids. But we know that animal alkaloids always develop either as a result of decay of food or of the decay of the body itself." At one stroke Kennedy had reopened the closed case and had placed the experts at sea. "I find that there is an animal conine as well as the true conine," he hammered out. "The truth of this matter is that the experts have confounded vegetable conine with cadaveric conine. That raises an interesting question. Assuming the presence of conine, where did it come from?" He paused and began a new line of attack. "As the use of canned goods becomes more and more extensive, ptomaine poisoning is more frequent. In canning, the cans are heated. They are composed of thin sheets of iron coated with tin, the seams pressed and soldered with a thin line of solder. They are filled with cooked food, sterilised, and closed. The bacteria are usually all killed, but now and then, the apparatus does not work, and they develop in the can. That results in a 'blown can'--the ends bulge a little bit. On opening, a gas escapes, the food has a bad odour and a bad taste. Sometimes people say that the tin and lead poison them; in practically all cases the poisoning is of bacterial, not metallic, origin. Mr. Godwin may have died of poisoning, probably did. But it was ptomaine poisoning. The blown cans which I have discovered would indicate that." I was following him closely, yet though this seemed to explain a part of the case, it was far from explaining all. "Then followed," he hurried on, "the development of the usual ptomaines in the body itself. These, I may say, had no relation to the cause of death itself. The putrefactive germs began their attack. Whatever there may have been in the body before, certainly they produced a cadaveric ptomaine conine. For many animal tissues and fluids, especially if somewhat decomposed, yield not infrequently compounds of an oily nature with a mousey odour, fuming with hydrochloric acid and in short, acting just like conine. There is ample evidence, I have found, that conine or a substance possessing most, if not all, of its properties is at times actually produced in animal tissues by decomposition. And the fact is, I believe, that a number of cases have arisen, in which the poisonous alkaloid was at first supposed to have been discovered which were really mistakes." The idea was startling in the extreme. Here was Kennedy, as it were, overturning what had been considered the last word in science as it had been laid down by the experts for the prosecution, opinions so impregnable that courts and juries had not hesitated to condemn a man to death. "There have been cases," Craig went on solemnly, "and I believe this to be one, where death has been pronounced to have been caused by wilful administration of a vegetable alkaloid, which toxicologists would now put down as ptomaine-poisoning cases. Innocent people have possibly already suffered and may in the future. But medical experts--" he laid especial stress on the word--"are much more alive to the danger of mistake than formerly. This was a case where the danger was not considered, either through carelessness, ignorance, or prejudice. "Indeed, ptomaines are present probably to a greater or less extent in every organ which is submitted to the toxicologist for examination. If he is ignorant of the nature of these substances, he may easily mistake them for vegetable alkaloids. He may report a given poison present when it is not present. It is even yet a new line of inquiry which has only recently been followed, and the information is still comparatively small and inadequate. "It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, for the chemist to state absolutely that he has detected true conine. Before he can do it, the symptoms and the post-mortem appearance must agree; analysis must be made before, not after, decomposition sets in, and the amount of the poison found must be sufficient to experiment with, not merely to react to a few usual tests. "What the experts asserted so positively, I would not dare to assert. Was he killed by ordinary ptomaine poisoning, and had conine, or rather its double, developed first in his food along with other ptomaines that were not inert? Or did the cadaveric conine develop only in the body after death? Chemistry alone can not decide the question so glibly as the experts did. Further proof must be sought Other sciences must come to our aid." I was sitting next to Mrs. Godwin. As Kennedy's words rang out, her hand, trembling with emotion, pressed my arm. I turned quickly to see if she needed assistance. Her face was radiant. All the fees for big cases in the world could never have compensated Kennedy for the mute, unrestrained gratitude which the little woman shot at him. Kennedy saw it, and in the quick shifting of his eyes to my face, I read that he relied on me to take care of Mrs. Godwin while he plunged again into the clearing up of the mystery. "I have here the will--the second one," he snapped out, turning and facing the others in the room. Craig turned a switch in an apparatus which his students had brought from New York. From a tube on the table came a peculiar bluish light. "This," he explained, "is a source of ultraviolet rays. They are not the bluish light which you see, but rays contained in it which you can not see. "Ultraviolet rays have recently been found very valuable in the examination of questioned documents. By the use of a lens made of quartz covered with a thin film of metallic silver, there has been developed a practical means of making photographs by the invisible rays of light above the spectrum--these ultraviolet rays. The quartz lens is necessary, because these rays will not pass through ordinary glass, while the silver film acts as a screen to cut off the ordinary light rays and those below the spectrum. By this means, most white objects are photographed black and even transparent objects like glass are black. "I obtained the copy of this will, but under the condition from the surrogate that absolutely nothing must be done to it to change a fibre of the paper or a line of a letter. It was a difficult condition. While there are chemicals which are frequently resorted to for testing the authenticity of disputed documents such as wills and deeds, their use frequently injures or destroys the paper under test. So far as I could determine, the document also defied the microscope. "But ultraviolet photography does not affect the document tested in any way, and it has lately been used practically in detecting forgeries. I have photographed the last page of the will with its signatures, and here it is. What the eye itself can not see, the invisible light reveals." He was holding the document and the copy, just an instant, as if considering how to announce with best effect what he had discovered. "In order to unravel this mystery," he resumed, looking up and facing the Elmores, Kilgore, and Hollins squarely, "I decided to find out whether any one had had access to that closet where the will was hidden. It was long ago, and there seemed to be little that I could do. I knew it was useless to look for fingerprints. "So I used what we detectives now call the law of suggestion. I questioned closely one who was in touch with all those who might have had such access. I hinted broadly at seeking fingerprints which might lead to the identity of one who had entered the house unknown to the Godwins, and placed a document where private detectives would subsequently find it under suspicious circumstances. "Naturally, it would seem to one who was guilty of such an act, or knew of it, that there might, after all, be finger-prints. I tried it. I found out through this little tube, the detectascope, that one really entered the room after that, and tried to wipe off any supposed finger-prints that might still remain. That settled it. The second will was a forgery, and the person who entered that room so stealthily this afternoon knows that it is a forgery." As Kennedy slapped down on the table the film from his camera, which had been concealed, Mrs. Godwin turned her now large and unnaturally bright eyes and met those of the other woman in the room. "Oh--oh--heaven help us--me, I mean!" cried Miriam, unable to bear the strain of the turn of events longer. "I knew there would be retribution--I knew--I knew--" Mrs. Godwin was on her feet in a moment. "Once my intuition was not wrong though all science and law was against me," she pleaded with Kennedy. There was a gentleness in her tone that fell like a soft rain on the surging passions of those who had wronged her so shamefully. "Professor Kennedy, Miriam could not have forged--" Kennedy smiled. "Science was not against you, Mrs. Godwin. Ignorance was against you. And your intuition does not go contrary to science this time, either." It was a splendid exhibition of fine feeling which Kennedy waited to have impressed on the Elmores, as though burning it into their minds. "Miriam Elmore knew that her brothers had forged a will and hidden it. To expose them was to convict them of a crime. She kept their secret, which was the secret of all three. She even tried to hide the finger-prints which would have branded her brothers. "For ptomaine poisoning had unexpectedly hastened the end of old Mr. Godwin. Then gossip and the 'scientists' did the rest. It was accidental, but Bradford and Lambert Elmore were willing to let events take their course and declare genuine the forgery which they had made so skilfully, even though it convicted an innocent man of murder and killed his faithful wife. As soon as the courts can be set in motion to correct an error of science by the truth of later science, Sing Sing will lose one prisoner from the death house and gain two forgers in his place." Mrs. Godwin stood before us, radiant. But as Kennedy's last words sank into her mind, her face clouded. "Must--must it be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?" she pleaded eagerly. "Must that grim prison take in others, even if my husband goes free?" Kennedy looked at her long and earnestly, as if to let the beauty of her character, trained by its long suffering, impress itself on his mind indelibly. He shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid there is no other way, Mrs. Godwin," he said gently taking her arm and leaving the others to be dealt with by a constable whom he had dozing in the hotel lobby. "Kahn is going up to Albany to get the pardon--there can be no doubt about it now," he added. "Mrs. Godwin, if you care to do so, you may stay here at the hotel, or you may go down with us on the midnight train as far as Ossining. I will wire ahead for a conveyance to meet you at the station. Mr. Jameson and I must go on to New York." "The nearer I am to Sanford now, the happier I shall be," she answered, bravely keeping back the tears of happiness. The ride down to New York, after our train left Ossining, was accomplished in a day coach in which our fellow passengers slept in every conceivable attitude of discomfort. Yet late, or rather early, as it was, we found plenty of life still in the great city that never sleeps. Tired, exhausted, I was at least glad to feel that finally we were at home. "Craig," I yawned, as I began to throw off my clothes, "I'm ready to sleep a week." There was no answer. I looked up at him almost resentfully. He had picked up the mail that lay under our letter slot and was going through it as eagerly as if the clock registered P.M. instead of A.M. "Let me see," I mumbled sleepily, checking over my notes, "how many days have we been at it?" I turned the pages slowly, after the manner in which my mind was working. "It was the twenty-sixth when you got that letter from Ossining," I calculated, "and to-day makes the thirtieth. My heavens--is there still another day of it? Is there no rest for the wicked?" Kennedy looked up and laughed. He was pointing at the calendar on the desk before him. "There are only thirty days in the month," he remarked slowly. "Thank the Lord," I exclaimed. "I'm all in!" He tipped his desk-chair back and bit the amber of his meerchaum contemplatively. "But to-day is the first," he drawled, turning the leaf on the calendar with just a flicker of a smile. THE END 
5151	----	THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE BY ARTHUR B. REEVE CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE CLUTCHING HAND II THE TWILIGHT SLEEP III THE VANISHING JEWELS IV "THE FROZEN SAFE" V THE POISONED ROOM VI THE VAMPIRE VII THE DOUBLE TRAP VIII THE HIDDEN VOICE IX THE DEATH RAY X THE LIFE CURRENT XI THE HOUR OF THREE XII THE BLOOD CRYSTALS XIII THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS XIV THE RECKONING THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE CHAPTER I THE CLUTCHING HAND "Jameson, here's a story I wish you'd follow up," remarked the managing editor of the Star to me one evening after I had turned in an assignment of the late afternoon. He handed me a clipping from the evening edition of the Star and I quickly ran my eye over the headline: "THE CLUTCHING HAND" WINS AGAIN NEW YORK'S MYSTERIOUS MASTER CRIMINAL PERFECTS ANOTHER COUP CITY POLICE COMPLETELY BAFFLED "Here's this murder of Fletcher, the retired banker and trustee of the University," he explained. "Not a clue--except a warning letter signed with this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it was the robbery of the Haxworth jewels and the killing of old Haxworth. Again that curious sign of the hand. Then there was the dastardly attempt on Sherburne, the steel magnate. Not a trace of the assailant except this same clutching fist. So it has gone, Jameson--the most alarming and most inexplicable series of murders that has ever happened in this country. And nothing but this uncanny hand to trace them by." The editor paused a moment, then exclaimed, "Why, this fellow seems to take a diabolical--I might almost say pathological--pleasure in crimes of violence, revenge, avarice and self-protection. Sometimes it seems as if he delights in the pure deviltry of the thing. It is weird." He leaned over and spoke in a low, tense tone. "Strangest of all, the tip has just come to us that Fletcher, Haxworth, Sherburne and all the rest of those wealthy men were insured in the Consolidated Mutual Life. Now, Jameson, I want you to find Taylor Dodge, the president, and interview him. Get what you can, at any cost." I had naturally thought first of Kennedy, but there was no time now to call him up and, besides, I must see Dodge immediately. Dodge, I discovered over the telephone, was not at home, nor at any of the clubs to which he belonged. Late though it was I concluded that he was at his office. No amount of persuasion could get me past the door, and, though I found out later and shall tell soon what was going on there, I determined, about nine o'clock, that the best way to get at Dodge was to go to his house on Fifth Avenue, if I had to camp on his front doorstep until morning. The harder I found the story to get, the more I wanted it. With some misgivings about being admitted, I rang the bell of the splendid, though not very modern, Dodge residence. An English butler, with a nose that must have been his fortune, opened the door and gravely informed me that Mr. Dodge was not at home, but was expected at any moment. Once in, I was not going lightly to give up that advantage. I bethought myself of his daughter, Elaine, one of the most popular debutantes of the season, and sent in my card to her, on a chance of interesting her and seeing her father, writing on the bottom of the card: "Would like to interview Mr. Dodge regarding Clutching Hand." Summoning up what assurance I had, which is sometimes considerable, I followed the butler down the hall as he bore my card. As he opened the door of the drawing room I caught a vision of a slip of a girl, in an evening gown. Elaine Dodge was both the ingenue and the athlete--the thoroughly modern type of girl--equally at home with tennis and tango, table talk and tea. Vivacious eyes that hinted at a stunning amber brown sparkled beneath masses of the most wonderful auburn hair. Her pearly teeth, when she smiled, were marvellous. And she smiled often, for life to her seemed a continuous film of enjoyment. Near her I recognized from his pictures, Perry Bennett, the rising young corporation lawyer, a mighty good looking fellow, with an affable, pleasing way about him, perhaps thirty-five years old or so, but already prominent and quite friendly with Dodge. On a table I saw a book, as though Elaine had cast it down when the lawyer arrived to call on the daughter under pretense of waiting for her father. Crumpled on the table was the Star. They had read the story. "Who is it, Jennings?" she asked. "A reporter, Miss Dodge," answered the butler glancing superciliously back at me, "and you know how your father dislikes to see anyone here at the house," he added deferentially to her. I took in the situation at a glance. Bennett was trying not to look discourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had been interrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I fancied that Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor and determined at least to try it. "Miss Dodge," I pleaded, bowing as if I had known them all my life, "I've been trying to find your father all the evening. It's very important." She looked up at me surprised and in doubt whether to laugh or stamp her pretty little foot in indignation at my stupendous nerve. She laughed. "You are a very brave young man," she replied with a roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of the tete-a-tete. There was a note of seriousness in it, too, that made me ask quickly, "Why?" The smile flitted from her face and in its place came a frank earnest expression which I later learned to like and respect very much. "My father has declared he will eat the very next reporter who tries to interview him here," she answered. I was about to prolong the waiting time by some jolly about such a stunning girl not having by any possibility such a cannibal of a parent, when the rattle of the changing gears of a car outside told of the approach of a limousine. The big front door opened and Elaine flung herself in the arms of an elderly, stern-faced, gray-haired man. "Why, Dad," she cried, "where have you been? I missed you so much at dinner. I'll be so glad when this terrible business gets cleared up. Tell--me. What is on your mind? What is it that worries you now?" I noticed then that Dodge seemed wrought-up and a bit unnerved, for he sank rather heavily into a chair, brushed his face with his handkerchief and breathed heavily. Elaine hovered over him solicitously, repeating her question. With a mighty effort he seemed to get himself together. He rose and turned to Bennett. "Perry," he exclaimed, "I've got the Clutching Hand!" The two men stared at each other. "Yes," continued Dodge, "I've just found out how to trace it, and tomorrow I am going to set the alarms of the city at rest by exposing--" Just then Dodge caught sight of me. For the moment I thought perhaps he was going to fulfill his threat. "Who the devil--why didn't you tell me a reporter was here, Jennings?" he sputtered indignantly, pointing toward the door. Argument, entreaty were of no avail. He stamped crustily into the library, taking Bennett with him and leaving me with Elaine. Inside I could hear them talking, and managed to catch enough to piece together the story. I wanted to stay, but Elaine, smiling at my enthusiasm, shook her head and held out her hand in one of her frank, straight-arm hand shakes. There was nothing to do but go. At least, I reflected, I had the greater part of the story--all except the one big thing, however,--the name of the criminal. But Dodge would know him tomorrow! I hurried back to the Star to write my story in time to catch the last morning edition. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, if I may anticipate my story, I must tell of what we later learned had happened to Dodge so completely to upset him. Ever since the Consolidated Mutual had been hit by the murders, he had had many lines out in the hope of enmeshing the perpetrator. That night, as I found out the next day, he had at last heard of a clue. One of the company's detectives had brought in a red-headed, lame, partly paralyzed crook who enjoyed the expressive monniker of "Limpy Red." "Limpy Red" was a gunman of some renown, evil faced and having nothing much to lose, desperate. Whoever the master criminal of the Clutching Hand might have been he had seen fit to employ Limpy but had not taken the precaution of getting rid of him soon enough when he was through. Wherefore Limpy had a grievance and now descended under pressure to the low level of snitching to Dodge in his office. "No, Governor," the trembling wretch had said as he handed over a grimy envelope, "I ain't never seen his face--but here is directions how to find his hang-out." As Limpy ambled out, he turned to Dodge, quivering at the enormity of his unpardonable sin in gang-land, "For God's sake, Governor," he implored, "don't let on how you found out!" And yet Limpy Red had scarcely left with his promise not to tell, when Dodge, happening to turn over some papers came upon an envelope left on his own desk, bearing that mysterious Clutching Hand! He tore it open, and read in amazement: "Destroy Limpy Red's instructions within the next hour." Dodge gazed about in wonder. This thing was getting on his nerves. He determined to go home and rest. Outside the house, as he left his car, pasted over the monogram on the door, he had found another note, with the same weird mark and the single word: "Remember!" Much of this I had already gathered from what I overheard Dodge telling Bennett as they entered the library. Some, also, I have pieced together from the story of a servant who overheard. At any rate, in spite of the pleadings of young Bennett, Dodge refused to take warning. In the safe in his beautifully fitted library he deposited Limpy's document in an envelope containing all the correspondence that had lead up to the final step in the discovery. . . . . . . . . It was late in the evening when I returned to our apartment and, not finding Kennedy there, knew that I would discover him at the laboratory. "Craig," I cried as I burst in on him, "I've got a case for you--greater than any ever before!" Kennedy looked up calmly from the rack of scientific instruments that surrounded him, test tubes, beakers, carefully labelled bottles. He had been examining a piece of cloth and had laid it aside in disappointment near his magnifying glass. Just now he was watching a reaction in a series of test tubes standing on his table. He was looking dejectedly at the floor as I came in. "Indeed?" he remarked coolly going back to the reaction. "Yes," I cried. "It is a scientific criminal who seems to leave no clues." Kennedy looked up gravely. "Every criminal leaves a trace," he said quietly. "If it hasn't been found, then it must be because no one has ever looked for it in the right way." Still gazing at me keenly, he added, "Yes, I already knew there was such a man at large. I have been called in on that Fletcher case--he was a trustee of the University, you know." "All right," I exclaimed, a little nettled that he should have anticipated me even so much in the case. "But you haven't heard the latest." "What is it?" he asked with provoking calmness, "Taylor Dodge," I blurted out, "has the clue. To-morrow he will track down the man!" Kennedy fairly jumped as I repeated the news. "How long has he known?" he demanded eagerly. "Perhaps three or four hours," I hazarded. Kennedy gazed at me fixedly. "Then Taylor Dodge is dead!" he exclaimed, throwing off his acid-stained laboratory smock and hurrying into his street clothes. "Impossible!" I ejaculated. Kennedy paid no attention to the objection. "Come, Walter," he urged. "We must hurry, before the trail gets cold." There was something positively uncanny about Kennedy's assurance. I doubted--yet I feared. It was well past the middle of the night when we pulled up in a night-hawk taxicab before the Dodge house, mounted the steps and rang the bell. Jennings answered sleepily, but not so much so that he did not recognize me. He was about to bang the door shut when Kennedy interposed his foot. "Where is Mr. Dodge?" asked Kennedy. "Is he all right?" "Of course he is--in bed," replied the butler. Just then we heard a faint cry, like nothing exactly human. Or was it our heightened imaginations, under the spell of the darkness? "Listen!" cautioned Kennedy. We did, standing there now in the hall. Kennedy was the only one of us who was cool. Jennings' face blanched, then he turned tremblingly and went down to the library door whence the sounds had seemed to come. He called but there was no answer. He turned the knob and opened the door. The Dodge library was a large room. In the center stood a big flat-topped desk of heavy mahogany. It was brilliantly lighted. At one end of the desk was a telephone. Taylor Dodge was lying on the floor at that end of the desk--perfectly rigid--his face distorted--a ghastly figure. A pet dog ran over, sniffed frantically at his master's legs and suddenly began to howl dismally. Dodge was dead! "Help!" shouted Jennings. Others of the servants came rushing in. There was for the moment the greatest excitement and confusion. Suddenly a wild figure in flying garments flitted down the stairs and into the library, dropping beside the dead man, without seeming to notice us at all. "Father!" shrieked a woman's voice, heart broken. "Father! Oh--my God--he--he is dead!" It was Elaine Dodge. With a mighty effort, the heroic girl seemed to pull herself together. "Jennings," she cried, "Call Mr. Bennett--immediately!" From the one-sided, excited conversation of the butler over the telephone, I gathered that Bennett had been in the process of disrobing in his own apartment uptown and would be right down. Together, Kennedy, Elaine and myself lifted Dodge to a sofa and Elaine's aunt, Josephine, with whom she lived, appeared on the scene, trying to quiet the sobbing girl. Kennedy and I withdrew a little way and he looked about curiously. "What was it?" I whispered. "Was it natural, an accident, or--or murder?" The word seemed to stick in my throat. If it was a murder, what was the motive? Could it have been to get the evidence which Dodge had that would incriminate the master criminal? Kennedy moved over quietly and examined the body of Dodge. When he rose, his face had a peculiar look. "Terrible!" he whispered to me. "Apparently he had been working at his accustomed place at the desk when the telephone rang. He rose and crossed over to it. See! That brought his feet on this register let into the floor. As he took the telephone receiver down a flash of light must have shot from it to his ear. It shows the characteristic electric burn." "The motive?" I queried. "Evidently his pockets had been gone through, though none of the valuables were missing. Things on his desk show that a hasty search has been made." Just then the door opened and Bennett burst in. As he stood over the body, gazing down at it, repressing the emotions of a strong man, he turned to Elaine and in a low voice, exclaimed, "The Clutching Hand did this! I shall consecrate my life to bring this man to justice!" He spoke tensely and Elaine, looking up into his face, as if imploring his help in her hour of need, unable to speak, merely grasped his hand. Kennedy, who in the meantime had stood apart from the rest of us, was examining the telephone carefully. "A clever crook," I heard him mutter between his teeth. "He must have worn gloves. Not a finger print--at least here." . . . . . . . . Perhaps I can do no better than to reconstruct the crime as Kennedy later pieced these startling events together. Long after I had left and even after Bennett left, Dodge continued working in his library, for he was known as a prodigious worker. Had he taken the trouble, however, to pause and peer out into the moonlight that flooded the back of his house, he might have seen the figures of two stealthy crooks crouching in the half shadows of one of the cellar windows. One crook was masked by a handkerchief drawn tightly about his lower face, leaving only his eyes visible beneath the cap with visor pulled down over his forehead. He had a peculiar stoop of the shoulders and wore his coat collar turned up. One hand, the right, seemed almost deformed. It was that which gave him his name in the underworld--the Clutching Hand. The masked crook held carefully the ends of two wires attached to an electric feed, and sending his pal to keep watch outside, he entered the cellar of the Dodge house through a window whose pane they had carefully removed. As he came through the window he dragged the wires with him, and, alter a moment's reconnoitering attached them to the furnace pipe of the old-fashioned hot-air heater where the pipe ran up through the floor to the library above. The other wire was quickly attached to the telephone where its wires entered. Upstairs, Dodge, evidently uneasy in his mind about the precious "Limpy Red" letter, took it from the safe along with most of the other correspondence and, pressing a hidden spring in the wall, opened a secret panel, placed most of the important documents in this hiding place. Then he put some blank sheets of paper in an envelope and returned it to the safe. Downstairs the masked master criminal had already attached a voltmeter to the wires he had installed, waiting. Just then could be heard the tinkle of Dodge's telephone and the old man rose to answer it. As he did so he placed his foot on the iron register, his hand taking the telephone and the receiver. At that instant came a powerful electric flash. Dodge sank on the floor grasping the instrument, electrocuted. Below, the master criminal could scarcely refrain from exclaiming with satisfaction as his voltmeter registered the powerful current that was passing. A moment later the criminal slid silently into Dodge's room. Carefully putting on rubber gloves and avoiding touching the register, he wrenched the telephone from the grasp of the dead man, replacing it in its normal position. Only for a second did he pause to look at his victim as he destroyed the evidence of his work. Minutes were precious. First Dodge's pockets, then his desk engaged his attention. There was left the safe. As he approached the strong box, the master criminal took two vials from his pockets. Removing a bust of Shakespeare that stood on the safe, he poured the contents of the vials in two mixed masses of powder forming a heap on the safe, into which he inserted two magnesium wires. He lighted them, sprang back, hiding his eyes from the light, and a blinding gush of flame, lasting perhaps ten seconds, poured out from the top of the safe. It was not an explosion, but just a dazzling, intense flame that sizzled and crackled. It seemed impossible, but the glowing mass was literally sinking, sinking down into the cold steel. At last it burned through--as if the safe had been of tinder! Without waiting a moment longer than necessary, the masked criminal advanced again and actually put his hand down through the top of the safe, pulling out a bunch of papers. Quickly he thrust them all, with just a glance, into his pocket. Still working quickly, he took the bust of the great dramatist which he had removed and placed it under the light. Next from his pocket he drew two curious stencils, as it were, which he had apparently carefully prepared. With his hands, still carefully gloved, he rubbed the stencils on his hair, as if to cover them with a film of natural oils. Then he deliberately pressed them over the statue in several places. It was a peculiar action and he seemed to fairly gloat over it when it was done, and the bust returned to its place, covering the hole. As noiselessly as he had come, he made his exit after one last malignant look at Dodge. It was now but the work of a moment to remove the wires he had placed, and climb out of the window, taking them and destroying the evidence down in the cellar. A low whistle from the masked crook, now again in the shadow, brought his pal stealthily to his side. "It's all right," he whispered hoarsely to the man. "Now, you attend to Limpy Red." The villainous looking pal nodded and without another word the two made their getaway, safely, in opposite directions. . . . . . . . . When Limpy Red, still trembling, left the office of Dodge earlier in the evening, he had repaired as fast as his shambling feet would take him to his favorite dive upon Park Row. There he might have been seen drinking with any one who came along, for Limpy had money--blood money,--and the recollection of his treachery and revenge must both be forgotten and celebrated. Had the Bowery "sinkers" not got into his eyes, he might have noticed among the late revellers, a man who spoke to no one but took his place nearby at the bar. Limpy had long since reached the point of saturation and, lurching forth from his new found cronies, he sought other fields of excitement. Likewise did the newcomer, who bore a strange resemblance to the look-out who had been stationed outside at the Dodge house a scant half hour before. What happened later was only a matter of seconds. It came when the hated snitch--for gangdom hates the informer worse than anything else dead or alive--had turned a sufficiently dark and deserted corner. A muffled thud, a stifled groan followed as a heavy section of lead pipe wrapped in a newspaper descended on the crass skull of Limpy. The wielder of the improvised but fatal weapon permitted himself the luxury of an instant's cruel smile--then vanished into the darkness leaving another complete job for the coroner and the morgue. It was the vengeance of the Clutching Hand--swift, sure, remorseless. And yet it had not been a night of complete success for the master criminal, as anyone might have seen who could have followed his sinuous route to a place of greater safety. Unable to wait longer he pulled the papers he had taken from the safe from his pocket. His chagrin at finding them to be blank paper found only one expression of foiled fury--that menacing clutching hand! . . . . . . . . Kennedy had turned from his futile examination for marks on the telephone. There stood the safe, a moderate sized strong box but of a modern type. He tried the door. It was locked. There was not a mark on it. The combination had not been tampered with. Nor had there been any attempt to "soup" the safe. With a quick motion he felt in his pocket as if looking for gloves. Finding none, he glanced about, and seized a pair of tongs from beside the grate. With them, in order not to confuse any possible finger prints on the bust, he lifted it off. I gave a gasp of surprise. There, in the top of the safe, yawned a gaping hole through which one could have thrust his arm! "What is it?" we asked, crowding about him. "Thermit," he replied laconically. "Thermit?" I repeated. "Yes--a compound of iron oxide and powdered aluminum invented by a chemist at Essen, Germany. It gives a temperature of over five thousand degrees. It will eat its way through the strongest steel." Jennings, his mouth wide open with wonder, advanced to take the bust from Kennedy. "No--don't touch it," he waved him off, laying the bust on the desk. "I want no one to touch it--don't you see how careful I was to use the tongs that there might be no question about any clue this fellow may have left on the marble?" As he spoke, Craig was dusting over the surface of the bust with some black powder. "Look!" exclaimed Craig suddenly. We bent over. The black powder had in fact brought out strongly some peculiar, more or less regular, black smudges. "Finger prints!" I cried excitedly. "Yes," nodded Kennedy, studying them closely. "A clue--perhaps." "What--those little marks--a clue?" asked a voice behind us. I turned and saw Elaine, looking over our shoulders, fascinated. It was evidently the first time she had realized that Kennedy was in the room. "How can you tell anything by that?'" she asked. "Why, easily," he answered picking up a brass blotting-pad which lay on the desk. "You see, I place my finger on this weight--so. I dust the powder over the mark--so. You could see it even without the powder on this glass. Do you see those lines? There are various types of markings--four general types--and each person's markings are different, even if of the same general type--loop, whorl, arch, or composite." He continued working as he talked. "Your thumb marks, for example, Miss Dodge, are different from mine. Mr. Jameson's are different from both of us. And this fellow's finger prints are still different. It is mathematically impossible to find two alike in every respect." Kennedy was holding the brass blotter near the bust as he talked. I shall never forget the look of blank amazement on his face as he bent over closer. "My God!" he exclaimed excitedly, "this fellow is a master criminal! He has actually made stencils or something of the sort on which by some mechanical process he has actually forged the hitherto infallible finger prints!" I, too, bent over and studied the marks on the bust and those Kennedy had made on the blotter to show Elaine. THE FINGER PRINTS ON THE BUST WERE KENNEDY'S OWN. CHAPTER II THE TWILIGHT SLEEP Kennedy had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the solution of the mysterious Dodge case. Far into the night, after the challenge of the forged finger print, he continued at work, endeavoring to extract a clue from the meagre evidence--the bit of cloth and trace of poison already obtained from other cases, and now added the strange succession of events that surrounded the tragedy we had just witnessed. We dropped around at the Dodge house the next morning. Early though it was, we found Elaine, a trifle paler but more lovely than ever, and Perry Bennett themselves vainly endeavoring to solve the mystery of the Clutching Hand. They were at Dodge's desk, she in the big desk chair, he standing beside her, looking over some papers. "There's nothing there," Bennett was saying as we entered. I could not help feeling that he was gazing down at Elaine a bit more tenderly than mere business warranted. "Have you--found anything?" queried Elaine anxiously, turning eagerly to Kennedy. "Nothing--yet," he answered shaking his head, but conveying a quiet idea of confidence in his tone. Just then Jennings, the butler, entered, bringing the morning papers. Elaine seized the Star and hastily opened it. On the first page was the story I had telephone down very late in the hope of catching a last city edition. We all bent over and Craig read aloud: "CLUTCHING HAND" STILL AT LARGE NEW YORK'S MASTER CRIMINAL REMAINS UNDETECTED--PERPETRATES NEW DARING MURDER AND ROBBERY OF MILLIONAIRE DODGE He had scarcely finished reading the brief but alarming news story that followed and laid the paper on the desk, when a stone came smashing through the window from the street. Startled, we all jumped to our feet. Craig hurried to the window. Not a soul was in sight! He stooped and picked up the stone. To it was attached a piece of paper. Quickly he unfolded it and read: "Craig Kennedy will give up his search for the "Clutching Hand"--or die!" Later I recalled that there seemed to be a slight noise downstairs, as if at the cellar window through which the masked man had entered the night before. In point of fact, one who had been outside at the time might actually have seen a sinister face at that cellar window, but to us upstairs it was invisible. The face was that of the servant, Michael. Without another word Kennedy passed into the drawing room and took his hat and coat. Both Elaine and Bennett followed. "I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me--for the present," Craig apologized. Elaine looked at him anxiously. "You--you will not let that letter intimidate you?" she pleaded, laying her soft white hand on his arm. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she added, bravely keeping back the tears, "avenge him! All the money in the world would be too little to pay--if only--" At the mere mention of money Kennedy's face seemed to cloud, but only for a moment. He must have felt the confiding pressure of her hand, for as she paused, appealingly, he took her hand in his, bowing slightly over it to look closer into her upturned face. "I'll try," he said simply. Elaine did not withdraw her hand as she continued to look up at him. Craig looked at her, as I had never seen him look at a woman before in all our long acquaintance. "Miss Dodge," he went on, his voice steady as though he were repressing something, "I will never take another case until the 'Clutching Hand' is captured." The look of gratitude she gave him would have been a princely reward in itself. I did not marvel that all the rest of that day and far into the night Kennedy was at work furiously in his laboratory, studying the notes, the texture of the paper, the character of the ink, everything that might perhaps suggest a new lead. It was all, apparently, however, without result. . . . . . . . . It was some time after these events that Kennedy, reconstructing what had happened, ran across, in a strange way which I need not tire the reader by telling, a Dr. Haynes, head of the Hillside Sanitarium for Women, whose story I shall relate substantially as we received it from his own lips: It must have been that same night that a distinguished visitor drove up in a cab to our Hillside Sanitarium, rang the bell and was admitted to my office. I might describe him as a moderately tall, well-built man with a pleasing way about him. Chiefly noticeable, it seems to me, were his mustache and bushy beard, quite medical and foreign. I am, by the way, the superintending physician, and that night I was sitting with Dr. Thompson, my assistant, in the office discussing a rather interesting case, when an attendant came in with a card and handed it to me. It read simply, "Dr. Ludwig Reinstrom, Coblenz." "Here's that Dr. Reinstrom, Thompson, about whom my friend in Germany wrote the other day," I remarked, nodding to the attendant to admit Dr. Reinstrom. I might explain that while I was abroad some time ago, I made a particular study of the "Daemmerschlaf"--otherwise, the "twilight sleep," at Freiburg where it was developed and at other places in Germany where the subject had attracted great attention. I was much impressed and had imported the treatment to Hillside. While we waited I reached into my desk and drew out the letter to which I referred, which ended, I recall: "As Dr. Reinstrom is in America, he will probably call on you. I am sure you will be glad to know him. "With kindest regards, I am, "Fraternally yours, "EMIL SCHWARZ, M. D., "Director, Leipsic Institute of Medicine." "Most happy to meet you, Dr. Reinstrom," I greeted the new arrival, as he entered our office. For several minutes we sat and chatted of things medical here and abroad. "What is it, Doctor," I asked finally, "that interests you most in America?" "Oh," he replied quickly with an expressive gesture, "it is the broadmindedness with which you adopt the best from all over the world, regardless of prejudice. For instance, I am very much interested in the new twilight sleep. Of course you have borrowed it largely from us, but it interests me to see whether you have modified it with practice. In fact I have come to the Hillside Sanitarium particularly to see it used. Perhaps we may learn something from you." It was most gracious and both Dr. Thompson and myself were charmed by our visitor. I reached over and touched a call-button and our head nurse entered from a rear room. "Are there any operations going on now?" I asked. She looked mechanically at her watch. "Yes, there are two cases, now, I think," she answered. "Would you like to follow our technique, Doctor?" I asked, turning to Dr. Reinstorm. "I should be delighted," he acquiesced. A moment later we passed down the corridor of the Sanitarium, still chatting. At the door of a ward I spoke to the attendant who indicated that a patient was about to be anesthetized, and Reinstrom and I entered the room. There, in perfect quiet, which is an essential part of the treatment, were several women patients lying in bed in the ward. Before us two nurses and a doctor were in attendance on one. I spoke to the Doctor, Dr. Holmes, by the way, who bowed politely to the distinguished Dr. Reinstrom, then turned quickly to his work. "Miss Sears," he asked of one of the nurses, "will you bring me that hypodermic needle? How are you getting on, Miss Stern?" to the other who was scrubbing the patient's arm with antiseptic soap and water, thoroughly sterilizing the skin. "You will see, Dr. Reinstrom." I interposed in a low tone, "that we follow in the main your Freiburg treatment. We use scopolamin and narkophin." I held up the bottle, as I said it, a rather peculiar shaped bottle, too. "And the pain?" he asked. "Practically the same as in your experience abroad. We do not render the patient unconscious, but prevent her from remembering anything that goes on." Dr. Holmes, the attending physician, was just starting the treatment. Filling his hypodermic, he selected a spot on the patient's arm, where it had been scrubbed and sterilized, and injected the narcotic. "How simply you do it all, here!" exclaimed Reinstrom in surprise and undisguised admiration. "You Americans are wonderful!" "Come--see a patient who is just recovering," I added, much flattered by the praise, which, from a German physician, meant much. Reinstrom followed me out of the door and we entered a private room of the hospital where another woman patient lay in bed carefully watched by a nurse. "How do you do?" I nodded to the nurse in a modulated tone. "Everything progressing favorably?" "Perfectly," she returned, as Reinstrom, Haynes and myself formed a little group about the bedside of the unconscious woman. "And you say they have no recollection of anything that happens?" asked Reinstrom. "Absolutely none--if the treatment is given properly," I replied confidently. I picked up a piece of bandage which was the handiest thing about me and tied it quite tightly about the patient's arm. As we waited, the patient, who was gradually coming from under the drug, roused herself. "What is that--it hurts!" she said putting her hand on the bandage I had tied tightly. "That is all right. Just a moment. I'll take it off. Don't you remember it?" I asked. She shook her head. I smiled at Reinstrom. "You see, she has no recollection of my tying the bandage on her arm," I pointed out. "Wonderful!" ejaculated Reinstrom as we left the room. All the way back to the office he was loud in his praises and thanked us most heartily, as he put on his hat and coat and shook hands a cordial good-bye. Now comes the strange part of my story. After Reinstrom had gone, Dr. Holmes, the attending physician of the woman whom we had seen anesthetized, missed his syringe and the bottle of scopolamine. "Miss Sears," he asked rather testily, "what have you done with the hypodermic and the scopolamine?" "Nothing," she protested. "You must have done something." She repeated that she had not. "Well, it is very strange then," he said, "I am positive I laid the syringe and the bottle right here on this tray on the table." Holmes, Miss Sears and Miss Stern all hunted, but it could not be found. Others had to be procured. I thought little of it at the time, but since then it has occurred to me that it might interest you, Professor Kennedy, and I give it to you for what it may be worth. It was early the next morning that I awoke to find Kennedy already up and gone from our apartment. I knew he must be at the laboratory, and, gathering the mail, which the postman had just slipped through the letter slot, I went over to the University to see him. As I looked over the letters to cull out my own, one in a woman's handwriting on attractive notepaper addressed to him caught my eye. As I came up the path to the Chemistry Building I saw through the window that, in spite of his getting there early, he was finding it difficult to keep his mind on his work. It was the first time I had ever known anything to interfere with science in his life. I thought of the letter again. Craig had lighted a Bunsen burner under a large glass retort. But he had no sooner done so than he sat down on a chair and, picking up a book which I surmised might be some work on toxicology, started to read. He seemed not to be able, for the moment, to concentrate his mind and after a little while closed the book and gazed straight ahead of him. Again I thought of the letter, and the vision that, no doubt, he saw of Elaine making her pathetic appeal for his help. As he heard my footstep in the hall, it must have recalled him for he snapped the book shut and moved over quickly to the retort. "Well," I exclaimed as I entered, "you are the early bird. Did you have any breakfast?" I tossed down the letters. He did not reply. So I became absorbed in the morning paper. Still, I did not neglect to watch him covertly out of the corner of my eye. Quickly he ran over the letters, instead of taking them, one by one, in his usual methodical way. I quite complimented my own superior acumen. He selected the dainty note. A moment Craig looked at it in anticipation, then tore it open eagerly. I was still watching his face over the top of the paper and was surprised to see that it showed, first, amazement, then pain, as though something had hurt him. He read it again--then looked straight ahead, as if in a daze. "Strange, how much crime there is now," I commented, looking up from the paper I had pretended reading. No answer. "One would think that one master criminal was enough," I went on. Still no answer. He continued to gaze straight ahead at blankness. "By George," I exclaimed finally, banging my fist on the table and raising my voice to catch his attention, "you would think we had nothing but criminals nowadays." My voice must have startled him. The usually imperturbable old fellow actually jumped. Then, as my question did not evidently accord with what was in his mind, he answered at random, "Perhaps--I wonder if--" and then he stopped, noncommittally. Suddenly he jumped up, bringing his tightly clenched fist down with a loud clap into the palm of his hand. "By heaven!" he exclaimed, "I--I will!" Startled at his incomprehensible and unusual conduct I did not attempt to pursue the conversation but let him alone as he strode hastily to the telephone. Almost angrily he seized the receiver and asked for a number. It was not like Craig and I could not conceal my concern. "Wh-what's the matter, Craig?" I blurted out eagerly. As he waited for the number, he threw the letter over to me. I took it and read: "Professor Craig Kennedy, "The University, The Heights, City. "Dear Sir,-- "I have come to the conclusion that your work is a hindrance rather than an assistance in clearing up my father's death and I hereby beg to state that your services are no longer required. This is a final decision and I beg that you will not try to see me again regarding the matter. "Very truly yours, ELAINE DODGE." If it had been a bomb I could not have been more surprised. A moment before I think I had just a sneaking suspicion of jealousy that a woman--even Elaine--should interest my old chums. But now all that was swept away. How could any woman scorn him? I could not make it out. Kennedy impatiently worked the receiver up and down, repeating the number. "Hello--hello," he repeated, "Yes--hello. Is Miss--oh--good morning, Miss Dodge." He was hurrying along as if to give her no chance to cut him off. "I have just received a letter, Miss Dodge, telling me that you don't want me to continue investigating your father's death, and not to try to see you again about--" He stopped. I could hear the reply, as sometimes one can when the telephone wire conditions are a certain way and the quality of the voice of the speaker a certain kind. "Why--no--Mr. Kennedy, I have written you no letter." The look of mingled relief and surprise that crossed Craig's face spoke volumes. "Miss Dodge," he almost shouted, "this is a new trick of the Clutching Hand. I--I'll be right over." Craig hung up the receiver and turned from the telephone. Evidently he was thinking deeply. Suddenly his face seemed to light up. He made up his mind to something and a moment later he opened the cabinet--that inexhaustible storehouse from which he seemed to draw weird and curious instruments that met the ever new problems which his strange profession brought to him. I watched curiously. He took out a bottle and what looked like a little hypodermic syringe, thrust them into his pocket and, for once, oblivious to my very existence, deliberately walked out of the laboratory. I did not propose to be thus cavalierly dismissed. I suppose it would have looked ridiculous to a third party but I followed him as hastily as if he had tried to shut the door on his own shadow. We arrived at the corner above the Dodge house just in time to see another visitor--Bennett--enter. Craig quickened his pace. Jennings had by this time become quite reconciled to our presence and a moment later we were entering the drawing room, too. Elaine was there, looking lovelier than ever in the plain black dress, which set off the rosy freshness of her face. "And, Perry," we heard her say, as we were ushered in, "someone has even forged my name--the handwriting and everything--telling Mr. Kennedy to drop the case--and I never knew." She stopped as we entered. We bowed and shook hands with Bennett. Elaine's Aunt Josephine was in the room, a perfect duenna. "That's the limit!" exclaimed Bennett. "Miss Dodge has just been telling me,--" "Yes," interrupted Craig. "Look, Miss Dodge, this is it." He handed her the letter. She almost seized it, examining it carefully, her large eyes opening wider in wonder. "This is certainly my writing and my notepaper," she murmured, "but I never wrote the letter!" Craig looked from the letter to her keenly. No one said a word. For a moment Kennedy hesitated, thinking. "Might I--er--see your room, Miss Dodge?" he asked at length. Aunt Josephine frowned. Bennett and I could not conceal our surprise. "Why, certainly," nodded Elaine, as she led the way upstairs. It was a dainty little room, breathing the spirit of its mistress. In fact it seemed a sort of profanation as we all followed in after her. For a moment Kennedy stood still, then he carefully looked about. At the side of the bed, near the head, he stooped and picked up something which he held in the palm of his hand. I bent over. Something gleamed in the morning sunshine--some little thin pieces of glass. As he tried deftly to fit the tiny little bits together, he seemed absorbed in thought. Quickly he raised it to his nose, as if to smell it. "Ethyl chloride!" he muttered, wrapping the pieces carefully in a paper and putting them into his pocket. An instant later he crossed the room to the window and examined it. "Look!" he exclaimed. There, plainly, were marks of a jimmy which had been inserted near the lock to pry it open. "Miss Dodge," he asked, "might I--might I trouble you to let me see your arm?" Wonderingly she did so and Kennedy bent almost reverently over her plump arm examining it. On it was a small dark discoloration, around which was a slight redness and tenderness. "That," he said slowly, "is the mark of a hypodermic needle." As he finished examining Elaine's arm he drew the letter from his pocket. Still facing her he said in a low tone, "Miss Dodge--you did write this letter--but under the influence of the new 'twilight sleep.'" We looked at one another amazed. Outside, if we had been at the door in the hallway, we might have seen the sinister-faced Michael listening. He turned and slipped quietly away. "Why, Craig," I exclaimed excitedly, "what do you mean?" "Exactly what I say. With Miss Dodge's permission I shall show you. By a small administration of the drug which will injure you in no way, Miss Dodge, I think I can bring back the memory of all that occurred to you last night. Will you allow me?" "Mercy, no!" protested Aunt Josephine. Craig and Elaine faced each other as they had the day before when she had asked him whether the sudden warning of the Clutching Hand would intimidate him. She advanced a step nearer. Elaine trusted him. "Elaine!" protested Aunt Josephine again. "I want the experiment to be tried," she said quietly. A moment later Kennedy had placed her in a wing chair in the corner of the room. "Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said, "please bring me a basin and a towel." Aunt Josephine, reconciled, brought them. Kennedy dropped an antiseptic tablet into the water and carefully sterilized Elaine's arm just above the spot where the red mark showed. Then he drew the hypodermic from his pocket--carefully sterilizing it, also, and filling it with scopolamine from the bottle. "Just a moment, Miss Dodge," he encouraged as he jabbed the needle into her arm. She did not wince. "Please lie back on the couch," he directed. Then turning to us he added, "It takes some time for this to work. Our criminal got over that fact and prevented an outcry by using ethyl chloride first. Let me reconstruct the scene." As we watched Elaine going under slowly, Craig talked. "That night," he said, "warily, the masked criminal of the Clutching Hand might have been seen down below us in the alley. Up here, Miss Dodge, worn out by the strain of her father's death, let us say, was nervously trying to read, to do anything that would take her mind off the tragedy. Perhaps she fell asleep. "Just then the Clutching Hand appeared. He came stealthily through that window which he had opened. A moment he hesitated, seeing Elaine asleep. Then he tiptoed over to the bed, let us say, and for a moment looked at her, sleeping. "A second later he had thrust his hand into his pocket and had taken out a small glass bulb with a long thin neck. That was ethyl chloride, a drug which produces a quick anesthesia. But it lasts only a minute or two. That was enough, As he broke the glass neck of the bulb--letting the pieces fall on the floor near the bed--he shoved the thing under Elaine's face, turning his own head away and holding a handkerchief over his own nose. The mere heat of his hand was enough to cause the ethyl chloride to spray out and overcome her instantly. He stepped away from her a moment and replaced the now empty vial in his pocket. "Then he took a box from his pocket, opened it. There must have been a syringe and a bottle of scopolamine. Where they came from I do not know, but perhaps from some hospital. I shall have to find that out later. He went to Elaine, quickly jabbing the needle, with no resistance from her now. Slowly he replaced the bottle and the needle in his pocket. He could not have been in any hurry now, for it takes time for the drug to work." Kennedy paused. Had we known at the time, Michael--he of the sinister face--must have been in the hallway, careful that no one saw him. A tap at the door and the Clutching Hand, that night, must have beckoned him. A moment's parley and they separated--Clutching Hand going back to Elaine, who was now under the influence of the second drug. "Our criminal," resumed Kennedy thoughtfully, "may have shaken Elaine. She did not answer. Then he may have partly revived her. She must have been startled. Clutching Hand, perhaps, was half crouching, with a big ugly blue steel revolver leveled full in her face. "'One word and I shoot!' he probably cried. 'Get up!' "Trembling, she must have done so. 'Your slippers and a kimono,' he would naturally have ordered. She put them on mechanically. Then he must have ordered her to go out of the door and down the stairs. Clutching Hand must have followed and as he did so he would have cautiously put out the lights." We were following, spell-bound, Kennedy's graphic reconstruction of what must have happened. Evidently he had struck close to the truth. Elaine's eyes were closed. Gently Kennedy led her along. "Now, Miss Dodge," he encouraged, "try--try hard to recollect just what it was that happened last night--everything." As Kennedy paused after his quick recital, she seemed to tremble all over. Slowly she began to speak. We stood awestruck. Kennedy had been right! The girl was now living over again those minutes that had been forgotten--blotted out by the drug. And it was all real to her, too,--terribly real. She was speaking, plainly in terror. "I see a man--oh, such a figure--with a mask. He holds a gun in my face--he threatens me. I put on my kimono and slippers, as he tells me. I am in a daze. I know what I am doing--and I don't know. I go out with him, downstairs, into the library." Elaine shuddered again at the recollection. "Ugh! The room is dark, the room where he killed my father. Moonlight outside streams in. This masked man and I come in. He switches on the lights. "'Go to the safe,' he says, and I do it, the new safe, you know. 'Do you know the combination?' he asks me. 'Yes,' I reply, too frightened to say no. "'Open it then,' he says, waving that awful revolver closer. I do so. Hastily he rummages through it, throwing papers here and there. But he seems not to find what he is after and turns away, swearing fearfully. "'Hang it!' he cries to me. 'Where else did your father keep papers?' I point in desperation at the desk. He takes one last look at the safe, shoves all the papers he has strewn on the floor back again and slams the safe shut. "'Now, come on!' he says, indicating with the gun that he wants me to follow him away from the safe. At the desk he repeats the search. But he finds nothing. Almost I think he is about to kill me. 'Where else did your father keep papers?' he hisses fiercely, still threatening me with the gun. "I am too frightened to speak. But at last I am able to say, 'I--I don't know!' Again he threatens me. 'As God is my judge,' I cry, 'I don't know.' It is fearful. Will he shoot me? "Thank heaven! At last he believes me. But such a look of foiled fury I have never seen on any human face before. "'Sit down!' he growls, adding, 'at the desk.' I do. "'Take some of your notepaper--the best.' I do that, too. "'And a pen,' he goes on. My fingers can hardly hold it. "'Now--write!' he says, and as he dictates, I write--" "This?" interjected Kennedy, eagerly holding up the letter that he had received from her. Elaine looked it over with her drug-laden eyes. "Yes," she nodded, then lapsed again to the scene itself. "He reads it over and as he does so says, 'Now, address an envelope.' Himself he folds the letter, seals the envelope, stamps it, and drops it into his pocket, hastily straightening the desk. "'Now, go ahead of me--again. Leave the room--no, by the hall door. We are going back upstairs.' I obey him, and at the door he switches off the lights. How I stand it, I don't know. I go upstairs, mechanically, into my own room--I and this masked man. "'Take off the kimono and slippers!' he orders. I do that. 'Get into bed!' he growls. I crawl in fearfully. For a moment he looks about,--then goes out--with a look back as he goes. Oh! Oh! That hand--which he raises at me--THAT HAND!" The poor girl was sitting bolt upright, staring straight at the hall door, as we watched and listened, fascinated. Kennedy was bending over, soothing her. She gave evidences of coming out from the effect of the drug. I noticed that Bennett had suddenly moved a step in the direction of the door at which she stared. "My God!" he muttered, staring, too. "Look!" We did look. A letter was slowly being inserted under the door. I took a quick step forward. That moment I felt a rough tug at my arm, and a voice whispered, "Wait--you chump!" It was Kennedy. He had whipped out his automatic and had carefully leveled it at the door. Before he could fire, however, Bennett had rushed ahead. I followed. We looked down the hall. Sure enough, the figure of a man could be seen disappearing around an angle. I followed Bennett out of the door and down the hall. Words cannot keep pace with what followed. Together we rushed to the backstairs. "Down there, while I go down the front!" cried Bennett. I went down and he turned and went down the other flight. As he did so, Craig followed him. Suddenly, in the drawing room, I bumped into a figure on the other side of the portieres. I seized him. We struggled. Rip! The portieres came down, covering me entirely. Over and over we went, smashing a lamp. It was vicious. Another man attacked me, too. "I--I've got him--Kennedy!" I heard a voice pant over me. A scream followed from Aunt Josephine. Suddenly the portieres were pulled off me. "The deuce!" puffed Kennedy. "It's Jameson!" Bennett had rushed plump into me, coming the other way, hidden by the portieres. If we had known at the time, our Michael of the sinister face had gained the library and was standing in the center of the room. He had heard me coming and had fled to the drawing room. As we finished our struggle in the library, he rose hastily from behind the divan in the other room where he had dropped and had quietly and hastily disappeared through another door. Laughing and breathing hard, they helped me to my feet. It was no joke to me. I was sore in every bone. "Well, where DID he go?" insisted Bennett. "I don't know--perhaps back there," I cried. Bennett and I argued a moment, then started and stopped short. Aunt Josephine had run downstairs and now was shoving the letter into Craig's hands. We gathered about him, curiously. He opened it. On it was that awesome Clutching Hand again. Kennedy read it. For a moment he stood and studied it, then slowly crushed it in his hand. Just then Elaine, pale and shaken from the ordeal she had voluntarily gone through, burst in upon us from upstairs. Without a word she advanced to Craig and took the letter from him. Inside, as on the envelope, was that same signature of the Clutching Hand. Elaine gazed at it wild-eyed, then at Craig. Craig smilingly reached for the note, took it, folded it and unconcernedly thrust it into his pocket. "My God!" she cried, clasping her hands convulsively and repeating the words of the letter. "YOUR LAST WARNING!" CHAPTER III THE VANISHING JEWELS Banging away at my typewriter, the next day, in Kennedy's laboratory, I was startled by the sudden, insistent ringing of the telephone near me. "Hello," I answered, for Craig was at work at his table, trying still to extract some clue from the slender evidence thus far elicited in the Dodge mystery. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," I heard an excited voice over the wire reply, "my friend, Susie Martin is here. Her father has just received a message from that Clutching Hand and--" "Just a moment, Miss Dodge," I interrupted. "This is Mr. Jameson." "Oh!" came back the voice, breathless and disappointed. "Let me have Mr. Kennedy--quick." I had already passed the telephone to Craig and was watching him keenly as he listened over it. The anticipation of a message from Elaine did not fade, yet his face grew grave as he listened. He motioned to me for a pad and pencil that lay near me. "Please read the letter again, slower, Miss Dodge," he asked, adding, "There isn't time for me to see it--just yet. But I want it exactly. You say it is made up of separate words and type cut from newspapers and pasted on note paper?" I handed him paper and pencil. "All right now, Miss Dodge, go ahead." As he wrote, he indicated to me by his eyes that he wanted me to read. I did so: "Sturtevant Martin, Jeweler, "739 1/2 Fifth Ave., "New York City. "SIR: "As you have failed to deliver the $10,000, I shall rob your main diamond case at exactly noon today." "Thank you, Miss Dodge," continued Kennedy, laying down the pencil. "Yes, I understand perfectly--signed by that same Clutching Hand. Let me see," he pondered, looking at his watch. "It is now just about half past eleven. Very well. I shall meet you and Miss Martin at Mr. Martin's store directly." It lacked five minutes of noon when Kennedy and I dashed up before Martin's and dismissed our taxi-cab. A remarkable scene greeted us as we entered the famous jewelry shop. Involuntarily I drew back. Squarely in front of us a man had suddenly raised a revolver and leveled it at us. "Don't!" cried a familiar voice. "That is Mr. Kennedy!" Just then, from a little knot of people, Elaine Dodge sprang forward with a cry and seized the gun. Kennedy turned to her, apparently not half so much concerned about the automatic that yawned at him as about the anxiety of the pretty girl who had intervened. The too eager plainclothesman lowered the gun sheepishly. Sturtevant Martin was a typical society business man, quietly but richly dressed. He was inclined to be pompous and affected a pair of rather distinguished looking side whiskers. In the excitement I glanced about hurriedly. There were two or three policemen in the shop and several plainclothesmen, some armed with formidable looking sawed-off shot guns. Directly in front of me was a sign, tacked up on a pillar, which read, "This store will be closed at noon today. Martin & Co." All the customers were gone. In fact the clerks had had some trouble in clearing the shop, as many of them expressed not only surprise but exasperation at the proceeding. Nevertheless the clerks had politely but insistently ushered them out. Martin himself was evidently very nervous and very much alarmed. Indeed no one could blame him for that. Merely to have been singled out by this amazing master criminal was enough to cause panic. Already he had engaged detectives, prepared for whatever might happen, and they had advised him to leave the diamonds in the counter, clear the store, and let the crooks try anything, if they dared. I fancied that he was somewhat exasperated at his daughter's presence, too, but could see that her explanation of Elaine's and Perry Bennett's interest in the Clutching Hand had considerably mollified him. He had been talking with Bennett as we came in and evidently had a high respect for the young lawyer. Just back of us, and around the corner, as we came in, we had noticed a limousine which had driven up. Three faultlessly attired dandies had entered a doorway down the street, as we learned afterwards, apparently going to a fashionable tailor's which occupied the second floor of the old-fashioned building, the first floor having been renovated and made ready for renting. Had we been there a moment sooner we might have seen, I suppose, that one of them nodded to a taxicab driver who was standing at a public hack stand a few feet up the block. The driver nodded unostentatiously back to the men. In spite of the excitement, Kennedy quietly examined the show case, which was, indeed, a veritable treasure store of brilliants. Then with a keen scrutinizing glance he looked over the police and detectives gathered around. There was nothing to do now but wait, as the detectives had advised. I looked at a large antique grandfather's clock which was standing nearby. It now lacked scarcely a minute of twelve. Slowly the hands of the clock came nearer together at noon. We all gathered about the show case with its glittering hoard of wealth, forming a circle at a respectful distance. Martin pointed nervously at the clock. In deep-lunged tones the clock played the chords written, I believe, by Handel. Then it began striking. As it did so, Martin involuntarily counted off the strokes, while one of the plainclothesmen waved his shotgun in unison. Martin finished counting. Nothing had happened. We all breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, it is still there!" exclaimed Martin, pointing at the show-case, with a forced laugh. Suddenly came a rending and crashing sound. It seemed as if the very floor on which we stood was giving way. The show-case, with all its priceless contents, went smashing down into the cellar below. The flooring beneath the case had been cut through! All crowded forward, gazing at the black yawning cavern. A moment we hesitated, then gingerly craned our necks over the edge. Down below, three men, covered with linen dusters and their faces hidden by masks, had knocked the props away from the ceiling of the cellar, which they had sawed almost through at their leisure, and the show case had landed eight or ten feet below, shivered into a thousand bits. A volley of shots whizzed past us, and another. While one crook was hastily stuffing the untold wealth of jewels into a burlap bag, the others had drawn revolvers and were firing up through the hole in the floor, desperately. Martin, his detectives, and the rest of us fell back from the edge of the chasm hastily, to keep out of range of the hail of bullets. "Look out!" cried someone behind us, before we could recover from our first surprise and return the fire. One of the desperadoes had taken a bomb from under his duster, lighted it, and thrown it up through the hole in the floor. It sailed up over our heads and landed near our little group on the floor, the fuse sputtering ominously. Quickly we divided and backed away even further. I heard an exclamation of fear from Elaine. Kennedy had pushed his way past us and picked up the deadly infernal machine in his bare hands. I watched him, fascinated. As near as he dared, he approached the hole in the floor, still holding the thing off at arm's length. Would he never throw it? He was coolly holding it, allowing the fuse to burn down closer to the explosion point. It was now within less than an inch sure death. Suddenly he raised it and hurled the deadly thing down through the hole. We could hear the imprecations of the crooks as it struck the cellar floor, near them. They had evidently been still cramming jewelry into the capacious maw of the bag. One of them, discovering the bomb, must have advanced toward it, then retreated when he saw how imminent was the explosion. "Leave the store--quick!" rang out Kennedy's voice. We backed away as fast as those behind us would permit. Kennedy and Bennett were the last to leave, in fact paused at the door. Down below the crooks were beating a hasty retreat through a secret entrance which they had effected. "The bag! The bag!" we could hear one of them bellow. "The bomb--run!" cried another voice gruffly. A second later came an ominous silence. The last of the three must have fled. The explosion that followed lifted us fairly off our feet. A great puff of smoke came belching up through the hole, followed by the crashing of hundreds of dollars' worth of glass ware in the jewelry shop as fragments of stone, brick and mortar and huge splinters of wood were flung with tremendous force in every direction from the miniature volcano. As the smoke from the explosion cleared away, Kennedy could be seen, the first to run forward. Meanwhile Martin's detectives had rushed down a flight of back stairs that led into a coal cellar. With coal shovels and bars, anything they could lay hands on, they attacked the door that opened forward from the coal cellar into the front basement where the robbers had been. A moment Kennedy and Bennett paused on the brink of the abyss which the bomb had made, waiting for the smoke to decrease. Then they began to climb down cautiously over the piled up wreckage. The explosion had set the basement afire, but the fire had not gained much headway, by the time they reached the basement. Quickly Kennedy ran to the door into the coal cellar and opened it. From the other side, Martin, followed by the police and the detectives, burst in. "Fire!" cried one of the policemen, leaping back to turn in an alarm from the special apparatus upstairs. All except Martin began beating out the flames, using such weapons as they already held in their hands to batter down the door. To Martin there was one thing paramount--the jewels. In the midst of the confusion, Elaine, closely followed by her friend Susie, made her way fearlessly into the stifle of smoke down the stairs. "There are your jewels, Mr. Martin," cried Kennedy, kicking the precious burlap bag with his foot as if it had been so much ordinary merchandise, and turning toward what was in his mind the most important thing at stake--the direction taken by the agents of the Clutching Hand. "Thank heaven!" ejaculated Martin, fairly pouncing on the bag and tearing it open. "They didn't get away with them--after all!" he exclaimed, examining the contents with satisfaction. "See--you must have frightened them off at just the right moment when you sent the bomb back at them." Elaine and Susie pressed forward eagerly as he poured forth the sparkling stream of gems, intact. "Wasn't he just simply wonderful!" I heard Susie whisper to Elaine. Elaine did not answer. She had eyes or ears for nothing now in the melee but Kennedy. . . . . . . . . Events were moving rapidly. The limousine had been standing innocently enough at the curb near the corner, with the taxicab close behind it. Less than ten minutes after they had entered, three well-dressed men came out of the vacant shop, apparently from the tailor's above, and climbed leisurely into their car. As the last one entered, he half turned to the taxicab driver, hiding from passers-by the sign of the Clutching Hand which the taxicab driver returned, in the same manner. Then the big car whirled up the avenue. All this we learned later from a street sweeper who was at work nearby. Down below, while the police and detectives were putting out the fire, Kennedy was examining the wall of the cellar, looking for the spot where the crooks had escaped. "A secret door!" he exclaimed, as he paused after tapping along the wall to determine its character. "You can see how the force of the explosion has loosened it." Sure enough, when he pointed it out to us, it was plainly visible. One of the detectives picked up a crowbar and others, still with the hastily selected implements they had seized to fight the fire, started in to pry it open. As it yielded, Kennedy pushed his way through. Elaine, always utterly fearless, followed. Then the rest of us went through. There seemed to be nothing, however, that would help us in the cellar next door, and Kennedy mounted the steps of a stairway in the rear. The stairway led to a sort of storeroom, full of barrels and boxes, but otherwise characterless. When I arrived Kennedy was gingerly holding up the dusters which the crooks had worn. "We're on the right trail," commented Elaine as he showed them to her, "but where do you suppose the owners are?" Craig shrugged his shoulders and gave a quick look about. "Evidently they came in from and went away by the street," he observed, hurrying to the door, followed by Elaine. On the sidewalk, he gazed up the avenue, then catching sight of the street cleaner, called to him. "Yes, sir," replied the man, stolidly looking up from his work. "I see three gentlemen come out and get into an automobile." "Which way did they go?" asked Kennedy. For answer the man jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction uptown. "Did you notice the number of the car?" asked Craig eagerly. The man shrugged his shoulders blankly. With keen glance, Kennedy strained his eyes. Far up the avenue, he could descry the car threading its way in and out among the others, just about disappearing. A moment later Craig caught sight of the vacant taxicab and crooked his finger at the driver, who answered promptly by cranking his engine. "You saw that limousine standing there?" asked Craig. "Yes," nodded the chauffeur with a show of alertness. "Well, follow it," ordered Kennedy, jumping into the cab. "Yes, sir." Craig was just about to close the door when a slight figure flashed past us and a dainty foot was placed on the step. "Please, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Elaine, "let me go. They may lead to my father's slayer." She said it so earnestly that Craig could scarcely have resisted if he had wanted to do so. Just as Elaine and Kennedy were moving off, I came out of the vacant store, with Bennett and the detectives. "Craig!" I called. "Where are you going?" Kennedy stuck his head out of the window and I am quite sure that he was not altogether displeased that I was not with him. "Chasing that limousine," he shouted back. "Follow us in another car." A moment later he and Elaine were gone. Bennett and I looked about. "There are a couple of cabs--down there," I pointed out at the other end of the block. "I'll take one you take the other." Followed by a couple of the detectives, I jumped into the first one I came to, excitedly telling the driver to follow Kennedy's taxi, directing him with my head out of the window. "Mr. Jameson, please--can't I go with you?" I turned. It was Susie Martin. "One of you fellows, go in the other car," I asked the detectives. Before the man could move, Mr. Martin himself appeared. "No, Susan, I--I won't allow it," he ordered. "But Elaine went," she pouted. "Well, Elaine is--ah--I won't have it," stormed Martin. There was no time to waste. With a hasty apology, I drove off. Who, besides Bennett, went in the other car, I don't know, but it made no difference, for we soon lost them. Our driver, however, was a really clever fellow. Far ahead now we could see the limousine drive around a corner, making a dangerous swerve. Kennedy's cab followed, skidding dangerously near a pole. But the taxicab was no match for the powerful limousine. On uptown they went, the only thing preventing the limousine from escaping being the fear of pursuit by traffic police if the driver let out speed. They were content to manage to keep just far enough ahead to be out of danger of having Kennedy overhaul them. As for us, we followed as best we could, on uptown, past the city line, and out into the country. There Kennedy lost sight altogether of the car he was trailing. Worse than that, we lost sight of Kennedy. Still we kept on blindly, trusting to luck and common sense in picking the road. I was peering ahead over the driver's shoulder, the window down, trying to direct him, when we approached a fork in the road. Here was a dilemma which must be decided at once rightly or wrongly. As we neared the crossroad, I gave an involuntary exclamation. Beside the road, almost on it, lay the figure of a man. Our driver pulled up with a jerk and I was out of the car in an instant. There lay Kennedy! Someone had blackjacked him. He was groaning and just beginning to show signs of consciousness as I bent over. "What's the matter, old man?" I asked, helping him to his feet. He looked about dazed a moment, then seeing me and comprehending, he pointed excitedly, but vaguely. "Elaine!" he cried. "They've kidnapped Elaine!" What had really happened, as we learned later from Elaine and others, was that when the cross roads was reached, the three crooks in the limousine had stopped long enough to speak to an accomplice stationed there, according to their plan for a getaway. He was a tough looking individual who might have been hoboing it to the city. When, a few minutes later, Kennedy and Elaine had approached the fork, their driver had slowed up, as if in doubt which way to go. Craig had stuck his head out of the window, as I had done, and, seeing the crossroads, had told the chauffeur to stop. There stood the hobo. "Did a car pass here, just now--a big car?" called Craig. The man put his hand to his ear, as if only half comprehending. "Which way did the big car go?" repeated Kennedy. The hobo approached the taxicab sullenly, as if he had a grudge against cars in general. One question after another elicited little that could be construed as intelligence. If Craig had only been able to see, he would have found out that, with his back toward the taxicab driver, the hobo held one hand behind him and made the sign of the Clutching Hand, glancing surreptitiously at the driver to catch the answering sign, while Craig gazed earnestly up the two roads. At last Craig gave him up as hopeless. "Well--go ahead--that way," he indicated, picking the most likely road. As the chauffeur was about to start, he stalled his engine. "Hurry!" urged Craig, exasperated at the delays. The driver got out and tried to crank the engine. Again and again he turned it over, but, somehow, it refused to start. Then he lifted the hood and began to tinker. "What's the matter?" asked Craig, impatiently jumping out and bending over the engine, too. The driver shrugged his shoulders. "Must be something wrong with the ignition, I guess," he replied. Kennedy looked the car over hastily. "I can't see anything wrong," he frowned. "Well, there is," growled the driver. Precious minutes were speeding away, as they argued. Finally with his characteristic energy, Kennedy put the taxicab driver aside. "Let me try it," he said. "Miss Dodge, will you arrange that spark and throttle?" Elaine, equal to anything, did so, and Craig bent down and cranked the engine. It started on the first spin. "See!" he exclaimed. "There wasn't anything, after all." He took a step toward the taxicab. "Say," objected the driver, nastily, interposing himself between Craig and the wheel which he seemed disposed to take now, "who's running this boat, anyhow?" Surprised, Kennedy tried to shoulder the fellow out of the way. The driver resisted sullenly. "Mr. Kennedy--look out!" cried Elaine. Craig turned. But it was too late. The rough looking fellow had wakened to life. Suddenly he stepped up behind Kennedy with a blackjack. As the heavy weight descended, Craig crumpled up on the ground, unconscious. With a scream, Elaine turned and started to run. But the chauffeur seized her arm. "Say, bo," he asked of the rough fellow, "what does Clutching Hand want with her? Quick! There's another cab likely to be along in a moment with that fellow Jameson in it." The rough fellow, with an oath, seized her and dragged her into the taxicab. "Go ahead!" he growled, indicating the road. And away they sped, leaving Kennedy unconscious on the side of the road where we found him. . . . . . . . . "What are we to do?" I asked helplessly of Kennedy, when we had at last got him on his feet. His head still ringing from the force of the blow of the blackjack, Craig stooped down, then knelt in the dust of the road, then ran ahead a bit where it was somewhat muddy. "Which way--which way?" he muttered to himself. I thought perhaps the blow had affected him and leaned over to see what he was doing. Instead, he was studying the marks made by the tire of the Clutching Hand cab. Very decidedly, there in the road, the little anti-skid marks on the tread of the tire showed--some worn, some cut--but with each revolution the same marks reappearing unmistakably. More than that, it was an unusual make of tire. Craig was actually studying the finger prints, so to speak, of an automobile! More slowly now and carefully, we proceeded, for a mistake meant losing the trail of Elaine. Kennedy absolutely refused to get inside our cab, but clung tightly to a metal rod outside while he stood on the running board--now straining his eyes along the road to catch any faint glimpse of either taxi or limousine, or the dust from them, now gazing intently at the ground following the finger prints of the taxicab that was carrying off Elaine. All pain was forgotten by him now in the intensity of his anxiety for her. We came to another crossroads and the driver glanced at Craig. "Stop!" he ordered. In another instant he was down in the dirt, examining the road for marks. "That way!" he indicated, leaping back to the running board. We piled back into the car and proceeded under Kennedy's direction, as fast as he would permit. So it continued, perhaps for a couple of hours. At last Kennedy stopped the cab and slowly directed the driver to veer into an open space that looked peculiarly lonesome. Near it stood a one story brick factory building, closed, but not abandoned. As I looked about at the unattractive scene, Kennedy already was down on his knees in the dirt again, studying the tire tracks. They were all confused, showing that the taxicab we were following had evidently backed in and turned several times before going on. "Crossed by another set of tire tracks!" he exclaimed excitedly, studying closer. "That must have been the limousine, waiting." Laboriously he was following the course of the cars in the open space, when the one word escaped him, "Footprints!" He was up and off in a moment, before we could imagine what he was after. We had got out of the cab, and followed him as, down to the very shore of a sort of cove or bay, he went. There lay a rusty, discarded boiler on the beach, half submerged in the rising tide. At this tank the footprints seemed to go right down the sand and into the waves which were slowly obliterating them. Kennedy gazed out as if to make out a possible boat on the horizon, where the cove widened out. "Look!" he cried. Farther down the shore, a few feet, I had discovered the same prints, going in the opposite direction, back toward the place from which we had just come. I started to follow them, but soon found myself alone. Kennedy had paused beside the old boiler. "What is it?" I asked, retracing my steps. He did not answer, but seemed to be listening. We listened also. There certainly was a most peculiar noise inside that tank. Was it a muffled scream? Kennedy reached down and picked up a rock, hitting the tank a resounding blow. As the echo died down, he listened again. Yes, there was a sound--a scream perhaps--a woman's voice, faint, but unmistakable. I looked at his face inquiringly. Without a word I read in it the confirmation of the thought that had flashed into my mind. Elaine Dodge was inside! . . . . . . . . First had come the limousine, with its three bandits, to the spot fixed on as a rendezvous. Later had come the taxicab. As it hove into sight, the three well-dressed crooks had drawn revolvers, thinking perhaps the plan for getting rid of Kennedy might possibly have miscarried. But the taxicab driver and the rough-faced fellow had reassured them with the sign of the Clutching Hand, and the revolvers were lowered. As they parleyed hastily, the rough-neck and the fake chauffeur lifted Elaine out of the taxi. She was bound and gagged. "Well, now we've got her, what shall we do with her?" asked one. "It's got to be quick. There's another cab," put in the driver. "The deuce with that." "The deuce with nothing," he returned. "That fellow Kennedy's a clever one. He may come to. If he does, he won't miss us. Quick, now!" "I wish I'd broken his skull," muttered the roughneck. "We'd better leave her somewhere here," remarked one of the better-dressed three. "I don't think the chief wants us to kill her--yet," he added, with an ominous glance at Elaine, who in spite of threats was not cowed, but was vainly struggling at her bonds. "Well, where shall it be?" asked another. They looked about. "See," cried the third. "See that old boiler down there at the edge of the water? Why not put her in there? No one'll ever think to look in such a place." Down by the water's edge, where he pointed, lay a big boiler such as is used on stationary engines, with its end lapped by the waves. With a hasty expression of approval, the rough-neck picked Elaine up bodily, still struggling vainly, and together they carried her, bound and gagged, to the tank. The opening, which was toward the water, was small, but they managed, roughly, to thrust her in. A moment later and they had rolled up a huge boulder against the small entrance, bracing it so that it would be impossible for her to get out from the inside. Then they drove off hastily. Inside the old boiler lay Elaine, still bound and gagged. If she could only scream! Someone might hear. She must get help. There was water in the tank. She managed to lean up inside it, standing as high as the walls would allow her, trying to keep her head above the water. Frantically, she managed to loosen the gag. She screamed. Her voice seemed to be bound around by the iron walls as was she herself. She shuddered, The water was rising--had reached her chest, and was still rising, slowly, inexorably. What should she do? Would no one hear her? The water was up to her neck now. She held her head as high as she could and screamed again. What was that? Silence? Or was someone outside? . . . . . . . . Coolly, in spite of the emergency, Kennedy took in the perilous situation. The lower end of the boiler, which was on a slant on the rapidly shelving beach, was now completely under water and impossible to get at. Besides, the opening was small, too small. We pulled away the stone, but that did no good. No one could hope to get in and then out again that way alive--much less with a helpless girl. Yet something must be done. The tank was practically submerged inside, as I estimated quickly. Blows had no effect on the huge iron trap which had been built to resist many pounds of pressure. Kennedy gazed about frantically and his eye caught the sign on the factory: OXYACETYLENE WELDING CO. "Come, Walter," he cried, running up the shore. A moment later, breathless, we reached the doorway. It was, of course, locked. Kennedy whipped out his revolver and several well-directed shots through the keyhole smashed the lock. We put our shoulders to it and swung the door open, entering the factory. There was not a soul about, not even a watchman. Hastily we took in the place, a forge and a number of odds and ends of metal sheets, rods, pipes and angles. Beside a workbench stood two long cylinders, studded with bolts. "That's what I'm looking for," exclaimed Craig. "Here, Walter, take one. I'll take the other--and the tubes--and--" He did not pause to finish, but seized up a peculiar shaped instrument, like a huge hook, with a curved neck and sharp beak. Really it was composed of two metal tubes which ran into a cylinder or mixing chamber above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran another tube with a nozzle of its own. We ran, for there was no time to lose. As nearly as I could estimate it, the water must now be slowly closing over Elaine. "What is it?" I asked as he joined up the tubes from the tanks to the peculiar hook-like apparatus he carried. "An oxyacetylene blowpipe," he muttered back feverishly working. "Used for welding and cutting, too," he added. With a light he touched the nozzle. Instantly a hissing, blinding flame-needle made the steel under it incandescent. The terrific heat from one nozzle made the steel glow. The stream of oxygen from the second completely consumed the hot metal. And the force of the blast carried a fine spray of disintegrated metal before it. It was a brilliant sight. But it was more than that. Through the very steel itself, the flame, thousands of degrees hot, seemed to eat its way in a fine line, as if it were a sharp knife cutting through ordinary cardboard. With tense muscles Kennedy skillfully guided the terrible instrument that ate cold steel, wielding the torch as deftly as if it had been, as indeed it was, a magic wand of modern science. He was actually cutting out a huge hole in the still exposed surface of the tank--all around, except for a few inches, to prevent the heavy piece from falling inward. As Kennedy carefully bent outward the section of the tank which he had cut, he quickly reached down and lifted Elaine, unconscious, out of the water. Gently he laid her on the sand. It was the work of only a moment to cut the cords that bound her hands. There she lay, pale and still. Was she dead? Kennedy worked frantically to revive her. At last, slowly, the color seemed to return to her pale lips. Her eyelids fluttered. Then her great, deep eyes opened. As she looked up and caught sight of Craig bending anxiously over her, she seemed to comprehend. For a moment both were silent. Then Elaine reached up and took his hand. There was much in the look she gave him--admiration, confidence,--love itself. Heroics, however, were never part of Kennedy's frank make-up. The fact was that her admiration, even though not spoken, plainly embarrassed him. Yet he forgot that as he looked at her lying there, frail and helpless. He stroked her forehead gently, laying back the wet ringlets of her hair. "Craig," she murmured, "you--you've saved my life!" Her tone was eloquent. "Elaine," he whispered, still gazing into her wonderful eyes, "the Clutching Hand shall pay for this! It is a fight to the finish between us!" CHAPTER IV "THE FROZEN SAFE" Kennedy swung open the door of our taxicab as we pulled up, safe at last, before the Dodge mansion, after the rescue of Elaine from the brutal machinations of the Clutching Hand. Bennett was on the step of the cab in a moment and, together, one on each side of Elaine, they assisted her out of the car and up the steps to the house. As they mounted the steps, Kennedy called back to me, "Pay the driver, Walter, please." It was the first time I had thought of that. As it happened, I had quite a bankroll with me and, in my hurry, I peeled off a ten dollar bill and tossed it to the fellow, intending to be generous and tell him to keep the change. "Say," he exclaimed, pointing to the clock, "come across--twenty-three, sixty." Protesting, I peeled off some more bills. Having satisfied this veritable anaconda and gorged his dilating appetite for banknotes, I turned to follow the others. Jennings had opened the door immediately. Whether it was that he retained a grudge against me or whether he did not see me, he would have closed it before I could get up there. I called and took the steps two at a time. Elaine's Aunt Josephine was waiting for us in the drawing room, very much worried. The dear old lady was quite scandalized as Elaine excitedly told of the thrilling events that had just taken place. "And to think they--actually--carried you!" she exclaimed, horrified, adding, "And I not--" "But Mr. Kennedy came along and saved me just in time," interrupted Elaine with a smile. "I was well chaperoned!" Aunt Josephine turned to Craig gratefully. "How can I ever thank you enough, Mr. Kennedy," she said fervently. Kennedy was quite embarrassed. With a smile, Elaine perceived his discomfiture, not at all displeased by it. "Come into the library," she cried gaily, taking his arm. "I've something to show you." Where the old safe which had been burnt through had stood was now a brand new safe of the very latest construction and design--one of those that look and are so formidable. "Here is the new safe," she pointed out brightly. "It is not only proof against explosives, but between the plates is a lining that is proof against thermit and even that oxy-acetylene blowpipe by which you rescued me from the old boiler. It has a time lock, too, that will prevent its being opened at night, even if anyone should learn the combination." They stood before the safe a moment and Kennedy examined it closely with much interest. "Wonderful!" he admired. "I knew you'd approve of it," cried Elaine, much pleased. "Now I have something else to show you." She paused at the desk and from a drawer took out a portfolio of large photographs. They were very handsome photographs of herself. "Much more wonderful than the safe," remarked Craig earnestly. Then, hesitating and a trifle embarrassed, he added, "May I--may I have one?" "If you care for it," she said, dropping her eyes, then glancing up at him quickly. "Care for it?" he repeated. "It will be one of the greatest treasures." She slipped the picture quickly into an envelope. "Come," she interrupted. "Aunt Josephine will be wondering where we are. She--she's a demon chaperone." Bennett, Aunt Josephine and myself were talking earnestly as Elaine and Craig returned. "Well," said Bennett, glancing at his watch and rising as he turned to Elaine, "I'm afraid I must go, now." He crossed over to where she stood and shook hands. There was no doubt that Bennett was very much smitten by his fair client. "Good-bye, Mr. Bennett," she murmured, "and thank you so much for what you have done for me today." But there was something lifeless about the words. She turned quickly to Craig, who had remained standing. "Must you go, too, Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, noticing his position. "I'm afraid Mr. Jameson and I must be back on the job before this Clutching Hand gets busy again," he replied reluctantly. "Oh, I hope you--we get him soon!" she exclaimed, and there was nothing lifeless about the way she gave Craig her hand, as Bennett, he and I left a moment later. . . . . . . . . That morning I had noticed Kennedy fussing some time at the door of our apartment before we went over to the laboratory. As nearly as I could make out he had placed something under the rug at the door out into the hallway. When we approached our door, now, Craig paused. By pressing a little concealed button he caused a panel in the wall outside to loosen, disclosing a small, boxlike plate in the wall underneath. It was about a foot long and perhaps four inches wide. Through it ran a piece of paper which unrolled from one coil and wound up on another, actuated by clockwork. Across the blank white paper ran an ink line traced by a stylographic pen, such as I had seen in mechanical pencils used in offices, hotels, banks and such places. Kennedy examined the thing with interest. "What is it?" I asked. "A new seismograph," he replied, still gazing carefully at the rolled up part of the paper. "I have installed it because it registers every footstep on the floor of our apartment. We can't be too careful with this Clutching Hand. I want to know whether we have any visitors or not in our absence. This straight line indicates that we have not. Wait a moment." Craig hastily unlocked the door and entered. Inside, I could see him pacing up and down our modest quarters. "Do you see anything, Walter?" he called. I looked at the seismograph. The pen had started to trace its line, no longer even and straight, but zigzag, at different heights across the paper. He came to the door. "What do you think of it?" he inquired. "Splendid idea," I answered enthusiastically. Our apartment was, as I have said, modest, consisting of a large living room, two bedrooms, and bath--an attractive but not ornate place, which we found very cosy and comfortable. On one side of the room was a big fire place, before which stood a fire screen. We had collected easy chairs and capacious tables and desks. Books were scattered about, literally overflowing from the crowded shelves. On the walls were our favorite pictures, while for ornament, I suppose I might mention my typewriter and now and then some of Craig's wonderful scientific apparatus as satisfying our limited desire for the purely aesthetic. We entered and fell to work at the aforementioned typewriter, on a special Sunday story that I had been forced to neglect. I was not so busy, however, that I did not notice out of the corner of my eye that Kennedy had taken from its cover Elaine Dodge's picture and was gazing at it ravenously. I put my hand surreptitiously over my mouth and coughed. Kennedy wheeled on me and I hastily banged a sentence out on the machine, making at least half a dozen mistakes. I had finished as much of the article as I could do then and was smoking and reading it over. Kennedy was still gazing at the picture Miss Dodge had given him, then moving from place to place about the room, evidently wondering where it would look best. I doubt whether he had done another blessed thing since we returned. He tried it on the mantel. That wouldn't do. At last he held it up beside a picture of Galton, I think, of finger print and eugenics fame, who hung on the wall directly opposite the fireplace. Hastily he compared the two. Elaine's picture was of precisely the same size. Next he tore out the picture of the scientist and threw it carelessly into the fireplace. Then he placed Elaine's picture in its place and hung it up again, standing off to admire it. I watched him gleefully. Was this Craig? Purposely I moved my elbow suddenly and pushed a book with a bang on the floor. Kennedy actually jumped. I picked up the book with a muttered apology. No, this was not the same old Craig. Perhaps half an hour later, I was still reading. Kennedy was now pacing up and down the room, apparently unable to concentrate his mind on any but one subject. He stopped a moment before the photograph, looked at it fixedly. Then he started his methodical walk again, hesitated, and went over to the telephone, calling a number which I recognized. "She must have been pretty well done up by her experience," he said apologetically, catching my eye. "I was wondering if--Hello--oh, Miss Dodge--I--er--I--er--just called up to see if you were all right." Craig was very much embarrassed, but also very much in earnest. A musical laugh rippled over the telephone. "Yes, I'm all right, thank you, Mr. Kennedy--and I put the package you sent me into the safe, but--" "Package?" frowned Craig. "Why, I sent you no package, Miss Dodge. In the safe?" "Why, yes, and the safe is all covered with moisture--and so cold." "Moisture--cold?" he repeated quickly. "Yes, I have been wondering if it is all right. In fact, I was going to call you up, only I was afraid you'd think I was foolish." "I shall be right over," he answered hastily, clapping the receiver back on its hook. "Walter," he added, seizing his hat and coat, "come on--hurry!" A few minutes later we drove up in a taxi before the Dodge house and rang the bell. Jennings admitted us sleepily. . . . . . . . . It could not have been long after we left Miss Dodge late in the afternoon that Susie Martin, who had been quite worried over our long absence after the attempt to rob her father, dropped in on Elaine. Wide-eyed, she had listened to Elaine's story of what had happened. "And you think this Clutching Hand has never recovered the incriminating papers that caused him to murder your father?" asked Susie. Elaine shook her head. "No. Let me show you the new safe I've bought. Mr. Kennedy thinks it wonderful." "I should think you'd be proud of it," admired Susie. "I must tell father to get one, too." At that very moment, if they had known it, the Clutching Hand with his sinister, masked face, was peering at the two girls from the other side of the portieres. Susie rose to go and Elaine followed her to the door. No sooner had she gone than the Clutching Hand came out from behind the curtains. He gazed about a moment, then moving over to the safe about which the two girls had been talking, stealthily examined it. He must have heard someone coming, for, with a gesture of hate at the safe itself, as though he personified it, he slipped back of the curtains again. Elaine had returned and as she sat down at the desk to go over some papers which Bennett had left relative to settling up the estate, the masked intruder stealthily and silently withdrew. "A package for you, Miss Dodge," announced Michael later in the evening as Elaine, in her dainty evening gown, was still engaged in going over the papers. He carried it in his hands rather gingerly. "Mr. Kennedy sent it, ma'am. He says it contains clues and will you please put it in the new safe for him." Elaine took the package eagerly and examined it. Then she pulled open the heavy door of the safe. "It must be getting cold out, Michael," she remarked. "This package is as cold as ice." "It is, ma'am," answered Michael, deferentially with a sidelong glance that did not prevent his watching her intently. She closed the safe and, with a glance at her watch, set the time lock and went upstairs to her room. No sooner had Elaine disappeared than Michael appeared again, cat-like, through the curtains from the drawing room, and, after a glance about the dimly lighted library, discovering that the coast was clear, motioned to a figure hiding behind the portieres. A moment, and Clutching Hand himself came out. He moved over to the safe and looked it over. Then he put out his hand and touched it. "Good, Michael," he exclaimed with satisfaction. "Listen!" cautioned Michael. Someone was coming and they hastily slunk behind the protecting portieres. It was Marie, Elaine's maid. She turned up the lights and went over to the desk for a book for which Elaine had evidently sent her. She paused and appeared to be listening. Then she went to the door. "Jennings!" she beckoned. "What is it, Marie?" he replied. She said nothing, but as he came up the hall led him to the center of the room. "Listen! I heard sighs and groans!" Jennings looked at her a moment, puzzled, then laughed. "You girls!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you'll always think the library haunted, now." "But, Jennings, listen," she persisted. Jennings did listen. Sure enough, there were sounds, weird, uncanny. He gazed about the room. It was eerie. Then he took a few steps toward the safe. Marie put out her hand to it, and started back. "Why, that safe is all covered with cold sweat!" she cried with bated breath. Sure enough the face of the safe was beaded with dampness. Jennings put his hand on it and quickly drew it away, leaving a mark on the dampness. "Wh-what do you think of that?" he gasped. "I'm going to tell Miss Dodge," cried Marie, genuinely frightened. A moment later she burst into Elaine's room. "What is the matter, Marie?" asked Elaine, laying down her book. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." "Ah, but, mademoiselle--it ees just like that. The safe--if mademoiselle will come downstairs, I will show it you." Puzzled but interested, Elaine followed her. In the library Jennings pointed mutely at the new safe. Elaine approached it. As they stood about new beads of perspiration, as it were, formed on it. Elaine touched it, and also quickly withdrew her hand. "I can't imagine what's the matter," she said. "But--well--Jennings, you may go--and Marie, also." When the servants had gone she still regarded the safe with the same wondering look, then turning out the light, she followed. She had scarcely disappeared when, from the portiered doorway nearby, the Clutching Hand appeared, and, after gazing out at them, took a quick look at the safe. "Good!" he muttered. Noiselessly Michael of the sinister face moved in and took a position in the center of the room, as if on guard, while Clutching Hand sat before the safe watching it intently. "Someone at the door--Jennings is answering the bell," Michael whispered hoarsely. "Confound it!" muttered Clutching Hand, as both moved again behind the heavy velour curtains. . . . . . . . . "I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Kennedy," greeted Elaine unaffectedly as Jennings admitted us. She had heard the bell and was coming downstairs as we entered. We three moved toward the library and someone switched on the lights. Craig strode over to the safe. The cold sweat on it had now turned to icicles. Craig's face clouded with thought as he examined it more closely. There was actually a groaning sound from within. "It can't be opened," he said to himself. "The time lock is set for tomorrow morning." Outside, if we had not been so absorbed in the present mystery, we might have seen Michael and the Clutching Hand listening to us. Clutching Hand looked hastily at his watch. "The deuce!" he muttered under his breath, stifling his suppressed fury. We stood looking at the safe. Kennedy was deeply interested, Elaine standing close beside him. Suddenly he seemed to make up his mind. "Quick--Elaine!" he cried, taking her arm. "Stand back!" We all retreated. The safe door, powerful as it was, had actually begun to warp and bend. The plates were bulging. A moment later, with a loud report and concussion the door blew off. A blast of cold air and flakes like snow flew out. Papers were scattered on every side. We stood gazing, aghast, a second, then ran forward. Kennedy quickly examined the safe. He bent down and from the wreck took up a package, now covered with white. As quickly he dropped it. "That is the package that was sent," cried Elaine. Taking it in a table cover, he laid it on the table and opened it. Inside was a peculiar shaped flask, open at the top, but like a vacuum bottle. "A Dewar flask!" ejaculated Craig. "What is it?" asked Elaine, appealing to him. "Liquid air!" he answered. "As it evaporated, the terrific pressure of expanding air in the safe increased until it blew out the door. That is what caused the cold sweating and the groans." We watched him, startled. On the other side of the portieres Michael and Clutching Hand waited. Then, in the general confusion, Clutching Hand slowly disappeared, foiled. "Where did this package come from?" asked Kennedy of Jennings suspiciously. Jennings looked blank. "Why," put in Elaine, "Michael brought it to me." "Get Michael," ordered Kennedy. "Yes, sir," nodded Jennings. A moment later he returned. "I found him, going upstairs," reported Jennings, leading Michael in. "Where did you get this package?" shot out Kennedy. "It was left at the door, sir, by a boy, sir." Question after question could not shake that simple, stolid sentence. Kennedy frowned. "You may go," he said finally, as if reserving something for Michael later. A sudden exclamation followed from Elaine as Michael passed down the hall again. She had moved over to the desk, during the questioning, and was leaning against it. Inadvertently she had touched an envelope. It was addressed, "Craig Kennedy." Craig tore it open, Elaine bending anxiously over his shoulder, frightened. We read: "YOU HAVE INTERFERED FOR THE LAST TIME. IT IS THE END." Beneath it stood the fearsome sign of the Clutching Hand! . . . . . . . . The warning of the Clutching Hand had no other effect on Kennedy than the redoubling of his precautions for safety. Nothing further happened that night, however, and the next morning found us early at the laboratory. It was the late forenoon, when after a hurried trip down to the office, I rejoined Kennedy at his scientific workshop. We walked down the street when a big limousine shot past. Kennedy stopped in the middle of a remark. He had recognized the car, with a sort of instinct. At the same moment I saw a smiling face at the window of the car. It was Elaine Dodge. The car stopped in something less than twice its length and then backed toward us. Kennedy, hat off, was at the window in a moment. There were Aunt Josephine, and Susie Martin, also. "Where are you boys going?" asked Elaine, with interest, then added with a gaiety that ill concealed her real anxiety, "I'm so glad to see you--to see that--er--nothing has happened from that dreadful Clutching Hand." "Why, we were just going up to our rooms," replied Kennedy. "Can't we drive you around?" We climbed in and a moment later were off. The ride was only too short for Kennedy. We stepped out in front of our apartment and stood chatting for a moment. "Some day I want to show you the laboratory," Craig was saying. "It must be so--interesting!" exclaimed Elaine enthusiastically. "Think of all the bad men you must have caught!" "I have quite a collection of stuff here at our rooms," remarked Craig, "almost a museum. Still," he ventured, "I can't promise that the place is in order," he laughed. Elaine hesitated. "Would you like to see it?" she wheedled of Aunt Josephine. Aunt Josephine nodded acquiescence, and a moment later we all entered the building. "You--you are very careful since that last warning?" asked Elaine as we approached our door. "More than ever--now," replied Craig. "I have made up my mind to win." She seemed to catch at the words as though they had a hidden meaning, looking first at him and then away, not displeased. Kennedy had started to unlock the door, when he stopped short. "See," he said, "this is a precaution I have just installed. I almost forgot in the excitement." He pressed a panel and disclosed the box-like apparatus. "This is my seismograph which tells me whether I have had any visitors in my absence. If the pen traces a straight line, it is, all right; but if--hello--Walter, the line is wavy." We exchanged a significant glance. "Would you mind--er--standing down the hall just a bit while I enter?" asked Craig. "Be careful," cautioned Elaine. He unlocked the door, standing off to one side. Then he extended his hand across the doorway. Still nothing happened. There was not a sound. He looked cautiously into the room. Apparently there was nothing. . . . . . . . . It had been about the middle of the morning that an express wagon had pulled up sharply before our apartment. "Mr. Kennedy live here?" asked one of the expressmen, descending with his helper and approaching our janitor, Jens Jensen, a typical Swede, who was coming up out of the basement. Jens growled a surly, "Yes--but Mr. Kannady, he bane out." "Too bad--we've got this large cabinet he ordered from Grand Rapids. We can't cart it around all day. Can't you let us in so we can leave it?" Jensen muttered. "Wall--I guess it bane all right." They took the cabinet off the wagon and carried it upstairs. Jensen opened our door, still grumbling, and they placed the heavy cabinet in the living room. "Sign here." "You fallers bane a nuisance," protested Jens, signing nevertheless. Scarcely had the sound ox their footfalls died away in the outside hallway when the door of the cabinet slowly opened and a masked face protruded, gazing about the room. It was the Clutching Hand! From the cabinet he took a large package wrapped in newspapers. As he held it, looking keenly about, his eye rested on Elaine's picture. A moment he looked at it, then quickly at the fireplace opposite. An idea seemed to occur to him. He took the package to the fireplace, removed the screen, and laid the package over the andirons with one end pointing out into the room. Next he took from the cabinet a couple of storage batteries and a coil of wire. Deftly and quickly he fixed them on the package. Meanwhile, before an alleyway across the street and further down the long block the express wagon had stopped. The driver and his helper clambered out and for a moment stood talking in low tones, with covert glances at our apartment. They moved into the alley and the driver drew out a battered pair of opera glasses, levelling them at our windows. Having completed fixing the batteries and wires, Clutching Hand ran the wires along the moulding on the wall overhead, from the fireplace until he was directly over Elaine's picture. Skillfully, he managed to fix the wires, using them in place of the picture wires to support the framed photograph. Then he carefully moved the photograph until it hung very noticeably askew on the wall. The last wire joined, he looked about the room, then noiselessly moved to the window and raised the shade. Quickly he raised his hand and brought the fingers slowly together. It was the sign. Off in the alley, the express driver and his helper were still gazing up through the opera glass. "What d'ye see, Bill?" he asked, handing over the glass. The other took it and looked. "It's him--the Hand, Jack," whispered the helper, handing the glasses back. They jumped into the wagon and away it rattled. Jensen was smoking placidly as the wagon pulled up the second time. "Sorry," said the driver sheepishly, "but we delivered the cabinet to the wrong Mr. Kennedy." He pulled out the inevitable book to prove it. "Wall, you bane fine fallers," growled Jensen, puffing like a furnace, in his fury. "You cannot go up agane." "We'll get fired for the mistake," pleaded the helper. "Just this once," urged the driver, as he rattled some loose change in his pocket. "Here--there goes a whole day's tips." He handed Jens a dollar in small change. Still grumpy but mollified by the silver Jens let them go up and opened the door to our rooms again. There stood the cabinet, as outwardly innocent as when it came in. Lugging and tugging they managed to get the heavy piece of furniture out and downstairs again, loading it on the wagon. Then they drove off with it, accompanied by a parting volley from Jensen. In an unfrequented street, perhaps half a mile away, the wagon stopped. With a keen glance around, the driver and his helper made sure that no one was about. "Such a shaking up as you've given me!" growled a voice as the cabinet door opened. "But I've got him this time!" It was the Clutching Hand. "There, men, you can leave me here," he ordered. He motioned to them to drive off and, as they did so, pulled off his masking handkerchief and dived into a narrow street leading up to a thoroughfare. . . . . . . . . Craig gazed into our living room cautiously. "I can't see anything wrong," he said to me as I stood just beside him. "Miss Dodge," he added, "will you and the rest excuse me if I ask you to wait just a moment longer?" Elaine watched him, fascinated. He crossed the room, then went into each of our other rooms. Apparently nothing was wrong and a minute later he reappeared at the doorway. "I guess it's all right," he said. "Perhaps it was only Jensen, the janitor." Elaine, Aunt Josephine and Susie Martin entered. Craig placed chairs for them, but still I could see that he was uneasy. From time to time, while they were admiring one of our treasures after another, he glanced about suspiciously. Finally he moved over to a closet and flung the door open, ready for anything. No one was in the closet and he closed it hastily. "What is the trouble, do you think?" asked Elaine wonderingly, noticing his manner. "I--I can't just say," answered Craig, trying to appear easy. She had risen and with keen interest was looking at the books, the pictures, the queer collection of weapons and odds and ends from the underworld that Craig had amassed in his adventures. At last her eye wandered across the room. She caught sight of her own picture, occupying a place of honor--but hanging askew. "Isn't that just like a man!" she exclaimed laughingly. "Such housekeepers as you are--such carelessness!" She had taken a step or two across the room to straighten the picture. "Miss Dodge!" almost shouted Kennedy, his face fairly blanched, "Stop!" She turned, her stunning eyes filled with amazement at his suddenness. Nevertheless she moved quickly to one side, as he waved his arms, unable to speak quickly enough. Kennedy stood quite still, gazing at the picture, askew, with suspicion. "That wasn't that way when we left, was it, Walter?" he asked. "It certainly was not," I answered positively, "There was more time spent in getting that picture just right than I ever saw you spend on all the rest of the room." Craig frowned. As for myself, I did not know what to make of it. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to step into this back room," said Craig at length to the ladies. "I'm sorry--but we can't be too careful with this intruder, whoever he was." They rose, surprised, but, as he continued to urge them, they moved into my room. Elaine, however, stopped at the door. For a moment Kennedy appeared to be considering. Then his eye fell on a fishing rod that stood in a corner. He took it and moved toward the picture. On his hands and knees, to one side, down as close as he could get to the floor, with the rod extended at arm's length, he motioned to me to do the same, behind him. Elaine, unable to repress her interest took a half step forward, breathless, from the doorway, while Susie Martin and Aunt Josephine stood close behind her. Carefully Kennedy reached out with the pole and straightened the picture. As he did so there was a flash, a loud, deafening report, and a great puff of smoke from the fireplace. The fire screen was riddled and overturned. A charge of buckshot shattered the precious photograph of Elaine. We had dropped flat on the floor at the report. I looked about. Kennedy was unharmed, and so were the rest. With a bound he was at the fireplace, followed by Elaine and the rest of us. There, in what remained of a package done up roughly in newspaper, was a shot gun with its barrel sawed off about six inches from the lock, fastened to a block of wood, and connected to a series of springs on the trigger, released by a little electromagnetic arrangement actuated by two batteries and leading by wires up along the moulding to the picture where the slightest touch would complete the circuit. The newspapers which were wrapped about the deadly thing were burning, and Kennedy quickly tore them off, throwing them into the fireplace. A startled cry from Elaine caused us to turn. She was standing directly before her shattered picture where it hung awry on the wall. The heavy charges of buckshot had knocked away large pieces of paper and plaster under it. "Craig!" she gasped. He was at her side in a second. She laid one hand on his arm, as she faced him. With the other she traced an imaginary line in the air from the level of the buckshot to his head and then straight to the infernal thing that had lain in the fireplace. "And to think," she shuddered, "that it was through ME that he tried to kill you!" "Never mind," laughed Craig easily, as they gazed into each other's eyes, drawn together by their mutual peril, "Clutching Hand will have to be cleverer than this to get either of us--Elaine!" CHAPTER V THE POISONED ROOM Elaine and Craig were much together during the next few days. Somehow or other, it seemed that the chase of the Clutching Hand involved long conferences in the Dodge library and even, in fact, extended to excursions into that notoriously crime-infested neighborhood of Riverside Drive with its fashionable processions of automobiles and go-carts--as far north, indeed, as that desperate haunt known as Grant's Tomb. More than that, these delvings into the underworld involved Kennedy in the necessity of wearing a frock coat and silk hat in the afternoon, and I found that he was selecting his neckwear with a care that had been utterly foreign to him during all the years previous that I had known him. It all looked very suspicious to me. But, to return to the more serious side of the affair. Kennedy and Elaine had scarcely come out of the house and descended the steps, one afternoon, when a sinister face appeared in a basement areaway nearby. The figure was crouched over, with his back humped up almost as if deformed, and his left hand had an unmistakable twist. It was the Clutching Hand. He wore a telephone inspector's hat and coat and carried a bag slung by a strap over his shoulder. For once he had left off his mask, but, in place of it, his face was covered by a scraggly black beard. In fact, he seemed to avoid turning his face full, three-quarters or even profile to anyone, unless he had to do so. As much as possible he averted it, but he did so in a clever way that made it seem quite natural. The disguise was effective. He saw Kennedy and Miss Dodge and slunk unobtrusively against a railing, with his head turned away. Laughing and chatting, they passed. As they walked down the street, Clutching Hand turned and gazed after them. Involuntarily the menacing hand clutched in open hatred. Then he turned in the other direction and, going up the steps of the Dodge house, rang the bell. "Telephone inspector," he said in a loud tone as Michael, in Jennings' place for the afternoon, opened the door. He accompanied the words with the sign and Michael, taking care that the words be heard, in case anyone was listening, admitted him. As it happened, Aunt Josephine was upstairs in Elaine's room. She was fixing flowers in a vase on the dressing table of her idolized niece. Meanwhile, Rusty, the collie, lay, half blinking, on the floor. "Who is this?" she asked, as Michael led the bogus telephone inspector into the room. "A man from the telephone company," he answered deferentially. Aunt Josephine, unsophisticated, allowed them to enter without a further question. Quickly, like a good workman, Clutching Hand went to the telephone instrument and by dint of keeping his finger on the hook and his back to Aunt Josephine succeeded in conveying the illusion that he was examining it. Aunt Josephine moved to the door. Not so, Rusty. He did not like the looks of the stranger and he had no scruples against letting it be known. As she put her hand on the knob to go out into the hall, Rusty uttered a low growl which grew into a full-lunged snarl at the Clutching Hand. Clutching Hand kicked at him vigorously, if surreptitiously. Rusty barked. "Lady," he disguised his voice, "will yer please ter call off the dog? Me and him don't seem to cotton to each other." "Here, Rusty," she commanded, "down!" Together Aunt Josephine and Michael removed the still protesting Rusty. No sooner was the door shut than the Clutching Hand moved over swiftly to it. For a few seconds, he stood gazing at them as they disappeared down-stairs. Then he came back into the center of the room. Hastily he opened his bag and from it drew a small powder-spraying outfit such as I have seen used for spraying bug-powder. He then took out a sort of muzzle with an elastic band on it and slipped it over his head so that the muzzle protected his nose and mouth. He seemed to work a sort of pumping attachment and from the nozzle of the spraying instrument blew out a cloud of powder which he directed at the wall. The wall paper was one of those rich, fuzzy varieties and it seemed to catch the powder. Clutching Hand appeared to be more than satisfied with the effect. Meanwhile, Michael, in the hallway, on guard to see that no one bothered the Clutching Hand at his work, was overcome by curiosity to see what his master was doing. He opened the door a little bit and gazed stealthily through the crack into the room. Clutching Hand was now spraying the rug close to the dressing table of Elaine and was standing near the mirror. He stooped down to examine the rug. Then, as he raised his head, he happened to look into the mirror. In it he could see the full reflection of Michael behind him, gazing into the room. "The scoundrel!" muttered Clutching Hand, with repressed fury at the discovery. He rose quickly and shut off the spraying instrument, stuffing it into the bag. He took a step or two toward the door. Michael drew back, fearfully, pretending now to be on guard. Clutching Hand opened the door and, still wearing the muzzle, beckoned to Michael. Michael could scarcely control his fears. But he obeyed, entering Elaine's room after the Clutching Hand, who locked the door. "Were you watching me?" demanded the master criminal, with rage. Michael, trembling all over, shook his head. For a moment Clutching Hand looked him over disdainfully at the clumsy lie. Then he brutally struck Michael in the face, knocking him down. An ungovernable, almost insane fury seemed to possess the man as he stood over the prostrate footman, cursing. "Get up!" he ordered. Michael obeyed, thoroughly cowed. "Take me to the cellar, now," he demanded. Michael led the way from the room without a protest, the master criminal following him closely. Down into the cellar, by a back way, they went, Clutching Hand still wearing his muzzle and Michael saying not a word. Suddenly Clutching Hand turned on him and seized him by the collar. "Now, go upstairs, you," he muttered, shaking him until his teeth fairly chattered, "and if you watch me again--I'll kill you!" He thrust Michael away and the footman, overcome by fear, hurried upstairs. Still trembling and fearful, Michael paused In the hallway, looking back resentfully, for even one who is in the power of a super-criminal is still human and has feelings that may be injured. Michael put his hand on his face where the Clutching Hand had struck him. There he waited, muttering to himself. As he thought it over, anger took the place of fear. He slowly turned in the direction of the cellar. Closing both his fists, Michael made a threatening gesture at his master in crime. Meanwhile, Clutching Hand was standing by the electric meter. He examined it carefully, feeling where the wires entered and left it starting to trace them out. At last he came to a point where it seemed suitable to make a connection for some purpose he had in mind. Quickly he took some wire from his bag and connected it with the electric light wires. Next, he led these wires, concealed of course, along the cellar floor, in the direction of the furnace. The furnace was one of the old hot air heaters and he paused before it as though seeking something. Then he bent down beside it and uncovered a little tank. He took off the top on which were cast in the iron the words: "This tank must be kept full of water." He thrust his hand gingerly into it, bringing it out quickly. The tank was nearly full of water and he brought his hand out wet. It was also hot. But he did not seem to mind that, for he shook his head with a smile of satisfaction. Next, from his capacious bag he took two metal poles, or electrodes, and fastened them carefully to the ends of the wires, placing them at opposite ends of the tank in the water. For several moments he watched. The water inside the tank seemed the same as before, only on each electrode there appeared bubbles, on one bubbles of oxygen, on the other of hydrogen. The water was decomposing under the current by electrolysis. Another moment he surveyed his work to see that he had left no loose ends. Then he picked up his bag and moved toward the cellar steps. As he did so, he removed the muzzle from his nose and quietly let himself out of the house. . . . . . . . . The next morning, Rusty, who had been Elaine's constant companion since the trouble had begun, awakened his mistress by licking her hand as it hung limply over the side of her bed. She awakened with a start and put her hand to her head. She felt ill. "Poor old fellow," she murmured, half dazedly, for the moment endowing her pet with her own feelings, as she patted his faithful shaggy head. Rusty moved away again, wagging his tail listlessly. The collie, too, felt ill. Elaine watched him as he walked, dejected, across the room and then lay down. "Why, Miss Elaine--what ees ze mattair? You are so pale!" exclaimed the maid, Marie, as she entered the room a moment later with the morning's mail on a salver. "I don't feel well, Marie," she replied, trying with her slender white hand to brush the cobwebs from her brain. "I--I wish you'd tell Aunt Josephine to telephone Dr. Hayward." "Yes, mademoiselle," answered Marie, deftly and sympathetically straightening out the pillows. Languidly Elaine took the letters one by one off the salver. She looked at them, but seemed not to have energy enough to open them. Finally she selected one and slowly tore it open. It had no superscription, but it at once arrested her attention and transfixed her with terror. It read: "YOU ARE SICK THIS MORNING. TOMORROW YOU WILL BE WORSE. THE NEXT DAY YOU WILL DIE UNLESS YOU DISCHARGE CRAIG KENNEDY." It was signed by the mystic trademark of the fearsome Clutching Hand! Elaine drew back into the pillows, horror stricken. Quickly she called to Marie. "Go--get Aunt Josephine--right away!" As Marie almost flew down the hall, Elaine still holding the letter convulsively, pulled herself together and got up, trembling. She almost seized the telephone as she called Kennedy's number. . . . . . . . . Kennedy, in his stained laboratory apron, was at work before his table, while I was watching him with intense interest, when the telephone rang. Without a word he answered the call and I could see a look of perturbation cross his face. I knew it was from Elaine, but could tell nothing about the nature of the message. An instant later he almost tore off the apron and threw on his hat and coat. I followed him as he dashed out of the laboratory. "This is terrible--terrible," he muttered, as we hurried across the campus of the University to a taxi-cab stand. A few minutes later, when we arrived at the Dodge mansion, we found Aunt Josephine and Marie doing all they could under the circumstances. Aunt Josephine had just given her a glass of water which she drank eagerly. Rusty had, meanwhile, crawled under the bed, caring only to be alone and undisturbed. Dr. Hayward had arrived and had just finished taking her pulse and temperature as our cab pulled up. Jennings who had evidently been expecting us let us in without a word and conducted us up to Elaine's room. We knocked. "Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," we could hear Marie whisper in a subdued voice. "Tell them to come in," answered Elaine eagerly. We entered. There she lay, beautiful as ever, but with a whiteness of her fresh cheek that was too etherially unnatural. Elaine was quite ill indeed. "Oh--I'm so glad to see you," she breathed, with an air of relief as Kennedy advanced. "Why--what is the matter?" asked Craig, anxiously. Dr. Hayward shook his head dubiously, but Kennedy did not notice him, for, as he approached Elaine, she drew from the covers where she had concealed it a letter and handed it to him. Craig took it and read: "YOU ARE SICK THIS MORNING. TOMORROW YOU WILL BE WORSE. THE NEXT DAY YOU WILL DIE UNLESS YOU DISCHARGE CRAIG KENNEDY." At the signature of the Clutching Hand he frowned, then, noticing Dr. Hayward, turned to him and repeated his question, "What is the matter?" Dr. Hayward continued shaking his head. "I cannot diagnose her symptoms," he shrugged. As I watched Kennedy's face, I saw his nostrils dilating, almost as if he were a hound and had scented his quarry. I sniffed, too. There seemed to be a faint odor, almost as if of garlic, in the room. It was unmistakable and Craig looked about him curiously but said nothing. As he sniffed, he moved impatiently and his foot touched Rusty, under the bed. Rusty whined and moved back lazily. Craig bent over and looked at him. "What's the matter with Rusty?" he asked. "Is he sick, too?" "Why--yes," answered Elaine, following Craig with her deep eyes. "Poor Rusty. He woke me up this morning. He feels as badly as I do, poor old fellow." Craig reached down and gently pulled the collie out into the room. Rusty crouched down close to the floor. His nose was hot and dry and feverish. He was plainly ill. "How long has Rusty been in the room?" asked Craig. "All night," answered Elaine. "I wouldn't think of being without him now." Kennedy lifted the dog by his front paws. Rusty submitted patiently, but without any spirit. "May I take Rusty along with me?" he asked finally. Elaine hesitated. "Surely," she said at length, "only, be gentle with him." Craig looked at her as though it would be impossible to be otherwise with anything belonging to Elaine. "Of course," he said simply. "I thought that I might be able to discover the trouble from studying him." We stayed only a few minutes longer, for Kennedy seemed to realize the necessity of doing something immediately and even Dr. Hayward was fighting in the dark. As for me, I gave it up, too. I could find no answer to the mystery of what was the peculiar malady of Elaine. Back in the laboratory, Kennedy set to work immediately, brushing everything else aside. He began by drawing off a little of Rusty's blood in a tube, very carefully. "Here, Walter," he said pointing to the little incision he had made. "Will you take care of him?" I bound up the wounded leg and gave the poor beast a drink of water. Rusty looked at me gratefully from his big sad brown eyes. He seemed to appreciate our gentleness and to realize that we were trying to help him. In the meantime, Craig had taken a flask with a rubber stopper. Through one hole in it was fitted a long funnel; through another ran a glass tube. The tube connected with a large U-shaped drying tube filled with calcium chloride, which, in turn, connected with a long open tube with an upturned end. Into the flask, Craig dropped some pure granulated zinc. Then he covered it with dilute sulphuric acid, poured in through the funnel tube. "That forms hydrogen gas," he explained to me, "which passes through the drying tube and the ignition tube. Wait a moment until all the air is expelled from the tubes." He lighted a match and touched it to the open, upturned end. The hydrogen, now escaping freely, was ignited with a pale blue flame. A few moments later, having extracted something like a serum from the blood he had drawn off from Rusty. He added the extract to the mixture in the flask, pouring it in, also through the funnel tube. Almost immediately the pale, bluish flame turned to bluish white, and white fumes were formed. In the ignition tube a sort of metallic deposit appeared. Quickly Craig made one test after another. As he did so, I sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of garlic in the air which made me think of what I had already noticed in Elaine's room. "What is it?" I asked, mystified. "Arseniuretted hydrogen," he answered, still engaged in verifying his tests. "This is the Marsh test for arsenic." I gazed from Kennedy to the apparatus, then to Rusty and a picture of Elaine, pale and listless, flashed before me. "Arsenic!" I repeated in horror. . . . . . . . . I had scarcely recovered from the surprise of Kennedy's startling revelation when the telephone rang again. Kennedy seized the receiver, thinking evidently that the message might be from or about Elaine. But from the look on his face and from his manner, I could gather that, although it was not from Elaine herself, it was about something that interested him greatly. As he talked, he took his little notebook and hastily jotted down something in it. Still, I could not make out what the conversation was about. "Good!" I heard him say finally. "I shall keep the appointment--absolutely." His face wore a peculiar puzzled look as he hung up the receiver. "What was it?" I asked eagerly. "It was Elaine's footman, Michael," he replied thoughtfully. "As I suspected, he says that he is a confederate of the Clutching Hand and if we will protect him he will tell us the trouble with Elaine." I considered a moment. "How's that?" I queried. "Well," added Craig, "you see, Michael has become infuriated by the treatment he received from the Clutching Hand. I believe he cuffed him in the face yesterday. Anyway, he says he has determined to get even and betray him. So, after hearing how Elaine was, he slipped out of the servant's door and looking about carefully to see that he wasn't followed, he went straight to a drug store and called me up. He seemed extremely nervous and fearful." I did not like the looks of the thing, and said so. "Craig," I objected vehemently, "don't go to meet him. It is a trap." Kennedy had evidently considered my objection already. "It may be a trap," he replied slowly, "but Elaine is dying and we've got to see this thing through." As he spoke, he took an automatic from a drawer of a cabinet and thrust it into his pocket. Then he went to another drawer and took out several sections of thin tubing which seemed to be made to fasten together as a fishing pole is fastened, but were now separate, as if ready for travelling. "Well--are you coming, Walter?" he asked finally--the only answer to my flood of caution. Then he went out. I followed, still arguing. "If YOU go, _I_ go," I capitulated. "That's all there is to it." Following the directions that Michael had given over the telephone Craig led me into one of the toughest parts of the lower West Side. "Here's the place," he announced, stopping across the street from a dingy Raines Law Hotel. "Pretty tough," I objected. "Are you sure?" "Quite," replied Kennedy, consulting his note book again. "Well, I'll be hanged if I'll go in that joint," I persisted. It had no effect on Kennedy. "Nonsense, Walter," he replied, crossing the street. Reluctantly I followed and we entered the place. "I want a room," asked Craig as we were accosted by the proprietor, comfortably clad in a loud checked suit and striped shirt sleeves. "I had one here once before--forty-nine, I think." "Fifty--" I began to correct. Kennedy trod hard on my toes. "Yes, forty-nine," he repeated. The proprietor called a stout negro porter, waiter, and bell-hop all combined in one, who led us upstairs. "Fohty-nine, sah," he pointed out, as Kennedy dropped a dime into his ready palm. The negro left us and as Craig started to enter, I objected, "But, Craig, it was fifty-nine, not forty-nine. This is the wrong room." "I know it," he replied. "I had it written in the book. But I want forty-nine--now. Just follow me, Walter." Nervously I followed him into the room. "Don't you understand?" he went on. "Room forty-nine is probably just the same as fifty-nine, except perhaps the pictures and furniture, only it is on the floor below." He gazed about keenly. Then he took a few steps to the window and threw it open. As he stood there he took the parts of the rods he had been carrying and fitted them together until he had a pole some eight or ten feet long. At one end was a curious arrangement that seemed to contain lenses and a mirror. At the other end was an eye-piece, as nearly as I could make out. "What is that?" I asked as he completed his work. "That? That is an instrument something on the order of a miniature submarine periscope," Craig replied, still at work. I watched him, fascinated at his resourcefulness. He stealthily thrust the mirror end of the periscope out of the window and up toward the corresponding window up stairs. Then he gazed eagerly through the eye-piece. "Walter--look!" he exclaimed to me. I did. There, sure enough, was Michael, pacing up and down the room. He had already preceded us. In his scared and stealthy manner, he had entered the Raines Law hotel which announced "Furnished Rooms for Gentlemen Only." There he had sought a room, fifty-nine, as he had said. As he came into the room, he had looked about, overcome by the enormity of what he was about to do. He locked the door. Still, he had not been able to avoid gazing about fearfully, as he was doing now that we saw him. Nothing had happened. Yet he brushed his hand over his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief. The air seemed to be stifling him and already he had gone to the window and thrown it open. Then he had gazed out as though there might be some unknown peril in the very air. He had now drawn back from the window and was considering. He was actually trembling. Should he flee? He whistled softly to himself to keep his shaking fears under control. Then he started to pace up and down the room in nervous impatience and irresolution. As I looked at him nervously walking to and fro, I could not help admitting that things looked safe enough and all right to me. Kennedy folded the periscope up and we left our room, mounting the remaining flight of stairs. In fifty-nine we could hear the measured step of the footman. Craig knocked. The footsteps ceased. Then the door opened slowly and I could see a cold blue automatic. "Look out!" I cried. Michael in his fear had drawn a gun. "It's all right, Michael," reassured Craig calmly. "All right, Walter," he added to me. The gun dropped back into the footman's pocket. We entered and Michael again locked the door. Not a word had been spoken by him so far. Next Michael moved to the center of the room and, as I realized later, brought himself in direct lines with the open window. He seemed to be overcome with fear at his betrayal and stood there breathing heavily. "Professor Kennedy," he began, "I have been so mistreated that I have made up my mind to tell you all I know about this Clutching--" Suddenly he drew a sharp breath and both his hands clutched at his own breast. He did not stagger and fall in the ordinary manner, but seemed to bend at the knees and waist and literally crumple down on his face. We ran to him. Craig turned him over gently on his back and examined him. He called. No answer. Michael was almost pulseless. Quickly Craig tore off his collar and bared his breast, for the man seemed to be struggling for breath. As he did so, he drew from Michael's chest a small, sharp-pointed dart. "What's that?" I ejaculated, horror stricken. "A poisoned blow gun dart such as is used by the South American Indians on the upper Orinoco," he said slowly. He examined it carefully. "What is the poison?" I asked. "Curari," he replied simply. "It acts on the respiratory muscles, paralyzing them, and causing asphyxiation." The dart seemed to have been made of a quill with a very sharp point, hollow, and containing the deadly poison in the sharpened end. "Look out!" I cautioned as he handled it. "Oh, that's all right," he answered casually. "If I don't scratch myself, I am safe enough. I could swallow the stuff and it wouldn't hurt me--unless I had an abrasion of the lips or some internal cut." Kennedy continued to examine the dart until suddenly I heard a low exclamation of surprise from him. Inside the hollow quill was a thin sheet of tissue paper, tightly rolled. He drew it out and read: "To know me is DEATH Kennedy--Take Warning!" Underneath was the inevitable Clutching Hand sign. We jumped to our feet. Kennedy rushed to the window and slammed it shut, while I seized the key from Michael's pocket, opened the door and called for help. A moment before, on the roof of a building across the street, one might have seen a bent, skulking figure. His face was copper colored and on his head was a thick thatch of matted hair. He looked like a South American Indian, in a very dilapidated suit of castoff American clothes. He had slipped out through a doorway leading to a flight of steps from the roof to the hallway of the tenement. His fatal dart sent on its unerring mission with a precision born of long years in the South American jungle, he concealed the deadly blow-gun in his breast pocket, with a cruel smile, and, like one of his native venomous serpents, wormed his way down the stairs again. . . . . . . . . My outcry brought a veritable battalion of aid. The hotel proprietor, the negro waiter, and several others dashed upstairs, followed shortly by a portly policeman, puffing at the exertion. "What's the matter, here?" he panted. "Ye're all under arrest!" Kennedy quietly pulled out his card case and taking the policeman aside showed it to him. "We had an appointment to meet this man--in that Clutching Hand case, you know. He is Miss Dodge's footman," Craig explained. Then he took the policeman into his confidence, showing him the dart and explaining about the poison. The officer stared blankly. "I must get away, too," hurried on Craig. "Officer, I will leave you to take charge here. You can depend on me for the inquest." The officer nodded. "Come on, Walter," whispered Craig, eager to get away, then adding the one word, "Elaine!" I followed hastily, not slow to understand his fear for her. Nor were Craig's fears groundless. In spite of all that could be done for her, Elaine was still in bed, much weaker now than before. While we had been gone, Dr. Hayward, Aunt Josephine and Marie were distracted. More than that, the Clutching Hand had not neglected the opportunity, either. Suddenly, just before our return, a stone had come hurtling through the window, without warning of any kind, and had landed on Elaine's bed. Below, as we learned some time afterwards, a car had drawn up hastily and the evil-faced crook whom the Clutching Hand had used to rid himself of the informer, "Limpy Red," had leaped out and hurled the stone through the window, as quickly leaping back into the car and whisking away. Elaine had screamed. All had reached for the stone. But she had been the first to seize it and discover that around it was wrapped a piece of paper on which was the ominous warning, signed as usual by the Hand: "Michael is dead. Tomorrow, you. Then Kennedy. Stop before it is too late." Elaine had sunk back into her pillows, paler than ever from this second shock, while the others, as they read the note, were overcome by alarm and despair, at the suddenness of the thing. It was just then that Kennedy and I arrived and were admitted. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," cried Elaine, handing him the note. Craig took it and read. "Miss Dodge," he said, as he held the note out to me, "you are suffering from arsenic poisoning--but I don't know yet how it is being administered." He gazed about keenly. Meanwhile, I had taken the crumpled note from him and was reading it. Somehow, I had leaned against the wall. As I turned, Craig happened to glance at me. "For heaven's sake, Walter," I heard him exclaim. "What have you been up against?" He fairly leaped at me and I felt him examining my shoulder where I had been leaning on the wall. Something on the paper had come off and had left a white mark on my shoulder. Craig looked puzzled from me to the wall. "Arsenic!" he cried. He whipped out a pocket lens and looked at the paper. "This heavy fuzzy paper is fairly loaded with it, powdered," he reported. I looked, too. The powdered arsenic was plainly discernible. "Yes, here it is," he continued, standing absorbed in thought. "But why did it work so effectively?" He sniffed as he had before. So did I. There was still the faint smell of garlic. Kennedy paced the room. Suddenly, pausing by the register, an idea seemed to strike him. "Walter," he whispered, "come down cellar with me." "Oh--be careful," cried Elaine, anxious for him. "I will," he called back. As he flashed his pocket electric bull's-eye about, his gaze fell on the electric meter. He paused before it. In spite of the fact that it was broad daylight, it was running. His face puckered. "They are using no current at present in the house," he ruminated. "Yet the meter is running." He continued to examine the meter. Then he began to follow the electric wires along. At last he discovered a place where they had been tampered with and tapped by other wires. "The work of the Clutching Hand!" he muttered. Eagerly he followed the wires to the furnace and around to the back. There they led right into a little water tank. Kennedy yanked them out. As he did so he pulled something with them. "Two electrodes--the villain placed there," he exclaimed, holding them up triumphantly for me to see. "Y-yes," I replied dubiously, "but what does it all mean?" "Why, don't you see? Under the influence of the electric current the water was decomposed and gave off oxygen and hydrogen. The free hydrogen passed up the furnace pipe and combining with the arsenic in the wall paper formed the deadly arseniuretted hydrogen." He cast the whole improvised electrolysis apparatus on the floor and dashed up the cellar steps. "I've found it!" he cried, hurrying into Elaine's room. "It's in this room--a deadly gas--arseniuretted hydrogen." He tore open the windows and threw them all open. "Have her moved," he cried to Aunt Josephine. "Then have a vacuum cleaner go over every inch of wall, carpet and upholstery." Standing beside her, he breathlessly explained his discovery. "That wall paper has been loaded down with arsenic, probably Paris green or Schweinfurth green, which is aceto-arsenite of copper. Every minute you are here, you are breathing arseniuretted hydrogen. The Clutching Hand has cleverly contrived to introduce the nascent gas into the room. That acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall paper and hangings and sets free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of it. You are slowly being poisoned by minute quantities of the deadly gas. This Clutching Hand is a diabolical genius. Think of it--poisoned wall paper!" No one said a word. Kennedy reached down and took the two Clutching Hand messages Elaine had received. "I shall want to study these notes, more, too," he said, holding them up to the wall at the head of the bed as he flashed his pocket lens at them. "You see, Elaine, I may be able to get something from studying the ink, the paper, the handwriting--" Suddenly both leaped back, with a cry. Their faces had been several inches apart. Something had whizzed between them and literally impaled the two notes on the wall. Down the street, on the roof of a carriage house, back of a neighbor's, might have been seen the uncouth figure of the dilapidated South American Indian crouching behind a chimney and gazing intently at the Dodge house. As Craig had thrown open Elaine's window and turned to Elaine, the figure had crouched closer to his chimney. Then with an uncanny determination he slowly raised the blow-gun to his lips. I jumped forward, followed by Dr. Hayward, Aunt Josephine, and Marie. Kennedy had a peculiar look as he pulled out from the wall a blow-gun dart similar in every way to that which had killed Michael. "Craig!" gasped Elaine, reaching up and laying her soft white hand on his arm in undisguised fear for him, "you--you must give up this chase for the Clutching Hand!" "Give up the chase for the Clutching Hand?" he repeated in surprise. "Never! Not until either he or I is dead!" There was both fear and admiration mingled in her look, as he reached down and patted her dainty shoulder encouragingly. CHAPTER VI THE VAMPIRE Kennedy went the next day to the Dodge house, and, as usual, Perry Bennett was there in the library with Elaine, still going over the Clutching Hand case, in their endeavor to track down the mysterious master criminal. Bennett seemed as deeply as ever in love with Elaine. Still, as Jennings admitted Craig, it was sufficiently evident by the manner in which Elaine left Bennett and ran to meet Craig that she had the highest regard for him. "I've brought you a little document that may interest you," remarked Kennedy, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an envelope. Elaine tore it open and looked at the paper within. "Oh, how thoughtful of you!" she exclaimed in surprise. It was a permit from the police made out in her name allowing her to carry a revolver. A moment later, Kennedy reached into his coat pocket and produced a little automatic which he handed to her. "Thank you," she cried eagerly. Elaine examined the gun with interest, then, raising it, pointed it playfully at Bennett. "Oh--no--no!" exclaimed Kennedy, taking her arm quickly, and gently deflecting the weapon away. "You mustn't think it is a toy. It explodes at a mere touch of the trigger--when that safety ratchet is turned." Bennett had realized the danger and had jumped back, almost mechanically. As he did so, he bumped into a suit of medieval armor standing by the wall, knocking it over with a resounding crash. "I beg pardon," he ejaculated, "I'm very sorry. That was very awkward of me." Jennings, who had been busy about the portieres at the doorway, started to pick up the fallen knight. Some of the pieces were broken, and the three gathered about as the butler tried to fit them together again as best he could. "Too bad, too bad," apologized Bennett profusely. "I really forgot how close I was to the thing." "Oh, never mind," returned Elaine, a little crestfallen, "It is smashed all right--but it was my fault. Jennings, send for someone to repair it." She turned to Kennedy. "But I do wish you would teach me how to use this thing," she added, touching the automatic gingerly. "Gladly," he returned. "Won't you join us, Mr. Bennett?" asked Elaine. "No," the young lawyer smiled, "I'm afraid I can't. You see, I had an engagement with another client and I'm already late." He took his hat and coat and, with a reluctant farewell, moved toward the hallway. A moment later Elaine and Craig followed, while Jennings finished restoring the armor as nearly as possible as it had been. . . . . . . . . It was late that night that a masked figure succeeded in raising itself to the narrow ornamental ledge under Elaine's bedroom window. Elaine was a light sleeper and, besides, Rusty, her faithful collie, now fully recovered from the poison, was in her room. Rusty growled and the sudden noise wakened her. Startled, Elaine instantly thought of the automatic. She reached under her pillow, keeping very quiet, and drew forth the gun that Craig had given her. Stealthily concealing her actions under the covers, she levelled the automatic at the figure silhouetted in her window and fired three times. The figure fell back. Down in the street, below, the assistant of the Clutching Hand who had waited while Taylor Dodge was electrocuted, was waiting now as his confederate, "Pitts Slim"--which indicated that he was both wiry in stature and libellous in delegating his nativity--made the attempt. As Slim came tumbling down, having fallen back from the window above, mortally wounded, the confederate lifted him up and carried him out of sight hurriedly. Elaine, by this time, had turned on the lights and had run to the window to look out. Rusty was barking loudly. In a side street, nearby, stood a waiting automobile, at the wheel of which sat another of the emissaries of the Clutching Hand. The driver looked up, startled, as he saw his fellow hurry around the corner carrying the wounded Pitts Slim. It was the work of just a moment to drop the wounded man, as comfortably as possible under the circumstances, in the rear seat, while his pals started the car off with a jerk in the hurry of escape. Jennings, having hastily slipped his trousers on over his pajamas came running down the hall, while Marie, frightened, came in the other direction. Aunt Josephine appeared a few seconds later, adding to the general excitement. "What's the matter?" she asked, anxiously. "A burglar, I think," exclaimed Elaine, still holding the gun in her hand. "Someone tried to get into my window." "My gracious," cried Aunt Josephine, in alarm, "where will this thing end?" Elaine was doing her best now to quiet the fears of her aunt and the rest of the household. "Well," she laughed, a little nervously, now that it was all over, "I want you all to go to bed and stop worrying about me. Don't you see, I'm perfectly able to take care of myself? Besides, there isn't a chance, now, of the burglar coming back. Why, I shot him." "Yes," put in Aunt Josephine, "but--" Elaine laughingly interrupted her and playfully made as though she were driving them out of her room, although they were all very much concerned over the affair. However, they went finally, and she locked the door. "Rusty!" she called, "Down there!" The intelligent collie seemed to understand. He lay down by the doorway, his nose close to the bottom of the door and his ears alert. Finally Elaine, too, retired again. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile the wounded man was being hurried to one of the hangouts of the mysterious Clutching Hand, an old-fashioned house in the Westchester suburbs. It was a carefully hidden place, back from the main road, surrounded by trees, with a driveway leading up to it. The car containing the wounded Pitts Slim drew up and the other two men leaped out of it. With a hurried glance about, they unlocked the front door with a pass-key and entered, carrying the man. Indoors was another emissary of the Clutching Hand, a rather studious looking chap. "Why, what's the matter?" he exclaimed, as the crooks entered his room, supporting their half-fainting, wounded pal. "Slim got a couple of pills," they panted, as they laid him on a couch. "How?" demanded the other. "Trying to get into the Dodge house. Elaine did it." Slim was, quite evidently, badly wounded and was bleeding profusely. A glance at him was enough for the studious-looking chap. He went to a secret panel and, pressing it down, took out what was apparently a house telephone. In another part of this mysterious house was the secret room of the Clutching Hand himself where he hid his identity from even his most trusted followers. It was a small room, lined with books on every conceivable branch of science that might aid him and containing innumerable little odds and ends of paraphernalia that might help in his nefarious criminal career. His telephone rang and he took down the receiver. "Pitts Slim's been wounded--badly--Chief," was all he waited to hear. With scarcely a word, he hung up the receiver, then opened a table drawer and took out his masking handkerchief. Next he went to a nearby bookcase, pressed another secret spring, and a panel opened. He passed through, the handkerchief adjusted. Across, in the larger, outside study, another panel opened and the Clutching Hand, all crouched up, transformed, appeared. Without a word he advanced to the couch on which the wounded crook lay and examined him. "How did it happen?" he asked at length. "Miss Dodge shot him," answered the others, "with an automatic." "That Craig Kennedy must have given it to her!" he exclaimed with suppressed fury. For a moment the Clutching Hand stopped to consider. Then he seized the regular telephone. "Dr. Morton?" he asked as he got the number he called. Late as it was the doctor, who was a well-known surgeon in that part of the country, answered, apparently from an extension of his telephone near his bed. The call was urgent and apparently from a family which he did not feel that he could neglect. "Yes, I'll be there--in a few moments," he yawned, hanging up the receiver and getting out of bed. Dr. Morton was a middle-aged man, one of those medical men in whose judgment one instinctively relies. From the brief description of the "hemorrhage" which the Clutching Hand had cleverly made over the wire, he knew that a life was at stake. Quickly he dressed and went out to his garage, back of the house to get his little runabout. It was only a matter of minutes before the doctor was speeding over the now deserted suburban roads, apparently on his errand of mercy. At the address that had been given him, he drew up to the side of the road, got out and ran up the steps to the door. A ring at the bell brought a sleepy man to the door, in his trousers and nightshirt. "How's the patient?" asked Dr. Morton, eagerly. "Patient?" repeated the man, rubbing his eyes. "There's no one sick here." "Then what did you telephone for?" asked the doctor peevishly, "Telephone? I didn't call up anyone, I was asleep." Slowly it dawned on the doctor that it was a false alarm and that he must be the victim of some practical joke. "Well, that's a great note," he growled, as the man shut the door. He descended the steps, muttering harsh language at some unknown trickster. As he climbed back into his machine and made ready to start, two men seemed to rise before him, as if from nowhere. As a matter of fact, they had been sent there by the Clutching Hand and were hiding in a nearby cellar way until their chance came. One man stood on the running board, on either side of him, and two guns yawned menacingly at him. "Drive ahead--that way!" muttered one man, seating himself in the runabout with his gun close to the doctor's ribs. The other kept his place on the running board, and on they drove in the direction of the mysterious, dark house. Half a mile, perhaps, down the road, they halted and left the car beside the walk. Dr. Morton was too surprised to marvel at anything now and he realized that he was in the power of two desperate men. Quickly, they blindfolded him. It seemed an interminable walk, as they led him about to confuse him, but at last he could feel that they had taken him into a house and along passageways, which they were making unnecessarily long in order to destroy all recollection that they could. Finally he knew that he was in a room in which others were present. He suppressed a shudder at the low, menacing voices. A moment later he felt them remove the bandage from his eyes, and, blinking at the light, he could see a hard-faced fellow, pale and weak, on a blood-stained couch. Over him bent a masked man and another man stood nearby, endeavoring by improvised bandages to stop the flow of blood. "What can you do for this fellow?" asked the masked man. Dr. Morton, seeing nothing else to do, for he was more than outnumbered now, bent down and examined him. As he rose, he said, "He will be dead from loss of blood by morning, no matter if he is properly bandaged." "Is there nothing that can save him?" whispered the Clutching Hand hoarsely. "Blood transfusion might save him," replied the Doctor. "But so much blood would be needed that whoever gives it would be liable to die himself." Clutching Hand stood silent a moment, thinking, as he gazed at the man who had been one of his chief reliances. Then, with a menacing gesture, he spoke in a low, bitter tone. "SHE WHO SHOT HIM SHALL SUPPLY THE BLOOD." . . . . . . . . A few quick directions followed to his subordinates, and as he made ready to go, he muttered, "Keep the doctor here. Don't let him stir from the room." Then, with the man who had aided him in the murder of Taylor Dodge, he sallied out into the blackness that precedes dawn. It was just before early daybreak when the Clutching Hand and his confederate reached the Dodge House in the city and came up to the back door, over the fences. As they stood there, the Clutching Hand produced a master key and started to open the door. But before he did so, he took out his watch. "Let me see," he ruminated. "Twenty minutes past four. At exactly half past, I want you to do as I told you--see?" The other crook nodded. "You may go," ordered the Clutching Hand. As the crook slunk away, Clutching Hand stealthily let himself into the house. Noiselessly he prowled through the halls until he came to Elaine's doorway. He gave a hasty look up and down the hall. There was no sound. Quickly he took a syringe from his pocket and bent down by the door. Inserting the end under it, he squirted some liquid through which vaporized rapidly in a wide, fine stream of spray. Before he could give an alarm, Rusty was overcome by the noxious fumes, rolled over on his back and lay still. Outside, the other crook was waiting, looking at his watch. As the hand slowly turned the half hour, he snapped the watch shut. With a quick glance up and down the deserted street, he deftly started up the rain pipe that passed near Elaine's window. This time there was no faithful Rusty to give warning and the second intruder, after a glance at Elaine, still sleeping, went quickly to the door, dragged the insensible dog out of the way, turned the key and admitted the Clutching Hand. As he did so he closed the door. Evidently the fumes had not reached Elaine, or if they had, the inrush of fresh air revived her, for she waked and quickly reached for the gun. In an instant the other crook had leaped at her. Holding his hand over her mouth to prevent her screaming he snatched the revolver away before she could fire it. In the meantime the Clutching Hand had taken out some chloroform and, rolling a towel in the form of a cone, placed it over her face. She struggled, gasping and gagging, but the struggles grew weaker and weaker and finally ceased altogether. When Elaine was completely under the influence of the drug, they lifted her out of bed, the chloroform cone still over her face, and quietly carried her to the door which they opened stealthily. Downstairs they carried her until they came to the library with its new safe and there they placed her on a couch. . . . . . . . . At an early hour an express wagon stopped before the Dodge house and Jennings, half dressed, answered the bell. "We've come for that broken suit of armor to be repaired," said a workman. Jennings let the men in. The armor was still on the stand and the repairers took armor, stand, and all, laying it on the couch where they wrapped it in the covers they had brought for the purpose. They lifted it up and started to carry it out. "Be careful," cautioned the thrifty Jennings. Rusty, now recovered, was barking and sniffing at the armor. "Kick the mutt off," growled one man. The other did so and Rusty snarled and snapped at him. Jennings took him by the collar and held him as the repairers went out, loaded the armor on the wagon, and drove off. Scarcely had they gone, while Jennings straightened out the disarranged library, when Rusty began jumping about, barking furiously. Jennings looked at him in amazement, as the dog ran to the window and leaped out. He had no time to look after the dog, though, for at that very instant he heard a voice calling, "Jennings! Jennings!" It was Marie, almost speechless. He followed her as she led the way to Miss Elaine's room. There Marie pointed mutely at the bed. Elaine was not there. There, too, were her clothes, neatly folded, as Marie had hung them for her. "Something must have happened to her!" wailed Marie. Jennings was now thoroughly alarmed. Meanwhile the express wagon outside was driving off, with Rusty tearing after it. "What's the matter?" cried Aunt Josephine coming in where the footman and the maid were arguing what was to be done. She gave one look at the bed, the clothes, and the servants. "Call Mr. Kennedy!" she cried in alarm. . . . . . . . . "Elaine is gone--no one knows how or where," announced Craig as he leaped out of bed that morning to answer the furious ringing of our telephone bell. It was very early, but Craig dressed hurriedly and I followed as best I could, for he had the start of me, tieless and collarless. When we arrived at the Dodge house, Aunt Josephine and Marie were fully dressed. Jennings let us in. "What has happened?" demanded Kennedy breathlessly. While Aunt Josephine tried to tell him, Craig was busy examining the room. "Let us see the library," he said at length. Accordingly down to the library we went. Kennedy looked about. He seemed to miss something. "Where is the armor?" he demanded. "Why, the men came for it and took it away to repair," answered Jennings. Kennedy's brow clouded in deep thought. Outside we had left our taxi, waiting. The door was open and a new footman, James, was sweeping the rug, when past him flashed a dishevelled hairy streak. We were all standing there still as Craig questioned Jennings about the armor. With a yelp Rusty tore frantically into the room. A moment he stopped and barked. We all looked at him in surprise. Then, as no one moved, he seemed to single out Kennedy. He seized Craig's coat in his teeth and tried to drag him out. "Here, Rusty--down, sir, down!" called Jennings. "No, Jennings, no," interposed Craig. "What's the matter, old fellow?" Craig patted Rusty whose big brown eyes seemed mutely appealing. Out of the doorway he went, barking still. Craig and I followed while the rest stood in the vestibule. Rusty was trying to lead Kennedy down the street! "Wait here," called Kennedy to Aunt Josephine, as he stepped with me on the running board of the cab. "Go on, Rusty, good dog!" Rusty needed no urging. With an eager yelp he started off, still barking, ahead of us, our car following. On we went, much to the astonishment of those who were on the street at such an early hour. It seemed miles that we went, but at last we came to a peculiarly deserted looking house. Here Rusty turned in and began scratching at the door. We jumped off the cab and followed. The door was locked when we tried and from inside we could get no answer. We put our shoulders to it and burst it in. Rusty gave a leap forward with a joyous bark. We followed, more cautiously. There were pieces of armor strewn all over the floor. Rusty sniffed at them and looked about, disappointed, then howled. I looked from the armor to Kennedy, in blank amazement. "Elaine was kidnapped--in the armor," he cried. . . . . . . . . He was right. Meanwhile, the armor repairers had stopped at last at this apparently deserted house, a strange sort of repair shop. Still keeping it wrapped in blankets, they had taken the armor out of the wagon and now laid it down on an old broken bed. Then they had unwrapped it and taken off the helmet. There was Elaine! She had been stupefied, bound and gagged. Piece after piece of the armor they removed, finding her still only half conscious. "Sh! What's that?" cautioned one of the men. They paused and listened. Sure enough, there was a sound outside. They opened the window cautiously. A dog was scratching on the door, endeavoring to get in. It was Rusty. "I think it's her dog," said the man, turning. "We'd better let him in. Someone might see him." The other nodded and a moment later the door opened and in ran Rusty. Straight to Elaine he went, starting to lick her hand. "Right--her dog," exclaimed the other man, drawing a gun and hastily levelling it at Rusty. "Don't!" cautioned the first. "It would make too much noise. You'd better choke him!" The fellow grabbed for Rusty. Rusty was too quick. He jumped. Around the room they ran. Rusty saw the wide open window--and his chance. Out he went and disappeared, leaving the man cussing at him. A moment's argument followed, then they wrapped Elaine in the blankets alone, still bound and gagged, and carried her out. . . . . . . . . In the secret den, the Clutching Hand was waiting, gazing now and then at his watch, and then at the wounded man before him. In a chair his first assistant sat, watching Dr. Morton. A knock at the door caused them to turn their heads. The crook opened it and in walked the other crooks who had carried off Elaine in the suit of armor. Elaine was now almost conscious, as they sat her down in a chair and partly loosed her bonds and the gag. She gazed about, frightened. "Oh--help! help!" she screamed as she caught sight of the now familiar mask of the Clutching Hand. "Call all you want--here, young lady," he laughed unnaturally. "No one can hear. These walls are soundproof!" Elaine shrank back. "Now, doc.," he added harshly to Dr. Morton. "It was she who shot him. Her blood must save him." Dr. Morton recoiled at the thought of torturing the beautiful young girl before him. "Are--you willing--to have your blood transfused?" he parleyed. "No--no--no!" she cried in horror, Dr. Morton turned to the desperate criminal. "I cannot do it." "The deuce you can't!" A cold steel revolver pressed down on Dr. Morton's stomach. In the other hand the master crook held his watch. "You have just one minute to make up your mind." Dr. Morton shrank back. The revolver followed. The pressure of a fly's foot meant eternity for him. "I--I'll try!" The other crooks next carried Elaine, struggling, and threw her down beside the wounded man. Together they arranged another couch beside him. Dr. Morton, still covered by the gun, bent over the two, the hardened criminal and the delicate, beautiful girl. Clutching Hand glared fiendishly, insanely. From his bag he took a little piece of something that shone like silver. It was in the form of a minute, hollow cylinder, with two grooves on it, a cylinder so tiny that it would scarcely have slipped over the point of a pencil. "A cannulla," he explained, as he prepared to make an incision in Elaine's arm and in the arm of the wounded rogue. He cuffed it over the severed end of the artery, so cleverly that the inner linings of the vein and artery, the endothelium as it is called, were in complete contact with each other. Clutching Hand watched eagerly, as though he had found some new, scientific engine of death in the little hollow cylinder. A moment and the blood that was, perhaps, to save the life of the wounded felon was coursing into his veins from Elaine. A moment later, Dr. Morton looked up at the Clutching Hand and nodded, "Well, it's working!" At Elaine's head, Clutching Hand himself was administering just enough ether to keep her under and prevent a struggle that would wreck all. The wounded man had not been anesthetized and seemed feebly conscious of what was being done to save him. All were now bending over the two. Dr. Morton bent closest over Elaine. He looked at her anxiously, felt her pulse, watched her breathing, then pursed up his lips. "This is--dangerous," he ventured, gazing askance at the grim Clutching Hand. "Can't help it," came back laconically and relentlessly. The doctor shuddered. The man was a veritable vampire! . . . . . . . . Outside the deserted house, Kennedy and I were looking helplessly about. Suddenly Kennedy dashed back and reappeared a minute later with a couple of pieces of armor. He held them down to Rusty and the dog sniffed at them. But Rusty stood still. Kennedy pointed to the ground. Nothing doing. In leading us where he had been before, Rusty had reached the end of his canine ability. Everything we could do to make Rusty understand that we wanted him to follow a trail was unavailing. He simply could not do it. Kennedy coaxed and scolded. Rusty merely sat up on his hind legs and begged with those irresistible brown eyes. "You can't make a bloodhound out of a collie," despaired Craig, looking about again helplessly. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a police whistle. He blew three sharp blasts. Would it bring help? . . . . . . . . While we were thus despairing, the continued absence of Dr. Morton from home had alarmed his family and had set in motion another train of events. When he did not return, and could not be located at the place to which he was supposed to have gone, several policemen had been summoned to his house, and they had come, finally, with real bloodhounds from a suburban station. There were the tracks of his car. That the police themselves could follow, while two men came along holding in leash the pack, leaders of which were "Searchlight" and "Bob." It had not been long before the party came across the deserted runabout beside the road. There they had stopped, for a moment. It was just then that they heard Kennedy's call, and one of them had been detailed to answer it. "Well, what do YOU want?" asked the officer, eyeing Kennedy suspiciously as he stood there with the armor. "What's them pieces of tin--hey?" Kennedy quickly flashed his own special badge. "I want to trail a girl," he exclaimed hurriedly. "Can I find a bloodhound about here?" "A hound? Why, we have a pack--over there." "Bring them--quick!" ordered Craig. The policeman, who was an intelligent fellow, saw at once that, as Kennedy said, the two trails probably crossed. He shouted and in a few seconds the others, with the pack, came. A brief parley resulted in our joining forces. Kennedy held the armor down to the dogs. "Searchlight" gave a low whine, then, followed by "Bob" and the others, was off, all with noses close to the ground. We followed. The armor was, after all, the missing link. Through woods and fields the dogs led us. Would we be in time to rescue Elaine? . . . . . . . . In the mysterious haunt of the Clutching Hand, all were still standing around Elaine and the wounded Pitts Slim. Just then a cry from one of the group startled the rest. One of them, less hardened than the Clutching Hand, had turned away from the sight, had gone to the window, and had been attracted by something outside. "Look!" he cried. From the absolute stillness of death, there was now wild excitement among the crooks. "Police! Police!" they shouted to each other as they fled by a doorway to a secret passage. Clutching Hand turned to his first assistant. "You--go--too," he ordered. . . . . . . . . The dogs had led us to a strange looking house, and were now baying and leaping up against the door. We did not stop to knock, but began to break through, for inside we could hear faintly sounds of excitement and cries of "Police--police!" The door yielded and we rushed into a long hallway. Up the passage we went until we came to another door. An instant and we were all against it. It was stout, but it shook before us. The panels began to yield. . . . . . . . . On the other side of that door from us, the master crook stood for a moment. Dr. Morton hesitated, not knowing quite what to do. Just then the wounded Pitts Slim lifted his hand feebly. He seemed vaguely to understand that the game was up. He touched the Clutching Hand. "You did your best, Chief," he murmured thickly. "Beat it, if you can. I'm a goner, anyway." Clutching Hand hesitated by the wounded crook. This was the loyalty of gangland, worthy a better cause. He could not bring himself to desert his pal. He was undecided, still. But there was the door, bulging, and a panel bursting. He moved over to a panel in the wall and pushed a spring. It slid open and he stepped through. Then it closed--not a second too soon. Back in his private room, he quickly stepped to a curtained iron door. Pushing back the curtains, he went through it and disappeared, the curtains falling back. At the end of the passageway, he stopped, in a sort of grotto or cave. As he came out, he looked back. All was still. No one was about. He was safe here, at least! Off came the mask and he turned down the road a few rods distant beyond some bushes, as little concerned about the wild happenings as any other passer-by might have been. . . . . . . . . At the very moment when we burst in, Dr. Morton, seeing his chance, stopped the blood transfusion, working frantically to stop the flow of blood. Kennedy sprang to Elaine's side, horrified by the blood that had spattered over everything. With a mighty effort he checked a blow that he had aimed at Dr. Morton, as it flashed over him that the surgeon, now free again, was doing his best to save the terribly imperilled life of Elaine. Just then the police burst through the secret panel and rushed on, leaving us alone, with the unconscious, scarcely breathing Elaine. From the sounds we could tell that they had come to the private room of the Clutching Hand. It was empty and they were non-plussed. "Not a window!" called one. "What are those curtains?" They pulled them back, disclosing an iron door. They tried it but it was bolted on the other side. Blows had no effect. They had to give it up for the instant. A policeman now stood beside Elaine and the wounded burglar who was muttering deliriously to himself. He was pretty far gone, as the policeman knelt down and tried to get a statement out of him. "Who was that man who left you--last--the Clutching Hand?" Not a word came from the crook. The policeman repeated his question. With his last strength, he looked disdainfully at the officer's pad and pencil. "The gangster never squeals," he snarled, as he fell back. Dr. Morton had paid no attention whatever to him, but was working desperately now over Elaine, trying to bring her back to life. "Is she--going to--die?" gasped Craig, frantically. Every eye was riveted on Dr. Morton. "She is all right," he muttered. "But the man is going to die." At the sound of Craig's voice Elaine had feebly opened her eyes. "Thank heaven," breathed Craig, with a sigh of relief, as his hand gently stroked Elaine's unnaturally cold forehead. CHAPTER VII THE DOUBLE TRAP Mindful of the sage advice that a time of peace is best employed in preparing for war, I was busily engaged in cleaning my automatic gun one morning as Kennedy and I were seated in our living room. Our door buzzer sounded and Kennedy, always alert, jumped up, pushing aside a great pile of papers which had accumulated in the Dodge case. Two steps took him to the wall where the day before he had installed a peculiar box about four by six inches long connected in some way with a lens-like box of similar size above our bell and speaking tube in the hallway below. He opened it, disclosing an oblong plate of ground glass. "I thought the seismograph arrangement was not quite enough after that spring-gun affair," he remarked, "so I have put in a sort of teleview of my own invention--so that I can see down into the vestibule downstairs. Well--just look who's here!" "Some new fandangled periscope arrangement, I suppose?" I queried moving slowly over toward it. However, one look was enough to interest me. I can express it only in slang. There, framed in the little thing, was a vision of as swell a "chicken" as I have ever seen. I whistled under my breath. "Um!" I exclaimed shamelessly, "A peach! Who's your friend?" I had never said a truer word than in my description of her, though I did not know it at the time. She was indeed known as "Gertie the Peach" in the select circle to which she belonged. Gertie was very attractive, though frightfully over-dressed. But, then, no one thinks anything of that now, in New York. Kennedy had opened the lower door and our fair visitor was coming upstairs. Meanwhile he was deeply in thought before the "teleview." He made up his mind quickly, however. "Go in there, Walter," he said, seizing me quickly and pushing me into my room. "I want you to wait there and watch her carefully." I slipped the gun into my pocket and went, just as a knock at the door told me she was outside. Kennedy opened the door, disclosing a very excited young woman. "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried, all in one breath, with much emotion, "I'm so glad I found you in. I can't tell you. Oh--my jewels! They have been stolen--and my husband must not know of it. Help me to recover them--please!" She had not paused, but had gone on in a wild, voluble explanation. "Just a moment, my dear young lady," interrupted Craig, finding at last a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Do you see that table--and all those papers? Really, I can't take your case. I am too busy as it is even to take the cases of many of my own clients." "But, please, Professor Kennedy--please!" she begged. "Help me. It means--oh, I can't tell you how much it means to me!" She had come close to him and had laid her warm, little soft hand on his, in ardent entreaty. From my hiding place in my room, I could not help seeing that she was using every charm of her sex and personality to lure him on, as she clung confidingly to him. Craig was very much embarrassed, and I could not help a smile at his discomfiture. Seriously, I should have hated to have been in his position. Gertie had thrown her arms about Kennedy, as if in wildest devotion. I wondered what Elaine would have thought, if she had a picture of that! "Oh," she begged him, "please--please, help me!" Still Kennedy seemed utterly unaffected by her passionate embrace. Carefully he loosened her fingers from about his neck and removed the plump, enticing arms. Gertie sank into a chair, weeping, while Kennedy stood before her a moment in deep abstraction. Finally he seemed to make up his mind to something. His manner toward her changed. He took a step to her side. "I WILL help you," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "If it is possible I will recover your jewels. Where do you live?" "At Hazlehurst," she replied, gratefully. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, how can I ever thank you?" She seemed overcome with gratitude and took his hand, pressed it, even kissed it. "Just a minute," he added, carefully extricating his hand. "I'll be ready in just a minute." Kennedy entered the room where I was listening. "What's it all about, Craig?" I whispered, mystified. For a moment he stood thinking, apparently reconsidering what he had just done. Then his second thought seemed to approve it. "This is a trap of the Clutching Hand, Walter," he whispered, adding tensely, "and we're going to walk right into it." I looked at him in amazement. "But, Craig," I demurred, "that's foolhardy. Have her trailed--anything--but---" He shook his head and with a mere motion of his hand brushed aside my objections as he went to a cabinet across the room. From one shelf he took out a small metal box and from another a test tube, placing the test tube in his waistcoat pocket, and the small box in his coatpocket, with excessive care. Then he turned and motioned to me to follow him out into the other room. I did so, stuffing my "gatt" into my pocket. "Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson," said Craig, presenting me to the pretty crook. The introduction quickly over, we three went out to get Craig's car which he kept at a nearby garage. . . . . . . . . That forenoon, Perry Bennett was reading up a case. In the outer office Milton Schofield, his office boy, was industriously chewing gum and admiring his feet cocked up on the desk before him. The door to the waiting room opened and an attractive woman of perhaps thirty, dressed in extreme mourning, entered with a boy. Milton cast a glance of scorn at the "little dude." He was in reality about fourteen years old but was dressed to look much younger. Milton took his feet down in deference to the lady, but snickered openly at the boy. A fight seemed imminent. "Did you wish to see Mr. Bennett?" asked the precocious Milton politely on one hand while on the other he made a wry grimace. "Yes--here is my card," replied the woman. It was deeply bordered in black. Even Milton was startled at reading it: "Mrs. Taylor Dodge." He looked at the woman in open-mouthed astonishment. Even he knew that Elaine's mother had been dead for years. The woman, however, true to her name in the artistic coterie in which she was leader, had sunk into a chair and was sobbing convulsively, as only "Weepy Mary" could. It was so effective that even Milton was visibly moved. He took the card in, excitedly, to Bennett. "There's a woman outside--says she is Mrs. Dodge!" he cried. If Milton had had an X-ray eye he could have seen her take a cigarette from her handbag and light it nonchalantly the moment he was gone. As for Bennett, Milton, who was watching him closely, thought he was about to discharge him on the spot for bothering him. He took the card, and his face expressed the most extreme surprise, then anger. He thought a moment. "Tell that woman to state her business in writing," he thundered curtly at Milton. As the boy turned to go back to the waiting room, Weepy Mary, hearing him coming, hastily shoved the cigarette into her "son's" hand. "Mr. Bennett says for you to write out what it is you want to see him about," reported Milton, indicating the table before which she was sitting. Mary had automatically taken up sobbing, with the release of the cigarette. She looked at the table on which were letter paper, pens and ink. "I may write here?" she asked. "Surely, ma'am," replied Milton, still very much overwhelmed by her sorrow. Weepy Mary sat there, writing and sobbing. In the midst of his sympathy, however, Milton sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke about the room. He looked sharply at the "son" and discovered the still smoking cigarette. It was too much for Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not usurp it. He reached over and seized the boy by the arm and swung him around till he faced a sign in the corner on the wall. "See?" he demanded. The sign read courteously: "No Smoking in This Office--Please. "PERRY BENNETT." "Leggo my arm," snarled the "son," putting the offending cigarette defiantly into his mouth. Milton coolly and deliberately reached over and, with an exaggerated politeness swiftly and effectively removed it, dropping it on the floor and stamping defiantly on it. "Son" raised his fists pugnaciously, for he didn't care much for the role he was playing, anyhow. Milton did the same. There was every element of a gaudy mix-up, when the outer door of the office suddenly swung open and Elaine Dodge entered. Gallantry was Milton's middle name and he sprang forward to hold the door, and then opened Bennett's door, as he ushered in Elaine. As she passed "Weepy Mary," who was still writing at the table and crying bitterly, Elaine hesitated and looked at her curiously. Even after Milton had opened Bennett's door, she could not resist another glance. Instinctively Elaine seemed to scent trouble. Bennett was still studying the black-bordered card, when she greeted him. "Who is that woman?" she asked, still wondering about the identity of the Niobe outside. At first he said nothing. But finally, seeing that she had noticed it, he handed Elaine the card, reluctantly. Elaine read it with a gasp. The look of surprise that crossed her face was terrible. Before she could say anything, however, Milton had returned with the sheet of paper on which "Weepy Mary" had written and handed it to Bennett. Bennett read it with uncontrolled astonishment. "What is it?" demanded Elaine. He handed it to her and she read: "As the lawful wife and widow of Taylor Dodge, I demand my son's rights and my own. "MRS. TAYLOR DODGE." Elaine gasped at it. "She--my father's wife!" she exclaimed, "What effrontery! What does she mean?" Bennett hesitated. "Tell me," Elaine cried, "Is there--can there be anything in it? No--no--there isn't!" Bennett spoke in a low tone. "I have heard a whisper of some scandal or other connected with your father--but--" He paused. Elaine was first shocked, then indignant. "Why--such a thing is absurd. Show the woman in!" "No--please--Miss Dodge. Let me deal with her." By this time Elaine was furious. "Yes--I WILL see her." She pressed the button on Bennett's desk and Milton responded. "Milton, show the--the woman in," she ordered, "and that boy, too." As Milton turned to crook his finger at "Weepy Mary," she nodded surreptitiously and dug her fingers sharply into "son's" ribs. "Yell--you little fool,--yell," she whispered. Obedient to his "mother's" commands, and much to Milton's disgust, the boy started to cry in close imitation of his elder. Elaine was still holding the paper in her hands when they entered. "What does all this mean?" she demanded. "Weepy Mary," between sobs, managed to blurt out, "You are Miss Elaine Dodge, aren't you? Well, it means that your father married me when I was only seventeen and this boy is his son--your half brother." "No--never," cried Elaine vehemently, unable to restrain her disgust. "He never married again. He was too devoted to the memory of my mother." "Weepy Mary" smiled cynically. "Come with me and I will show you the church records and the minister who married us." "You will?" repeated Elaine defiantly. "Well, I'll just do as you ask. Mr. Bennett shall go with me." "No, no, Miss Dodge--don't go. Leave the matter to me," urged Bennett. "I will take care of HER. Besides, I must be in court in twenty minutes." Elaine paused, but she was thoroughly aroused. "Then I will go with her myself," she cried defiantly. In spite of every objection that Bennett made, "Weepy Mary," her son, and Elaine went out to call a taxicab to take them to the railroad station where they could catch a train to the little town where the woman asserted she had been married. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, before a little country church in the town, a closed automobile had drawn up. As the door opened, a figure, humped up and masked, alighted. It was the Clutching Hand. The car had scarcely pulled away, when he gave a long rap, followed by two short taps, at the door of the vestry, a secret code, evidently. Inside the vestry room a well-dressed man but with a very sinister face heard the knock and a second later opened the door. "What--not ready yet?" growled the Clutching Hand. "Quick--now--get on those clothes. I heard the train whistle as I came in the car. In which closet does the minister keep them?" The crook, without a word, went to a closet and took out a suit of clothes of ministerial cut. Then he hastily put them on, adding some side-whiskers, which he had brought with him. At about the same time, Elaine, accompanied by "Weepy Mary" and her "son," had arrived at the little tumble-down station and had taken the only vehicle in sight, a very ancient carriage. It ambled along until, at last, it pulled up before the vestry room door of the church, just as the bogus minister was finishing his transformation from a frank crook. Clutching Hand was giving him final instructions. Elaine and the others alighted and approached the church, while the ancient vehicle rattled away. "They're coming," whispered the crook, peering cautiously out of the window. Clutching Hand moved silently and snake-like into the closet and shut the door. "How do you do, Dr. Carton?" greeted "Weepy Mary." "I guess you don't remember me." The clerical gentleman looked at her fixedly a moment. "Remember you?" he repeated. "Of course, my dear. I remember everyone I marry." "And you remember to whom you married me?" "Perfectly. To an older man--a Taylor Dodge." Elaine was overcome. "Won't you step in?" he asked suavely. "Your friend here doesn't seem well." They all entered. "And you--you say--you married this--this woman to Taylor Dodge?" queried Elaine, tensely. The bogus minister seemed to be very fatherly. "Yes," he assented, "I certainly did so." "Have you the record?" asked Elaine, fighting to the last. "Why, yes. I can show you the record." He moved over to the closet. "Come over here," he asked. He opened the door. Elaine screamed and drew back. There stood her arch enemy, the Clutching Hand himself. As he stepped forth, she turned, wildly, to run--anywhere. But strong arms seized her and forced her into a chair. She looked at the woman and the minister. It was a plot! A moment Clutching Hand looked Elaine over. "Put the others out," he ordered the other crook. Quickly the man obeyed, leading "Weepy Mary" and her "son" to the door, and waving them away as he locked it. They left, quite as much in the dark about the master criminal's identity as Elaine. "Now, my pretty dear," began the Clutching Hand as the lock turned in the vestry door, "we shall be joined shortly by your friend, Craig Kennedy, and," he added with a leer, "I think your rather insistent search for a certain person will cease." Elaine drew back in the chair, horrified, at the implied threat. Clutching Hand laughed, diabolically. . . . . . . . . While these astounding events were transpiring in the little church, Kennedy and I had been tearing across the country in his big car, following the directions of our fair friend. We stopped at last before a prosperous, attractive-looking house and entered a very prettily furnished but small parlor. Heavy portieres hung over the doorway into the hall, over another into a back room and over the bay windows. "Won't you sit down a moment?" coaxed Gertie. "I'm quite blown to pieces after that ride. My, how you drive!" As she pulled aside the hall portieres, three men with guns thrust their hands out. I turned. Two others had stepped from the back room and two more from the bay window. We were surrounded. Seven guns were aimed at us with deadly precision. "No--no--Walter--it's no use," shouted Kennedy calmly restraining my hand which I had clapped on my own gun. At the same time, with his other hand, he took from his pocket the small can which I had seen him place there, and held it aloft. "Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I suspected some such thing. I have here a small box of fulminate of mercury. If I drop it, this building and the entire vicinity will be blown to atoms. Go ahead--shoot!" he added, nonchalantly. The seven of them drew back, rather hurriedly. Kennedy was a dangerous prisoner. He calmly sat down in an arm chair, leaning back as he carefully balanced the deadly little box of fulminate of mercury on his knee. He placed his finger tips together and smiled at the seven crooks, who had gathered together, staring breathlessly at this man who toyed with death. Gertie ran from the room. For a moment they looked at each other, undecided, then one by one, they stepped away from Kennedy toward the door. The leader was the last to go. He had scarcely taken a step. "Stop!" ordered Kennedy. The crook did so. As Craig moved toward him, he waited, cold sweat breaking out on his face. "Say," he whined, "you let me be!" It was ineffectual. Kennedy, still smiling confidently, came closer, still holding the deadly little box, balanced between two fingers. He took the crook's gun and dropped it into his pocket. "Sit down!" ordered Craig. Outside, the other six parleyed in hoarse whispers. One raised a gun, but the woman and the others restrained him and fled. "Take me to your master!" demanded Kennedy. The crook remained silent. "Where is he?" repeated Craig. "Tell me!" Still the man remained silent. Craig looked the fellow over again. Then, still with that confident smile, he reached into his inside pocket and drew forth the tube I had seen him place there. "No matter how much YOU accuse me," added Craig casually, "no one will ever take the word of a crook that a reputable scientist like me would do what I am about to do." He had taken out his penknife and opened it. Then he beckoned to me. "Bare his arm and hold his wrist, Walter," he said. Craig bent down with the knife and the tube, then paused a moment and turned the tube so that we could see it. On the label were the ominous words: Germ culture 6248A Bacillus Leprae (Leprosy) Calmly he took the knife and proceeded to make an incision in the man's arm. The crook's feelings underwent a terrific struggle. "No--no--no--don't," he implored. "I will take you to the Clutching Hand--even if it kills me!" Kennedy stepped back, replacing the tube in his pocket. "Very well, go ahead!" he agreed. We followed the crook, Craig still holding the deadly box of fulminate of mercury carefully balanced so that if anyone shot him from a hiding place it would drop. . . . . . . . . No sooner had we gone than Gertie hurried to the nearest telephone to inform the Clutching Hand of our escape. Elaine had sunk back into the chair, as the telephone rang. Clutching Hand answered it. A moment later, in uncontrollable fury he hurled the instrument to the floor. "Here--we've got to act quickly--that devil has escaped again," he hissed. "We must get her away. You keep her here. I'll be back--right away--with a car." He dashed madly from the church, pulling off his mask as he gained the street. . . . . . . . . Kennedy had forced the crook ahead of us into the car which was waiting and I followed, taking the wheel this time. "Which way, now--quick!" demanded Craig, "And if you get me in wrong--I've got that tube yet--you remember." Our crook started off with a whole burst of directions that rivalled the motor guide--"through the town, following trolley tracks, jog right, jog left under the R. R. bridge, leaving trolley tracks; at cemetery turn left, stopping at the old stone church." "Is this it?" asked Craig incredulously. "Yes--as I live," swore the crook in a cowed voice. He had gone to pieces. Kennedy jumped from the machine. "Here, take this gun, Walter," he said to me. "Don't take your eyes off the fellow--keep him covered." Craig walked around the church, out of sight, until he came to a small vestry window and looked in. There was Elaine, sitting in a chair, and near her stood an elderly looking man in clerical garb, which to Craig's trained eye was quite evidently a disguise. Elaine happened just then to glance at the window and her eyes grew wide with astonishment at the sight of Craig. He made a hasty motion to her to make a dash for the door. She nodded quietly. With a glance at her guardian, she suddenly made a rush. He was at her in a moment, pouncing on her, cat-like. Kennedy had seized an iron bar that lay beside the window where some workmen had been repairing the stone pavement, and, with a blow shattered the glass and the sash. At the sound of the smashing glass the crook turned and with a mighty effort threw Elaine aside, drawing his revolver. As he raised it, Elaine sprang at him and frantically seized his wrist. Utterly merciless, the man brought the butt of the gun down with full force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, but she sank unconscious. Then he turned at Craig and fired twice. One shot grazed Craig's hat, but the other struck him in the shoulder and Kennedy reeled. With a desperate effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him before he could fire again. It fell to the floor with a clang. Just then the man broke away and made a dash for the door leading back into the church itself, with Kennedy after him. At the foot of a flight of stairs, he turned long enough to pick up a chair. As Kennedy came on, he deliberately smashed it over Craig's head. Kennedy warded off the blow as best he could, then, still undaunted, started up the stairs after the fellow. Up they went, into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself. There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder leading further up into the steeple. Kennedy followed. Elaine had recovered consciousness almost immediately and, hearing the commotion, stirred and started to rise and look about. From the church she could hear sounds of the struggle. She paused just long enough to seize the crook's revolver lying on the floor. She hurried into the church and up into the belfry, thence up the ladder, whence the sounds came. The crook by this time had gained the outside of the steeple through an opening. Kennedy was in close pursuit. On the top of the steeple was a great gilded cross, considerably larger than a man. As the crook clambered outside, he scaled the steeple, using a lightning rod and some projecting points to pull himself up, desperately. Kennedy followed unhesitatingly. There they were, struggling in deadly combat, clinging to the gilded cross. The first I knew of it was a horrified gasp from my own crook. I looked up carefully, fearing it was a stall to get me off my guard. There were Kennedy and the other crook, struggling, swaying back and forth, between life and death. I looked at my man. What should I do? Should I leave him and go to Craig? If I did, might he not pick us both off, from a safe vantage point, by some sharp-shooting skill? There was nothing I could do. Kennedy was clinging to a lightning rod on the cross. It broke. I gasped as Craig reeled back. But he managed to catch hold of the rod further down and cling to it. The crook seemed to exult diabolically. Holding with both hands to the cross, he let himself out to his full length and stamped on Kennedy's fingers, trying every way to dislodge him. It was all Kennedy could do to keep his hold. I cried out in agony at the sight, for he had dislodged one of Craig's hands. The other could not hold on much longer. He was about to fall. Just then I saw a face at the little window opening out from the ladder to the outside of the steeple--a woman's face, tense with horror. It was Elaine! Quickly a hand followed and in it was a revolver. Just as the crook was about to dislodge Kennedy's other hand, I saw a flash and a puff of smoke and a second later, heard a report--and another--and another. Horrors! The crook who had taken refuge seemed to stagger back, wildly, taking a couple of steps in the thin air. Kennedy regained his hold. With a sickening thud, the body of the crook landed on the ground around the corner of the church from me. "Come--you!" I ground out, covering my own crook with the pistol, "and if you attempt a getaway, I'll kill you, too!" He followed, trembling, unnerved. We bent over the man. It seemed that every bone in his body must be broken. He groaned, and before I could even attempt anything for him, he was dead. . . . . . . . . As Kennedy let himself slowly and painfully down the lightning rod, Elaine seized him and, with all her strength, pulled him in through the window. He was quite weak now from loss of blood. "Are you--all right?" she gasped, as they reached the foot of the ladder in the belfry. Craig looked down at his torn and soiled clothes. Then, in spite of the smarting pain of his wounds, he smiled, "Yes--all right!" "Thank heaven!" she murmured fervently, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Craig gazed at her eagerly. The great look of relief in her face seemed to take away all the pain from his own face. In its place came a look of wonder--and hope. He could not resist. "This time--it was you--saved me!" he cried, "Elaine!" Involuntarily his arms sought hers--and he held her a moment, looking deep into her wonderful eyes. Then their faces came slowly together in their first kiss. CHAPTER VIII THE HIDDEN VOICE "Jameson--wake up!" The strain of the Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circumvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ever had anything to do. I had slept later than usual that morning and, in a half doze, I heard a voice calling me, strangely like Kennedy's and yet unlike it. I leaped out of bed, still in my pajamas, and stood for a moment staring about. Then I ran into the living room. I looked about, rubbing my eyes, startled. No one was there. "Hey--Jameson--wake up!" It was spooky. I ran back into Craig's room. He was gone. There was no one in any of our rooms. The surprise had now thoroughly awakened me. "Where--the deuce--are you?" I demanded. Suddenly I heard the voice again--no doubt about it, either. "Here I am--over on the couch!" I scratched my head, puzzled. There was certainly no one on that couch. A laugh greeted me. Plainly, though, it came from the couch. I went over to it and, ridiculous as it seemed, began to throw aside the pillows. There lay nothing but a little oblong oaken box, perhaps eight or ten inches long and three or four inches square at the ends. In the face were two peculiar square holes and from the top projected a black disc, about the size of a watch, fastened on a swinging metal arm. In the face of the disc were several perforated holes. I picked up the strange looking thing in wonder and from that magic oak box actually came a burst of laughter. "Come over to the laboratory, right away," pealed forth a merry voice. "I've something to show you." "Well," I gasped, "what do you know about that?" Very early that morning Craig had got up, leaving me snoring. Cases never wearied him. He thrived on excitement. He had gone over to the laboratory and set to work in a corner over another of those peculiar boxes, exactly like that which he had already left in our rooms. In the face of each of these boxes, as I have said, were two square holes. The sides of these holes converged inward into the box, in the manner of a four sided pyramid, ending at the apex in a little circle of black, perhaps half an inch across. Satisfied at last with his work, Craig had stood back from the weird apparatus and shouted my name. He had enjoyed my surprise to the fullest extent, then had asked me to join him. Half an hour afterward I walked into the laboratory, feeling a little sheepish over the practical joke, but none the less curious to find out all about it. "What is it?" I asked indicating the apparatus. "A vocaphone," he replied, still laughing, "the loud speaking telephone, the little box that hears and talks. It talks right out in meeting, too--no transmitter to hold to the mouth, no receiver to hold to the ear. You see, this transmitter is so sensitive that it picks up even a whisper, and the receiver is placed back of those two megaphone-like pyramids." He was standing at a table, carefully packing up one of the vocaphones and a lot of wire. "I believe the Clutching Hand has been shadowing the Dodge house," he continued thoughtfully. "As long as we watch the place, too, he will do nothing. But if we should seem, ostentatiously, not to be watching, perhaps he may try something, and we may be able to get a clue to his identity over this vocaphone. See?" I nodded. "We've got to run him down somehow," I agreed. "Yes," he said, taking his coat and hat. "I am going to connect up one of these things in Miss Dodge's library and arrange with the telephone company for a clear wire so that we can listen in here, where that fellow will never suspect." . . . . . . . . At about the same time that Craig and I sallied forth on this new mission, Elaine was arranging some flowers on a stand near the corner of the Dodge library where the secret panel was in which her father had hidden the papers for the possession of which the Clutching Hand had murdered him. They did not disclose his identity, we knew, but they did give directions to at least one of his hang-outs and were therefore very important. She had moved away from the table, but, as she did so, her dress caught in something in the woodwork. She tried to loosen it and in so doing touched the little metallic spring on which her dress had caught. Instantly, to her utter surprise, the panel moved. It slid open, disclosing a strong box. Elaine took it amazed, looked at it a moment, then carried it to a table and started to pry it open. It was one of those tin dispatch boxes which, as far as I have ever been able to determine, are chiefly valuable for allowing one to place a lot of stuff in a receptacle which is very convenient for a criminal. She had no trouble in opening it. Inside were some papers, sealed in an envelope and marked "Limpy Red Correspondence." "They must be the Clutching Hand papers!" she exclaimed to herself, hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. The fatal documents seemed almost uncanny. Their very presence frightened her. What should she do? She seized the telephone and eagerly called Kennedy's number. "Hello," answered a voice. "Is that you, Craig?" she asked excitedly. "No, this is Mr. Jameson." "Oh, Mr. Jameson, I've discovered the Clutching Hand papers," she began, more and more excited. "Have you read them?" came back the voice quickly. "No--shall I?" "Then don't unseal them," cautioned the voice. "Put them back exactly as you found them and I'll tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get hold of him." "All right," nodded Elaine. "I'll do that. And please get him--as soon as you possibly can." "I will." "I'm going out shopping now," she returned, suddenly. "But, tell him I'll be back--right away." "Very well." Hanging up the receiver, Elaine dutifully replaced the papers in the box and returned the box to its secret hiding place, pressing the spring and sliding the panel shut. A few minutes later she left the house in the Dodge car. . . . . . . . . Outside our laboratory, leaning up against a railing, Dan the Dude, an emissary of the Clutching Hand, whose dress now greatly belied his underworld "monniker," had been shadowing us, watching to see when we left. The moment we disappeared, he raised his hand carefully above his head and made the sign of the Clutching Hand. Far down the street, in a closed car, the Clutching Hand himself, his face masked, gave an answering sign. A moment later he left the car, gazing about stealthily. Not a soul was in sight and he managed to make his way to the door of our laboratory without being observed. Then he opened it with a pass key which he must have obtained in some way by working the janitor or the university officials. Probably he thought that the papers might be at the laboratory, for he had repeatedly failed to locate them at the Dodge house. At any rate he was busily engaged in ransacking drawers and cabinets in the laboratory, when the telephone suddenly rang. He did not want to answer it, but if it kept on ringing someone outside might come in. An instant he hesitated. Then, disguising his voice as much as he could to imitate mine, he took off the receiver. "Hello!" he answered. His face was a study in all that was dark as he realized that it was Elaine calling. He clenched his crooked hand even more viciously. "Have you read them?" he asked, curbing his impatience as she unsuspectingly poured forth her story, supposedly to me. "Then don't unseal them," he hastened to reply. "Put them back. Then there can be no question about them. You can open them before witnesses." For a moment he paused, then added, "Put them back and tell no one of their discovery. I will tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get him." A smile spread over his sinister face as Elaine confided in him her intention to go shopping. "A rather expensive expedition for you, young lady," he muttered to himself as he returned the receiver to the hook. Clutching Hand lost no further time at the laboratory. He had thus, luckily for him, found out what he wanted. The papers were not there after all, but at the Dodge house. Suppose she should really be gone on only a short shopping trip and should return to find that she had been fooled over the wire? Quickly, he went to the telephone again. "Hello, Dan," he called when he got his number. "Miss Dodge is going shopping. I want you and the other Falsers to follow her--delay her all you can. Use your own judgment." It was what had come to be known in his organization as the "Brotherhood of Falsers." There, in the back room of a low dive, were Dan the Dude, the emissary who had been loitering about the laboratory, a gunman, Dago Mike, a couple of women, slatterns, one known as Kitty the Hawk, and a boy of eight or ten, whom they called Billy. Before them stood large schooners of beer, while the precocious youngster grumbled over milk. "All right, Chief," shouted back Dan, their leader as he hung up the telephone after noting carefully the hasty instructions. "We'll do it--trust us." The others, knowing that a job was to lighten the monotony of existence, gathered about him. They listened intently as he detailed to them the orders of the Clutching Hand, hastily planning out the campaign like a division commander disposing his forces in battle and assigning each his part. With alacrity the Brotherhood went their separate ways. . . . . . . . . Elaine had not been gone long from the house when Craig and I arrived there. She had followed the telephone instructions of the Clutching Hand and had told no one. "Too bad," greeted Jennings, "but Miss Elaine has just gone shopping and I don't know when she'll be back." Shopping being an uncertain element as far as time was concerned, Kennedy asked if anyone else was at home. "Mrs. Dodge is in the library reading, sir," replied Jennings, taking it for granted that we would see her. Aunt Josephine greeted us cordially and Craig set down the vocaphone package he was carrying. She nodded to Jennings to leave us and he withdrew. "I'm not going to let anything happen here to Miss Elaine again if I can help it," remarked Craig in a low tone, a moment later, gazing about the library. "What are you thinking of doing?" asked Aunt Josephine keenly. "I'm going to put in a vocaphone," he returned unwrapping it. "What's that?" she asked. "A loud speaking telephone--connected with my laboratory," he explained, repeating what he had already told me, while she listened almost awe-struck at the latest scientific wonder. He was looking about, trying to figure out just where it could be placed to best advantage, when he approached the suit of armor. "I see you have brought it back and had it repaired," he remarked to Aunt Josephine. Suddenly his face lighted up. "Ah--an idea!" he exclaimed. "No one will ever think to look INSIDE that." It was indeed an inspiration. Kennedy worked quickly now, placing the little box inside the breast plate of the ancient armourer with the top of the instrument projecting right up into the helmet. It was a strange combination--the medieval and the ultra-modern. "Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said finally, as he had completed installing the thing and hiding the wire under carpets and rugs until it ran out to the connection which he made with the telephone, "don't breathe a word of it--to anyone. We don't know who to trust or suspect." "I shall not," she answered, by this time thoroughly educated in the value of silence. Kennedy looked at his watch. "I've got an engagement with the telephone company, now," he said rather briskly, although I knew that if Elaine had been there the company and everything could have gone hang for the present. "Sorry not to have seen Miss Elaine," he added as we bowed ourselves out, "but I think we've got her protected now." "I hope so," sighed her aunt. . . . . . . . . Elaine's car had stopped finally at a shop on Fifth Avenue. She stepped out and entered, leaving her chauffeur to wait. As she did so, Dan and Billy sidled along the crowded sidewalk. "There she is, Billy," pointed out Dan as Elaine disappeared through the swinging doors of the shop. "Now, you wait right here," he instructed stealthily, "and when she comes out--you know what to do. Only, be careful." Dan the Dude left Billy, and Billy surreptitiously drew from under his coat a dirty half loaf of bread. With a glance about, he dropped it into the gutter close to the entrance to Elaine's car. Then he withdrew a little distance. When Elaine came out and approached her car, Billy, looking as cold and forlorn as could be, shot forward. Pretending to spy the dirty piece of bread in the gutter, he made a dive for it, just as Elaine was about to step into the car. Elaine, surprised, drew back. Billy picked up the piece of bread and, with all the actions of having discovered a treasure, began to gnaw at it voraciously. Shocked at the disgusting sight, she tried to take the bread away from him. "I know it's dirty, Miss," whimpered Billy, "but it's the first food I've seen for four days." Instantly Elaine was full of sympathy. She had taken the food away. That would not suffice. "What's your name, little boy?" she asked. "Billy," he replied, blubbering. "Where do you live?" "With me mother and father--they're sick--nothing to eat--" He was whimpering an address far over on the East Side. "Get into the car," Elaine directed. "Gee--but this is swell," he cried, with no fake, this time. On they went, through the tenement canyons, dodging children and pushcarts, stopping first at a grocer's, then at a butcher's and a delicatessen. Finally the car stopped where Billy directed. Billy hobbled out, followed by Elaine and her chauffeur, his arms piled high with provisions. She was indeed a lovely Lady Bountiful as a crowd of kids quickly surrounded the car. In the meantime Dago Mike and Kitty the Hawk had gone to a wretched flat, before which Billy stopped. Kitty sat on the bed, putting dark circles under her eyes with a blackened cork. She was very thin and emaciated, but it was dissipation that had done it. Dago Mike was correspondingly poorly dressed. He had paused beside the window to look out. "She's coming," he announced finally. Kitty hastily jumped into the rickety bed, while Mike took up a crutch that was standing idly in a corner. She coughed resignedly and he limped about, forlorn. They had assumed their parts which were almost to the burlesque of poverty, when the door was pushed open and Billy burst in followed by Elaine and the chauffeur. "Oh, ma--oh, pa," he cried running forward and kissing his pseudo-parents, as Elaine, overcome with sympathy, directed the chauffeur to lay the things on a shaky table. "God bless you, lady, for a benevolent angel!" muttered the pair, to which Elaine responded by moving over to the wretched bed and bending down to stroke the forehead of the sick woman. Billy and Mike exchanged a sly wink. Just then the door opened again. All were genuinely surprised this time, for a prim, spick and span, middle-aged woman entered. "I am Miss Statistix, of the organized charities," she announced, looking around sharply. "I saw your car standing outside, Miss, and the children below told me you were up here. I came up to see whether you were aiding really DESERVING poor." She laid a marked emphasis on the word, pursing up her lips. There was no mistaking the apprehension that these fine birds of prey had of her, either. Miss Statistix took a step forward, looking in a very superior manner from Elaine to the packages of food and then at these prize members of the Brotherhood. She snorted contemptuously. "Why--wh-what's the matter?" asked Elaine, fidgeting uncomfortably, as if she were herself guilty, in the icy atmosphere that now seemed to envelope all things. "This man is a gunman, that woman is a bad woman, the boy is Billy the Bread-Snatcher," she answered precisely, drawing out a card on which to record something, "and you, Miss, are a fool!" "Ya!" snarled the two precious falsers, "get out o' here!" There was no combating Miss Statistix. She overwhelmed all arguments by the very exactness of her personality. "YOU get out!" she countered. Kitty and Mike, accompanied by Billy, sneaked out. Elaine, now very much embarrassed, looked about, wondering at the rapid-fire change. Miss Statistix smiled pityingly. "Such innocence!" she murmured sadly shaking her head as she lead Elaine to the door. "Don't you know better than to try to help anybody without INVESTIGATING?" Elaine departed, speechless, properly squelched, followed by her chauffeur. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, a closed car, such as had stood across from the laboratory, had drawn up not far from the Dodge house. Near it was a man in rather shabby clothes and a visored cap on which were the words in dull gold lettering, "Metropolitan Window Cleaning Co." He carried a bucket and a small extension ladder. In the darkened recesses of the car was the Clutching Hand himself, masked as usual. He had his watch in his hand and was giving most minute instructions to the window cleaner about something. As the latter turned to go, a sharp observer would have noted that it was Dan the Dude, still further disguised. A few moments later, Dan appeared at the servants' entrance of the Dodge house and rang the bell. Jennings, who happened to be down there, came to the door. "Man to clean the windows," saluted the bogus cleaner, touching his hat in a way quietly to call attention to the words on it and drawing from his pocket a faked written order. "All right," nodded Jennings examining the order and finding it apparently all right. Dan followed him in, taking the ladder and bucket upstairs, where Aunt Josephine was still reading. "The man to clean the windows, ma'am," apologized Jennings. "Oh, very well," she nodded, taking up her book, to go. Then, recalling the frequent injunctions of Kennedy, she paused long enough to speak quietly to Jennings. "Stay here and watch him," she whispered as she went out. Jennings nodded, while Dan opened a window and set to work. . . . . . . . . Elaine had scarcely started again in her car down the crowded narrow street. From her position she could not possibly have seen Johnnie, another of the Brotherhood, watching her eagerly up the street. But as her car approached, Johnnie, with great determination, pulled himself together and ran forward across the street. She saw that. "Oh!" she screamed, her heart almost stopping. He had fallen directly in front of the wheels of the car, apparently, and although the chauffeur stopped with a jolt, it seemed that the boy had been run over. They jumped out. There he was, sure enough, under the very wheels. People came running now in all directions and lifted him up, groaning piteously. He seemed literally twisted into a knot which looked as if every bone in his body was broken or dislocated. Elaine was overcome. For, following their natural instincts the crowd began pushing in with cries of "Lynch the driver!" It would have gone hard with him, too, if she had not interfered. "Here!" cried Elaine, stepping in. "It wasn't his fault. The boy ran across the street right in front of the car. Now--we're just going to rush this boy to the hospital--right away!" She lifted Johnnie gently into the car herself and they drove off, to a very vigorous blowing of the horn. A few moments later they pulled up before the ambulance entrance to the hospital. "Quick!" beckoned Elaine to the attendants, who ran out and carried Johnnie, still a complicated knot of broken bones, inside. In the reception room were a couple of nurses and a young medical student, when Johnnie was carried in and laid on the bed. The student, more interested in Elaine than the boy, examined him. His face wore a puzzled look and there was every reason to believe that Johnnie was seriously injured. At that moment the door opened and an elderly, gray-bearded house physician entered. The others stepped back from the bed respectfully. He advanced and examined Johnnie. The doctor looked at the boy a moment, then at Elaine. "I will now effect a miraculous cure by the laying on of hands," he announced, adding quickly, "--and of feet!" To the utter surprise of all he seized the boy by the coat collar, lifting him up and actually bouncing him on the floor. Then he picked him up, shook him and ran him out of the room, delivering one last kick as he went through the door. By the way Johnnie went, it was quite evident that he was no more injured than the chauffeur. Elaine did not know whether to be angry or to laugh, but finally joined in the general laugh. "That was Double-Jointed Johnnie," puffed the doctor, as he returned to them, "one of the greatest accident fakers in the city." Elaine, having had two unfortunate experiences during the day, now decided to go home and the doctor politely escorted her to her car. . . . . . . . . From his closed car, the Clutching Hand gazed intently at the Dodge house. He could see Dan on the ladder, now washing the library window, his back toward him. Dan turned slowly and made the sign of the hand. Turning to his chauffeur, the master criminal spoke a few words in a low tone and the driver hurried off. A few minutes later the driver might have been seen entering a near-by drug store and going into the telephone booth. Without a moment's hesitation he called up the Dodge house and Marie, Elaine's maid, answered. "Is Jennings there?" he asked. "Tell him a friend wants to speak to him." "Wait a minute," she answered. "I'll get him." Marie went toward the library, leaving the telephone off the hook. Dan was washing the windows, half inside, half outside the house, while Jennings was trying to be very busy, although it was apparent that he was watching Dan closely. "A friend of yours wants to speak to you over the telephone, Jennings," said Marie, as she came into the library. The butler responded slowly, with a covert glance at Dan. No sooner had they gone, however, than Dan climbed all the way into the room, ran to the door and looked after them. Then he ran to the window. Across and down the street, the Clutching Hand was gazing at the house. He had seen Dan disappear and suspected that the time had come. Sure enough, there was the sign of the hand. He hastily got out of the car and hurried up the street. All this time the chauffeur was keeping Jennings busy over the telephone with some trumped-up story. As the master criminal came in by the ladder through the open window, Dan was on guard, listening down the hallway. A signal from Dan, and Clutching Hand slid back of the portieres. Jennings was returning. "I've finished these windows," announced Dan as the butler reappeared. "Now, I'll clean the hall windows." Jennings followed like a shadow, taking the bucket. No sooner had they gone than Clutching Hand stealthily came from behind the portieres. One of the maids was sweeping in the hall as Dan went toward the window, about to wash it. "I wonder whether I locked these windows?" muttered Jennings, pausing in the hallway. "I guess I'd better make sure." He had taken only a step toward the library again, when Dan watchfully caught sight of him. It would never do to have Jennings snooping around there now. Quick action was necessary. Dan knocked over a costly Sevres vase. "There--clumsy--see what you've done!" berated Jennings, starting to pick up the pieces. Dan had acted his part well and promptly. In the library, Clutching Hand was busily engaged at that moment beside the secret panel searching for the spring that released it. He ran his finger along the woodwork, pausing here and there without succeeding. "Confound it!" he muttered, searching feverishly. . . . . . . . . Kennedy, having made the arrangements with the telephone company by which he had a clear wire from the Dodge house to his laboratory, had rejoined me there and was putting on the finishing touches to his installation of the vocaphone. Every now and then he would switch it on, and we would listen in as he demonstrated the wonderful little instrument to me. He had heard the window cleaner and Jennings, but thought nothing of it at the time. Once, however, Craig paused and I saw him listening more intently than usual. "They've gone out," he muttered, "but surely there is someone in the Dodge library." I listened; too. The thing was so sensitive that even a whisper could be magnified and I certainly did hear something. Kennedy frowned. What was that scratching noise? Could it be Jennings? Perhaps it was Rusty. Just then we could distinguish a sound as though someone had moved about. "No--that's not Jennings," cried Craig. "He went out." He looked at me a moment. The same stealthy noise was repeated. "It's the Clutching Hand!" he exclaimed excitedly. . . . . . . . . A moment later, Dan hurried into the Dodge library. "For heaven's sake, Chief, hurry!" he whispered hoarsely. "The falsers must have fallen down. The girl herself is coming!" Dan himself had no time to waste. He retreated into the hallway just as Jennings was opening the door for Elaine. Marie took her wraps and left her, while Elaine handed her numerous packages to Jennings. Dan watched every motion. "Put them away, Jennings," she said softly. Jennings had obeyed and gone upstairs. Elaine moved toward the library. Dan took a quiet step or two behind her, in the same direction. In the library, Clutching Hand was now frantically searching for the spring. He heard Elaine coming and dodged behind the curtains again just as she entered. With a hasty look about, she saw no one. Then she went quickly to the panel, found the spring, and pressed it. So many queer things had happened to her since she went out that she had begun to worry over the safety of the papers. The panel opened. They were there, all right. She opened the box and took them out, hesitating to break the seal before Kennedy arrived. Stealthy and tiger-like the Clutching Hand crept up behind her. As he did so, Dan gazed in through the portieres from the hall. With a spring, Clutching Hand leaped at Elaine, snatching at the papers. Elaine clung to them tenaciously in spite of the surprise, and they struggled for them, Clutching Hand holding one hand over her mouth to prevent her screaming. Instantly Dan was there, aiding his chief. "Choke her! Strangle her! Don't let her scream!" he ground out. They fought viciously. Would they succeed? It was two desperate, unscrupulous men against one frail girl. Suddenly, from the man in armor in the corner, as if by a miracle came a deep, loud voice. "Help! Help! Murder! Police! They are strangling me!" The effect was terrific. Clutching Hand and Dan, hardened in crime as they were, fell back, dazed, overcome for the moment at the startling effect. They looked about. Not a soul. Then to their utter consternation, from the vizor of the helmet again came the deep, vibrating warning. "Help! Murder! Police!" . . . . . . . . Kennedy and I had been listening over the vocaphone, for the moment non-plussed at the fellow's daring. Then we heard from the uncanny instrument, "For Heaven's sake, Chief, hurry! The falsers have fallen down. The girl herself is coming!" What it meant we did not know. But Craig was almost beside himself, as he ordered me to try to get the police by telephone, if there was any way to block them. Only instant action would count, however. What to do? He could hear the master criminal plainly fumbling, now. "Yes, that's the Clutching Hand," he repeated. "Wait," I cautioned, "someone else is coming!" By a sort of instinct he seemed to recognize the sounds. "Elaine!" he exclaimed, paling. Instantly followed, in less time than I can tell it, the sounds of a suppressed scuffle. "He has seized her--gagged her," I cried in an agony of suspense. We could now hear everything that was going on in the library. Craig was wildly excited. As for me, I was speechless. Here was the vocaphone we had installed. It had warned us. But what could we do? I looked blankly at Kennedy. He was equal to the emergency. He calmly turned a switch. Then, at the top of his lungs, he shouted, "Help! Help! Police! They are strangling me!" I looked at him in amazement. What did he think he could do--blocks away? "It works both ways," he muttered. "Help! Murder! Police!" We could hear the astounded cursing of the two men. Also, down the hall, now, we could hear footsteps approaching in answer to his call for help--Aunt Josephine, Jennings, Marie, and others, all shouting out that there were cries in the library. "The deuce! What is it?" muttered a gruff voice. "The man in armor!" hissed Clutching Hand. "Here they come, too, Chief!" There was a parting scuffle. "There--take that!" A loud metallic ringing came from the vocaphone. Then, silence! What had happened . . . . . . . . In the library, recovered from their first shock of surprise, Dan cried out to the Clutching Hand, "The deuce. What is it?" Then, looking about, Clutching Hand quickly took in the situation. "The man in armor!" he pointed out. Dan was almost dead with fright at the weird thing. "Here they come, too, Chief," he gasped, as, down the hall he could hear the family shouting out that someone was in the library. With a parting thrust, Clutching Hand sent Elaine reeling. She held on to only a corner of the papers. He had the greater part of them. They were torn and destroyed, anyway. Finally, with all the venomousness of which he was capable, Clutching Hand rushed at the armor suit, drew back his gloved fist, and let it shoot out squarely in a vicious solar plexus blow. "There--take that!" he roared. The suit rattled, furiously. Out of it spilled the vocaphone with a bang on the floor. An instant later those in the hall rushed in. But the Clutching Hand and Dan were gone out of the window, the criminal carrying the greater part of the precious papers. Some ran to Elaine, others to the window. The ladder had been kicked away and the criminals were gone. Leaping into the waiting car, they had been whisked away. "Hello! Hello! Hello!" called a voice, apparently from nowhere. "What is that?" cried Elaine, still blankly wondering. She had risen by this time and was gazing about, wondering at the strange voice. Suddenly her eye fell on the armor scattered all over the floor. She spied the little oak box. "Elaine!" Apparently the voice came from that. Besides, it had a familiar ring to her ears. "Yes--Craig!" she cried. "This is my vocaphone--the little box that hears and talks," came back to her. "Are you all right?" "Yes--all right,--thanks to the vocaphone." She had understood in an instant. She seized the helmet and breastplate to which the vocaphone still was attached and was holding them close to herself. . . . . . . . . Kennedy had been calling and listening intently over the machine, wondering whether it had been put out of business in some way. "It works--yet!" he cried excitedly to me. "Elaine!" "Yes, Craig," came back over the faithful little instrument. "Are you all right?" "Yes--all right." "Thank heaven!" breathed Craig, pushing me aside. Literally he kissed that vocaphone as if it had been human! CHAPTER IX THE DEATH RAY Kennedy was reading a scientific treatise one morning, while I was banging on the typewriter, when a knock at the laboratory door disturbed us. By some intuition, Craig seemed to know who it was. He sprang to open the door, and there stood Elaine Dodge and her lawyer, Perry Bennett. Instantly, Craig read from the startled look on Elaine's face that something dreadful had happened. "Why--what's the matter?" he asked, solicitously. "A--another letter--from the Clutching Hand!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Mr. Bennett was calling on me, when this note was brought in. We both thought we'd better see you at once about it and he was kind enough to drive me here right away in his car." Craig took the letter and we both read, with amazement: "Are you an enemy of society? If not, order Craig Kennedy to leave the country by nine o'clock to-morrow morning. Otherwise, a pedestrian will drop dead outside his laboratory every hour until he leaves." The note was signed by the now familiar sinister hand, and had, added, a postscript, which read: "As a token of his leaving, have him place a vase of flowers on his laboratory window to-day." "What shall we do?" queried Bennett, evidently very much alarmed at the threat. "Do?" replied Kennedy, laughing contemptuously at the apparently futile threat, "why, nothing. Just wait." . . . . . . . . The day proved uneventful and I paid no further attention to the warning letter. It seemed too preposterous to amount to anything. Kennedy, however, with his characteristic foresight, as I learned afterwards, had not been entirely unprepared, though he had affected to treat the thing with contempt. His laboratory, I may say, was at the very edge of the University buildings, with the campus back of it, but opening on the other side on a street that was ordinarily not overcrowded. We got up as usual the next day and, quite early, went over to the laboratory. Kennedy, as was his custom, plunged straightway into his work and appeared absorbed by it, while I wrote. "There IS something queer going on, Walter," he remarked. "This thing registers some kind of wireless rays--infra-red, I think,--something like those that they say that Italian scientist, Ulivi, claims he has discovered and called the 'F-rays.'" "How do you know?" I asked, looking up from my work. "What's that instrument you are using?" "A bolometer, invented by the late Professor Langley," he replied, his attention riveted on it. Some time previously, Kennedy had had installed on the window ledge one of those mirror-like arrangements, known as a "busybody," which show those in a room what is going on on the street. As I moved over to look at the bolometer, I happened to glance into the busybody and saw that a crowd was rapidly collecting on the sidewalk. "Look, Craig!" I called hastily. He hurried over to me and looked. We could both see in the busybody mirror a group of excited passersby bending over a man lying prostrate on the sidewalk. He had evidently been standing on the curbstone outside the laboratory and had suddenly put his hand to his forehead. Then he had literally crumpled up into a heap, as he sank to the ground. The excited crowd lifted him up and bore him away, and I turned in surprise to Craig. He was looking at his watch. It was now only a few moments past nine o'clock! Not quarter of an hour later, our door was excitedly flung open and Elaine and Perry Bennett arrived. "I've just heard of the accident," she cried, fearfully. "Isn't it terrible. What had we better do?" For a few moments no one said a word. Then Kennedy began carefully examining the bolometer and some other recording instruments he had, while the rest of us watched, fascinated. Somehow that "busybody" seemed to attract me. I could not resist looking into it from time to time as Kennedy worked. I was scarcely able to control my excitement when, again, I saw the same scene enacted on the sidewalk before the laboratory. Hurriedly I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock! "Craig!" I cried. "Another!" Instantly he was at my side, gazing eagerly. There was a second innocent pedestrian lying on the sidewalk while a crowd, almost panic-stricken, gathered about him. We watched, almost stunned by the suddenness of the thing, until finally, without a word, Kennedy turned away, his face set in tense lines. "It's no use," he muttered, as we gathered about him. "We're beaten. I can't stand this sort of thing. I will leave to-morrow for South America." I thought Elaine Dodge would faint at the shock of his words coming so soon after the terrible occurrence outside. She looked at him, speechless. It happened that Kennedy had some artificial flowers on a stand, which he had been using long before in the study of synthetic coloring materials. Before Elaine could recover her tongue, he seized them and stuck them into a tall beaker, like a vase. Then he deliberately walked to the window and placed the beaker on the ledge in a most prominent position. Elaine and Bennett, to say nothing of myself, gazed at him, awe-struck. "Is--is there no other way but to surrender?" she asked. Kennedy mournfully shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he answered slowly. "There's no telling how far a fellow who has this marvellous power might go. I think I'd better leave to save you. He may not content himself with innocent outsiders always." Nothing that any of us could say, not even the pleadings of Elaine herself could move him. The thought that at eleven o'clock a third innocent passerby might lie stricken on the street seemed to move him powerfully. When, at eleven, nothing happened as it had at the other two hours, he was even more confirmed in his purpose. Entreaties had no effect, and late in the morning, he succeeded in convincing us all that his purpose was irrevocable. As we stood at the door, mournfully bidding our visitors farewell until the morrow, when he had decided to sail, I could see that he was eager to be alone. He had been looking now and then at the peculiar instrument which he had been studying earlier in the day and I could see on his face a sort of subtle intentness. "I'm so sorry--Craig," murmured Elaine, choking back her emotion, and finding it impossible to go on. "So am I, Elaine," he answered, tensely. "But--perhaps--when this trouble blows over--" He paused, unable to speak, turned, and shook his head. Then with a forced gaiety he bade Elaine and Perry Bennett adieu, saying that perhaps a trip might do him good. They had scarcely gone out and Kennedy closed the door carefully, when he turned and went directly to the instrument which I had seen him observing so interestedly. Plainly, I could see that it was registering something. "What's the matter?" I asked, non-plussed. "Just a moment, Walter," he replied evasively, as if not quite sure of himself. He walked fairly close to the window this time, keeping well out of the direct line of it, however, and there stood gazing out into the street. A glint, as if of the sun shining on a pair of opera glasses could be seen from a window across the way. "We are being watched," he said slowly, turning and looking at me fixedly, "but I don't dare investigate lest it cost the lives of more unfortunates." He stood for a moment in deep thought. Then he pulled out a suitcase and began silently to pack it. . . . . . . . . Although we had not dared to investigate, we knew that from a building, across the street, emissaries of the Clutching Hand were watching for our signal of surrender. The fact was, as we found out later, that in a poorly furnished room, much after the fashion of that which, with the help of the authorities, we had once raided in the suburbs, there were at that moment two crooks. One of them was the famous, or rather the infamous, Professor LeCroix, with whom in a disguise as a doctor we had already had some experience when he stole from the Hillside Sanitarium the twilight sleep drugs. The other was the young secretary of the Clutching Hand who had given the warning at the suburban headquarters at the time when they were endeavoring to transfuse Elaine Dodge's blood to save the life of the crook whom she had shot. This was the new headquarters of the master criminal, very carefully guarded. "Look!" cried LeCroix, very much elated at the effect that had been produced by his infra-red rays, "There is the sign--the vase of flowers. We have got him this time!" LeCroix gleefully patted a peculiar instrument beside him. Apparently it was a combination of powerful electric arcs, the rays of which were shot through a funnel-like arrangement into a converter or, rather, a sort of concentration apparatus from which the dread power could be released through a tube-like affair at one end. It was his infra-red heat wave, F-ray, engine. "I told you--it would work!" cried LeCroix. . . . . . . . . I did not argue any further with Craig about his sudden resolution to go away. But it is a very solemn proceeding to pack up and admit defeat after such a brilliant succession of cases as had been his until we met this master criminal. He was unshakeable, however, and the next morning we closed the laboratory and loaded our baggage, which was considerable, on a taxicab. Neither of us said much, but I saw a quick look of appreciation on Craig's face as we pulled up at the wharf and saw that the Dodge car was already there. He seemed deeply moved that Elaine should come at such an early hour to have a last word. Our cab stopped and Kennedy moved over toward her car, directing two porters, whom I noticed that he chose with care, to wait at one side. One of them was an old Irishman with a slight limp; the other a wiry Frenchman with a pointed beard. In spite of her pleadings, however, Kennedy held to his purpose and, as we shook hands for the last time, I thought that Elaine would almost break down. "Here, you fellows, now," directed Craig, turning brusquely to the porters, "hustle that baggage right aboard." "Can't we go on the ship, too?" asked Elaine, appealingly. "I'm sorry--I'm afraid there isn't time," apologized Craig. We finally tore ourselves away, followed by the porters carrying as much as they could. "Bon voyage!" cried Elaine, bravely keeping back a choke in her voice. Near the gangplank, in the crowd, I noticed a couple of sinister faces watching the ship's officers and the passengers going aboard. Kennedy's quick eye spotted them, too, but he did not show in any way that he noticed anything as, followed by our two porters, we quickly climbed the gangplank. A moment Craig paused by the rail and waved to Elaine and Bennett who returned the salute feelingly. I paused at the rail, too, speculating how we were to get the rest of our baggage aboard in time, for we had taken several minutes saying good-bye. "In there," pointed Kennedy quickly to the porters, indicating our stateroom which was an outside room. "Come, Walter." I followed him in with a heavy heart. . . . . . . . . Outside could be seen the two sinister faces in the crowd watching intently, with eyes fixed on the stateroom. Finally one of the crooks boarded the ship hastily, while the other watched the two porters come out of the stateroom and pause at the window, speaking back into the room as though answering commands. Then the porters quickly ran along the deck and down the plank, to get the rest of the luggage. As they approached the Dodge car, Elaine, Aunt Josephine and Perry Bennett were straining their eyes to catch a last glimpse of us. The porters took a small but very heavy box and, lugging and tugging, hastened toward the boat with it. But they were too late. The gang plank was being hauled in. They shouted, but the ship's officers waved them back. "Too late!" one of the deckhands shouted, a little pleased to see that someone would be inconvenienced for tardiness. The porters argued. But it was no use. All they could do was to carry the box back to the Dodge car. Miss Dodge was just getting in as they returned. "What shall we do with this and the other stuff?" asked the Irish porter. She looked at the rest of the tagged luggage and the box which was marked: Scientific Instruments Valuable Handle with care. "Here--pile them in here," she said indicating the taxicab. "I'll take charge of them." Meanwhile one of our sinister faced friends had just had time to regain the shore after following us aboard ship and strolling past the window of our stateroom. He paused long enough to observe one of the occupants studying a map, while the other was opening a bag. "They're gone!" he said to the other as he rejoined him on the dock, giving a nod of his head and a jerk of his thumb at the ship. "Yes," added the other crook, "and lost most of their baggage, too." . . . . . . . . Slowly the Dodge car proceeded through the streets up from the river front, followed by the taxicab, until at last the Dodge mansion, was reached. There Elaine and Aunt Josephine got out and Bennett stood talking with them a moment. Finally he excused himself reluctantly for it was now late, even for a lawyer, to get to his office. As he hurried over to the subway, Elaine nodded to the porters in the taxicab, "Take that stuff in the house. We'll have to send it by the next boat." Then she followed Aunt Josephine while the porters unloaded the boxes and bags. Elaine sighed moodily as she walked slowly in. "Here, Marie," she cried petulantly to her maid, "take these wraps of mine." Marie ventured no remark, but, like a good servant, took them. A moment later Aunt Josephine left her and Elaine went into the library and over to a table. She stood there an instant, then sank down into a chair, taking up Kennedy's picture and gazing at it with eyes filled by tears. Just then Jennings came into the room, ushering the two porters laden with the boxes and bags. "Where shall I have them put these things, Miss Elaine?" he inquired. "Oh--anywhere," she answered hurriedly, replacing the picture. Jennings paused. As he did so, one of the porters limped forward. "I've a message for you, Miss," he said in a rich Irish brogue, with a look at Jennings, "to be delivered in private." Elaine glanced at him surprised. Then she nodded to Jennings who disappeared. As he did so, the Irishman limped to the door and drew together the portieres. Then he came back closer to Elaine. A moment she looked at him, not quite knowing from his strange actions whether to call for help or not. . . . . . . . . At a motion from Kennedy, as he pulled off his wig, I pulled off the little false beard. Elaine looked at us, transformed, startled. "Wh--what--" she stammered. "Oh--I'm--so--glad. How--" Kennedy said nothing. He was thoroughly enjoying her face. "Don't you understand?" I explained, laughing merrily. "I admit that I didn't until that last minute in the stateroom on the boat when we didn't come back to wave a last good-bye. But all the care that Craig took in selecting the porters was the result of work he did yesterday, and the insistence with which he chose our travelling clothes had a deep-laid purpose." She said nothing, and I continued. "The change was made quickly in the stateroom. Kennedy's man threw on the coat and hat he wore, while Craig donned the rough clothes of the porter and added a limp and a wig. The same sort of exchange of clothes was made by me and Craig clapped a Van Dyck beard on my chin." "I--I'm so glad," she repeated. "I didn't think you'd--" She cut the sentence short, remembering her eyes and the photograph as we entered, and a deep blush crimsoned her face. "Mum's the word," cautioned Kennedy, "You must smuggle us out of the house, some way." . . . . . . . . Kennedy lost no time in confirming the suspicions of his bolometer as to the cause of the death of the two innocent victims of the machinations of the Clutching Hand. Both of them, he had learned, had been removed to a nearby undertaking shop, awaiting the verdict of the coroner. We sought out the shop and prevailed on the undertaker to let us see the bodies. As Kennedy pulled down the shroud from the face of the first victim, he disclosed on his forehead a round dark spot about the size of a small coin. Quickly, he moved to the next coffin and, uncovering the face, disclosed a similar mark. "What is it?" I asked, awestruck. "Why," he said, "I've heard of a certain Viennese, one LeCroix I believe, who has discovered or perfected an infra-red ray instrument which shoots its power a great distance with extreme accuracy and leaves a mark like these." "Is he in New York?" I inquired anxiously. "Yes, I believe he is." Kennedy seemed indisposed to answer more until he knew more, and I saw that he would prefer not being questioned for the present. We thanked the undertaker for his courtesy and went out. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile Elaine had called up Perry Bennett. "Mr. Bennett," she exclaimed over the wire, "just guess who called on me?" "Who?" he answered, "I give it up." "Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," she called back. "Is that so?" he returned. "Isn't that fine? I didn't think he was the kind to run away like that. How did it happen?" Elaine quickly told the story as I had told her. Had she known it, however, Bennett's valet, Thomas, was at that very moment listening at the door, intensely interested. As Bennett hung up the receiver, Thomas entered the room. "If anyone calls me," ordered Bennett, "take the message, particularly if it is from Miss Dodge. I must get downtown--and tell her after I finish my court work for the day I shall be right up." "Yes sir," nodded the valet with a covert glance at his master. Then, as Bennett left, he followed him to the door, paused, thought a moment, then, as though coming to a sudden decision, went out by an opposite door. It was not long afterward that a knock sounded at the door of the new headquarters of the Clutching Hand. LeCroix and the secretary were there, as well as a couple of others. "The Chief!" exclaimed one. The secretary opened the door, and, sure enough, the Clutching Hand entered. "Well, how did your infra-red rays work?" he asked LeCroix. "Fine." "And they're gone?" "Yes. The flowers were in the window yesterday. Two of our men saw them on the boat." There came another knock. This time, as the door opened, it was Thomas, Bennett's faithless valet, who entered. "Say," blurted out the informer, "do you know Kennedy and Jameson are back?" "Back?" cried the crooks. "Yes,--they didn't go. Changed clothes with the porters. I just heard Miss Dodge telling Mr. Bennett." Clutching Hand eyed him keenly, then seemed to burst into an ungovernable fury. Quickly he began volleying orders at the valet and the others. Then, with the secretary and two of the other crooks he left by another door from that by which he had sent the valet forth. . . . . . . . . Leaving the undertaker's, Kennedy and I made our way, keeping off thoroughfares, to police headquarters, where, after making ourselves known, Craig made arrangements for a raid on the house across the street from the laboratory where we had seen the opera glass reflection. Then, as secretly as we had come, we went out again, letting ourselves into the laboratory, stealthily looking up and down the street. We entered by a basement door, which Kennedy carefully locked again. No sooner had we disappeared than one of the Clutching Hand's spies who had been watching behind a barrel of rubbish gave the signal of the hand down the street to a confederate and, going to the door, entered by means of a skeleton key. We entered our laboratory which Kennedy had closed the day before. With shades drawn, it now looked deserted enough. I dropped into a chair and lighted a cigarette with a sigh of relief, for really I had thought, until the boat sailed, that Kennedy actually contemplated going away. Kennedy went over to a cabinet and, from it, took out a notebook and a small box. Opening the notebook on the laboratory table, he rapidly turned the pages. "Here, Walter," he remarked. "This will answer your questions about the mysterious deadly ray." I moved over to the table, eager to satisfy my curiosity and read the notes which he indicated with his finger. INFRA-RED RAY NOTES The infra-red ray which has been developed by LeCroix from the experiments of the Italian scientist Ulivi causes, when concentrated by an apparatus perfected by LeCroix, an instantaneous combustion of nonreflecting surfaces. It is particularly deadly in its effect on the brain centers. It can be diverted, it is said however, by a shield composed of platinum backed by asbestos. Next Kennedy opened the case which he had taken out of the cabinet and from it he took out the platinum-asbestos mirror, which was something of his own invention. He held it up and in pantomime showed me just how it would cut off the deadly rays. He had not finished even that, when a peculiar noise in the laboratory itself disturbed him and he hastily thrust the asbestos platinum shield into his pocket. Though we had not realized it, our return had been anticipated. Suddenly, from a closet projected a magazine gun and before we could move, the Clutching Hand himself slowly appeared, behind us. "Ah!" he exclaimed with mock politeness, "so, you thought you'd fool me, did you? Well!" Just then, two other crooks, who had let themselves in by the skeleton key through the basement jumped into the room through that door covering us. We started to our feet, but in an instant found ourselves both sprawling on the floor. In the cabinet, beneath the laboratory table, another crook had been hidden and he tackled us with all the skill of an old football player against whom we had no defence. Four of them were upon us instantly. . . . . . . . . At the same time, Thomas, the faithless valet of Bennett, had been dispatched by the Clutching Hand to commandeer his master's roadster in his absence, and, carrying out the instructions, he had driven up before Elaine's house at the very moment when she was going out for a walk. Thomas jumped out of the car and touched his hat deferentially. "A message from Mr. Bennett, ma'am," he explained. "Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bennett have sent me to ask you to come over to the laboratory." Unsuspecting, Elaine stepped into the car and drove off. Instead, however, of turning and pulling up on the laboratory side of the street, Thomas stopped opposite it. He got out and Elaine, thinking that perhaps it was to save time that he had not turned the car around, followed. But when the valet, instead of crossing the street, went up to a door of a house and rang the bell, she began to suspect that all was not as it should be. "What are you going here for, Thomas?" she asked. "There's the laboratory--over there." "But, Miss Dodge," he apologized, "Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bennett are here. They told me they'd be here." The door was opened quickly by a lookout of the Clutching Hand and the valet asked if Craig and Elaine's lawyer were in. Of course the lookout replied that they were and, before Elaine knew it, she was jostled into the dark hallway and the door was banged shut. Resistance was useless now and she was hurried along until another door was opened. There she saw LeCroix and the other crooks. And, as the door slammed, she caught sight of the fearsome Clutching Hand himself. She drew back, but was too frightened even to scream. With a harsh, cruel laugh, the super-criminal beckoned to her to follow him and look down through a small trap door. Unable now to resist, she looked. There she saw us. To that extent the valet had told the truth. Kennedy was standing in deep thought, while I sat on an old box, smoking a cigarette--very miserable. . . . . . . . . Was this to be the sole outcome of Kennedy's clever ruse, I was wondering. Were we only to be shipwrecked in sight of port? Watching his chance, when the street was deserted, the Clutching Hand and his followers had hustled us over to the new hangout across from the laboratory. There they had met more crooks and had thrust us into this vile hole. As the various ineffectual schemes for escape surged through my head, I happened to look up and caught a glance of horror on Craig's face. I followed his eyes. There, above us, was Elaine! I saw her look from us to the Clutching Hand in terror. But none of us uttered a word. "I will now show you, my dear young lady," almost hissed the Clutching Hand at length, "as pretty a game of hide and seek as you have ever seen." As he said it, another trap door near the infra-red ray machine was opened and a beam of light burst through. I knew it was not that which we had to fear, but the invisible rays that accompanied it, the rays that had affected the bolometer. Just then a spot of light showed near my foot, moving about the cement floor until it fell on my shoe. Instantly, the leather charred, even before I could move. Kennedy and I leaped to our feet and drew back. The beam followed us. We retreated further. Still it followed, inexorably. Clutching Hand was now holding Elaine near the door where she could not help seeing, laughing diabolically while he directed LeCroix and the rest to work the infra-red ray apparatus through the trap. As we dodged from corner to corner, endeavoring to keep the red ray from touching us, the crooks seemed in no hurry, but rather to enjoy prolonging the torture as does a cat with a mouse. "Please--oh, please--stop!" begged Elaine. Clutching Hand only laughed with fiendish delight and urged his men on. The thing was getting closer and closer. Suddenly we heard a strange voice ring out above us. "Police!" "Where?" growled the Clutching Hand in fury. "Outside--a raid! Run! He's told them!" Already we could hear the hammers and axes of the police whom Kennedy had called upon before, as they battered at the outside door. At that door a moment before, the lookout suddenly had given a startled stare and a suppressed cry. Glancing down the street he had seen a police patrol in which were a score or more of the strongarm squad. They had jumped out, some carrying sledgehammers, others axes. Almost before he could cry out and retreat to give a warning, they had reached the door and the first resounding blows had been struck. The lookout quickly had fled and drawn the bolts of a strong inner door, and the police began battering that impediment. Instantly, Clutching Hand turned to LeCroix at the F-ray machine. "Finish them!" he shouted. We were now backed up against a small ell in the wall of the cellar. It was barely large enough to hold us, but by crowding we were able to keep out of the reach of the ray. The ray shot past the ell and struck a wall a couple of inches from us. I looked. The cement began to crumble under the intense heat. Meanwhile, the police were having great difficulty with the steelbolt-studded door into the room. Still, it was yielding a bit. "Hurry!" shouted Clutching Hand to LeCroix. Kennedy had voluntarily placed himself in front of me in the ell. Carefully, to avoid the ray, he took the asbestos-platinum shield from his pocket and slid it forward as best he could over the wall to the spot where the ray struck. It deflected the ray. But so powerful was it that even that part of the ray which was deflected could be seen to strike the ceiling in the corner which was of wood. Instantly, before Kennedy could even move the shield, the wood burst into flames. Above us now smoke was pouring into the room where the deflected ray struck the floor and flames broke out. "Confound him!" ground out Clutching Hand, as they saw it. The other crooks backed away and stood, hesitating, not knowing quite what to do. The police had by this time finished battering in the door and had rushed into the outer passage. While the flames leaped up, the crooks closed the last door into the room. "Run!" shouted Clutching Hand, as they opened a secret gate disclosing a spiral flight of iron steps. A moment later all had disappeared except Clutching Hand himself. The last door would hold only a few seconds, but Clutching Hand was waiting to take advantage of even that. With a last frantic effort he sought to direct the terrific ray at us. Elaine acted instantly. With all her strength she rushed forward, overturning the machine. Clutching Hand uttered a growl and slowly raised his gun, taking aim with the butt for a well-directed blow at her head. Just then the door yielded and a policeman stuck his head and shoulders through. His revolver rang out and Clutching Hand's automatic flew out of his grasp, giving him just enough time to dodge through and slam the secret door in the faces of the squad as they rushed in. Back of the house, Clutching Hand and the other crooks were now passing through a bricked passage. The fire had got so far beyond control by this time that it drove the police back from their efforts to open the secret door. Thus the Clutching Hand had made good his escape through the passage which led out, as we later discovered, to the railroad tracks along the river. "Down there--Mr. Kennedy--and Mr. Jameson," cried Elaine, pointing at the trap which was hidden in the stifle. The fire had gained terrific headway, but the police seized a ladder and stuck it down into the basement. Choking and sputtering, half suffocated, we staggered up. "Are you hurt?" asked Elaine anxiously, taking Craig's arm. "Not a bit--thanks to you!" he replied, forgetting all in meeting the eager questioning of her wonderful eyes. CHAPTER X THE LIFE CURRENT Assignments were being given out on the Star one afternoon, and I was standing talking with several other reporter in the busy hum of typewriters and clicking telegraphs. "What do you think of that?" asked one of the fellows. "You're something of a scientific detective, aren't you?" Without laying claim to such a distinction, I took the paper and read: THE POISONED KISS AGAIN Three More New York Women Report Being Kissed by Mysterious Stranger--Later Fell into Deep Unconsciousness. What Is It? I had scarcely finished, when one of the copy boys, dashing past me, called, "You're wanted on the wire, Mr. Jameson." I hurried over to the telephone and answered. A musical voice responded to my hurried hello, and I hastened to adopt my most polite tone. "Is this Mr. Jameson?" asked the voice. "Yes," I replied, not recognizing it. "Well, Mr. Jameson, I've heard of you on the Star and I've just had a very strange experience. I've had the poisoned kiss." The woman did not pause to catch my exclamation of astonishment, but went on, "It was like this. A man ran up to me on the street and kissed me--and--I don't know how it was--but I became unconscious--and I didn't come to for an hour--in a hospital--fortunately. I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been that someone came to my assistance and the man fled. I thought the Star would be interested." "We are," I hastened to reply. "Will you give me your name?" "Why, I am Mrs. Florence Leigh of number 20 Prospect Avenue," returned the voice. "Really, Mr. Jameson, something ought to be done about these cases." "It surely had," I assented, with much interest, writing her name eagerly down on a card. "I'll be out to interview you, directly." The woman thanked me and I hung up the receiver. "Say," I exclaimed, hurrying over to the editor's desk, "here's another woman on the wire who says she has received the poisoned kiss. "Suppose you take that assignment," the editor answered, sensing a possible story. I took it with alacrity, figuring out the quickest way by elevated and surface car to reach the address. The conductor of the trolley indicated Prospect Avenue and I hurried up the street until I came to the house, a neat, unpretentious place. Looking at the address on the card first to make sure, I rang the bell. I must say that I could scarcely criticize the poisoned kisser's taste, for the woman who had opened the door certainly was extraordinarily attractive. "And you really were--put out by a kiss?" I queried, as she led me into a neat sitting room. "Absolutely--as much as if it had been by one of these poisoned needles you read about," she replied confidently, hastening on to describe the affair volubly. It was beyond me. "May I use your telephone?" I asked. "Surely," she answered. I called the laboratory. "Is that you, Craig?" I inquired. "Yes, Walter," he answered, recognizing my voice. "Say, Craig," I asked breathlessly, "what sort of kiss would suffocate a person." My only answer was an uproarious laugh from him at the idea. "I know," I persisted, "but I've got the assignment from the Star--and I'm out here interviewing a woman about it. It's all right to laugh--but here I am. I've found a case--names, dates and places. I wish you'd explain the thing, then." "Oh, all right, Walter," he replied indulgently. "I'll meet you as soon as I can and help you out." I hung up the receiver with an air of satisfaction. At least now I would get an explanation of the woman's queer story. "I'll clear this thing up," I said confidently. "My friend, Craig Kennedy, the scientific detective is coming out here." "Good! That fellow who attacked me ought to be shown up. All women may not be as fortunate as I." We waited patiently. Her story certainly was remarkable. She remembered every detail up to a certain point--and then, as she said, all was blankness. The bell rang and the woman hastened to the door admitting Kennedy. "Hello, Walter," he greeted. "This is certainly a most remarkable case, Craig," I said, introducing him, and telling briefly what I had learned. "And you actually mean to say that a kiss had the effect--" Just then the telephone interrupted. "Yes," she reasserted quickly. "Excuse me a second." She answered the call. "Oh--why--yes, he's here. Do you want to speak to him? Mr. Jameson, it's the Star." "Confound it!" I exclaimed, "isn't that like the old man--dragging me off this story before it's half finished in order to get another. I'll have to go. I'll get this story from you, Craig." . . . . . . . . The day before, in the suburban house, the Clutching Hand had been talking to two of his emissaries, an attractive young woman and a man. They were Flirty Florrie and Dan the Dude. "Now, I want you to get Kennedy," he said. "The way to do it is to separate Kennedy and Elaine--see?" "All right, Chief, we'll do it," they replied. "I've rigged it so that you'll reach him through Jameson, understand?" They nodded eagerly as he told them the subtle plan. Clutching Hand had scarcely left when Flirty Florrie began by getting published in the papers the story which I had seen. The next day she called me up from the suburban house. Having got me to promise to see her, she had scarcely turned from the telephone when Dan the Dude walked in from the next room. "He's coming," she said. Dan was carrying a huge stag head with a beautifully branched pair of antlers. Under his arm was a coil of wire which he had connected to the inside of the head. "Fine!" he exclaimed. Then, pointing to the head, he added, "It's all ready. See how I fixed it? That ought to please the Chief." Dan moved quickly to the mantle and mounted a stepladder there by which he had taken down the head, and started to replace the head above the mantle. He hooked the head on a nail. "There," he said, unscrewing one of the beautiful brown glass eyes of the stag. Back of it could be seen a camera shutter. Dan worked the shutter several times to see whether it was all right. "One of those new quick shutter cameras," he explained. Then he ran a couple of wires along the moulding, around the room and into a closet, where he made the connection with a sort of switchboard on which a button was marked, "SHUTTER" and the switch, "WIND FILM." "Now, Flirty," he said, coming out of the closet and pulling up the shade which let a flood of sunlight into the room, "you see, I want you to stand here--then, do your little trick. Get me?" "I get you Steve," she laughed. Just then the bell rang. "That must be Jameson," she cried. "Now--get to your corner." With a last look Dan went into the closet and shut the door. Perhaps half an hour later, Clutching Hand himself called me up on the telephone. It was he--not the Star--as I learned only too late. . . . . . . . . I had scarcely got out of the house, as Craig told me afterwards, when Flirty Florrie told all over again the embroidered tale that had caught my ear. Kennedy said nothing, but listened intently, perhaps betraying in his face the scepticism he felt. "You see," she said, still voluble and eager to convince him, "I was only walking on the street. Here,--let me show you. It was just like this." She took his arm and before he knew it, led him to the spot on the floor near the window which Dan had indicated. Meanwhile Dan was listening attentively in his closet. "Now--stand there. You are just as I was--only I didn't expect anything." She was pantomiming someone approaching stealthily while Kennedy watched her with interest, tinged with doubt. Behind Craig, in his closet, Dan was reaching for the switchboard button. "You see," she said advancing quickly and acting her words, "he placed his hands on my shoulders--so--then threw his arms about my neck--so." She said no more, but imprinted a deep, passionate kiss on Kennedy's mouth, clinging closely to him. Before Kennedy could draw away, Dan, in the closet, had pressed the button and the switch several times in rapid succession. "Th-that's very realistic," gasped Craig, a good deal taken aback by the sudden osculatory assault. He frowned. "I--I'll look into the case," he said, backing away. "There may be some scientific explanation--but--er--" He was plainly embarrassed and hastened to make his adieux. Kennedy had no more than shut the door before Dan, with a gleeful laugh, burst out of the closet and flung his own arms about Florrie in an embrace that might have been poisoned, it is true, but was none the less real for that. . . . . . . . . How little impression the thing made on Kennedy can be easily seen from the fact that on the way downtown that afternoon he stopped at Martin's, on Fifth Avenue, and bought a ring--a very handsome solitaire, the finest Martin had in the shop. It must have been about the time that he decided to stop at Martin's that the Dodge butler, Jennings, admitted a young lady who presented a card on which was engraved the name Miss FLORENCE LEIGH 20 Prospect Avenue. As he handed Elaine the card, she looked up from the book she was reading and took it. "I don't know her," she said puckering her pretty brow. "Do you? What does she look like?" "I never saw her before, Miss Elaine," Jennings shrugged. "But she is very well dressed." "All right, show her in, Jennings. I'll see her." Elaine moved into the drawing room, Jennings springing forward to part the portieres for her and passing through the room quickly where Flirty Florrie sat waiting. Flirty Florrie rose and stood gazing at Elaine, apparently very much embarrassed, even after Jennings had gone. There was a short pause. The woman was the first to speak. "It IS embarrassing," she said finally, "but, Miss Dodge, I have come to you to beg for my love." Elaine looked at her non-plussed. "Yes," she continued, "you do not know it, but Craig Kennedy is infatuated with you." She paused again, then added, "But he is engaged to me." Elaine stared at the woman. She was dazed. She could not believe it. "There is the ring," Flirty Florrie added indicating a very impressive paste diamond. Elaine frowned but said nothing. Her head was in a whirl. She could not believe. Although Florrie was very much embarrassed, she was quite as evidently very much wrought up. Quickly she reached into her bag and drew out two photographs, without a word, handing them to Elaine. Elaine took them reluctantly. "There's the proof," Florrie said simply, choking a sob. Elaine looked with a start. Sure enough, there was the neat living room in the house on Prospect Avenue. In one picture Florrie had her arms over Kennedy's shoulders. In the other, apparently, they were passionately kissing. Elaine slowly laid the photographs on the table. "Please--please, Miss Dodge--give me back my lost love. You are rich and beautiful--I am poor. I have only my good looks. But--I--I love him--and he--loves me--and has promised to marry me." Filled with wonder, and misgivings now, and quite as much embarrassed at the woman's pleadings as the woman herself had acted a moment before, Elaine tried to wave her off. "Really--I--I don't know anything about all this. It--it doesn't concern me. Please--go." Florrie had broken down completely and was weeping softly into a lace handkerchief. She moved toward the door. Elaine followed her. "Jennings--please see the lady to the door." Back in the drawing room, Elaine almost seized the photographs and hurried into the library where she could be alone. There she stood gazing at them--doubt, wonder, and fear battling on her plastic features. Just then she heard the bell and Jennings in the hall. She shoved the photographs away from her on the table. It was Kennedy himself, close upon the announcement of the butler. He was in a particularly joyous and happy mood, for he had stopped at Martin's. "How are you this afternoon?" he greeted Elaine gaily. Elaine had been too overcome by what had just happened to throw it off so easily, and received him with a quickly studied coolness. Still, Craig, man-like, did not notice it at once. In fact he was too busy gazing about to see that neither Jennings, Marie, nor the duenna Aunt Josephine were visible. They were not and he quickly took the ring from his pocket. Without waiting, he showed it to Elaine. In fact, so sure had he been that everything was plain sailing, that he seemed to take it almost for granted. Under other circumstances, he would have been right. But not tonight. Elaine very coolly admired the ring, as Craig might have eyed a specimen on a microscope slide. Still, he did not notice. He took the ring, about to put it on her finger. Elaine drew away. Concealment was not in her frank nature. She picked up the two photographs. "What have you to say about those?" she asked cuttingly. Kennedy, quite surprised, took them and looked at them. Then he let them fall carelessly on the table and dropped into a chair, his head back in a burst of laughter. "Why--that was what they put over on Walter," he said. "He called me up early this afternoon--told me he had discovered one of these poisoned kiss cases you have read about in the papers. Think of it--all that to pull a concealed camera! Such an elaborate business--just to get me where they could fake this thing. I suppose they've put some one up to saying she's engaged?" Elaine was not so lightly affected. "But," she said severely, repressing her emotion, "I don't understand, MR. Kennedy, how scientific inquiry into 'the poisoned kiss' could necessitate this sort of thing." She pointed at the photographs accusingly. "But," he began, trying to explain. "No buts," she interrupted. "Then you believe that I--" "How can you, as a scientist, ask me to doubt the camera," she insinuated, very coldly turning away. Kennedy rapidly began to see that it was far more serious than he had at first thought. "Very well," he said with a touch of impatience, "if my word is not to be taken--I--I'll--" He had seized his hat and stick. Elaine did not deign to answer. Then, without a word he stalked out of the door. As he did so, Elaine hastily turned and took a few steps after him, as if to recall her words, then stopped, and her pride got the better of her. She walked slowly back to the chair by the table--the chair he had been sitting in--sank down into it and cried. . . . . . . . . Kennedy was moping in the laboratory the next day when I came in. Just what the trouble was, I did not know, but I had decided that it was up to me to try to cheer him up. "Say, Craig," I began, trying to overcome his fit of blues. Kennedy, filled with his own thoughts, paid no attention to me. Still, I kept on. Finally he got up and, before I knew it, he took me by the ear and marched me into the next room. I saw that what he needed chiefly was to be let alone, and he went back to his chair, dropping down into it and banging his fists on the table. Under his breath he loosed a small volley of bitter expletives. Then he jumped up. "By George--I WILL," he muttered. I poked my head out of the door in time to see him grab up his hat and coat and dash from the room, putting his coat on as he went. "He's a nut today," I exclaimed to myself. Though I did not know, yet, of the quarrel, Kennedy had really struggled with himself until he was willing to put his pride in his pocket and had made up his mind to call on Elaine again. As he entered, he saw that it was really of no use, for only Aunt Josephine was in the library. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she said innocently enough, "I'm so sorry she isn't here. There's been something troubling her and she won't tell me what it is. But she's gone to call on a young woman, a Florence Leigh, I think." "Florence Leigh!" exclaimed Craig with a start and a frown. "Let me use your telephone." I had turned my attention in the laboratory to a story I was writing, when I heard the telephone ring. It was Craig. Without a word of apology for his rudeness, which I knew had been purely absent-minded, I heard him saying, "Walter--meet me in half an hour outside that Florence Leigh's house." He was gone in a minute, giving me scarcely time to call back that I would. Then, with a hasty apology for his abruptness, he excused himself, leaving Aunt Josephine wondering at his strange actions. At about the same time that Craig had left the laboratory, at the Dodge house Elaine and Aunt Josephine had been in the hall near the library. Elaine was in her street dress. "I'm going out, Auntie," she said with an attempted gaiety. "And," she added, "if anyone should ask for me, I'll be there." She had showed her a card on which was engraved, the name and address of Florence Leigh. "All right, dear," answered Aunt Josephine, not quite clear in her mind what subtle change there was in Elaine. . . . . . . . . Half an hour later I was waiting near the house in the suburbs to which I had been directed by the strange telephone call the day before. I noticed that it was apparently deserted. The blinds were closed and a "To Let" sign was on the side of the house. "Hello, Walter," cried Craig at last, bustling along. He stopped a moment to look at the house. Then, together, we went up the steps and we rang the bell, gazing about. "Strange," muttered Craig. "The house looks deserted." He pointed out the sign and the generally unoccupied look of the place. Nor was there any answer to our ring. Kennedy paused only a second, in thought. "Come on, Walter," he said with a sudden decision. "We've got to get in here somehow." He led the way around the side of the house to a window, and with a powerful grasp, wrenched open the closed shutters. He had just smashed the window viciously with his foot when a policeman appeared. "Hey, you fellows--what are you doing there?" he shouted. Craig paused a second, then pulled his card from his pocket. "Just the man I want," he parried, much to the policeman's surprise, "There's something crooked going on here. Follow us in." We climbed into the window. There was the same living room we had seen the day before. But it was now bare and deserted. Everything was gone except an old broken chair. Craig and I were frankly amazed at the complete and sudden change and I think the policeman was a little surprised, for he had thought the place occupied. "Come on," cried Kennedy, beckoning us on. Quickly he rushed through the house. There was not a thing in it to change the deserted appearance of the first floor. At last it occurred to Craig to grope his way down cellar. There was nothing there, either, except a bin, as innocent of coal as Mother Hubbard's cupboard was of food. For several minutes we hunted about without discovering a thing. Kennedy had been carefully going over the place and was at the other side of the cellar from ourselves when I saw him stop and gaze at the floor. He was not looking, apparently, so much as listening. I strained my ears, but could make out nothing. Before I could say anything, he raised his hand for silence. Apparently he had heard something. "Hide," he whispered suddenly to us. Without another word, though for the life of me I could make nothing out of it, I pulled the policeman into a little angle of the wall nearby, while Craig slipped into a similar angle. We waited a moment. Nothing happened. Had he been seeing things or hearing things, I wondered? From our hidden vantage we could now see a square piece in the floor, perhaps five feet in diameter, slowly open up as though on a pivot. Beneath it we could make out a tube-like hole, perhaps three feet across, with a covered top. It slowly opened. A weird and sinister figure of a man appeared. Over his head he wore a peculiar helmet with hideous glass pieces over the eyes, and tubes that connected with a tank which he carried buckled to his back. As he slowly dragged himself out, I could wonder only at the outlandish headgear. Quickly he closed down the cover of the tube, but not before a vile effluvium seemed to escape, and penetrate even to us in our hiding places. As he moved forward, Kennedy gave a flying leap at him, and we followed with a regular football interference. It was the work of only a moment for us to subdue and hold him, while Craig ripped off the helmet. It was Dan the Dude. "What's that thing?" I puffed, as I helped Craig with the headgear. "An oxygen helmet," he replied. "There must be air down the tube that cannot be breathed." He went over to the tube. Carefully he opened the top and gazed down, starting back a second later, with his face puckered up at the noxious odor. "Sewer gas," he ejaculated, as he slammed the cover down. Then he added to the policeman, "Where do you suppose it comes from?" "Why," replied the officer, "the St. James Drain--an old sewer--is somewhere about these parts." Kennedy puckered his face as he gazed at our prisoner. He reached down quickly and lifted something off the man's coat. "Golden hair," he muttered. "Elaine's!" A moment later he seized the man and shook him roughly. "Where is she--tell me?" he demanded. The man snarled some kind of reply, refusing to say a word about her. "Tell me," repeated Kennedy. "Humph!" snorted the prisoner, more close-mouthed than ever. Kennedy was furious. As he sent the man reeling away from him, he seized the oxygen helmet and began putting it on. There was only one thing to do--to follow the clue of the golden strands of hair. Down into the pest hole he went, his head protected by the oxygen helmet. As he cautiously took one step after another down a series of iron rungs inside the hole, he found that the water was up to his chest. At the bottom of the perpendicular pit was a narrow low passage way, leading off. It was just about big enough to get through, but he managed to grope along it. He came at last to the main drain, an old stone-walled sewer, as murky a place as could well be imagined, filled with the foulest sewer gas. He was hardly able to keep his feet in the swirling, bubbling water that swept past, almost up to his neck. The minutes passed as the policeman and I watched our prisoner in the cellar, by the tube. I looked anxiously at my watch. "Craig!" I shouted at last, unable to control my fears for him. No answer. To go down after him seemed out of the question. By this time, Craig had come to a small open chamber into which the sewer widened. On the wall he found another series of iron rungs up which he climbed. The gas was terrible. As he neared the top of the ladder, he came to a shelf-like aperture in the sewer chamber, and gazed about. It was horribly dark. He reached out and felt a piece of cloth. Anxiously he pulled on it. Then he reached further into the darkness. There was Elaine, unconscious, apparently dead. He shook her, endeavoring to wake her up. But it was no use. In desperation Craig carried her down the ladder. With our prisoner, we could only look helplessly around. Again and again I looked at my watch as the minutes lengthened. Suppose the oxygen gave out? "By George, I'm going down after him," I cried in desperation. "Don't do it," advised the policeman. "You'll never get out." One whiff of the horrible gas told me that he was right. I should not have been able to go fifty feet in it. I looked at him in despair. It was impossible. "Listen," said the policeman, straining his ears. There was indeed a faint noise from the black depths below us. A rope alongside the rough ladder began to move, as though someone was pulling it taut. We gazed down. "Craig! Craig!" I called. "Is that you?" No answer. But the rope still moved. Perhaps the helmet made it impossible for him to hear. He had struggled back in the swirling current almost exhausted by his helpless burden. Holding Elaine's head above the surface of the water and pulling on the rope to attract my attention, for he could neither hear nor shout, he had taken a turn of the rope about Elaine. I tried pulling on it. There was something heavy on the other end and I kept on pulling. At last I could make out Kennedy dimly mounting the ladder. The weight was the unconscious body of Elaine which he steadied as he mounted. I tugged harder and he slowly came up. Together, at last, the policeman and I reached down and pulled them out. We placed Elaine on the cellar floor, as comfortably as was possible, and the policeman began his first-aid motions for resuscitation. "No--no," cried Kennedy, "Not here--take her up where the air is fresher." With his revolver still drawn to overawe the prisoner, the policeman forced him to aid us in carrying her up the rickety flight of cellar steps. Kennedy followed quickly, unscrewing the oxygen helmet as he went. In the deserted living room we deposited our senseless burden, while Kennedy, the helmet off now, bent over her. "Quick--quick!" he cried to the officer, "An ambulance!" "But the prisoner," the policeman indicated. "Hurry--hurry--I'll take care of him," urged Craig, seizing the policeman's pistol and thrusting it into his pocket. "Walter--help me." He was trying the ordinary methods of resuscitation. Meanwhile the officer had hurried out, seeking the nearest telephone, while we worked madly to bring Elaine back. Again and again Kennedy bent and outstretched her arms, trying to induce respiration. So busy was I that for the moment I forgot our prisoner. But Dan had seen his chance. Noiselessly he picked up the old chair in the room and with it raised was approaching Kennedy to knock him out. Before I knew it myself, Kennedy had heard him. With a half instinctive motion, he drew the revolver from his pocket and, almost before I could see it, had shot the man. Without a word he returned the gun to his pocket and again bent over Elaine, without so much as a look at the crook who sank to the floor, dropping the chair from his nerveless hands. Already the policeman had got an ambulance which was now tearing along to us. Frantically Kennedy was working. A moment he paused and looked at me--hopeless. Just then, outside, we could hear the ambulance, and a doctor and two attendants hurried up to the door. Without a word the doctor seemed to appreciate the gravity of the case. He finished his examination and shook his head. "There is no hope--no hope," he said slowly. Kennedy merely stared at him. But the rest of us instinctively removed our hats. Kennedy gazed at Elaine, overcome. Was this the end? It was not many minutes later that Kennedy had Elaine in the little sitting room off the laboratory, having taken her there in the ambulance, with the doctor and two attendants. Elaine's body had been placed on a couch, covered by a blanket, and the shades were drawn. The light fell on her pale face. There was something incongruous about death and the vast collection of scientific apparatus, a ghastly mocking of humanity. How futile was it all in the presence of the great destroyer? Aunt Josephine had arrived, stunned, and a moment later, Perry Bennett. As I looked at the sorrowful party, Aunt Josephine rose slowly from her position on her knees where she had been weeping silently beside Elaine, and pressed her hands over her eyes, with every indication of faintness. Before any of us could do anything, she had staggered into the laboratory itself, Bennett and I following quickly. There I was busy for some time getting restoratives. Meanwhile Kennedy, beside the couch, with an air of desperate determination, turned away and opened a cabinet. From it he took a large coil and attached it to a storage battery, dragging the peculiar apparatus near Elaine's couch. To an electric light socket, Craig attached wires. The doctor watched him in silent wonder. "Doctor," he asked slowly as he worked, "do you know of Professor Leduc of the Nantes Ecole de Medicin?" "Why--yes," answered the doctor, "but what of him?" "Then you know of his method of electrical resuscitation." "Yes--but--" He paused, looking apprehensively at Kennedy. Craig paid no attention to his fears, but approaching the couch on which Elaine lay, applied the electrodes. "You see," he explained, with forced calmness, "I apply the anode here--the cathode there." The ambulance surgeon looked on excitedly, as Craig turned on the current, applying it to the back of the neck and to the spine. For some minutes the machine worked. Then the young doctor's eyes began to bulge. "My heavens!" he cried under his breath. "Look!" Elaine's chest had slowly risen and fallen. Kennedy, his attention riveted on his work, applied himself with redoubled efforts. The young doctor looked on with increased wonder. "Look! The color in her face! See her lips!" he cried. At last her eyes slowly fluttered open--then closed. Would the machine succeed? Or was it just the galvanic effect of the current? The doctor noticed it and quickly placed his ear to her heart. His face was a study in astonishment. The minutes sped fast. To us outside, who had no idea what was transpiring in the other room, the minutes were leaden-feeted. Aunt Josephine, weak but now herself again, was sitting nervously. Just then the door opened. I shall never forget the look on the young ambulance surgeon's face, as he murmured under his breath, "Come here--the age of miracles is not passed--look!" Raising his finger to indicate that we were to make no noise, he led us into the other room. Kennedy was bending over the couch. Elaine, her eyes open, now, was gazing up at him, and a wan smile flitted over her beautiful face. Kennedy had taken her hand, and as he heard us enter, turned half way to us, while we stared in blank wonder from Elaine to the weird and complicated electrical apparatus. "It is the life-current," he said simply, patting the Leduc apparatus with his other hand. CHAPTER XI THE HOUR OF THREE With the ominous forefinger of his Clutching Hand extended, the master criminal emphasized his instructions to his minions. "Perry Bennett, her lawyer, is in favor again with Elaine Dodge," he was saying. "She and Kennedy are on the outs even yet. But they may become reconciled. Then she'll have that fellow on our trail again. Before that happens, we must 'get' her--see?" It was in the latest headquarters to which Craig had chased the criminal, in one of the toughest parts of the old Greenwich village, on the west side of New York, not far from the river front. They were all seated in a fairly large but dingy old room, in which were several chairs, a rickety table and, against the wall, a roll-top desk on the top of which was a telephone. Several crooks of the gang were sitting about, smoking. "Now," went on Clutching Hand, "I want you, Spike, to follow them. See what they do--where they go. It's her birthday. Something's bound to occur that will give you a lead. All you've got to do is to use your head. Get me?" Spike rose, nodded, picked up his hat and coat and squirmed out on his mission, like the snake that he was. . . . . . . . . It was, as Clutching Hand had said, Elaine's birthday. She had received many callers and congratulations, innumerable costly and beautiful tokens of remembrance from her countless friends and admirers. In the conservatory of the Dodge house Elaine, Aunt Josephine, and Susie Martin were sitting discussing not only the happy occasion, but, more, the many strange events of the past few weeks. "Well," cried a familiar voice behind them. "What would a certain blonde young lady accept as a birthday present from her family lawyer?" All three turned in surprise. "Oh, Mr. Bennett," cried Elaine. "How you startled us!" He laughed and repeated his question, adopting the tone that he had once used in the days when he had been more in favor with the pretty heiress, before the advent of Kennedy. Elaine hesitated. She was thinking not so much of his words as of Kennedy. To them all, however, it seemed that she was unable to make up her mind what, in the wealth of her luxury, she would like. Susie Martin had been wondering whether, now that Bennett was here, she were not de trop, and she looked at her wrist watch mechanically. As she did so, an idea occurred to her. "Why not one of these?" she cried impulsively, indicating the watch. "Father has some beauties at the shop." "Oh, good," exclaimed Elaine, "how sweet!" She welcomed the suggestion, for she had been thinking that perhaps Bennett might be hinting too seriously at a solitaire. "So that strikes your fancy?" he asked. "Then let's all go to the shop. Miss Martin will personally conduct the tour, and we shall have our pick of the finest stock." A moment later the three young people went out and were quickly whirled off down the Avenue in the Dodge town car. It was too gay a party to notice a sinister figure following them in a cab. But as they entered the fashionable jewelry shop, Spike, who had alighted, walked slowly down the street. Chatting with animation, the three moved over to the watch counter, while the crook, with a determination not to risk missing anything, entered the shop door, too. "Mr. Thomas," asked Susie as her father's clerk bowed to them, "please show Miss Dodge the wrist watches father was telling about." With another deferential bow, the clerk hastened to display a case of watches and they bent over them. As each new watch was pointed out, Elaine was delighted. Unobserved, the crook walked over near enough to hear what was going on. At last, with much banter and yet care, Elaine selected one that was indeed a beauty and was about to snap it on her dainty wrist, when the clerk interrupted. "I beg pardon," he suggested, "but I'd advise you to leave it to be regulated, if you please." "Yes, indeed," chimed in Susie. "Father always advises that." Reluctantly, Elaine handed it over to the clerk. "Oh, thank you, ever so much, Mr. Bennett," she said as he unobtrusively paid for the watch and gave the address to which it was to be sent when ready. A moment later they went out and entered the car again. As they did so, Spike, who had been looking various things in the next case over as if undecided, came up to the watch counter. "I'm making a present," he remarked confidentially to the clerk. "How about those bracelet watches?" The clerk pulled out some of the cheaper ones. "No," he said thoughtfully, pointing out a tray in the show case, "something like those." He ended by picking out one identically like that which Elaine had selected, and started to pay for it. "Better have it regulated," repeated the clerk. "No," he objected hastily, shaking his head and paying the money quickly. "It's a present--and I want it tonight." He took the watch and left the store hurriedly. . . . . . . . . In the laboratory, Kennedy was working over an oblong oak box, perhaps eighteen inches in length and half as high. In the box I could see, besides other apparatus, two good sized spools of fine wire. "What's all that?" I asked inquisitively. "Another of the new instruments that scientific detectives use," he responded, scarcely looking up, "a little magnetic wizard, the telegraphone." "Which is?" I prompted. "Something we detectives might use to take down and 'can' telephone and other conversations. When it is attached properly to a telephone, it records everything that is said over the wire." "How does it work?" I asked, much mystified. "Well, it is based on an entirely new principle, in every way different from the phonograph," he explained. "As you can see there are no discs or cylinders, but these spools of extremely fine steel wire. The record is not made mechanically on a cylinder, but electromagnetically on this wire." "How?" I asked, almost incredulously. "To put it briefly," he went on, "small portions of magnetism, as it were, are imparted to fractions of the steel wire as it passes between two carbon electric magnets. Each impression represents a sound wave. There is no apparent difference in the wire, yet each particle of steel undergoes an electromagnetic transformation by which the sound is indelibly imprinted on it." "Then you scrape the wire, just as you shave records to use it over again?" I suggested. "No," he replied. "You pass a magnet over it and the magnet automatically erases the record. Rust has no effect. The record lasts as long as steel lasts." Craig continued to tinker tantalizingly with the machine which had been invented by a Dane, Valdemar Poulsen. He had scarcely finished testing out the telegraphone, when the laboratory door opened and a clean-cut young man entered. Kennedy, I knew, had found that the routine work of the Clutching Hand case was beyond his limited time and had retained this young man, Raymond Chase, to attend to that. Chase was a young detective whom Craig had employed on shadowing jobs and as a stool pigeon on other cases, and we had all the confidence in the world in him. Just now what worried Craig was the situation with Elaine, and I fancied that he had given Chase some commission in connection with that. "I've got it, Mr. Kennedy," greeted Chase with quiet modesty. "Good," responded Craig heartily. "I knew you would." "Got what?" I asked a moment later. Kennedy nodded for Chase to answer. "I've located the new residence of Flirty Florrie," he replied. I saw what Kennedy was after at once. Flirty Florrie and Dan the Dude had caused the quarrel between himself and Elaine. Dan the Dude was dead. But Flirty Florrie might be forced to explain it. "That's fine," he added, exultingly. "Now, I'll clear that thing up." He took a hasty step to the telephone, put his hand on the receiver and was about to take it off the hook. Then he paused, and I saw his face working. The wound Elaine had given his feelings was deep. It had not yet quite healed. Finally, his pride, for Kennedy's was a highly sensitive nature, got the better of him. "No," he said, half to himself, "not--yet." Elaine had returned home. Alone, her thoughts naturally went back to what had happened recently to interrupt a friendship which had been the sweetest in her life. "There MUST be some mistake," she murmured pensively to herself, thinking of the photograph Flirty had given her. "Oh, why did I send him away? Why didn't I believe him?" Then she thought of what had happened, of how she had been seized by Dan the Dude in the deserted house, of how the noxious gas had overcome her. They had told her of how Craig had risked his life to save her, how she had been brought home, still only half alive, after his almost miraculous work with the new electric machine. There was his picture. She had not taken that away. As she looked at it, a wave of feeling came over her. Mechanically, she put out her hand to the telephone. She was about to take off the receiver, when something seemed to stay her hand. She wanted him to come to her. And, if either of them had called the other just then, they would have probably crossed wires. Of such stuff are the quarrels of lovers. Craig's eye fell on the telegraphone, and an idea seemed to occur to him. "Walter, you and Chase bring that thing along," he said a moment later. He paused long enough to take a badge from the drawer of a cabinet, and went out. We followed him, lugging the telegraphone. At last we came to the apartment house at which Chase had located the woman. "There it is," he pointed out, as I gave a groan of relief, for the telegraphone was getting like lead. Kennedy nodded and drew from his pocket the badge I had seen him take from the cabinet. "Now, Chase," he directed, "you needn't go in with us. Walter and I can manage this, now. But don't get out of touch with me. I shall need you any moment--certainly tomorrow." I saw that the badge read, Telephone Inspector. "Walter," he smiled, "you're elected my helper." We entered the apartment house hall and found a Negro boy in charge of the switchboard. It took Craig only a moment to convince the boy that he was from the company and that complaints had been made by some anonymous tenant. "You look over that switchboard, Kelly," he winked at me, "while I test out the connections back here. There must be something wrong with the wires or there wouldn't be so many complaints." He had gone back of the switchboard and the Negro, still unsuspicious, watched without understanding what it was all about. "I don't know," Craig muttered finally for the benefit of the boy, "but I think I'll have to leave that tester after all. Say, if I put it here, you'll have to be careful not to let anyone meddle with it. If you do, there'll be the deuce to pay. See?" Kennedy had already started to fasten the telegraphone to the wires he had selected from the tangle. At last he finished and stood up. "Don't disturb it and don't let anyone else touch it," he ordered. "Better not tell anyone--that's the best way. I'll be back for it tomorrow probably." "Yas sah," nodded the boy, with a bow, as we went out. We returned to the laboratory, where there seemed to be nothing we could do now except wait for something to happen. Kennedy, however, employed the time by plunging into work, most of the time experimenting with a peculiar little coil to which ran the wires of an ordinary electric bell. Back in the new hang-out, the Clutching Hand was laying down the law to his lieutenants and heelers, when Spike at last entered. "Huh!" growled the master criminal, covering the fact that he was considerably relieved to see him at last, "where have YOU been? I've been off on a little job myself and got back." Spike apologized profusely. He had succeeded so easily that he had thought to take a little time to meet up with an old pal whom he ran across, just out of prison. "Yes sir," he replied hastily, "well, I went over to the Dodge house, and I saw them finally. Followed them into a jewelry shop. That lawyer bought her a wrist watch. So I bought one just like it. I thought perhaps we could--" "Give it to me," growled Clutching Hand, seizing it the moment Slim displayed it. "And don't butt in--see?" From the capacious desk, the master criminal pulled a set of small drills, vices, and other jeweler's tools and placed them on the table. "All right," he relented. "Now, do you see what I have just thought of--no? This is just the chance. Look at me." The heelers gathered around him, peering curiously at their master as he worked at the bracelet watch. Carefully he plied his hands to the job, regardless of time. "There," he exclaimed at last, holding the watch up where they could all see it. "See!" He pulled out the stem to set the hands and slowly twisted it between his thumb and finger. He turned the hands until they were almost at the point of three o'clock. Then he held the watch out where all could see it. They bent closer and strained their eyes at the little second hand ticking away merrily. As the minute hand touched three, from the back of the case, as if from the casing itself, a little needle, perhaps a quarter of an inch, jumped out. It seemed to come from what looked like merely a small inset in the decorations. "You see what will happen at the hour of three?" he asked. No one said a word, as he held up a vial which he had drawn from his pocket. On it they could read the label, "Ricinus." "One of the most powerful poisons in the world!" he exclaimed. "Enough here to kill a regiment!" They fairly gasped and looked at it with horror, exchanging glances. Then they looked at him in awe. There was no wonder that Clutching Hand kept them in line, once he had a crook in his power. Opening the vial carefully, he dipped in a thin piece of glass and placed a tiny drop in a receptacle back of the needle and on the needle itself. Altogether it savored of the ancient days of the Borgias with their weird poisoned rings. Then he dropped the vial back into his pocket, pressed a spring, and the needle went back into its unsuspected hiding place. "I've set my invention to go off at three o'clock," he concluded. "Tomorrow forenoon, it will have to be delivered early--and I don't believe we shall be troubled any longer by Miss Elaine Dodge," he added venomously. Even the crooks, hardened as they were, could only gasp. Calmly he wrapped up the apparently innocent engine of destruction and handed it to Spike. "See that she gets it in time," he said merely. "I will, sir," answered Spike, taking it gingerly. Flirty Florrie had returned that afternoon, late, from some expedition on which she had been sent. Rankling in her heart yet was the death of her lover, Dan the Dude. For, although in her sphere of crookdom they are neither married nor given in marriage, still there is a brand of loyalty that higher circles might well copy. Sacred to the memory of the dead, however, she had one desire--revenge. Thus when she arrived home, she went to the telephone to report and called a number, 4494 Greenwich. "Hello, Chief," she repeated. "This is Flirty. Have you done anything yet in the little matter we talked about?" "Say--be careful of names--over the wire," came a growl. "You know--what I mean." "Yes. The trick will be pulled off at three o'clock." "Good!" she exclaimed. "Good-bye and thank you." With his well-known caution Clutching Hand did not even betray names over the telephone if he could help it. Flirty hung up the receiver with satisfaction. The manes of the departed Dan might soon rest in peace! The next day, early in the forenoon, a young man with a small package carefully done up came to the Dodge house. "From Martin's, the jeweler's, for Miss Dodge," he said to Jennings at the door. Elaine and Aunt Josephine were sitting in the library when Jennings announced him. "Oh, it's my watch," cried Elaine. "Show him in." Jennings bowed and did so. Spike entered, and handed the package to Elaine, who signed her name excitedly and opened it. "Just look, Auntie," she exclaimed. "Isn't it stunning?" "Very pretty," commented Aunt Josephine. Elaine put the watch on her wrist and admired it. "Is it all right?" asked Spike. "Yes, yes," answered Elaine. "You may go." He went out, while Elaine gazed rapturously at the new trinket while it ticked off the minutes--this devilish instrument. Early the same morning Kennedy went around again to the apartment house and, cautious not to be seen by Flirty, recovered the telegraphone. Together we carried it to the laboratory. There he set up a little instrument that looked like a wedge sitting up on end, in the face of which was a dial. Through it he began to run the wire from the spools, and, taking an earpiece, put another on my head over my ears. "You see," he explained, "the principle on which this is based is that a mass of tempered steel may be impressed with and will retain magnetic fluxes varying in density and in sign in adjacent portions of itself--little deposits of magnetic impulse. "When the telegraphone is attached to the telephone wire, the currents that affect the receiver also affect the coils of the telegraphone and the disturbance set up causes a deposit of magnetic impulse on the steel wire. "When the wire is again run past these coils with a receiver such as I have here in circuit with the coils, a light vibration is set up in the receiver diaphragm which reproduces the sound of speech." He turned a switch and we listened eagerly. There was no grating and thumping, as he controlled the running off of the wire. We were listening to everything that had been said over the telephone during the time since we left the machine. First came several calls from people with bills and she put them off most adroitly. Then we heard a call that caused Kennedy to look at me quickly, stop the machine and start at that point over again. "That's what I wanted," he said as we listened in: "Give me 4494 Greenwich." "Hello." "Hello, Chief. This is Flirty. Have you done anything yet in the little matter we talked about? "Say--be careful of names--over the wire." "You know--what I mean." "Yes, the trick will be pulled off at three o'clock. "Good! Good-bye and thank you!" "Good-bye." Kennedy stopped the machine and I looked at him blankly. "She called Greenwich 4494 and was told that the trick would be pulled off at three o'clock today," he ruminated. "What trick?" I asked. He shook his head. "I don't know. That is what we must find out. I hadn't expected a tip like that. What I wanted was to find out how to get at the Clutching Hand." He paused and considered a minute, then moved to the telephone. "There's only one thing to do and that's to follow out my original scheme," he said energetically. "Information, please." "Where is Greenwich 4494?" he asked a moment later. The minutes passed. "Thank you," he cried, writing down on a pad an address over on the west side near the river front. Then turning to me he explained, "Walter, we've got him at last!" Craig rose and put on his hat and coat, thrusting a pair of opera glasses into his pocket, in case we should want to observe the place at a distance. I followed him excitedly. The trail was hot. Kennedy and I came at last to the place on the West Side where the crooked streets curved off. Instead of keeping on until he came to the place we sought, he turned and quickly slipped behind the shelter of a fence. There was a broken board in the fence and he bent down, gazing through with the opera glasses. Across the lot was the new headquarters, a somewhat dilapidated old-fashioned brick house of several generations back. Through the glass we could see an evil-countenanced crook slinking along. He mounted the steps and rang the bell, turning as he waited. From a small aperture in the doorway looked out another face, equally evil. Under cover, the crook made the sign of the clutching hand twice and was admitted. "That's the place, all right," whispered Kennedy with satisfaction. He hurried to a telephone booth where he called several numbers. Then we returned to the laboratory, while Kennedy quickly figured out a plan of action. I knew Chase was expected there soon. From the table he picked up the small coil over which I had seen him working, and attached it to the bell and some batteries. He replaced it on the table, while I watched curiously. "A selenium cell," he explained. "Only when light falls on it does it become a good conductor of electricity. Then the bell will ring." Just before making the connection he placed his hat over the cell. Then he lifted the hat. The light fell on it and the bell rang. He replaced the hat and the bell stopped. It was evidently a very peculiar property of the substance, selenium. Just then there came a knock at the door. I opened it. "Hello, Chase," greeted Kennedy. "Well, I've found the new headquarters all right,--over on the west side." Kennedy picked up the selenium cell and a long coil of fine wire which he placed in a bag. Then he took another bag already packed and, shifting them between us, we hurried down town. Near the vacant lot, back of the new headquarters, was an old broken down house. Through the rear of it we entered. I started back in astonishment as we found eight or ten policemen already there. Kennedy had ordered them to be ready for a raid and they had dropped in one at a time without attracting attention. "Well, men," he greeted them, "I see you found the place all right. Now, in a little while Jameson will return with two wires. Attach them to the bell which I will leave here. When it rings, raid the house. Jameson will lead you to it. Come, Walter," he added, picking up the bags. Ten minutes later, outside the new headquarters, a crouched up figure, carrying a small package, his face hidden under his soft hat and up-turned collar, could have been seen slinking along until he came to the steps. He went up and peered through the aperture of the doorway. Then he rang the bell. Twice he raised his hand and clenched it in the now familiar clutch. A crook inside saw it through the aperture and opened the door. The figure entered and almost before the door was shut tied the masking handkerchief over his face, which hid his identity from even the most trusted lieutenants. The crook bowed to the chief, who, with a growl as though of recognition, moved down the hall. As he came to the room from which Spike had been sent on his mission, the same group was seated in the thick tobacco smoke. "You fellows clear out," he growled. "I want to be alone." "The old man is peeved," muttered one, outside, as they left. The weird figure gazed about the room to be sure that he was alone. When Craig and I left the police he had given me most minute instructions which I was now following out to the letter. "I want you to hide there," he said, indicating a barrel back of the house next to the hang-out. "When you see a wire come down from the headquarters, take it and carry it across the lot to the old house. Attach it to the bell; then wait. When it rings, raid the Clutching Hand joint." I waited what seemed to be an interminable time back of the barrel and it is no joke hiding back of a barrel. Finally, however, I saw a coil of fine wire drop rapidly to the ground from a window somewhere above. I made a dash for it, as though I were trying to rush the trenches, seized my prize and without looking back to see where it came from, beat a hasty retreat. Around the lot I skirted, until at last I reached the place where the police were waiting. Quickly we fastened the wire to the bell. We waited. Not a sound from the bell. Up in the room in the joint, the hunched up figure stood by the table. He had taken his hat off and placed it carefully on the table, and was now waiting. Suddenly a noise at the door startled him. He listened. Then he backed away from the door and drew a revolver. As the door slowly opened there entered another figure, hat over his eyes, collar up, a handkerchief over his face, the exact counterpart of the first! For a moment each glared at the other. "Hands up!" shouted the first figure, hoarsely, moving the gun and closing the door, with his foot. The newcomer slowly raised his crooked hand over his head, as the blue steel revolver gaped menacingly. With a quick movement of the other hand, the first sinister figure removed the handkerchief from his face and straightened up. It was Kennedy! "Come over to the center of the room," ordered Kennedy. Clutching Hand obeyed, eyeing his captor closely. "Now lay your weapons on the table." He tossed down a revolver. The two still faced each other. "Take off that handkerchief!" It was a tense moment. Slowly Clutching Hand started to obey. Then he stopped. Kennedy was just about to thunder, "Go on," when the criminal calmly remarked, "You've got ME all right, Kennedy, but in twenty minutes Elaine Dodge will be dead!" He said it with a nonchalance that might have deceived anyone less astute than Kennedy. Suddenly there flashed over Craig the words: "THE TRICK WILL BE PULLED OFF AT THREE O'CLOCK!" There was no fake about that. Kennedy frowned. If he killed Clutching Hand, Elaine would die. If he fought, he must either kill or be killed. If he handed Clutching Hand over, all he had to do was to keep quiet. He looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes of three. What a situation! He had caught a prisoner he dared not molest--yet. "What do you mean--tell me?" demanded Kennedy with forced calm. "Yesterday Mr. Bennett bought a wrist watch for Elaine," the Clutching Hand said quietly. "They left it to be regulated. One of my men bought one just like it. Mine was delivered to her today." "A likely story!" doubted Kennedy. For answer, the Clutching Hand pointed to the telephone. Kennedy reached for it. "One thing," interrupted the Clutching Hand. "You are a man of honor." "Yes--yes. Go on." "If I tell you what to do, you must promise to give me a fighting chance." "Yes, yes." "Call up Aunt Josephine, then. Do just as I say." Covering Clutching Hand, Kennedy called a number. "This is Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Dodge. Did Elaine receive a present of a wrist watch from Mr. Bennett?" "Yes," she replied, "for her birthday. It came this forenoon." Kennedy hung up the receiver and faced Clutching Hand puzzled as the latter said, "Call up Martin, the jeweler." Again Kennedy obeyed. "Has the watch purchased for Miss Elaine Dodge been delivered?" he asked the clerk. "No," came back the reply, "the watch Mr. Bennett bought is still here being regulated." Kennedy hung up the receiver. He was stunned. "The watch will cause her death at three o'clock," said the Clutching Hand. "Swear to leave here without discovering my identity and I will tell you how. You can save her!" A moment Kennedy thought. Here was a quandary. "No," he shouted, seizing the telephone. Before Kennedy could move, Clutching Hand had pulled the telephone wires with almost superhuman strength from the junction box. "In that watch," he hissed, "I have set a poisoned needle in a spring that will be released and will plunge it into her arm at exactly three o'clock. On the needle is ricinus!" Craig advanced, furious. As he did so, Clutching Hand pointed calmly to the clock. It was twenty minutes of three! With a mental struggle, Kennedy controlled his loathing of the creature before him. "All right--but you'll hear from me--sooner than you suspect," he shouted, starting for the door. Then he came back and lifted his hat, hiding as much as possible the selenium cell, letting the light fall on it. "Only Elaine's life has saved you." With a last threat he dashed out. He hailed a cab, returning from some steamship wharves not far away. "Quick!" he ordered, giving the Dodge address on Fifth Avenue. Minute after minute the police and I waited. Was anything wrong? Where was Craig? Just then a tremor grew into a tinkle, then came the strong burr of the bell. Kennedy needed us. With a shout of encouragement to the men I dashed out and over to the old house. Meanwhile Clutching Hand himself had approached the table to recover his weapon and had noticed the queer little selenium cell. He picked it up and for the first time saw the wire leading out. "The deuce!" he cried. "He's planned to get me anyhow!" Clutching Hand rushed to the door--then stopped short. Outside he could hear the police and myself. We had shot the lock on the outside and were already inside. Clutching Hand slammed shut his door and pulled down over it a heavy wooden bar. A few steps took him to the window. There were police in the back yard, too. He was surrounded. But he did not hurry. He knew what to do with every second. At the desk he paused and took out a piece of cardboard. Then with a heavy black marking pencil, he calmly printed on it, while we battered at the barricaded door, a few short feet away. He laid the sign on the desk, then on another piece of cardboard, drew crudely a hand with the index finger, pointing. This he placed on a chair, indicating the desk. Just as the swaying and bulging door gave way, Clutching Hand gave the desk a pull. It opened up--his getaway. He closed it with a sardonic smile in our direction, just before the door crashed in. We looked about. There was not a soul in the room, nothing but the selenium cell, the chairs, the desk. "Look!" I cried catching sight of the index finger, and going over to the desk. We rolled back the top. There on the flat top was a sign: Dear Blockheads: Kennedy and I couldn't wait. Yours as ever, Then came that mysterious sign of the Clutching Hand. We hunted over the rooms, but could find nothing that showed a clue. Where was Clutching Hand? Where was Kennedy? In the next house Clutching Hand had literally come out of an upright piano into the room corresponding to that he had left. Hastily he threw off his handkerchief, slouch hat, old coat and trousers. A neat striped pair of trousers replaced the old, frayed and baggy pair. A new shirt, then a sporty vest and a frock coat followed. As he put the finishing touches on, he looked for all the world like a bewhiskered foreigner. With a silk hat and stick, he surveyed himself, straightening his tie. At the door of the new headquarters, a few seconds later, I stood with the police. "Not a sign of him anywhere," growled one of the officers. Nor was there. Down the street we could see only a straight well-dressed, distinguished looking man who had evidently walked down to the docks to see a friend off, perhaps. Elaine was sitting in the library reading when Aunt Josephine turned to her. "What time is it, dear?" she asked. Elaine glanced at her pretty new trinket. "Nearly three, Auntie--a couple of minutes," she said. Just then there came the sound of feet running madly down the hall way. They jumped up, startled. Kennedy, his coat flying, and hat jammed over his eyes, had almost bowled over poor Jennings in his mad race down the hall. "Well," demanded Elaine haughtily, "what's--" Before she knew what was going on, Craig hurried up to her and literally ripped the watch off her wrist, breaking the beautiful bracelet. He held it up, gingerly. Elaine was speechless. Was this Kennedy? Was he possessed by such an inordinate jealousy of Bennett? As he held the watch up, the second hand ticked around and the minute hand passed the meridian of the hour. A viciously sharp little needle gleamed out--then sprang back into the filigree work again. "Well," she gasped again, "what's the occasion of THIS?" Craig gazed at Elaine in silence. Should he defend his rudeness, if she did not understand? She stamped her foot, and repeated the question a third time. "What do you mean, sir, by such conduct?" Slowly he bowed. "I just don't like the kind of birthday presents you receive," he said, turning on his heel. "Good afternoon." CHAPTER XII THE BLOOD CRYSTALS "On your right is the residence of Miss Elaine Dodge, the heiress, who is pursuing the famous master criminal known as the Clutching Hand." The barker had been grandiloquently pointing out the residences of noted New Yorkers as the big sightseeing car lumbered along through the streets. The car was filled with people and he plied his megaphone as though he were on intimate terms with all the city's notables. No one paid any attention to the unobtrusive Chinaman who sat inconspicuously in the middle of the car. He was Mr. Long Sin, but no one saw anything particularly mysterious about an oriental visitor more or less viewing New York City. Long was of the mandarin type, with drooping mustache, well dressed in American clothes, and conforming to the new customs of an occidentalized China. Anyone, however, who had been watching Long Sin would have seen that he showed much interest whenever any of the wealthy residents of the city were mentioned. The name of Elaine Dodge seemed particularly to strike him. He listened with subtle interest to what the barker said and looked keenly at the Dodge house. The sight-seeing car had passed the house, when he rose slowly and motioned that he wanted to be let off. The car stopped, he alighted and slowly rambled away, evidently marvelling greatly at the strange customs of these uncouth westerners. Elaine was going out, when she met Perry Bennett almost on the steps of the house. "I've brought you the watch," remarked Bennett; "thought I'd like to give it to you myself." He displayed the watch which he himself had bought a couple of days before for her birthday. He had called for it himself at the jeweller's where it had now been regulated. "Oh, thank you," exclaimed Elaine. "Won't you come in?" They had scarcely greeted each other, when Long Sin strolled along. Neither of them, however, had time to notice the quiet Chinaman who passed the house, looking at Elaine sharply out of the corner of his eye. They entered and Long disappeared down the street. "Isn't it a beauty?" cried Elaine, holding it out from her, as they entered the library and examining it with great appreciation. "And, oh, do you know, the strangest thing happened yesterday? Sometimes Mr. Kennedy acts too queerly for anything." She related how Craig had burst in on her and Aunt Josephine and had almost torn the other watch off her wrist. "Another watch?" repeated Bennett, amazed. "It must have been a mistake. Kennedy is crazy." "I don't understand it, myself," murmured Elaine. Long Sin had continued his placid way, revolving some dark and devious plan beneath his impassive Oriental countenance. He was no ordinary personage. In fact he was astute enough to have no record. He left that to his tools. This remarkable criminal had established himself in a hired apartment downtown. It was furnished in rather elegant American style, but he had added to it some most valuable Oriental curios which gave it a fascinating appearance. Long Sin, now in rich Oriental costume, was reclining on a divan smoking a strange looking pipe and playing with two pet white rats. Each white rat had a gold band around his leg, to which was connected a gold chain about a foot in length, and the chains ended in rings which were slipped over Long's little fingers. Ordinarily, he carried the pets up the capacious sleeve of each arm. A servant, also in native costume, entered and bowed deferentially. "A Miss Mary Carson," she lisped in soft English. "Let the lady enter," waved Long Sin, with a smile of subtle satisfaction. The girl bowed again and silently left the room, returning with a handsome, very well dressed white woman. It would be difficult to analyze just what the fascination was that Long Sin exercised over Mary Carson. But as the servant left the room, Mary bowed almost as deferentially as the little Chinese girl. Long merely nodded in reply. After a moment, he slowly rose and took from a drawer a newspaper clipping. Without a word, he handed it to Mary. She looked at it with interest, as one woman always does at the picture of another pretty woman. It was a newspaper cut of Elaine, under which was: ELAINE DODGE, THE HEIRESS, WHOSE BATTLE WITH THE CLUTCHING HAND IS CREATING WORLD WIDE INTEREST. "Now," he began, at last, breaking the silence, "I'll show you just what I want you to do." He went over to the wall and took down a curious long Chinese knife from a scabbard which hung there conspicuously. "See that?" he added, holding it up. Before she could say a word, he had plunged the knife, apparently, into his own breast. "Oh!" cried Mary, startled. She expected to see him fall. But nothing happened. Long Sin laughed. It was an Oriental trick knife in which the blade telescoped into the handle. "Look at it," he added, handing it to her. Long Sin took a bladder of water from a table nearby and concealed it under his coat. "Now, you stab me," he directed. Mary hesitated. But he repeated the command and she plunged the knife gingerly at him. It telescoped. He made her try it over and she stabbed more resolutely. The water from the bladder poured out. "Good!" cried Long Sin, much pleased. "Now," he added, seating himself beside her, "I want you to lure Elaine here." Mary looked at him inquiringly as he returned the knife to its scabbard on the wall. "Remember where it is," he continued. "Now, if you will come into the other room I will show you how to get her." I had been amusing myself by rigging up a contrivance by which I could make it possible to see through or rather over, a door. The idea had been suggested to me by the cystoscope which physicians use in order to look down one's throat, and I had calculated that by using three mirrors placed at proper angles, I could easily reflect rays down to the level of my eye. Kennedy, who had been busy in the other end of the laboratory, happened to look over in my direction. "What's the big idea, Walter?" he asked. It was, I admit, a rather cumbersome and clumsy affair. "Well, you see, Craig," I explained, "you put the top mirror through the transom of a door and--" Kennedy interrupted with a hearty burst of laughter. "But suppose the door has no transom?" he asked, pointing to our own door. I scratched my head, thoughtfully. I had assumed that the door would have a transom. A moment later, Craig went to the cabinet and drew out a tube about as big around as a putty blower and as long. "Now, here's what I call my detectascope," he remarked. "None of your mirrors for me." "I know," I said somewhat nettled, "but what can you see through that putty blower? A key hole is just as good." "Do you realize how little you can really see through a key hole?" he replied confidently. "Try it over there." I did and to tell the truth I could see merely a little part of the hall. Then Kennedy inserted the detectascope. "Look through that," he directed. I put my eye to the eye-piece and gazed through the bulging lens of the other end. I could see almost the whole hall. "That," he explained, "is what is known as a fish-eye lens--a lens that looks through an angle of some 180 degrees, almost twice that of the widest angle lens I know of." I said nothing, but tossed my own crude invention into the corner, while Craig went back to work. Elaine was playing with "Rusty" when Jennings brought in a card on which was engraved the name, "Miss Mary Carson," and underneath, in pencil, was written "Belgian Relief Committee." "How interesting," commented Elaine, rising and accompanying Jennings back into the drawing room. "I wonder what she wants. Very pleased to meet you, Miss Carson," she greeted her visitor. "You see, Miss Dodge," began Mary, "we're getting up this movement to help the Belgians and we have splendid backing. Just let me show you some of the names on our committee." She handed Elaine a list which read: BELGIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE Mrs. Warburton Fish Mrs. Hamilton Beekman Mrs. C. August Iselm Mrs. Belmont Rivington Mrs. Rupert Solvay. "I've just been sent to see if I cannot persuade you to join the committee and attend a meeting at Mrs. Rivington's," she went on. "Why, er," considered Elaine thoughtfully, "er--yes. It must be all right with such people in it." "Can you go with me now?" "Just as well as later," agreed Elaine. They went out together, and, as they were leaving the house a man who had been loitering outside looked at Elaine, then fixedly at her companion. No sooner had they gone than he sped off to a car waiting around the corner. In the dark depths was a sinister figure, the master criminal himself. The watcher had been an emissary of the Clutching Hand. "Chief," he whispered eagerly, "You know Adventuress Mary? Well, she's got Elaine Dodge in tow!" "The deuce!" cried Clutching Hand. "Then we must teach Mary Carson, or whoever she is working for, a lesson. No one shall interfere with our affairs. Follow them!" Elaine and Mary had gone downtown, talking animatedly, and walked down the avenue toward Mrs. Rivington's apartment. Meanwhile, Long Sin, still in his Chinese costume, was explaining to the servant just what he wished done, pointing out the dagger on the wall and replacing the bladder under his jacket. A box of opium was on the table, and he was giving most explicit directions. It was into such a web that Elaine was being unwittingly led by Mary. Entering the hallway of the apartment, Mary rang the bell. Long heard it. "Answer it," he directed the servant who hastened to do so, while Long glided like a serpent into a back room. The servant opened the door and Elaine and Mary entered. He closed the door and almost before they knew locked it and was gone into the back room. Elaine gazed about in trepidation. But before she could say anything, Mary, with a great show of surprise, exclaimed, "Why, I must have made a mistake. This isn't Mrs. Rivington's apartment. How stupid of me." They looked at each other a moment. Then each laughed nervously, as together they started to go out of the door. It was locked! Quickly they ran to another door. It was locked, also. Then they went to the windows. Behind the curtains they were barred and looked out on a blank brick wall in a little court. "Oh," cried Mary wringing her hands, stricken in mock panic, "oh, I'm so frightened. This may be the den of Chinese white slavers!" She had picked up some Chinese articles on a table, including the box that Long had left there. It had a peculiar odor. "Opium!" she whispered, showing it to Elaine. The two looked at each other, Elaine genuinely worried now. Just then, the Chinaman entered and stood a moment gazing at them. They turned and Elaine recoiled from him. Long bowed. "Oh sir," cried Mary, "We've made a mistake. Can't you tell us how to get out?" Long's only answer was to spread out his hands in polite deprecation and shrug his suave shoulders. "No speke Englis," he said, gliding out again from the room and closing the door. Elaine and Mary looked about in despair. "What shall we do?" asked Elaine. Mary said nothing, but with a hasty glance discovered on the wall the knife which Long had already told her about. She took it from its scabbard. As she did so the Chinaman returned with a tray on which were queer drinks and glasses. At the sight of Mary with the knife he scowled blackly, laid the tray down, and took a few steps in her direction. She brandished the knife threateningly, then, as if her nerve failed her, fainted letting the knife fall carefully on the floor so that it struck on the handle and not on the blade. Long quickly caught her as she fainted and carried her out of the room, banging shut the door. Elaine followed in a moment, loyally, to protect her supposed friend, but found that the door had a snap lock on the other side. She looked about wildly and in a moment Long reappeared. As he advanced slowly and insinuatingly, she drew back, pleading. But her words fell on seemingly deaf ears. She had picked up the knife which Mary had dropped and when at last Long maneuvred to get her cornered and was about to seize her, she nerved herself up and stabbed him resolutely. Long staggered back--and fell. As he did so, he pressed the bladder which he had already placed under his coat. A dark red fluid, like blood, oozed out all over him and ran in a pool on the floor. Elaine, too horror-stricken at what had happened even to scream, dropped the knife and bent over him. He did not move. She staggered back and ran through the now open door. As she did so, Long seemed suddenly to come to life. He raised himself and looked after her, then with a subtle smile sank back into his former assumed posture on the floor. When Elaine reached the other room, she found Mary there with the Chinese servant who was giving her a glass of water. At the sight of her, the servant paused, then withdrew into another room further back. Mary, now apparently recovering from her faintness, smiled wanly at Elaine. "It's all right," she murmured. "He is a Chinese prince who thought we were callers." At the reassuring nod of Mary toward the front room, Elaine was overcome. "I--I killed him!" she managed to gasp. "What?" cried Mary, starting up and trembling violently. "You killed him?" "Yes," sobbed Elaine, "he came at me--I had the knife--I struck at him--" The two girls ran into the other room. There Mary looked at the motionless body on the floor and recoiled, horrified. Elaine noticing some spots on her hands and seeing that they were stained by the blood of Long Sin, wiped the spots off on her hankerchief, dropping it on the floor. "Ugh!" exclaimed a guttural voice behind them. It was the servant who had come in. Even his ordinarily impassive Oriental face could not conceal the horror and fear at the sight of his master lying on the floor in a pool of gore. Elaine was now more frightened than ever, if that were possible. "You--kill him--with knife?" insinuated the Chinese. Elaine was dumb. The servant did not wait for an answer, but hastily opened the hall door. To Elaine it seemed that something must be done quickly. A moment and all the house would be in uproar. Instead, he placed his finger on his lips. "Quick--no word," he said, leading the way to the hall door, "and--you must not leave that--it will be a clue," he added, picking up the bloody handkerchief and pressing it into Elaine's hand. They quickly ran out into the hall. "Go--quick!" he urged again, "and hide the handkerchief in the bag. Let no one see it!" He shut the door. As they hurried away, Elaine breathed a sigh of relief. "Why did he let us go, though?" she whispered, her head in a whirl. "I don't know," panted Mary, "but anyhow, thank heaven, we are out of it. Come," she added, taking Elaine's arm, "not a soul has seen us except the servant. Let us get away as quietly as we can." They had reached the street. Afraid to run, they hurried as fast as they could until they turned the first corner. Elaine looked back. No one was pursuing. "We must separate," added Mary. "Let us go different ways. I will see you later. Perhaps they will think some enemy has murdered him." They pressed each other's hands and parted. Meanwhile in the front room, Long Sin was on his feet again brushing himself off and mopping up the blood. "It worked very well, Sam," he said to the servant. They were conversing eagerly and laughing and did not hear a noise in the back room. A sinister figure had made its way by means of a fire-escape to a rear window that was not barred, and silently he had stolen in on them. Cat-like, he advanced, but instead of striking at them, he quietly took a seat in a chair close behind them, a magazine revolver in his hand. They turned at a slight noise and saw him. Genuine fright was now on their faces as they looked at him, open mouthed. "What's all this?" he growled. "I am known as the Clutching Hand. I allow no interferences with my affairs. Tell me what you are doing here with Elaine Dodge." Their beady almond eyes flashed fear. Clutching Hand moved menacingly. There was nothing for the astute Long Sin to do but to submit. Cowed by the well-known power of the master criminal, he took Clutching Hand into his confidence. With a low bow, Long Sin spread out his hands in surrender and submission. "I will tell you, honorable sir," he said at length. "Go on!" growled the criminal. Quickly Long rehearsed what had happened, from the moment the idea of blackmail had entered his head. "How about Mary Carson?" asked Clutching Hand. "I saw her here." Long gave a glance of almost superstitious dread at the man, as if he had an evil eye. "She will be back--is here now," he added, opening the door at a knock and admitting her. Adventuress Mary had hurried back to see that all was right. This time Mary was genuinely scared at the forbidding figure of which she had heard. "It is all right," pacified Long. "Henceforth we work with the honorable Clutching Hand." Clutching Hand continued to emphasize his demands on them, punctuating his sentences by flourishes of the gun as he gave them the signs and passwords which would enable them to work with his own emissaries. It was a strange initiation. At home at last, Elaine sank down into a deep library chair and stared straight ahead. She saw visions of arrest and trial, of the terrible electric chair with herself in it, bound, and of the giving of the fatal signal for turning on the current. Were such things as these going to happen to her, without Kennedy's help? Why had they quarreled? She buried her face in her hands and wept. Then she could stand it no longer. She had not taken off her street clothes. She rose and almost fled from the house. Kennedy and I were still in the laboratory when a knock sounded at the door. I went to the door and opened it. There stood Elaine Dodge. It was a complete surprise to Craig. There was silence between them for a moment and they merely looked at each other. Elaine was pale and woebegone. At last Kennedy took a quick step toward her and led her to a chair. Still he felt a sort of constraint. "What IS the matter?" he asked at length. She hesitated, then suddenly burst out, "Craig--I--I am--a murderess!" I have never seen such a look on Craig's face. I know he wanted to laugh and say, "YOU--a murderess?" yet he would not have offended even her self accusation for the world. He managed to do the right thing and say nothing. Then she poured forth the story substantially as I have set it down, but without the explanation which at that time was not known to any of us. "Oh," expostulated Craig, "there must be some mistake. It's impossible--impossible." "No," she asserted. "Look--here's my handkerchief all spotted with blood." She opened the bag and displayed the blood-spotted handkerchief. He took it and examined it carefully. "Elaine," he said earnestly, not at all displeased, I could see that something had come up that might blot out the past unfortunate misunderstanding, "there simply must be something wrong here. Leave this handkerchief with me. I'll do my best." There was still a little restraint between them. She was almost ready to beg his pardon, for all the coolness there had been between them, yet still hesitated. "Thank you," she said simply as she left the laboratory. Craig went to work abruptly without a word. On the laboratory table he placed his splendid microscope and several cases of slides as well as innumerable micro-photographs. He had been working for some time when he looked up. "Ever hear of Dr. Edward Reichert of the University of Pennsylvania and his wonderful discoveries of how blood crystals vary in different species?" he asked. I had not, but did not admit it. "Well," he went on, "there is a blood test so delicate that one might almost say that he could identify a criminal by the finger prints, so to speak, of his blood crystals. The hemoglobin or red coloring matter forms crystals and the variations of these crystals both in form and molecular construction are such that they set apart every species of animal from every other, and even the races of men--perhaps may even set apart individuals. Here, Walter, we have sample of human blood crystals." I looked through the microscope as he directed. There I could see the crystals sharply defined. "And here," he added, "are the crystals of the blood on Elaine's handkerchief." I looked again as he changed the slides. There was a marked difference and I looked up at him quickly. "It is dog's blood--not human blood," he said simply. I looked again at the two sets of slides. There could be no doubt that there was a plain difference. "Wonderful!" I exclaimed. "Yes--wonderful," he agreed, "but what's the game back of all this--that's the main question now." Long after Clutching Hand had left, Long Sin was giving instructions to his servant and Adventuress Mary just how he had had to change his plans as a result of the unexpected visit. "Very well," nodded Mary as she left him, "I will do as you say--trust me." It was not much later, then, that Elaine received a second visit from Mary. "Show her in, Jennings," she said to the butler nervously. Indeed, she felt that every eye must be upon her. Even Jennings would know of her guilt soon. Anxiously, therefore, Elaine looked at her visitor. "Do you know why the servant allowed us to leave the apartment?" whispered Mary with a glance about fearfully, as if the walls had ears. "No--why?" inquired Elaine anxiously. "He's a tong man who has been chosen to do away with the Prince. He followed me, and says you have done his work for him. If you will give him ten thousand dollars for expenses, he will attend to hiding the body." Here at least was a way out. "But do you think that is all right? Can he do it?" asked Elaine eagerly. "Do it? Why those tong men can do anything for money. Only one must be careful not to offend them." Mary was very convincing. "Yes, I suppose you are right," agreed Elaine, finally. "I had better do as you say. It is the safest way out of the trouble. Yes, I'll do it. I'll stop at the bank now and get the money." They rose and Mary preceded her, eager to get away from the house. At the door, however, Elaine asked her to wait while she ran back on some pretext. In the library she took off the receiver of the telephone and quickly called a number. Our telephone rang in the middle of our conversation on blood crystals and Kennedy himself answered it. It was Elaine asking Craig's advice. "They have offered to hush the thing up for ten thousand dollars," she said, in a muffled voice. She seemed bent on doing it and no amount of argument from him could stop her. She simply refused to accept the evidence of the blood crystals as better than what her own eyes told her she had seen and done. "Then wait for half an hour," he answered, without arguing further. "You can do that without exciting suspicion. Go with her to her hotel and hand her over the money." "All right--I'll do it," she agreed. "What is the hotel?" Craig wrote on a slip of paper what she told him--"Room 509, Hotel La Coste." "Good--I'm glad you called me. Count on me," he finished as he hung up the receiver. Hastily he threw on his street coat. "Go into the back room and get me that brace and bit, Walter," he asked. I did so. When I returned, I saw that he had placed the detectascope and some other stuff in a bag. He shoved in the brace and bit also. "Come on--hurry!" he urged. We must have made record time in getting to the Coste. It was an ornate place, where merely to breathe was expensive. We entered and by some excuse Kennedy contrived to get past the vigilant bellhops. We passed the telephone switchboard and entered the elevator, getting off at the fifth floor. With a hasty glance up and down the corridor, to make sure no one was about, Kennedy came to room 509, then passed to the next, 511, opening the door with a skeleton key. We entered and Craig locked the door behind us. It was an ordinary hotel room, but well-furnished. Fortunately it was unoccupied. Quietly Craig went to the door which led to the next room. It was, of course, locked also. He listened a moment carefully. Not a sound. Quickly, with an exclamation of satisfaction, he opened that door also and went into 509. This room was much like that in which we had already been. He opened the hall door. "Watch here, Walter," he directed, "Let me know at the slightest alarm." Craig had already taken the brace and bit from the bag and started to bore through the wall into room 511, selecting a spot behind a picture of a Spanish dancer--a spot directly back of her snapping black eyes. He finished quickly and inserted the detectascope so that the lens fitted as an eye in the picture. The eye piece was in Room 511. Then he started to brush up the pieces of plaster on the floor. "Craig," I whispered hastily as I heard an elevator door, "someone's coming!" He hurried to the door and looked. "There they are," he said, as we saw Elaine and Mary rounding the corner of the hall. Across the hall, although we did not know it at the time, in room 540, already, Long Sin had taken up his station, just to be handy. There he had been with his servant, playing with his two trained white rats. Long placed them up his capacious sleeves and carefully opened the door to look out. Unfortunately he, was just in time to see the door of 509 open and disclose us. His subtle glance detected our presence without our knowing it. Hastily picking up the brace and bit and the rest of the debris, and with a last look at the detectascope, which was hardly noticeable, even if one already knew it was there, we hurried into 511 and shut the door. Kennedy mounted a chair and applied his eye to the detectascope. Just then Mary and Elaine entered the next room, Mary opening the door with a regular key. "Won't you step in?" she asked. Elaine did so and Mary hesitated in the hall. Long Sin had slipped out on noiseless feet and taken refuge behind some curtains. As he saw her alone, he beckoned to Mary. "There's a stranger in the next room," he whispered. "I don't like him. Take the money and as quickly as possible get out and go to my apartment." At the news that there was a suspicious stranger about, Mary showed great alarm. Everything was so rapid, now, that the slightest hesitation meant disaster. Perhaps, by quickness, even a suspicious stranger could be fooled, she reasoned. At any rate, Long Sin was resourceful. She had better trust him. Mary followed Elaine into the room, where she had seated herself already, and locked the door. "Have you the money there?" she asked. "Yes," nodded Elaine, taking out the package of bills which she had got from the bank during the half hour delay. All this we could see by gazing alternately through the detectascope. Elaine handed Mary the money. Mary counted it slowly. At last she looked up. "It's all right," she said. "Now, I'll take this to that tong leader--he's in a room only just across the hall." She went out. Kennedy at the detectascope was very excited as this went on. He now jumped off the chair on which he had been standing and rushed to the door to head her off. To our surprise, in spite of the fact that we could turn the key in the lock, it was impossible to open it! It was only a moment that Craig paused at the door. The next moment he burst into 509, followed closely by me. With a scream, Elaine was on her feet in an instant. There was no time for explanations, however. He rushed to the door to go out, but it was locked--somehow, on the outside. The skeleton key would not work, at any rate. He shot the lock, and dashed out, calling back, "Walter, stay there--with Elaine." Mary had just succeeded in getting on the elevator as Kennedy hurried down the hall. The door was closed and the car descended. He rang the push bell furiously, but there was no answer. Had he got so far in the chase, only to be outwitted? He dashed back to the room, with us, and jerked down the telephone receiver. "Hello--hello--hello!" he called. No answer. There seemed to be no way to get a connection. What was the matter? He hurried down the hall again. No sooner had Elaine and Mary actually gone into the room, than Long and his servant stole out of 540, across the hall. Somewhere they had obtained a strong but thin rope. Quickly and silently Long tied the handle of the door 511 in which we were to the handle of 540 which he was vacating. As both doors opened inward and were opposite, they were virtually locked. Then Long and his servant hurried down the hallway to the elevator. Down in the hotel lobby, with his followers, the Chinaman paused before the telephone switchboard where two girls were at work. "You may go," ordered Long, and, as his man left, he moved over closer to the switchboard. He was listening eagerly and also watching an indicator that told the numbers of the rooms which called, as they flashed into view. Just as a call from "509" flashed up, Long slipped the rings off his little fingers and loosened the white rats on the telephone switchboard itself. With a shriek, the telephone system of the Coste went temporarily out of business. The operators fled to the nearest chairs, drawing their skirts about them. There was the greatest excitement among all the women in the corridor. Such a display of hosiery was never contemplated by even the most daring costumers. Shouts from the bellboys who sought to catch the rats who scampered hither and thither in frightened abandon mingled with the shrieks of the ladies. Kennedy had succeeded in finding the alcove of the floor clerk in charge of the fifth floor. There on his desk was an instrument having a stylus on the end of two arms, connected to a system of magnets. It was a telautograph. Unceremoniously, Craig pushed the clerk out of his seat and sat down himself. It was a last chance, now that the telephone was out of commission. Downstairs, in the hotel office, where the excitement had not spread to everyone, was the other end of the electric long distance writer. It started to write, as Kennedy wrote, upstairs: "HOUSE DETECTIVE--QUICK--HOLD WOMAN WITH BLUE CHATELAINE BAG, GETTING OUT OF ELEVATOR." The clerks downstairs saw it and shouted above the din of the rat-baiting. "McCann--McCann!" The clerk had torn off the message from the telautograph register, and handed it to the house man who pushed his way to the desk. Quickly the detective called to the bell-hops. Together they hurried after the well-dressed woman who had just swept out of the elevator. Mary had already passed through the excited lobby and out, and was about to cross the street--safe. McCann and the bell-hops were now in full cry after her. Flight was useless. She took refuge in indignation and threats. But McCann was obdurate. She passed quickly to tears and pleadings. It had no effect. They insisted on leading her back. The game was up. Even an offer of money failed to move their adamantine hearts. Nothing would do but that she must face her accusers. In the meantime Long Sin had recovered his precious and useful pets. Life in the Coste had assumed something of its normal aspect, and Craig had succeeded in getting an elevator. It was just as Mary was led in threatening and pleading by turns that he stepped off in the lobby. There was, however, still just enough excitement to cover a little pantomime. Long Sin had been about to slip out of a side door, thinking all was well, when he caught sight of Mary being led back. She had also seen him, and began to struggle again. Quickly he shook his head, indicating for her to stop. Then slowly he secretly made the sign of the Clutching Hand at her. It meant that she must not snitch. She obeyed instantly, and he quietly disappeared. "Here," cried Kennedy, "take her up in the elevator. I'll prove the case." With the house detective and Kennedy, Mary was hustled into the elevator and whisked back as she had escaped. In the meantime I had gathered up what stuff we had in the room we had entered and had returned with Kennedy's bag. "Wh--what's it all about?" inquired Elaine excitedly. I tried to explain. Just then, out in the hall we could hear loud voices, and that of Mary above the rest. Kennedy, a man who looked like a detective, and some bell-boys were leading her toward us. "Now--not a word of who she is in the papers, McCann," Kennedy was saying, evidently about Elaine. "You know it wouldn't sound well for La Coste. As for that woman--well, I've got the money back. You can take her off--make the charge." As the house man left with Mary, I handed Craig his bag. We moved toward the door, and as we stood there a moment with Elaine, he quietly handed over to her the big roll of bills. She took it, with surprise still written in her big blue eyes. "Oh--thank you--I might have known it was only a blackmail scheme," she cried eagerly. Craig held out his hand and she took it quickly, gazing into his eyes. Craig bowed politely, not quite knowing what to do under the circumstances. If he had been less of a scientist, he might have understood the look on her face, but, with a nod to me, he turned, and went. As she looked first at him, then at the paltry ten thousand in her hand, Elaine stamped her little foot in vexation. "I'm glad I DIDN'T say anything more," she cried. "No--no--he shall beg my pardon first--there!" CHAPTER XIII THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS Elaine was seated in the drawing room with Aunt Josephine one afternoon, when her lawyer, Perry Bennett, dropped in unexpectedly. He had hardly greeted them when the butler, Jennings, in his usual impassive manner announced that Aunt Josephine was wanted on the telephone. No sooner were Elaine and Bennett alone, than Elaine, turning to him, exclaimed impulsively, "I'm so glad you have come. I have been longing to see you and to tell you about a strange dream I have had." "What was it?" he asked, with instant interest. Leaning back in her chair and gazing before her tremulously, Elaine continued, "Last night, I dreamed that father came to me and told me that if I would give up Kennedy and put my trust in you, I would find the Clutching Hand. I don't know what to think of it." Bennett, who had been listening intently, remained silent for a few moments. Then, putting down his tea cup, he moved over nearer to Elaine and bent over her. "Elaine," he said in a low tone, his remarkable eyes looking straight into her own, "you must know that I love you. Then give me the right to protect you. It was your father's dearest wish, I believe, that we should marry. Let me share your dangers and I swear that sooner or later there will be an end to the Clutching Hand. Give me your answer, Elaine," he urged, "and make me the happiest man in all the world." Elaine listened, and not unsympathetically, as Bennett continued to plead for her answer. "Wait a little while--until to-morrow," she replied finally, as if overcome by the recollections of her weird dream and the unexpected sequel of his proposal. "Let it be as you wish, then," agreed Bennett quietly. He took her hand and kissed it passionately. An instant later Aunt Josephine returned. Elaine, unstrung by what had happened, excused herself and went into the library. She sank into one of the capacious arm chairs, and passing her hand wearily over her throbbing forehead, closed her eyes in deep thought. Involuntarily, her mind travelled back over the rapid succession of events of the past few weeks and the part that she had thought, at least, Kennedy had come to play in her life. Then she thought of their recent misunderstanding. Might there not be some simple explanation of it, after all, which she had missed? What should she do? She solved the problem by taking up the telephone and asking for Kennedy's number. I was chatting with Craig in his laboratory, and, at the same time, was watching him in his experimental work. Just as a call came on the telephone, he was pouring some nitro-hydrochloric acid into a test tube to complete a reaction. The telephone tinkled and he laid down the bottle of acid on his desk, while he moved a few steps to answer the call. Whoever the speaker was, Craig seemed deeply interested, and, not knowing who was talking on the wire, I was eager to learn whether it was anyone connected with the case of the Clutching Hand. "Yes, this is Mr. Kennedy," I heard Craig say. I moved over toward him and whispered eagerly, "Is there anything new?" A little impatient at being interrupted, Kennedy waved me off. It occurred to me that he might need a pad and pencil to make a note of some information and I reached over the desk for them. As I did so my arm inadvertently struck the bottle of acid, knocking it over on the top of the desk. Its contents streamed out saturating the telephone wires before I could prevent it. In trying to right the bottle my hand came in contact with the acid which burned like liquid fire, and I cried out in pain. Craig hastily laid down the receiver, seized me and rushed me to the back of the laboratory where he drenched my hand with a neutralizing liquid. He bound up the wounds caused by the acid, which proved to be slight, after all, and then returned to the telephone. To his evident annoyance, he discovered that the acid had burned through the wires and cut off all connection. Though I did not know it, my hand was, in a sense at least, the hand of fate. At the other end of the line, Elaine was listening impatiently for a response to her first eager words of inquiry. She was astounded to find, at last, that Kennedy had apparently left the telephone without any explanation or apology. "Why--he rang off," she exclaimed angrily to herself, as she hung up the receiver and left the room. She rejoined her Aunt Josephine and Bennett who had been chatting together in the drawing room, still wondering at the queer rebuff she had, seemingly, experienced. Bennett rose to go, and, as he parted from Elaine, found an opportunity to whisper a few words reminding her of her promised reply on the morrow. Piqued, at Kennedy, she flashed Bennett a meaning glance which gave him to understand that his suit was not hopeless. In the center of a devious and winding way, quite unknown to all except those who knew the innermost secrets of the Chinese quarter and even unknown to the police, there was a dingy tenement house, apparently inhabited by hardworking Chinamen, but in reality the headquarters of the notorious devil worshippers, a sect of Satanists, banned even in the Celestial Empire. The followers of the cult comprised some of the most dangerous Chinese criminals, thugs, and assassins, besides a number of dangerous characters who belonged to various Chinese secret societies. At the head of this formidable organization was Long Sin, the high priest of the Devil God, and Long Sin had, as we knew, already joined forces with the notorious Clutching Hand. The room in which the uncanny rites of the devil worshippers were conducted was a large apartment decorated in Chinese style, with highly colored portraits of some of the devil deities and costly silken hangings. Beside a large dais depended a huge Chinese gong. On the dais itself stood, or rather sat, an ugly looking figure covered with some sort of metallic plating. It almost seemed to be the mummy of a Chinaman covered with gold leaf. It was thin and shrunken, entirely nude. Into this room came Long Sin attired in an elaborate silken robe. He advanced and kowtowed before the dais with its strange figure, and laid down an offering before it, consisting of punk sticks, little dishes of Chinese cakes, rice, a jar of oil, and some cooked chicken and pork. Then he bowed and kowtowed again. This performance was witnessed by twenty or thirty Chinamen who knelt in the rear of the room. As Long Sin finished his devotions they filed past the dais, bowing and scraping with every sign of abject reverence both for the devil deity and his high priest. At the same time an aged Chinaman carrying a prayer wheel entered the place and after prostrating himself devoutedly placed the machine on a sort of low stool or tabourette and began turning it slowly, muttering. Each revolution of this curious wheel was supposed to offer a prayer to the god of the netherworld. A few moments later, Long Sin, who had been bowing before the metallic figure in deepest reverence, suddenly sprang to his feet. His glazed eye and excited manner indicated that he had received a message from the lips of the strange idol. The worshippers who had prostrated themselves in awe at the sight of their high priest in the unholy frenzy, all rose to their feet and crowded forward. At the same time Long Sin advanced a step to meet them, holding his arms outstretched as if to compel silence while he delivered his message. Long Sin struck several blows on the resounding gong and then raised his voice in solemn tones. "Ksing Chau, the Terrible, demands a consort. She is to be foreign--fair of face and with golden hair." Amazed at this unexpected message, the Chinamen prostrated themselves again and their unhallowed devotions terminated a few moments later amid suppressed excitement as they filed out. At the same time, in a room of the adjoining house, the Clutching Hand himself was busily engaged making the most elaborate preparations for some nefarious scheme which his fertile mind had evolved. The room had been fitted up as a medium's seance parlor, with black hangings on the walls, while at one side there was a square cabinet of black cloth, with a guitar lying before it. Two of the Clutching Hand's most trusted confederates and a hard-faced woman of middle age, dressed in plain black, were putting the finishing touches to this apartment, when their Chief entered. Clutching Hand gazed about the room, now and then giving an order or two to make more effective the setting for the purpose which he had in mind. Finally he nodded in approval and stepped over to the fire place where logs were burning brightly in a grate. Pressing a spring in the mantelpiece, the master criminal effected an instant transformation. The logs in the fireplace, still burning, disappeared immediately through the side of the brick tiling and a metal sheet covered them. An aperture opened at the back, as if by magic. Through this opening Clutching Hand made his way quickly and disappeared. Emerging on the other side of the peculiar fireplace, Clutching Hand pushed aside a curtain which barred the way and looked into the Chinese temple, taking up a position behind the metallic figure on the dais. The Chinamen had by this time finished their devotions, if such they might be called, and the last one was leaving, while Long Sin stood alone on the dais. The noise of the departing Satanists had scarcely died away when Clutching Hand stepped out. "Follow me," he ordered hoarsely seizing Long Sin by the arm and leading him away. They passed through the passageway of the fireplace and, having entered the seance room, Clutching Hand began briefly explaining the purpose of the preparations that had been made. Long Sin wagged his head in voluble approval. As Clutching Hand finished, the Chinaman turned to the hard-faced woman who was to act the part of medium and added some directions to those Clutching Hand had already given. The medium nodded acquiescence, and a moment later, left the room to carry out some ingenious plot framed by the master mind of the criminal world. . . . . . . . . Elaine was standing in the library gazing sadly at Kennedy's portrait, thinking over recent events and above all the rebuff over the telephone which she supposed she had received. It all seemed so unreal to her. Surely, she felt in her heart, she could not have been so mistaken in the man. Yet the facts seemed to speak for themselves. In spite of it all, she was almost about to kiss the portrait when something seemed to stay her hands. Instead she laid the picture down, with a sigh. A moment later, Jennings entered with a card on a salver. Elaine took it and saw with surprise the name of her caller: MADAME SAVETSKY, MEDIUM Beneath the engraved name were the words written in ink, "I have a message from the spirit of your father." "Yes, I will see her," cried Elaine eagerly, in response to the butler's inquiry. She followed Jennings into the adjoining room and there found herself face to face with the hard-featured woman who had only a few moments before left the Clutching Hand. Elaine looked rather than spoke her inquiry. "Your father, my dear," purred the medium with a great pretence of suppressed excitement, "appeared to me, the other night, from the spirit world. I was in a trance and he asked me to deliver a message to you." "What was the message?" asked Elaine breathlessly, now aroused to intense interest. "I must go into a trance again to get it," replied the insinuating Savetsky, "and if you like I can try it at once, provided we can be left alone long enough." "Please--don't wait," urged Elaine, pulling the portieres of the doors closer, as if that might insure privacy. Seated in her chair, the medium muttered wildly for a few moments, rolled her eyes and with some convulsive movements pretended to go into a trance. Savetsky seemed about to speak and Elaine, in the highest state of nervous tension, listened, trying to make something of the gibberish mutterings. Suddenly the curtains were pushed aside and Aunt Josephine and Bennett, who had just come in, entered. "I can do nothing here," exclaimed Savetsky, starting up and looking about severely. "You must come to my seance chamber where we shall not be interrupted." "I will," cried Elaine, vexed at the intrusion at that moment. "I must have that message--I must." "What's all this, Elaine?" demanded Aunt Josephine. Hurriedly, Elaine poured forth to her aunt and Bennett the story of the medium's visit and the promised message from her father in the other world. Aunt Josephine, who was not one easily to be imposed on, strongly objected to Elaine's proposal to accompany Savetsky to the seance chamber, but Elaine would not be denied. She pleaded with her aunt, urging that she be allowed to go. "It might be safe for Elaine to go," Bennett finally suggested to Aunt Josephine, "if you and I accompanied her." All this time the medium was listening closely to the conversation. Elaine looked at her inquiringly. With a shrug, she indicated that she had no objection to having Elaine escorted to the parlor by her friends. At last Aunt Josephine, influenced by Elaine's pleadings and Bennett's suggestion, gave in and agreed to join in the visit. A few moments later, in the Dodge car, Elaine, the medium, and her two escorts started for the Chinese quarter. . . . . . . . . At the house, the medium opened the door with her key and ushered in her three visitors. Long Sin who had been watching for their arrival from the window now hastily withdrew from the seance room and disappeared behind the black curtains. Entering the room the medium at once prepared for the seance by pulling down the window shades. Then she seated herself in a chair beside the cabinet, and appeared to fall off slowly into a trance. Her strange proceedings were watched with the greatest curiosity by Elaine as well as Aunt Josephine and Bennett, who had taken seats placed at one side of the room. The room itself was dimly lighted, and the curtains of the cabinet seemed, in the obscurity, to sway back and forth as if stirred by some ghostly breeze. All of them were now quite on edge with excitement. Suddenly an indistinct face was seen to be peering through the black curtains, as it were. The guitar, as if lifted by an invisible hand, left the cabinet, floated about close to the ceiling, and returned again. It was eerie. At last a voice, deep, sepulchral, was heard in slow and solemn tones. "I am Eeko--the spirit of Taylor Dodge. I will give no message until one named Josephine leaves the room." No sooner had the words been uttered than the medium came writhing out of her trance. "What happened?" she asked, looking at Elaine. Elaine reported the spirit's words. "We can get nothing if your Aunt stays here," Savetsky added, insisting that Aunt Josephine must go. "Your father cannot speak while she is present." Aunt Josephine, annoyed by what she had heard, indignantly refused to go and was deaf to all Elaine's pleadings. "I think it will be all right," finally acquiesced Bennett, seeing how bent Elaine was on securing the message. "I'll stay and protect her." Aunt Josephine finally agreed. "Very well, then," she protested, marching out of the room in a high state of indignation. She had scarcely left the house, however, when she began to suspect that all was not as it ought to be. In fact, the idea had no sooner occurred to her than she decided to call on Kennedy and she ordered the chauffeur to take her as quickly as possible to the laboratory. . . . . . . . . Kennedy had not been in the laboratory all the day, after my experience with the acid and I was impatiently awaiting his arrival. At last there came a knock at the door and I opened it hurriedly. There was a messenger boy who handed me a note. I tore it open. It was from Kennedy and read, "I shall probably be away for two or three days. Call up Elaine and tell her to beware of a certain Madame Savetsky." I was still puzzling over the note and was just about to call up Elaine when the speaking tube was blown and to my surprise I found it was Aunt Josephine who had called. "Where is Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, greatly agitated. "He has gone away for a few days," I replied blankly. "Is there anything I can do?" She was very excited and hastily related what had happened at the parlor of the medium. "What was her name?" I asked anxiously. "Madame Savetsky," she replied, to my surprise. Astounded, I picked up Craig's note from the desk and handed it to her without a word. She read it with breathless eagerness. "Come back there with me, please," she begged, almost frantic with fear now. "Something terrible may have happened." . . . . . . . . Aunt Josephine had hardly left Savetsky when the trance was resumed and, in a few minutes, there came all sorts of supernatural manifestations. The table beside Elaine began to turn and articles on it dropped to the floor. Violent rappings followed in various parts of the room. Both Elaine and Bennett who sat together in silence were much impressed by the marvellous phenomena--not being able to see, in the darkness, the concealed wires that made them possible. Suddenly, from the mysterious shadows of the cabinet, there appeared the spirit of Long Sin, whose death Elaine still believed she had caused when Adventuress Mary had lured her to the apartment. Elaine was trembling with fear at the apparition. As before, a strange voice sounded in the depths of the cabinet and again a message was heard, in low, solemn tones. "I am Keka, and I have with me Long Sin. His blood cries for vengeance." Elaine was overcome with horror at the words. From the cabinet ran a thick stream of red, like blood, from which she recoiled, shuddering. Then a dim, ghostly figure, apparently that of Long Sin, appeared. The face was horribly distorted. It seemed to breathe the very odor of the grave. With arms outstretched, the figure glided from the cabinet and approached Elaine. She shrank back further in fright, too horrified even to scream. At the same moment, the medium drew a vapor pistol from her dress, and, as the ghost of Long Sin leaped at Elaine, Savetsky darted forward and shot a stream of vapor full in Bennett's face. Bennett dropped unconscious, the lights in the darkened room flashed up, and several of the men of the Clutching Hand rushed in. Quickly the fireplace was turned on its cleverly constructed hinges, revealing the hidden passage. Before any effective resistance could be made, Elaine and Bennett were hustled through the passage, securely bound, and placed on a divan in a curtained chamber back of the altar of the devil worshippers. There they lay when Long Sin, now in his priestly robes, entered. He looked at them a moment. Then he left the room with a sinister laugh. . . . . . . . . It was at that moment that I, little dreaming of what had been taking place, arrived with Aunt Josephine at the house of the medium. She answered my ring and admitted us. To our surprise, the seance room was empty. "Where is the young lady who was here?" I asked. "Miss Dodge and the gentleman just left a few minutes ago," the medium explained, as we looked about. She seemed eager to satisfy us that Elaine was not there. Apparently there was no excuse for disputing her word, but, as we turned to leave, I happened to notice a torn handkerchief lying on the floor near the fireplace. It flashed over me that perhaps it might afford a clue. As I passed it, I purposely dropped my soft hat over it and picked up the hat, securing the handkerchief without attracting Savetsky's attention. Aunt Josephine was keen now for returning home to find out whether Elaine was there or not. No sooner had she entered the car and driven off, than I examined the handkerchief. It was torn, as if it had been crushed in the hand during a struggle and wrenched away. I looked closer. In the corner was the initial, "E." That was enough. Without losing another precious moment I hurried around to the nearest police station, where I happened to be known, having had several assignments for the Star in that part of the city, and gave an alarm. The sergeant detailed several roundsmen, and a man in plainclothes, and together we returned to the house, laying a careful plan to surround it secretly, while the plainclothesman and I obtained admittance. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, the Chinese devil worshippers had again gathered in their cursed temple and Long Sin, in his priestly robe, appeared on the dais. The worshippers kowtowed reverently to him, while at the back again stood the aged Chinaman patiently turning his prayer wheel. Two braziers, or smoke pots, had been placed on the dais, one of which Long Sin touched with a stick causing it to burst out into dense fumes. Standing before them, he chanted in nasal tones, "The white consort of the great Ksing Chau has been found. It is his will that she now be made his." As he finished intoning the message, Long Sin signaled to two young Chinamen to go into the anteroom. A moment later they returned with Elaine. Frightened though she was, Elaine made no attempt to struggle, even when they had cut her bonds. She was busily engaged in seeking some method of escape. Her eyes travelled ever the place quickly. Apparently, there was no means of exit that was not guarded. Long Sin saw her look, and smiled quietly. They had carried her up to the dais, and now Long Sin faced her and sternly ordered her to kowtow to the gruesome metallic figure. She refused, but instantly the Chinamen seized her arm and twisted it, until they had compelled her to fall to her knees. Having forced her to kowtow, Long Sin turned to the assembled devil dancers. "With magic and rare drugs," he chanted, "she shall be made to pass beyond and her body encased in precious gold shall be the consort of Ksing Chau--forever and ever." He made another sign and several pots and braziers were brought out and placed on the dais beside Elaine. She was, by this time, completely overcome by the horror of the situation. There was apparently no escape. With callous deviltry, the oriental satanists had made every arrangement for embalming and preserving the body of Elaine. Pots filled with sticky black material were slowly heated, amid weird incantations, while other Chinamen laid out innumerable sheets of gold leaf. At last all seemed to be in readiness to proceed. "Hold her," ordered Long Sin in guttural Chinese to the two attendants, as he approached her. Long Sin held in his hand a small, profusely decorated pot from which smoke was escaping. As he approached he passed this receptacle under her nose once, twice, three times. Gradually Elaine fell into unconsciousness. . . . . . . . . While Elaine was facing death in the power of the devil worshippers, I had reached the house of Savetsky next door with the police, and the place had been quietly surrounded. With the plainclothesman, a daring and intelligent fellow, I went to the door and rang the bell. "What can I do for you?" asked the medium, admitting us. "My friend, here," I parleyed, "is in great business trouble. Can your controlling spirit give him advice?" We had managed to gain the interior of the seance room, and I suppose there was nothing else for her to say, under the circumstances, but, "Why--yes,--if the conditions are good, the control can probably tell us just what he wants to know." Savetsky set to work preparing the room for a seance. As she moved over to the window to pull down the shades, she must have caught sight of one or two of the policemen who had incautiously exposed themselves from the hiding places in which I had disposed them before we entered. At any rate, Savetsky did not lose a jot of her remarkable composure. "I'm sorry," she remarked merely, "but I'm afraid my control is weak and cannot work today." She took a step toward the door, motioning us to leave. Neither of us paid any attention to that hint, but remained seated as we had been before. "Go!" she exclaimed at length, for the first time showing a trace of nervousness. Evidently her suspicions had been fully confirmed by our actions. We tried to argue with her to gain time. But it was of no use. Almost before I knew what she was doing, she made a dash for something in the corner of the room. It was time for open action, and I seized her quickly. My detective was on his feet in an instant. "I'll take care of her," he ground out, seizing her wrists in his vice-like grasp. "You give the signal." I rushed to the window, threw up the shade and opened the sash, waving our preconcerted sign, turning again toward the room. With a sudden accession of desperate strength, Savetsky broke away from the plainclothesman and again attempted to get at something concealed on the wall. I had turned just in time to fling myself between her and whatever object she had in mind. As the detective took her again and twisted her arm until she cried out in pain, I hastily investigated the wall. She had evidently been attempting to press a button that rang a concealed bell. What did it all mean? . . . . . . . . Elaine, now completely unconscious, was being held by the Chinamen, while her arm was smeared with sticky black material from the cauldron by Long Sin. As the high priest of Satan worked, the devil worshippers kowtowed obediently. Suddenly the aged Chinaman with the prayer wheel stopped his incessant, impious turning, and rising, held up his hand as if to command attention. Amid a general exclamation of wonder, he walked to the dais and mounted it, turning and facing the worshippers. "This is nonsense," he cried in a loud tone. "Why should our great Ksing Chau desire a white devil? I, a great grandfather, demand to know." The effect on the worshippers was electric. They paused in their obeisance and stared at the speaker, then at their high priest. Shaking with rage, Long Sin ordered the intruder off the dais. But the aged devotee refused to go. "Throw him out," he ordered his attendants. For answer, as the two young Chinamen approached, the old Chinaman threw them down to the floor with a quick jiu-jitsu movement. His strength seemed miraculous for so aged a man. Furious now beyond expression, Long Sin stepped forward himself. He seized the beard and queue of the intruder. To his utter amazement, they came off! It was Kennedy! With his automatic drawn, before the astounded devil dancers could recover themselves, Craig stood at bay. Long Sin leaped behind the big gong. As the Chinamen rushed forward to seize him, Kennedy shot the leader of Long Sin's attendants and struck down the other with a blow. The rush was checked for the moment. But the odds were fearful. Kennedy seized Elaine's yielding body and, pushing back the curtains to the anteroom, succeeded in gaining it, and locking the door into the main temple. Bennett was still lying on the floor tightly bound. With a few deft cuts by a Chinese knife which he had picked up, Kennedy released him. At the same time, Chinamen were trying to batter down the door, Kennedy's last bulwark. It was swaying under their repeated blows. Kennedy rushed to the door and fired through it at random to check the attack for a few moments. . . . . . . . . While Kennedy was thus besieged by the devil worshippers in the anteroom, several policemen and detectives gathered in the seance room with us, next door, where Savetsky was held a defiant and mute prisoner. I had discovered the bell, and, taking that as a guide, I started to trace the course of a wire which ran alongside the wall, feeling certain that it would give me a clue to some adjoining room to which Elaine might possibly have been taken. To the fireplace I traced the bell, and, in pulling on the wire, I luckily pressed a secret spring. To my amazement, the whole fireplace swung out of sight and disclosed a secret passageway. I looked through it. It was almost at that precise instant that the door of the anteroom burst open and the Chinamen swarmed in, urged on by the insane exhortations of Long Sin. To my utter amazement, I recognized Kennedy's voice. In the first onslaught, Craig shot one Chinaman dead, then closed with the others, slashing right and left with the Chinese knife he had picked up. Bennett came to his aid, but was immediately overcome by two Chinamen, who evidently had been detailed for that purpose. Meanwhile, Kennedy and the others were engaged in a terrible life and death struggle. They fought all over the room, dismantling it, and even tearing the hangings from the wall. It was just as the Chinese was about to overpower him that I led the police and detectives through the passageway of the fireplace. It was a glorious fight that followed. Long Sin and his Chinamen were no match for the police and were soon completely routed, the police striking furiously in all directions and clearing the room. Instantly, Kennedy thought of the fair object of all this melee. He rushed to the divan on which he had placed Elaine. She was slowly returning to consciousness. As she opened her eyes, for an instant, she gazed at Craig, then at Bennett. Still not comprehending just what had happened, she gave her hand to Bennett. Bennett lifted her to her feet and slowly assisted her as she tried to walk away. Kennedy watched them, more stupefied than if he had been struck over the head by Long Sin. . . . . . . . . Police and detectives were now taking the captured Chinamen away, as Bennett, his arm about Elaine, led her gently out. A young detective had slipped the bracelets over Long Sin's wrist, and I was standing beside him. Kennedy, in a daze at the sight of Elaine and Bennett, passed us, scarcely noticing who we were. As Craig collected his scattered forces, Long Sin motioned to him, as if he had a message to deliver. Kennedy frowned suspiciously. He was about to turn away, when the Chinaman began pleading earnestly for a chance to say a few words. "Step aside for a moment, you fellows, won't you please," Craig asked. "I will hear what you have to say, Long Sin." Long Sin looked about craftily. "What is it?" prompted Craig, seeing that at last they were all alone. Long Sin again looked around. "Swear that I will go free and not suffer," Long Sin whispered, "and I will betray the great Clutching Hand." Kennedy studied the Chinaman keenly for a moment. Then, seemingly satisfied with the scrutiny, he nodded slowly assent. As Craig did so, I saw Long Sin lean over and whisper into Kennedy's ear. Craig started back in horror and surprise. CHAPTER XIV THE RECKONING Pacing up and down his den in the heart of Chinatown, Long Sin was thinking over his bargain with Kennedy to betray the infamous Clutching Hand. It was a small room in a small and unpretentious house, but it adequately expressed the character of the subtle Oriental. The den was lavishly furnished, while the guileful Long Sin himself wore a richly figured lounging gown of the finest and costliest silk, chosen for the express purpose of harmonizing with the luxurious Far Eastern hangings and furniture so as to impress his followers and those whom he might choose as visitors. At length he seated himself at a teakwood table, still deliberating over the promise he had been forced to make to Kennedy. He sat for some moments, deeply absorbed in thought. Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him. Lifting a little hammer, he struck a Chinese gong on the table at his side. At the same time, he leaned over and turned a knob at the side of a large roll-top desk. A few seconds later a sort of hatchway, covered by a rug on the floor, in one corner of the room, was slowly lifted and Long Sin's secretary, a sallow, cadaverous Chinaman, appeared from below. He stepped noiselessly into the room and shuffled across to Long Sin. Long Sin scowled, as though something had interfered with his own plans, but tore open the envelope without a word, spreading out on his lap the sheet of paper it contained. The letter bore a typewritten message, all in capitals, which read: "BE AT HEADQUARTERS AT 12. DESTROY THIS IMMEDIATELY." At the bottom of the note appeared the sinister signature of the Clutching Hand. As soon as he had finished reading the note, the Chinaman turned to his obsequious secretary, who stood motionless, with folded arms and head meekly bent. "Very well," he said with an imperious wave of his hand. "You may go." Bowing low again, the secretary shuffled across and down again through the hatchway, closing the door as he descended. Long Sin read the note once more, while his inscrutable face assumed an expression of malicious cunning. Then he glanced at his heavy gold watch. With an air of deliberation, he reached for a match and struck it. He had just placed the paper in the flame when suddenly he seemed to change his mind. He hastily blew out the match which had destroyed only a corner of the paper, then folded the note carefully and placed it in his pocket. A few moments later, with a malignant chuckle, Long Sin rose slowly and left the room. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, the master criminal was busily engaged in putting the finishing touches to a final scheme of fiendish ingenuity for the absolute destruction of Craig Kennedy. He had been at work in a small room, fitted up as a sort of laboratory, in the mysterious house which now served as his headquarters. On all sides were shelves filled with bottles of deadly liquids and scientific apparatus for crime. Jars of picric acid, nitric acid, carboys of other chemicals, packages labelled gunpowder, gun cotton and nitroglycerine, as well as carefully stoppered bottles of prussic acid, and the cyanides, arsenic and other poisons made the place bear the look of a veritable devil's workshop. Clutching Hand, at a bench in one corner, had just completed an infernal machine of diabolical cunning, and was wrapping it carefully in paper to make an innocent package. He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Laying down the bomb he went to answer the summons with a stealthy movement. There stood Long Sin, who had disguised himself as a Chinese laundryman. "On time--good!" growled Clutching Hand surlily as he closed the door with equal care. No time was wasted in useless formalities. "This is a bomb," he went on, pointing to the package. "Carry it carefully. On no account let it slip, or you are a dead man. It must be in Kennedy's laboratory before night. Understand? Can you arrange it?" Long Sin looked the dangerous package over, then with an impassive look, replied, "Have no fear. I can do it. It will be in the laboratory within an hour. Trust me." Long Sin nodded sagely, while Clutching Hand growled his approval as he opened the door and let out the Chinaman. Long Sin departed as stealthily as he had come, the frightful engine of destruction hugged up carefully under his wide-sleeved coolie shirt. For a moment Clutching Hand gave himself up to the exquisite contemplation of what he had just done, then turned to clean up his workshop. . . . . . . . . In Kennedy's laboratory I was watching Craig make some experiments with a new X-ray apparatus which had just arrived, occasionally looking through the fluoroscope when he was examining some unusually interesting object. We were oblivious to the passage of time, and only a call over our speaking tube diverted our attention. I opened the door and a few seconds later Long Sin himself entered. Kennedy looked up inquiringly as the Chinaman approached, holding out a package which he carried. "A bomb," he said, in the most matter of fact way. "I promised to have it placed in your laboratory before night." The placid air with which the grotesque looking Chinaman imparted this astounding information was in itself preposterous. His actions and words as he laid the package down gingerly on the laboratory table indicated that he was telling the truth. Kennedy and I stared at each other in blank amazement for a moment. Then the humor of the thing struck us both and we laughed outright. Clutching Hand had told him to deliver it--and he had done so! Hastily I filled a pail with water and brought it to Kennedy. "If it is really a bomb," I remarked, "why not put the thing out of commission?" "No, no, Walter," he cried quickly, shaking his head. "If it's a chemical bomb, the water might be just the thing to make the chemicals run together and set it off. No, let us see what the new X-ray machine can tell us, first." He took the bomb and carefully placed it under the wonderful rays, then with the fluoroscope over his eyes studied the shadow cast by the rays on its sensitive screen. For several minutes he continued safely studying it from every angle, until he thoroughly understood it. "It's a bomb, sure enough," Craig exclaimed, looking up from it at last to me. "It's timed by an ingenious and noiseless little piece of clockwork, in there, too. And it's powerful enough to blow us all, the laboratory included, to kingdom come." As he spoke, and before I could remonstrate with him, he took the infernal machine and placed it on a table where he set to work on the most delicate and dangerous piece of dissection of which I have ever heard. Carefully unwrapping the bomb and unscrewing one part while he held another firm, he finally took out of it a bottle of liquid and some powder. Then he placed a few grains of the powder on a dish and dropped on it a drop or two of the liquid. There was a bright flash, as the powder ignited instantly. "Just what I expected," commented Kennedy with a nod, as he examined the clever workmanship of the bomb. One thing that interested him was that part of the contents had been wrapped in paper to keep them in place. This paper he was now carefully examining with a hand lens. As nearly as I could make it out, the paper contained part of a typewritten chemical formula, which read: TINCTURE OF IODINE THREE PARTS OF--- He looked up from his study of the microscope to Long Sin. "Tell me just how it happened that you got this bomb," he asked. Without hesitation, the Chinaman recited the circumstances, beginning with the note by which he had been summoned. "A note?" repeated Kennedy, eagerly. "Was it typewritten?" Long Sin reached into his pocket and produced the note itself, which he had not burned. As Craig studied the typewritten message from the Clutching Hand I could see that he was growing more and more excited. "At last he has given us something typewritten," he exclaimed. "To most people, I suppose, it seems that typewriting is the best way to conceal identity. But there are a thousand and one ways of identifying typewriting. Clutching Hand knew that. That was why he was so careful to order this note destroyed. As for the bomb, he figured that it would destroy itself." He was placing one piece of typewriting after another under the lens, scrutinizing each letter closely. "Look, Walter," he remarked at length, taking a fine tipped pencil and pointing at the distinguishing marks as he talked, "You will notice that all the 'T's' in this note are battered and faint as well as just a trifle out of alignment. Now I will place the paper from the bomb under the lens and you will also see that the 'T's' in the scrap of formula have exactly the same appearance. That indicated, without the possibility of a doubt, taken in connection with a score of other peculiarities in the letters which I could pick out that both were written on the same typewriter. I have selected the 'T' because it is the most marked." I strained my eyes to look. Sure enough, Kennedy was right. There was that unmistakable identity between the T's in the formula and the note. Kennedy had been gazing at the floor, his face puckered in thought as I looked. Suddenly he slapped his hands together, as if he had made a great discovery. "I've struck it!" he exclaimed, jumping up. "I was wondering where I had seen typewriting that reminds me of this. Walter, get on your coat and hat. We are on the right trail at last." With Long Sin we hurried out of the laboratory, leaving him at the nearest taxicab stand, where we jumped into a waiting car. "It is the clue of the battered 'T's,'" Craig muttered. . . . . . . . . Aunt Josephine was in the library knitting when the butler, Jennings, announced us. We were admitted at once, for Aunt Josephine had never quite understood what was the trouble between Elaine and Craig, and had a high regard for him. "Where is--Miss Dodge?" inquired Kennedy, with suppressed excitement as we entered. "I think she's out shopping and I don't know just when she will be back," answered Aunt Josephine, with some surprise. "Why? Is it anything important--any news?" "Very important," returned Kennedy excitedly. "I think I have the best clue yet. Only--it will be necessary to look through some of the household correspondence immediately to see whether there are certain letters. I wouldn't be surprised if she had some--perhaps not very personal--but I MUST see them." Aunt Josephine seemed nonplussed at first. I thought she was going to refuse to allow Craig to proceed. But finally she assented. Kennedy lost no time. He went to a desk where Elaine generally sat, and quickly took out several typewritten letters. He examined them closely, rejecting one after another, until finally he came to one that seemed to interest him. He separated it from the rest and fell to studying it, comparing it with the paper from the bomb and the note which Long Sin had received from the Clutching Hand. Then he folded the letter so that both the signature and the address could not be read by us. A portion of the letter, I recall, read something like this: "This is his contention: whereas TRUTH is the only goal and MATTER is non-existent-- "Look at this, Walter," remarked Craig, with difficulty restraining himself, "What do you make of it?" A glance at the typewriting was sufficient to show me that Kennedy had indeed made an important discovery. The writing of the letter which he had just found in Elaine's desk corresponded in every respect with that in the Clutching Hand note and that on the bomb formula. In each instance there were the same faintness, the same crooked alignment, the same battered appearance of all the letter T's. We stared at each other almost too dazed to speak. . . . . . . . . At that moment we were startled by the sudden appearance of Elaine herself, who had come in unexpectedly from her shopping expedition. She entered the room carrying in her arms a huge bunch of roses which she had evidently just received. Her face was half buried in the fragrant blossoms, but was fairer than even they in their selected elegance. The moment she saw Craig, however, she stopped short with a look of great surprise. Kennedy, on his part, who was seated at the desk still tracing out the similarities of the letters, stood up, half hesitating what to say. He bowed and she returned his salutation with a very cool nod. Her keen eye had not missed the fact that several of her letters lay scattered over the top of the desk. "What are you doing with my letters, Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, in an astonished tone, evidently resenting the unceremoniousness with which he had apparently been overhauling her correspondence. As guardedly as possible, Kennedy met her inquiry, which I could not myself blame her for making. "I beg pardon, Miss Dodge," he said, "but a matter has just come up which necessitated merely a cursory examination of some purely formal letters which might have an important bearing on the discovery of the Clutching Hand. Your Aunt had no idea where you were, nor of when you might return, and the absolute necessity for haste in such an important matter is my only excuse for examining a few minor letters without first obtaining your permission." She said nothing. At another time, such an explanation would have been instantly accepted. Now, however, it was different. Kennedy read the look on her face, and an instant later turned to Aunt Josephine and myself. "I would very much appreciate a chance to say a few words to Miss Dodge alone," he intimated. "I have had no such opportunity for some time. If you would be so kind as to leave us in the library--for a few minutes--" He did not finish the sentence. Aunt Josephine had already begun to withdraw and I followed. . . . . . . . . For a moment or two, Craig and Elaine looked at each other, neither saying a word, each wondering just what was in the other's mind. Kennedy was wondering if there was any X-ray that might read a woman's heart, as he was accustomed to read others of nature's secrets. He cleared his throat, the obvious manner of covering up his emotion. "Elaine," he said at length, dropping the recent return to "Miss Dodge," for the moment, "Elaine, is there any truth in this morning's newspaper report of--of you?" She had dropped her eyes. But he persisted, taking a newspaper clipping from his pocket and handing it to her. Her hand trembled as she glanced over the item: SOCIETY NOTES Dame Rumor is connecting the name of Miss Elaine Dodge, the heiress, with that of Perry Bennett, the famous young lawyer. The announcement of an engagement between them at any time would not surprise-- Elaine read no further. She handed back the clipping to Kennedy. As her eyes met his, she noticed his expression of deep concern, and hesitated with the reply she had evidently been just about to make. Still, as she lowered her head, it seemed to give silent confirmation to the truth of the newspaper report. Kennedy said nothing. But his eyes continued to study her face, even when it was averted. He suppressed his feelings with a great effort, then, without a word, bowed and left the room. "Walter," he exclaimed as he rejoined us in the drawing room, where I was chatting with Aunt Josephine, "we must be off again. The trail follows still further." I rose and much to the increased mystification of Aunt Josephine, left the house. An hour or so later, Elaine, whose mind was now in a whirl from what had happened, decided to call on Perry Bennett. Two or three clerks were in the outer office when she arrived, but the office boy, laying down a dime novel, rose to meet her and informed her that Mr. Bennett was alone. As Elaine entered his private office, Bennett rose to greet her effusively and they exchanged a few words. "I mustn't forget to thank you for those lovely roses you sent me," she exclaimed at length. "They were beautiful and I appreciated them ever so much." Bennett acknowledged her thanks with a smile, she sat down familiarly on his desk, and they plunged into a vein of social gossip. A moment later, Bennett led the conversation around until he found an opportunity to make a tactful allusion to the report of their engagement in the morning papers. He had leaned over and now attempted to take her hand. She withdrew it, however. There was something about his touch which, try as she might, she could not like. Was it mere prejudice, or was it her keen woman's intuition? Bennett looked at her a moment, suppressing a momentary flash of anger that had reddened his face, and controlled himself as if by a superhuman effort. "I believe you really love that man Kennedy," he exclaimed, in a tone that was almost a hiss. "But I tell you, Elaine, he is all bluff. Why, he has been after that Clutching Hand now for three months--and what has he accomplished? Nothing!" He paused. Through Elaine's mind there flashed the contrast with Kennedy's even temper and deferential manner. In spite of their quarrel and the coolness, she found herself resenting the remark. Still she said nothing, though her expressive face showed much. Bennett, by another effort, seemed to grip his temper again. He paced up and down the room. Then he changed the subject abruptly, and the conversation was resumed with some constraint. . . . . . . . . While Elaine and Bennett were talking, Kennedy and I had entered the office. Craig stopped the boy who was about to announce us and asked for Bennett's secretary instead, much to my astonishment. The boy merely indicated the door of one of the other private offices, and we entered. We found the secretary, hard at work at the typewriter, copying a legal document. Without a word, Kennedy at once locked the door. The secretary rose in surprise, but Craig paid no attention to him. Instead he calmly walked over to the machine and began to examine it. "Might I ask--" began the secretary. "You keep quiet," ordered Kennedy, with a nod to me to watch the fellow. "You are under arrest--and the less you say, the better for you." I shall never forget the look that crossed the secretary's face. Was it the surprise of an innocent man? Taking the man's place at the machine, Kennedy removed the legal paper that was in it and put in a new sheet. Then he tapped out, as we watched: BE AT HEADQUARTERS AT 12. DESTROY THIS IMMEDIATELY TINCTURE OF IODINE THREE PARTS OF---- This is his contention:--whereas TRUTH is the only goal and MATTER is non-existent-- T T T T "Look, Walter," he exclaimed as he drew out the paper from the machine. I bent over and together we compared the T's with those in the Clutching Hand letter, the paper from the bomb and the letter which Craig had taken from Elaine's desk. As Craig pointed out the resemblances with a pencil, my amazement gradually changed into comprehension and comprehension into conviction. The meaning of it all began to dawn on me. The writing was identical. There were no differences! . . . . . . . . While we were locked in the secretary's office, Bennett and Elaine were continuing their chat on various social topics. Suddenly, however, with a glance at the clock, Bennett told Elaine that he had an important letter to dictate, and that it must go off at once. She said that she would excuse him a few minutes and he pressed a button to call his secretary. Of course the secretary did not appear. Bennett left his office, with some annoyance, and went into the adjoining room the door to which Kennedy had not locked. He hesitated a moment, then opened the door quietly. To his astonishment, he saw Kennedy, the secretary, and myself apparently making a close examination of the typewriter. Gliding rather than walking back into his own office, he closed the door and locked it. Almost instantly, fear and fury at the presence of his hated rival, Kennedy, turned Bennett, as it were, from the Jekyll of a polished lawyer and lover of Elaine into an insanely jealous and revengeful Mr. Hyde. The strain was more than his warped mind could bear. With a look of intense horror and loathing, Elaine watched him slowly change from the composed, calm, intellectual Bennett she knew and respected into a repulsive, mad figure of a man. His stature even seemed to be altered. He seemed to shrivel up and become deformed. His face was terribly distorted. And his long, sinewy hand slowly twisted and bent until he became the personal embodiment of the Clutching Hand. As Elaine, transfixed with terror, watched Bennett's astounding metamorphosis, he ran to the door leading to the outer office and hastily locked that, also. Then, with his eyes gleaming with rage and his hands working in murderous frenzy, he crouched, nearer and nearer, towards Elaine. She shrank back, screaming again and again in terror. He WAS the Clutching Hand! . . . . . . . . In spite of closed doors, we could now plainly hear Elaine's shrieks. Craig, the secretary and myself made a rush for the door to Bennett's private office. Finding it locked, we began to batter it. By this time, however, Bennett had hurled himself upon Elaine and was slowly choking her. Kennedy quickly found that it was impossible to batter down the door in time by any ordinary means. Quickly he seized the typewriter and hurled it through the panels. Then he thrust his hand through the opening and turned the catch. As we flung ourselves into the room, Bennett rushed into a closet in a corner, slamming the door behind him. It was composed of sheet iron and effectually prevented anyone from breaking through. Kennedy and I tried vainly, however, to pry it open. While we were thus endeavoring to force an entrance, Bennett, in a sort of closet, had put on the coat, hat and mask which he invariably wore in the character of the Clutching Hand. Then he cautiously opened a secret door in the back of the closet and slowly made an exit. . . . . . . . . Meanwhile, the secretary had been doing his best to revive Elaine, who was lying in a chair, hysterical and half unconscious from the terrible shock she had experienced. Intent on discovering Bennett's whereabouts, Kennedy and I examined the wall of the office, thinking there might possibly be some button or secret spring which would open the closet door. While we were doing so, the door of a large safe in the secretary's office gradually opened and the Clutching Hand emerged from it, stepping carefully towards the door leading to the outer office, intent on escaping in that direction. At that moment, I caught sight of him, and leaping into the secretary's office, I drew my revolver and ordered him to throw up his hands. He obeyed. Holding up both hands, he slowly drew near the door to his private office. Suddenly he dropped one hand and pressed a hidden spring in the wall. Instantly a heavy iron door shot out and closed over the wooden door. Entrance to the private office was absolutely cut off. With an angry snarl, the Clutching Hand leaped at me. As he did so, I fired twice. He staggered back. . . . . . . . . The shots were heard by Kennedy and Elaine, as well as the secretary, and at the same instant they discovered the iron door which barred the entrance to the secretary's office. Rushing into the outer office, they found the clerks excitedly attempting to open the door of the secretary's office which was locked. Kennedy drew a revolver and shot through the lock, bursting open the door. They rushed into the room. Clutching Hand was apparently seated in a chair at a desk, his face buried in his arms, while I was apparently disappearing through the door. Kennedy and the clerks pounced upon the figure in the chair and tore off his mask. To their astonishment, they discovered that it was myself! My shots had missed and Clutching Hand had leaped on me with maddened fury. Dressed in my coat and hat, which he had deftly removed after overpowering me and substituting his own clothes, Clutching Hand had by this time climbed through the window of the outer office and was making his way down the fire escape to the street. He reached the foot of the iron steps leaped off and ran quickly away. Shouting a few directions to the secretary, the clerks and Elaine, Kennedy climbed through the window and darted down the fire escape in swift pursuit. The Clutching Hand, however, managed to elude capture again. Turning the street corner he leaped into a taxi which happened to be standing there, and, hastily giving the driver directions, was driven rapidly away. By the time Kennedy reached the street Clutching Hand had disappeared. . . . . . . . . While these exciting events were occurring in Bennett's office some queer doings were in progress in the heart of Chinatown. Deep underground, in one of the catacombs known only to the innermost members of the Chinese secret societies, was Long Sin's servant, Tong Wah, popularly known as "the hider," engaged in some mysterious work. A sinister-looking Chinaman, dressed in coolie costume, he was standing at a table in a dim and musty, high-ceilinged chamber, faced with stone and brick. Before him were several odd shaped Chinese vials, and from these he was carefully measuring certain proportions, as if concocting some powerful potion. He stepped back and looked around suspiciously as he suddenly heard footsteps above. The next moment Long Sin, who had entered through a trap door, climbed down a long ladder and walked into the room. Approaching Tong Wah, he asked: "When will the death-drink be ready?" "It is now prepared," was the reply. Long Sin took the bowl in which the liquor had been mixed, and, having examined it, he gave a nod and a grunt of satisfaction. Then he mounted the ladder again and disappeared. As soon as he had gone Tong Wah, picking up several of the vials, went out through an iron door at the end of the room. A few minutes later the Clutching Hand drove up to Long Sin's house in the taxicab and, after paying the chauffeur, went to the door and knocked sharply. In response to his knocking Long Sin appeared on the threshold and motioned to Bennett to come in, evidently astonished to see him. As he entered, Bennett made a secret sign and said: "I am the Clutching Hand. Kennedy is close on my trail, and I have come to be hidden." In a tone which betrayed alarm and fear the Chinaman intimated that he had no place in which Bennett could be concealed with any degree of safety. For a moment Bennett glared savagely at Long Sin. "I possess hidden plunder worth seven million dollars," he pleaded quickly, "and if by your aid I can make a getaway, a seventh is yours." The Chinaman's cupidity was clearly excited by Bennett's offer, while the bare mention of the amount at stake was sufficient to overcome all his scruples. After exchanging a few words he finally agreed to all the Clutching Hand said. Opening a trap door in the floor of the room in which they were standing, he led Bennett down a step-ladder into the subterranean chamber in which Tong Wah had so recently been preparing his mysterious potion. As Bennett sank into a chair and passed his hands over his brow in utter weariness, Long Sin poured into a cup some of the liquor of death which Tong Wah had mixed. He handed it to Bennett, who drank it eagerly. "How do you propose to help me to escape?" asked Bennett huskily. Without a word Long Sin went to the wall, and, grasping one of the stones, pressed it back, opening a large receptacle, in which there were two glass coffins apparently containing two dead Chinamen. Pulling out the coffins, he pushed them before Bennett, who rose to his feet and gazed upon them with wonder. Long Sin broke the silence: "These men," he said, "are not dead; but they have been in this condition for many months. It is what is called in your language suspended animation." "Is that what you intend to do with me?" asked Bennett, shrinking back in terror. The Chinaman nodded in affirmation as he pushed back the coffins. Overcome by the horror of the idea Bennett, with a groan, sank back into the chair, shaking his head as if to indicate that the plan was far too terrible to carry out. With a sinister smile and a shrug of his shoulders Long Sin pointed to the cup from which Bennett had drunk. "But, dear master," he remarked suavely, "you have already drunk a full dose of the potion which causes insensibility, and it is overcoming you. Even now," he added, "you are too weak to rise." Bennett made frantic efforts to move from his seat, but the potion was already taking effect, and through sheer weakness he found he was unable to get on his feet in spite of all his struggles. With a malicious chuckle Long Sin moved closer to his victim and spoke again. "Divulge where your seven million dollars are hidden," he suggested craftily, "and I will give you an antidote." By this time Bennett, who was becoming more rigid each moment, was unable to speak, but by a movement of his head and an expression in his eyes he indicated that he was ready to agree to the Chinaman's proposal. "Where have you hidden the seven million dollars?" repeated Long Sin. Slowly, and after a desperate struggle, Bennett managed to raise one hand and pointed to his breast pocket. The Chinaman instantly thrust in his hand and drew out a map. For some moments Long Sin examined the map intently, and, with a grin of satisfaction, he placed it in his own pocket. Then he mixed what he declared was a sure antidote, and, pouring some of the liquor into a cup, he held it to Bennett's lips. As Bennett opened his mouth to drink it, Long Sin with a laugh slowly pulled the cup away and poured its contents on the floor. Bennett's body had now become still more rigid. Every sign of intelligence had left his face, and although his eyes did not close, a blank stare came over his countenance, indicating plainly that the drug had destroyed all consciousness. . . . . . . . . By this time, I was slowly recovering my senses in the secretary's office, where Bennett had left me in the disguise of the Clutching Hand. Elaine, the secretary, and the clerks were gathered round me, doing all they could to revive me. Meanwhile, Kennedy had enlisted the aid of two detectives and was scouring the city for a trace of Bennett or the taxicab in which he had fled. Somehow, Kennedy suspected, instinctively, that Long Sin might give a clue to Bennett's whereabouts, and a few moments later, we were all on our way in a car to Long Sin's house. Though we did not know it, Long Sin, at the moment when Kennedy knocked at his door, was feeling in his inside pocket to see that the map he had taken from Bennett was perfectly safe. Finding that he had it, he smiled with his peculiar oriental guile. Then he opened the door, and stood for a moment, silent. "Where is Bennett?" demanded Kennedy. Long Sin eyed us all, then with a placid smile, said, "Follow me. I will show you." He opened a trap door, and we climbed down after Craig, entering a subterranean chamber, led by Long Sin. There was Bennett seated rigidly in the chair beside the table from which the vials and cups, about which we then knew nothing, had been removed. "How did it happen?" asked Kennedy. "He came here," replied Long Sin, with a wave of his hand, "and before I could stop him he did away with himself." In dumb show, the Chinaman indicated that Bennett had taken poison. "Well, we've got him," mused Kennedy, shaking his head sadly, adding, after a pause, "but he is dead." Elaine, who had followed us down, covered her eyes with her hands, and was sobbing convulsively. I thought she would faint, but Kennedy led her gently away into an upper room. As he placed her in an easy chair, he bent over her, soothingly. "Did you--did you--really--love him?" he asked in a low tone, nodding in the direction from which he had led her. Still shuddering, and with an eager look at Kennedy, Elaine shook her beautiful head. Then, slowly rising to her feet, she looked at Craig appealingly. For a moment he looked down into her two great lakes of eyes. "Forgive me," murmured Elaine, holding out her hand. Then she added in a voice tense with emotion, "Thank you for saving me." Kennedy took her hand. For a moment he held it. Then he drew her towards him, unresisting. THE END 
5007	----	THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES THE POISONED PEN BY ARTHUR. B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE POISONED PEN II THE YEGGMAN III THE GERM OF DEATH IV THE FIREBUG V THE CONFIDENCE KING VI THE SAND-HOG VII THE WHITE SLAVE VIII THE FORGER IX THE UNOFFICIAL SPY X THE SMUGGLER XI THE INVISIBLE RAY XII THE CAMPAIGN GRAFTER THE POISONED PEN I THE POISONED PEN Kennedy's suit-case was lying open on the bed, and he was literally throwing things into it from his chiffonier, as I entered after a hurried trip up-town from the Star office in response to an urgent message from him. "Come, Walter," he cried, hastily stuffing in a package of clean laundry without taking off the wrapping-paper, "I've got your suit-case out. Pack up whatever you can in five minutes. We must take the six o'clock train for Danbridge." I did not wait to hear any more. The mere mention of the name of the quaint and quiet little Connecticut town was sufficient. For Danbridge was on everybody's lips at that time. It was the scene of the now famous Danbridge poisoning case--a brutal case in which the pretty little actress, Vera Lytton, had been the victim. "I've been retained by Senator Adrian Willard," he called from his room, as I was busy packing in mine. "The Willard family believe that that young Dr. Dixon is the victim of a conspiracy--or at least Alma Willard does, which comes to the same thing, and--well, the senator called me up on long-distance and offered me anything I would name in reason to take the case. Are you ready? Come on, then. We've simply got to make that train." As we settled ourselves in the smoking-compartment of the Pullman, which for some reason or other we had to ourselves, Kennedy spoke again for the first time since our frantic dash across the city to catch the train. "Now let us see, Walter," he began. "We've both read a good deal about this case in the papers. Let's try to get our knowledge in an orderly shape before we tackle the actual case itself." "Ever been in Danbridge?" I asked. "Never," he replied. "What sort of place is it?" "Mighty interesting," I answered; "a combination of old New England and new, of ancestors and factories, of wealth and poverty, and above all it is interesting for its colony of New-Yorkers--what shall I call it?--a literary-artistic-musical combination, I guess." "Yes," he resumed, "I thought as much. Vera Lytton belonged to the colony. A very talented girl, too--you remember her in 'The Taming of the New Woman' last season? Well, to get back to the facts as we know them at present. "Here is a girl with a brilliant future on the stage discovered by her friend, Mrs. Boncour, in convulsions--practically insensible--with a bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her dressing-table. Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore Miss Lytton, but with no result. She smells the ammonia and then just tastes the headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by the time Dr. Waterworth arrives he has two patients." "No?" I corrected, "only one, for Miss Lytton was dead when he arrived, according to his latest statement." "Very well, then--one. He arrives, Mrs. Boncour is ill, the maid knows nothing at all about it, and Vera Lytton is dead. He, too, smells the ammonia, tastes the headache-powder--just the merest trace--and then he has two patients, one of them himself. We must see him, for his experience must have been appalling. How he ever did it I can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour from poisoning--cyanide, the papers say, but of course we can't accept that until we see. It seems to me, Walter, that lately the papers have made the rule in murder cases: When in doubt, call it cyanide." Not relishing Kennedy in the humour of expressing his real opinion of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversation back again by asking, "How about the note from Dr. Dixon?" "Ah, there is the crux of the whole case--that note from Dixon. Let us see. Dr. Dixon is, if I am informed correctly, of a fine and aristocratic family, though not wealthy. I believe it has been established that while he was an interne in a city hospital he became acquainted with Vera Lytton, after her divorce from that artist Thurston. Then comes his removal to Danbridge and his meeting and later his engagement with Miss Willard. On the whole, Walter, judging from the newspaper pictures, Alma Willard is quite the equal of Vera Lytton for looks, only of a different style of beauty. Oh, well, we shall see. Vera decided to spend the spring and summer at Danbridge in the bungalow of her friend, Mrs. Boncour, the novelist. That's when things began to happen." "Yes," I put in, "when you come to know Danbridge as I did after that summer when you were abroad, you'll understand, too. Everybody knows everybody else's business. It is the main occupation of a certain set, and the per-capita output of gossip is a record that would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from the note, Craig. There it is, in Dixon's own handwriting, even if he does deny it: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.' That's a damning piece of evidence." "Quite right," he agreed hastily; "the note was queer, though, wasn't it? They found it crumpled up in the jar of ammonia. Oh, there are lots of problems the newspapers have failed to see the significance of, let alone trying to follow up." Our first visit in Danbridge was to the prosecuting attorney, whose office was not far from the station on the main street. Craig had wired him, and he had kindly waited to see us, for it was evident that Danbridge respected Senator Willard and every one connected with him. "Would it be too much to ask just to see that note that was found in the Boncour bungalow?" asked Craig. The prosecutor, an energetic young man, pulled out of a document-case a crumpled note which had been pressed flat again. On it in clear, deep black letters were the words, just as reported: This will cure your headache. DR. DIXON. "How about the handwriting?" asked Kennedy. The lawyer pulled out a number of letters. "I'm afraid they will have to admit it," he said with reluctance, as if down in his heart he hated to prosecute Dixon. "We have lots of these, and no handwriting expert could successfully deny the identity of the writing." He stowed away the letters without letting Kennedy get a hint as to their contents. Kennedy was examining the note carefully. "May I count on having this note for further examination, of course always at such times and under such conditions as you agree to?" The attorney nodded. "I am perfectly willing to do anything not illegal to accommodate the senator," he said. "But, on the other hand, I am here to do my duty for the state, cost whom it may." The Willard house was in a virtual state of siege. Newspaper reporters from Boston and New York were actually encamped at every gate, terrible as an army, with cameras. It was with some difficulty that we got in, even though we were expected, for some of the more enterprising had already fooled the family by posing as officers of the law and messengers from Dr. Dixon. The house was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a hedge of faultlessly trimmed boxwoods. Senator, or rather former Senator, Willard met us in the library, and a moment later his daughter Alma joined him. She was tall, like her father, a girl of poise and self-control. Yet even the schooling of twenty-two years in rigorous New England self-restraint could not hide the very human pallor of her face after the sleepless nights and nervous days since this trouble had broken on her placid existence. Yet there was a mark of strength and determination on her face that was fascinating. The man who would trifle with this girl, I felt, was playing fast and loose with her very life. I thought then, and I said to Kennedy afterward: "If this Dr. Dixon is guilty, you have no right to hide it from that girl. Anything less than the truth will only blacken the hideousness of the crime that has already been committed." The senator greeted us gravely, and I could not but take it as a good omen when, in his pride of wealth and family and tradition, he laid bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Willard. It was clear that in this family there was one word that stood above all others, "Duty." As we were about to leave after an interview barren of new facts, a young man was announced, Mr. Halsey Post. He bowed politely to us, but it was evident why he had called, as his eye followed Alma about the room. "The son of the late Halsey Post, of Post & Vance, silversmiths, who have the large factory in town, which you perhaps noticed," explained the senator. "My daughter has known him all her life. A very fine young man." Later, we learned that the senator had bent every effort toward securing Halsey Post as a son-in-law, but his daughter had had views of her own on the subject. Post waited until Alma had withdrawn before he disclosed the real object of his visit. In almost a whisper, lest she should still be listening, he said, "There is a story about town that Vera Lytton's former husband--an artist named Thurston--was here just before her death." Senator Willard leaned forward as if expecting to hear Dixon immediately acquitted. None of us was prepared for the next remark. "And the story goes on to say that he threatened to make a scene over a wrong he says he has suffered from Dixon. I don't know anything more about it, and I tell you only because I think you ought to know what Danbridge is saying under its breath." We shook off the last of the reporters who affixed themselves to us, and for a moment Kennedy dropped in at the little bungalow to see Mrs. Boncour. She was much better, though she had suffered much. She had taken only a pinhead of the poison, but it had proved very nearly fatal. "Had Miss Lytton any enemies whom you think of, people who were jealous of her professionally or personally?" asked Craig. "I should not even have said Dr. Dixon was an enemy," she replied evasively. "But this Mr. Thurston," put in Kennedy quickly. "One is not usually visited in perfect friendship by a husband who has been divorced." She regarded him keenly for a moment. "Halsey Post told you that," she said. "No one else knew he was here. But Halsey Post was an old friend of both Vera and Mr. Thurston before they separated. By chance he happened to drop in the day Mr. Thurston was here, and later in the day I gave him a letter to forward to Mr. Thurston, which had come after the artist left. I'm sure no one else knew the artist. He was here the morning of the day she died, and--and--that's every bit I'm going to tell you about him, so there. I don't know why he came or where he went." "That's a thing we must follow up later," remarked Kennedy as we made our adieus. "Just now I want to get the facts in hand. The next thing on my programme is to see this Dr. Waterworth." We found the doctor still in bed; in fact, a wreck as the result of his adventure. He had little to correct in the facts of the story which had been published so far. But there were many other details of the poisoning he was quite willing to discuss frankly. "It was true about the jar of ammonia?" asked Kennedy. "Yes," he answered. "It was standing on her dressing-table with the note crumpled up in it, just as the papers said." "And you have no idea why it was there?" "I didn't say that. I can guess. Fumes of ammonia are one of the antidotes for poisoning of this kind." "But Vera Lytton could hardly have known that," objected Kennedy. "No, of course not. But she probably did know that ammonia is good for just that sort of faintness which she must have experienced after taking the powder. Perhaps she thought of sal volatile, I don't know. But most people know that ammonia in some form is good for faintness of this sort, even if they don't know anything about cyanides and---" "Then it was cyanide?" interrupted Craig. "Yes," he replied slowly. It was evident that he was suffering great physical and nervous anguish as the result of his too intimate acquaintance with the poisons in question. "I will tell you precisely how it was, Professor Kennedy. When I was called in to see Miss Lytton I found her on the bed. I pried open her jaws and smelled the sweetish odour of the cyanogen gas. I knew then what she had taken, and at the moment she was dead. In the next room I heard some one moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour, and that she was deathly sick. I ran into her room, and though she was beside herself with pain I managed to control her, though she struggled desperately against me. I was rushing her to the bathroom, passing through Miss Lytton's room. 'What's wrong?' I asked as I carried her along. 'I took some of that,' she replied, pointing to the bottle on the dressing-table. "I put a small quantity of its crystal contents on my tongue. Then I realised the most tragic truth of my life. I had taken one of the deadliest poisons in the world. The odour of the released gas of cyanogen was strong. But more than that, the metallic taste and the horrible burning sensation told of the presence of some form of mercury, too. In that terrible moment my brain worked with the incredible swiftness of light. In a flash I knew that if I added malic acid to the mercury--perchloride of mercury or corrosive sublimate--I would have calomel or subchloride of mercury, the only thing that would switch the poison out of my system and Mrs. Boncour's. "Seizing her about the waist, I hurried into the dining-room. On a sideboard was a dish of fruit. I took two apples. I made her eat one, core and all. I ate the other. The fruit contained the malic acid I needed to manufacture the calomel, and I made it right there in nature's own laboratory. But there was no time to stop. I had to act just as quickly to neutralise that cyanide, too. Remembering the ammonia, I rushed back with Mrs. Boncour, and we inhaled the fumes. Then I found a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen. I washed out her stomach with it, and then my own. Then I injected some of the peroxide into various parts of her body. The peroxide of hydrogen and hydrocyanic acid, you know, make oxamide, which is a harmless compound. "The maid put Mrs. Boncour to bed, saved. I went to my house, a wreck. Since then I have not left this bed. With my legs paralysed I lie here, expecting each hour to be my last." "Would you taste an unknown drug again to discover the nature of a probable poison?" asked Craig. "I don't know," he answered slowly, "but I suppose I would. In such a case a conscientious doctor has no thought of self. He is there to do things, and he does them, according to the best that is in him. In spite of the fact that I haven't had one hour of unbroken sleep since that fatal day, I suppose I would do it again." When we were leaving, I remarked: "That is a martyr to science. Could anything be more dramatic than his willing penalty for his devotion to medicine?" We walked along in silence. "Walter, did you notice he said not a word of condemnation of Dixon, though the note was before his eyes? Surely Dixon has some strong supporters in Danbridge, as well as enemies." The next morning we continued our investigation. We found Dixon's lawyer, Leland, in consultation with his client in the bare cell of the county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the prepossession in his favour due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to secure the greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal letters, though the prosecutor secured some, the contents of which had not been disclosed. Kennedy spent most of the day in tracing out the movements of Thurston. Nothing that proved important was turned up, and even visits to near-by towns failed to show any sales of cyanide or sublimate to any one not entitled to buy them. Meanwhile, in turning over the gossip of the town, one of the newspapermen ran across the fact that the Boncour bungalow was owned by the Posts, and that Halsey Post, as the executor of the estate, was a more frequent visitor than the mere collection of the rent would warrant. Mrs. Boncour maintained a stolid silence that covered a seething internal fury when the newspaperman in question hinted that the landlord and tenant were on exceptionally good terms. It was after a fruitless day of such search that we were sitting in the reading-room of the Fairfield Hotel. Leland entered. His face was positively white. Without a word he took us by the arm and led us across Main Street and up a flight of stairs to his office. Then he locked the door. "What's the matter?" asked Kennedy. "When I took this case," he said, "I believed down in my heart that Dixon was innocent. I still believe it, but my faith has been rudely shaken. I feel that you should know about what I have just found. As I told you, we secured nearly all of Dr. Dixon's letters. I had not read them all then. But I have been going through them to-night. Here is a letter from Vera Lytton herself. You will notice it is dated the day of her death." He laid the letter before us. It was written in a curious greyish-black ink in a woman's hand, and read: DEAR HARRIS: Since we agreed to disagree we have at least been good friends, if no longer lovers. I am not writing in anger to reproach you with your new love, so soon after the old. I suppose Alma Willard is far better suited to be your wife than is a poor little actress--rather looked down on in this Puritan society here. But there is something I wish to warn you about, for it concerns us all intimately. We are in danger of an awful mix-up if we don't look out. Mr. Thurston--I had almost said my husband, though I don't know whether that is the truth or not--who has just come over from New York, tells me that there is some doubt about the validity of our divorce. You recall he was in the South at the time I sued him, and the papers were served on him in Georgia, He now says the proof of service was fraudulent and that he can set aside the divorce. In that case you might figure in a suit for alienating my affections. I do not write this with ill will, but simply to let you know how things stand. If we had married, I suppose I would be guilty of bigamy. At any rate, if he were disposed he could make a terrible scandal. Oh, Harris, can't you settle with him if he asks anything? Don't forget so soon that we once thought we were going to be the happiest of mortals--at least I did. Don't desert me, or the very earth will cry out against you. I am frantic and hardly know what I am writing. My head aches, but it is my heart that is breaking. Harris, I am yours still, down in my heart, but not to be cast off like an old suit for a new one. You know the old saying about a woman scorned. I beg you not to go back on Your poor little deserted VERA. As we finished reading, Leland exclaimed, "That never must come before the jury." Kennedy was examining the letter carefully. "Strange," he muttered. "See how it was folded. It was written on the wrong side of the sheet, or rather folded up with the writing outside. Where have these letters been?" "Part of the time in my safe, part of the time this afternoon on my desk by the window." "The office was locked, I suppose?" asked Kennedy. "There was no way to slip this letter in among the others since you obtained them?" "None. The office has been locked, and there is no evidence of any one having entered or disturbed a thing." He was hastily running over the pile of letters as if looking to see whether they were all there. Suddenly he stopped. "Yes," he exclaimed excitedly, "one of them is gone." Nervously he fumbled through them again. "One is gone," he repeated, looking at us, startled. "What was it about?" asked Craig. "It was a note from an artist, Thurston, who gave the address of Mrs. Boncour's bungalow--ah, I see you have heard of him. He asked Dixon's recommendation of a certain patent headache medicine. I thought it possibly evidential, and I asked Dixon about it. He explained it by saying that he did not have a copy of his reply, but as near as he could recall, he wrote that the compound would not cure a headache except at the expense of reducing heart action dangerously. He says he sent no prescription. Indeed, he thought it a scheme to extract advice without incurring the charge for an office call and answered it only because he thought Vera had become reconciled to Thurston again. I can't find that letter of Thurston's. It is gone." We looked at each other in amazement. "Why, if Dixon contemplated anything against Miss Lytton, should he preserve this letter from her?" mused Kennedy. "Why didn't he destroy it?" "That's what puzzles me," remarked Leland. "Do you suppose some one has broken in and substituted this Lytton letter for the Thurston letter?" Kennedy was scrutinising the letter, saying nothing. "I may keep it?" he asked at length. Leland was quite willing and even undertook to obtain some specimens of the writing of Vera Lytton. With these and the letter Kennedy was working far into the night and long after I had passed into a land troubled with many wild dreams of deadly poisons and secret intrigues of artists. The next morning a message from our old friend First Deputy O'Connor in New York told briefly of locating the rooms of an artist named Thurston in one of the co-operative studio apartments. Thurston himself had not been there for several days and was reported to have gone to Maine to sketch. He had had a number of debts, but before he left they had all been paid--strange to say, by a notorious firm of shyster lawyers, Kerr & Kimmel. Kennedy wired back to find out the facts from Kerr & Kimmel and to locate Thurston at any cost. Even the discovery of the new letter did not shake the wonderful self-possession of Dr. Dixon. He denied ever having received it and repeated his story of a letter from Thurston to which he had replied by sending an answer, care of Mrs. Boncour, as requested. He insisted that the engagement between Miss Lytton and himself had been broken before the announcement of his engagement with Miss Willard. As for Thurston, he said the man was little more than a name to him. He had known perfectly all the circumstances of the divorce, but had had no dealings with Thurston and no fear of him. Again and again he denied ever receiving the letter from Vera Lytton. Kennedy did not tell the Willards of the new letter. The strain had begun to tell on Alma, and her father had had her quietly taken to a farm of his up in the country. To escape the curious eyes of reporters, Halsey Post had driven up one night in his closed car. She had entered it quickly with her father, and the journey had been made in the car, while Halsey Post had quietly dropped off on the outskirts of the town, where another car was waiting to take him back. It was evident that the Willard family relied implicitly on Halsey, and his assistance to them was most considerate. While he never forced himself forward, he kept in close touch with the progress of the case, and now that Alma was away his watchfulness increased proportionately, and twice a day he wrote a long report which was sent to her. Kennedy was now bending every effort to locate the missing artist. When he left Danbridge, he seemed to have dropped out of sight completely. However, with O'Connor's aid, the police of all New England were on the lookout. The Thurstons had been friends of Halsey's before Vera Lytton had ever met Dr. Dixon, we discovered from the Danbridge gossips, and I, at least, jumped to the conclusion that Halsey was shielding the artist, perhaps through a sense of friendship when he found that Kennedy was interested in Thurston's movement. I must say I rather liked Halsey, for he seemed very thoughtful of the Willards, and was never too busy to give an hour or so to any commission they wished carried out without publicity. Two days passed with not a word from Thurston. Kennedy was obviously getting impatient. One day a rumour was received that he was in Bar Harbour; the next it was a report from Nova Scotia. At last, however, came the welcome news that he had been located in New Hampshire, arrested, and might be expected the next day. At once Kennedy became all energy. He arranged for a secret conference in Senator Willard's house, the moment the artist was to arrive. The senator and his daughter made a flying trip back to town. Nothing was said to any one about Thurston, but Kennedy quietly arranged with the district attorney to be present with the note and the jar of ammonia properly safeguarded. Leland of course came, although his client could not. Halsey Post seemed only too glad to be with Miss Willard, though he seemed to have lost interest in the case as soon as the Willards returned to look after it themselves. Mrs. Boncour was well enough to attend, and even Dr. Waterworth insisted on coming in a private ambulance which drove over from a near-by city especially for him. The time was fixed just before the arrival of the train that was to bring Thurston. It was an anxious gathering of friends and foes of Dr. Dixon who sat impatiently waiting for Kennedy to begin this momentous exposition that was to establish the guilt or innocence of the calm young physician who sat impassively in the jail not half a mile from the room where his life and death were being debated. "In many respects this is the most remarkable case that it has ever been my lot to handle," began Kennedy. "Never before have I felt so keenly my sense of responsibility. Therefore, though this is a somewhat irregular proceeding, let me begin by setting forth the facts as I see them. "First, let us consider the dead woman. The question that arises here is, Was she murdered or did she commit suicide? I think you will discover the answer as I proceed. Miss Lytton, as you know, was, two years ago, Mrs. Burgess Thurston. The Thurstons had temperament, and temperament is quite often the highway to the divorce court. It was so in this case. Mrs. Thurston discovered that her husband was paying much attention to other women. She sued for divorce in New York, and he accepted service in the South, where he happened to be. At least it was so testified by Mrs. Thurston's lawyer. "Now here comes the remarkable feature of the case. The law firm of Kerr & Kimmel, I find, not long ago began to investigate the legality of this divorce. Before a notary Thurston made an affidavit that he had never been served by the lawyer for Miss Lytton, as she was now known. Her lawyer is dead, but his representative in the South who served the papers is alive. He was brought to New York and asserted squarely that he had served the papers properly. "Here is where the shrewdness of Mose Kimmel, the shyster lawyer, came in. He arranged to have the Southern attorney identify the man he had served the papers on. For this purpose he was engaged in conversation with one of his own clerks when the lawyer was due to appear. Kimmel appeared to act confused, as if he had been caught napping. The Southern lawyer, who had seen Thurston only once, fell squarely into the trap and identified the clerk as Thurston. There were plenty of witnesses to it, and it was point number two for the great Mose Kimmel. Papers were drawn up to set aside the divorce decree. "In the meantime, Miss Lytton, or Mrs. Thurston, had become acquainted with a young doctor in a New York hospital, and had become engaged to him. It matters not that the engagement was later broken. The fact remains that if the divorce were set aside an action would lie against Dr. Dixon for alienating Mrs. Thurston's affections, and a grave scandal would result. I need not add that in this quiet little town of Danbridge the most could be made of such a suit." Kennedy was unfolding a piece of paper. As he laid it down, Leland, who was sitting next to me, exclaimed under his breath: "My God, he's going to let the prosecutor know about that letter. Can't you stop him?" It was too late. Kennedy had already begun to read Vera's letter. It was damning to Dixon, added to the other note found in the ammonia-jar. When he had finished reading, you could almost hear the hearts throbbing in the room. A scowl overspread Senator Willard's features. Alma Willard was pale and staring wildly at Kennedy. Halsey Post, ever solicitous for her, handed her a glass of water from the table. Dr. Waterworth had forgotten his pain in his intense attention, and Mrs. Boncour seemed stunned with astonishment. The prosecuting attorney was eagerly taking notes. "In some way," pursued Kennedy in an even voice, "this letter was either overlooked in the original correspondence of Dr. Dixon or it was added to it later. I shall come back to that presently. My next point is that Dr. Dixon says he received a letter from Thurston on the day the artist visited the Boncour bungalow. It asked about a certain headache compound, and his reply was brief and, as nearly as I can find out, read, 'This compound will not cure your headache except at the expense of reducing heart action dangerously.' "Next comes the tragedy. On the evening of the day that Thurston left, after presumably telling Miss Lytton about what Kerr & Kimmel had discovered, Miss Lytton is found dying with a bottle containing cyanide and sublimate beside her. You are all familiar with the circumstances and with the note discovered in the jar of ammonia. Now, if the prosecutor will be so kind as to let me see that note--thank you, sir. This is the identical note. You have all heard the various theories of the jar and have read the note. Here it is in plain, cold black and white--in Dr. Dixon's own handwriting, as you know, and reads: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.'" Alma Willard seemed as one paralysed. Was Kennedy, who had been engaged by her father to defend her fiance, about to convict him? "Before we draw the final conclusion," continued Kennedy gravely, "there are one or two points I wish to elaborate. Walter, will you open that door into the main hall?" I did so, and two policemen stepped in with a prisoner. It was Thurston, but changed almost beyond recognition. His clothes were worn, his beard shaved off, and he had a generally hunted appearance. Thurston was visibly nervous. Apparently he had heard all that Kennedy had said and intended he should hear, for as he entered he almost broke away from the police officers in his eagerness to speak. "Before God," he cried dramatically, "I am as innocent as you are of this crime, Professor Kennedy." "Are you prepared to swear before ME," almost shouted Kennedy, his eyes blazing, "that you were never served properly by your wife's lawyers in that suit?" The man cringed back as if a stinging blow had been delivered between his eyes. As he met Craig's fixed glare he knew there was no hope. Slowly, as if the words were being wrung from him syllable by syllable, he said in a muffled voice: "No, I perjured myself. I was served in that suit. But--" "And you swore falsely before Kimmel that you were not?" persisted Kennedy. "Yes," he murmured. "But--" "And you are prepared now to make another affidavit to that effect?" "Yes," he replied. "If--" "No buts or ifs, Thurston," cried Kennedy sarcastically. "What did you make that affidavit for? What is YOUR story?" "Kimmel sent for me. I did not go to him. He offered to pay my debts if I would swear to such a statement. I did not ask why or for whom. I swore to it and gave him a list of my creditors. I waited until they were paid. Then my conscience"--I could not help revolting at the thought of conscience in such a wretch, and the word itself seemed to stick in his throat as he went on and saw how feeble an impression he was making on us--"my conscience began to trouble me. I determined to see Vera, tell her all, and find out whether it was she who wanted this statement. I saw her. When at last I told her, she scorned me. I can confirm that, for as I left a man entered. I now knew how grossly I had sinned, in listening to Mose Kimmel. I fled. I disappeared in Maine. I travelled. Every day my money grew less. At last I was overtaken, captured, and brought back here." He stopped and sank wretchedly down in a chair and covered his face with his hands. "A likely story," muttered Leland in my ear. Kennedy was working quickly. Motioning the officers to be seated by Thurston, he uncovered a jar which he had placed on the table. The colour had now appeared in Alma's cheeks, as if hope had again sprung in her heart, and I fancied that Halsey Post saw his claim on her favour declining correspondingly. "I want you to examine the letters in this case with me," continued Kennedy. "Take the letter which I read from Miss Lytton, which was found following the strange disappearance of the note from Thurston." He dipped a pen into a little bottle, and wrote on a piece of paper: What is your opinion about Cross's Headache Cure? Would you recommend it for a nervous headache? BURGESS THURSTON, c/o MRS. S. BONCOUR. Craig held up the writing so that we could all see that he had written what Dixon declared Thurston wrote in the note that had disappeared. Then he dipped another pen into a second bottle, and for some time he scrawled on another sheet of paper. He held it up, but it was still perfectly blank. "Now," he added, "I am going to give a little demonstration which I expect to be successful only in a measure. Here in the open sunshine by this window I am going to place these two sheets of paper side by side. It will take longer than I care to wait to make my demonstration complete, but I can do enough to convince you." For a quarter of an hour we sat in silence, wondering what he would do next. At last he beckoned us over to the window. As we approached he said, "On sheet number one I have written with quinoline; on sheet number two I wrote with a solution of nitrate of silver." We bent over. The writing signed "Thurston" on sheet number one was faint, almost imperceptible, but on paper number two, in black letters, appeared what Kennedy had written: "Dear Harris: Since we agreed to disagree we have at least been good friends." "It is like the start of the substituted letter, and the other is like the missing note," gasped Leland in a daze. "Yes," said Kennedy quickly. "Leland, no one entered your office. No one stole the Thurston note. No one substituted the Lytton letter. According to your own story, you took them out of the safe and left them in the sunlight all day. The process that had been started earlier in ordinary light, slowly, was now quickly completed. In other words, there was writing which would soon fade away on one side of the paper and writing which was invisible but would soon appear on the other. "For instance, quinoline rapidly disappears in sunlight. Starch with a slight trace of iodine writes a light blue, which disappears in air. It was something like that used in the Thurston letter. Then, too, silver nitrate dissolved in ammonia gradually turns black as it is acted on by light and air. Or magenta treated with a bleaching-agent in just sufficient quantity to decolourise it is invisible when used for writing. But the original colour reappears as the oxygen of the air acts upon the pigment. I haven't a doubt but that my analyses of the inks are correct and on one side quinoline was used and on the other nitrate of silver. This explains the inexplicable disappearance of evidence incriminating one person, Thurston, and the sudden appearance of evidence incriminating another, Dr. Dixon. Sympathetic ink also accounts for the curious circumstance that the Lytton letter was folded up with the writing apparently outside. It was outside and unseen until the sunlight brought it out and destroyed the other, inside, writing--a change, I suspect, that was intended for the police to see after it was completed, not for the defence to witness as it was taking place." We looked at each other aghast. Thurston was nervously opening and shutting his lips and moistening them as if he wanted to say something but could not find the words. "Lastly," went on Craig, utterly regardless of Thurston's frantic efforts to speak, "we come to the note that was discovered so queerly crumpled up in the jar of ammonia on Vera Lytton's dressing-table. I have here a cylindrical glass jar in which I place some sal-ammoniac and quicklime. I will wet it and heat it a little. That produces the pungent gas of ammonia. "On one side of this third piece of paper I myself write with this mercurous nitrate solution. You see, I leave no mark on the paper as I write. I fold it up and drop it into the jar-and in a few seconds withdraw it. Here is a very quick way of producing something like the slow result of sunlight with silver nitrate. The fumes of ammonia have formed the precipitate of black mercurous nitrate, a very distinct black writing which is almost indelible. That is what is technically called invisible rather than sympathetic ink." We leaned over to read what he had written. It was the same as the note incriminating Dixon: This will cure your headache. DR. DIXON. A servant entered with a telegram from New York. Scarcely stopping in his exposure, Kennedy tore it open, read it hastily, stuffed it into his pocket, and went on. "Here in this fourth bottle I have an acid solution of iron chloride, diluted until the writing is invisible when dry," he hurried on. "I will just make a few scratches on this fourth sheet of paper--so. It leaves no mark. But it has the remarkable property of becoming red in vapour of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See--the scratches I made on the paper are red." Then hardly giving us more than a moment to let the fact impress itself on our minds, he seized the piece of paper and dashed it into the jar of ammonia. When he withdrew it, it was just a plain sheet of white paper again. The red marks which the gas in the flask had brought out of nothingness had been effaced by the ammonia. They had gone and left no trace. "In this way I can alternately make the marks appear and disappear by using the sulpho-cyanide and the ammonia. Whoever wrote this note with Dr. Dixon's name on it must have had the doctor's reply to the Thurston letter containing the words, 'This will not cure your headache.' He carefully traced the words, holding the genuine note up to the light with a piece of paper over it, leaving out the word 'not' and using only such words as he needed. This note was then destroyed. "But he forgot that after he had brought out the red writing by the use of the sulpho-cyanide, and though he could count on Vera Lytton's placing the note in the jar of ammonia and hence obliterating the writing, while at the same time the invisible writing in the mercurous nitrate involving Dr. Dixon's name would be brought out by the ammonia indelibly on the other side of the note--he forgot"--Kennedy was now speaking eagerly and loudly--"that the sulpho-cyanide vapours could always be made to bring back to accuse him the words that the ammonia had blotted out." Before the prosecutor could interfere, Kennedy had picked up the note found in the ammonia-jar beside the dying girl and had jammed the state's evidence into the long-necked flask of sulpho-cyanide vapour. "Don't fear," he said, trying to pacify the now furious prosecutor, "it will do nothing to the Dixon writing. That is permanent now, even if it is only a tracing." When he withdrew the note, there was writing on both sides, the black of the original note and something in red on the other side. We crowded around, and Craig read it with as much interest as any of us: "Before taking the headache-powder, be sure to place the contents of this paper in a jar with a little warm water." "Hum," commented Craig, "this was apparently written on the outside wrapper of a paper folded about some sal-ammoniac and quicklime. It goes on: "'Just drop the whole thing in, PAPER AND ALL. Then if you feel a faintness from the medicine the ammonia will quickly restore you. One spoonful of the headache-powder swallowed quickly is enough.'" No name was signed to the directions, but they were plainly written, and "PAPER AND ALL" was underscored heavily. Craig pulled out some letters. "I have here specimens of writing of many persons connected with this case, but I can see at a glance which one corresponds to the writing on this red death-warrant by an almost inhuman fiend. I shall, however, leave that part of it to the handwriting experts to determine at the trial. Thurston, who was the man whom you saw enter the Boncour bungalow as you left--the constant visitor?" Thurston had not yet regained his self-control, but with trembling forefinger he turned and pointed to Halsey Post. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen," cried Kennedy as he slapped the telegram that had just come from New York down on the table decisively, "yes, the real client of Kerr & Kimmel, who bent Thurston to his purposes, was Halsey Post, once secret lover of Vera Lytton till threatened by scandal in Danbridge--Halsey Post, graduate in technology, student of sympathetic inks, forger of the Vera Lytton letter and the other notes, and dealer in cyanides in the silver-smithing business, fortune-hunter for the Willard millions with which to recoup the Post & Vance losses, and hence rival of Dr. Dixon for the love of Alma Willard. That is the man who wielded the poisoned pen. Dr. Dixon is innocent." II THE YEGGMAN "Hello! Yes, this is Professor Kennedy. I didn't catch the name--oh, yes--President Blake of the Standard Burglary Insurance Company. What--really? The Branford pearls--stolen? Maid chloroformed? Yes, I'll take the case. You'll be up in half an hour? All right, I'll be here. Goodbye." It was through this brief and businesslike conversation over the telephone that Kennedy became involved in what proved to be one of the most dangerous cases he had ever handled. At the mention of the Branford pearls I involuntarily stopped reading, and listened, not because I wanted to pry into Craig's affairs, but because I simply couldn't help it. This was news that had not yet been given out to the papers, and my instinct told me that there must be something more to it than the bare statement of the robbery. "Some one has made a rich haul," I commented. "It was reported, I remember, when the Branford pearls were bought in Paris last year that Mrs. Branford paid upward of a million francs for the collection." "Blake is bringing up his shrewdest detective to co-operate with me in the case," added Kennedy. "Blake, I understand, is the head of the Burglary Insurance Underwriters' Association, too. This will be a big thing, Walter, if we can carry it through." It was the longest half-hour that I ever put in, waiting for Blake to arrive. When he did come, it was quite evident that my surmise had been correct. Blake was one of those young old men who are increasingly common in business today. There was an air of dignity and keenness about his manner that showed clearly how important he regarded the case. So anxious was he to get down to business that he barely introduced himself and his companion, Special Officer Maloney, a typical private detective. "Of course you haven't heard anything except what I have told you over the wire," he began, going right to the point. "We were notified of it only this noon ourselves, and we haven't given it out to the papers yet, though the local police in Jersey are now on the scene. The New York police must be notified tonight, so that whatever we do must be done before they muss things up. We've got a clue that we want to follow up secretly. These are the facts." In the terse, straightforward language of the up-to-date man of efficiency, he sketched the situation for us. "The Branford estate, you know, consists of several acres on the mountain back of Montclair, overlooking the valley, and surrounded by even larger estates. Branford, I understand, is in the West with a party of capitalists, inspecting a reported find of potash salts. Mrs. Branford closed up the house a few days ago and left for a short stay at Palm Beach. Of course they ought to have put their valuables in a safe deposit vault. But they didn't. They relied on a safe that was really one of the best in the market--a splendid safe, I may say. Well, it seems that while the master and mistress were both away the servants decided on having a good time in New York. They locked up the house securely--there's no doubt of that--and just went. That is, they all went except Mrs. Branford's maid, who refused to go for some reason or other. We've got all the servants, but there's not a clue to be had from any of them. They just went off on a bust, that's clear. They admit it. "Now, when they got back early this morning they found the maid in bed--dead. There was still a strong odor of chloroform about the room. The bed was disarranged as if there had been a struggle. A towel had been wrapped up in a sort of cone, saturated with chloroform, and forcibly held over the girl's nose. The next thing they discovered was the safe--blown open in a most peculiar manner. I won't dwell on that. We're going to take you out there and show it to you after I've told you the whole story. "Here's the real point. It looks all right, so far. The local police say that the thief or thieves, whoever they were, apparently gained access by breaking a back window. That's mistake number one. Tell Mr. Kennedy about the window, Maloney." "It's just simply this," responded the detective. "When I came to look at the broken window I found that the glass had fallen outside in such a way as it could not have fallen if the window had been broken from the outside. The thing was a blind. Whoever did it got into the house in some other way and then broke the glass later to give a false clue." "And," concluded Blake, taking his cigar between his thumb and forefinger and shaking it to give all possible emphasis to his words, "we have had our agent at Palm Beach on long-distance 'phone twice this afternoon. Mrs. Branford did NOT go to Palm Beach. She did NOT engage rooms in any hotel there. And furthermore she never had any intention of going there. By a fortunate circumstance Maloney picked up a hint from one of the servants, and he has located her at the Grattan Inn in this city. In other words, Mrs. Branford has stolen her own jewels from herself in order to collect the burglary insurance--a common-enough thing in itself, but never to my knowledge done on such a large scale before." The insurance man sank back in his chair and surveyed us sharply. "But," interrupted Kennedy slowly, "how about--" "I know--the maid," continued Blake. "I do not mean that Mrs. Branford did the actual stealing. Oh, no. That was done by a yeggman of experience. He must have been above the average, but everything points to the work of a yeggman. She hired him. But he overstepped the mark when he chloroformed the maid." For a moment Kennedy said nothing. Then he remarked: "Let us go out and see the safe. There must be some clue. After that I want to have a talk with Mrs. Branford. By the way," he added, as we all rose to go down to Blake's car, "I once handled a life insurance case for the Great Eastern. I made the condition that I was to handle it in my own way, whether it went for or against the company. That's understood, is it, before I undertake the case?" "Yes, yes," agreed Blake. "Get at the truth. We're not seeking to squirm out of meeting an honest liability. Only we want to make a signal example if it is as we have every reason to believe. There has been altogether too much of this sort of fake burglary to collect insurance, and as president of the underwriters it is my duty and intention to put a stop to it. Come on." Maloney nodded his head vigorously in assent with his chief. "Never fear," he murmured. "The truth is what will benefit the company, all right. She did it." The Branford estate lay some distance back from the railroad station, so that, although it took longer to go by automobile than by train, the car made us independent of the rather fitful night train service and the local cabmen. We found the house not deserted by the servants, but subdued. The body of the maid had been removed to a local morgue, and a police officer was patrolling the grounds, though of what use that could be I was at a loss to understand. Kennedy was chiefly interested in the safe. It was of the so-called "burglar-proof" variety, spherical in shape, and looking for all the world like a miniature piece of electrical machinery. "I doubt if anything could have withstood such savage treatment as has been given to this safe," remarked Craig as he concluded a cursory examination of it. "It shows great resistance to high explosives, chiefly, I believe, as a result of its rounded shape. But nothing could stand up against such continued assaults." He continued to examine the safe while we stood idly by. "I like to reconstruct my cases in my own mind," explained Kennedy, as he took his time in the examination. "Now, this fellow must have stripped the safe of all the outer trimmings. His next move was to make a dent in the manganese surface across the joint where the door fits the body. That must have taken a good many minutes of husky work. In fact, I don't see how he could have done it without a sledge-hammer and a hot chisel. Still, he did it and then--" "But the maid," interposed Maloney. "She was in the house. She would have heard and given an alarm." For answer, Craig simply went to a bay-window and raised the curtain. Pointing to the lights of the next house, far down the road, he said, "I'll buy the best cigars in the state if you can make them hear you on a blustery night like last night. No, she probably did scream. Either at this point, or at the very start, the burglar must have chloroformed her. I don't see any other way to explain it. I doubt if he expected such a tough proposition as he found in this safe, but he was evidently prepared to carry it through, now that he was here and had such an unexpectedly clear field, except for the maid. He simply got her out of the way, or his confederates did--in the easiest possible way, poor girl." Returning to the safe, he continued: "Well, anyhow, he made a furrow perhaps an inch and a half long and a quarter of an inch wide and, I should say, not over an eighth of an inch deep. Then he commenced to burgle in earnest. Under the dent he made a sort of little cup of red clay and poured in the 'soup'--the nitroglycerin--so that it would run into the depression. Then he exploded it in the regular way with a battery and a fulminate cap. I doubt if it did much more than discolour the metal at first. Still, with the true persistency of his kind, he probably repeated the dose, using more and more of the 'soup' until the joint was stretched a little, and more of an opening made so that the 'soup' could run in. "Again and again he must have repeated and increased the charges. Perhaps he used two or three cups at a time. By this time the outer door must have been stretched so as to make it easy to introduce the explosive. No doubt he was able to use ten or twelve ounces of the stuff at a charge. It must have been more like target-practice than safe-blowing. But the chance doesn't often come--an empty house and plenty of time. Finally the door must have bulged a fraction of an inch or so, and then a good big charge and the outer portion was ripped off and the safe turned over. There was still two or three inches of manganese steel protecting the contents, wedged in so tight that it must have seemed that nothing could budge it. But he must have kept at it until we have the wreck that we see here," and Kennedy kicked the safe with his foot as he finished. Blake was all attention by this time, while Maloney gasped, "If I was in the safe-cracking business, I'd make you the head of the firm." "And now," said Craig, "let us go back to New York and see if we can find Mrs. Branford." "Of course you understand," explained Blake as we were speeding back, "that most of these cases of fake robberies are among small people, many of them on the East Side among little jewellers or other tradesmen. Still, they are not limited to any one class. Indeed, it is easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit in the midst of finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring halo of moral rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances. Too often, I'm afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved burglary and paid the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's a case where we considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are mistaken. It's the last straw." Our interview with Mrs. Branford was about as awkward an undertaking as I have ever been concerned with. Imagine yourself forced to question a perfectly stunning woman, who was suspected of plotting so daring a deed and knew that you suspected her. Resentment was no name for her feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by what must have been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power that she restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having us thrown out bodily. That would have put a bad face on it, so she tolerated our presence. Then, of course, the insurance company had reserved the right to examine everybody in the household, under oath if necessary, before passing on the claim. "This is an outrage," she exclaimed, her eyes flashing and her breast rising and falling with suppressed emotion, "an outrage. When my husband returns I intend to have him place the whole matter in the hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I have the full amount of the insurance, but I will have damages and costs and everything the law allows. Spying on my every movement in this way--it is an outrage! One would think we were in St. Petersburg instead of New York." "One moment, Mrs. Branford," put in Kennedy, as politely as he could. "Suppose--" "Suppose nothing," she cried angrily. "I shall explain nothing, say nothing. What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house in the suburbs and come to the city to live for a few days--is it anybody's business except mine?" "And your husband's?" added Kennedy, nettled at her treatment of him. She shot him a scornful glance. "I suppose Mr. Branford went out to Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on my jewels," she added sarcastically with eyes that snapped fire. "I was about to say," remarked Kennedy as imperturbably as if he were an automaton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your absence to rob your safe, don't you think the wisest course would be to be perfectly frank about it?" "And give just one plausible reason why you wished so much to have it known that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were in New York?" pursued Maloney, while Kennedy frowned at his tactless attempt at a third degree. If she had resented Kennedy, she positively flew up in the air and commenced to aviate at Maloney's questioning. Tossing her head, she said icily: "I do not know that you have been appointed my guardian, sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and with that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing one biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish did he have for this ticklish part of the proceedings. I think we all felt like schoolboys who had been detected robbing a melon-patch or in some other heinous offence, as we slowly filed down the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so readily and successfully puts one in the wrong that I could easily comprehend why Blake wanted to call on Kennedy for help in what otherwise seemed a plain case. Blake and Maloney were some distance ahead of us, as Craig leaned over to me and whispered. "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have to shake him loose in some way. Either we handle this case alone or we quit." "Right-o," I agreed emphatically. "He's put his foot in it badly at the very start. Only, be decent about it, Craig. The case is too big for you to let it slip by." "Trust me, Walter. I'll do it tactfully," he whispered, then to Blake he added as we overtook them: "Maloney is right. The case is simple enough, after all. But we must find out some way to fasten the thing more closely on Mrs. Branford. Let me think out a scheme to-night. I'll see you tomorrow." As Blake and Maloney disappeared down the street in the car, Kennedy wheeled about and walked deliberately back into the Grattan Inn again. It was quite late. People were coming in from the theatres, laughing and chatting gaily. Kennedy selected a table that commanded a view of the parlour as well as of the dining-room itself. "She was dressed to receive some one--did you notice?" he remarked as we sat down and cast our eyes over the dizzy array of inedibles on the card before us. "I think it is worth waiting a while to see who it is." Having ordered what I did not want, I glanced about until my eye rested on a large pier-glass at the other end of the dining-room. "Craig," I whispered excitedly, "Mrs. B. is in the writing-room--I can see her in that glass at the end of the room, behind you." "Get up and change places with me as quietly as you can, Walter," he said quickly. "I want to see her when she can't see me." Kennedy was staring in rapt attention at the mirror. "There's a man with her, Walter," he said under his breath. "He came in while we were changing places--a fine-looking chap. By Jove, I've seen him before somewhere. His face and his manner are familiar to me. But I simply can't place him. Did you see her wraps in the chair? No? Well, he's helping her on with them. They're going out. GARCON, L'ADDITION--VITE" We were too late, however, for just as we reached the door we caught a fleeting glimpse of a huge new limousine. "Who was that man who just went out with the lady?" asked Craig of the negro who turned the revolving-door at the carriage entrance. "Jack Delarue, sah--in 'The Grass Widower,' sah," replied the doorman. "Yes, sah, he stays here once in a while. Thank you, sah," as Kennedy dropped a quarter into the man's hand. "That complicates things considerably," he mused as we walked slowly down to the subway station. "Jack Delarue--I wonder if he is mixed up in this thing also." "I've heard that 'The Grass Widower' isn't such a howling success as a money-maker," I volunteered. "Delarue has a host of creditors, no doubt. By the way, Craig," I exclaimed, "don't you think it would be a good plan to drop down and see O'Connor? The police will have to be informed in a few hours now, anyhow. Maybe Delarue has a criminal record." "A good idea, Walter," agreed Craig, turning into a drug-store which had a telephone booth. "I'll just call O'Connor up, and we'll see if he does know anything about it." O'Connor was not at headquarters, but we finally found him at his home, and it was well into the small hours when we arrived there. Trusting to the first deputy's honour, which had stood many a test, Craig began to unfold the story. He had scarcely got as far as describing the work of the suspected hired yeggman, when O'Connor raised both hands and brought them down hard on the arms of his chair. "Say," he ejaculated, "that explains it!" "What?" we asked in chorus. "Why, one of my best stool-pigeons told me to-day that there was something doing at a house in the Chatham Square district that we have been watching for a long time. It's full of crooks, and to-day they've all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a haul and been generous with the rest, And one or two of the professional 'fences' have been acting suspiciously, too. Oh, that explains it all right." I looked at Craig as much as to say, "I told you so," but he was engrossed in what O'Connor was saying. "You know," continued the police officer, "there is one particular 'fence' who runs his business under the guise of a loan-shark's office. He probably has a wider acquaintance among the big criminals than any other man in the city. From him crooks can obtain anything from a jimmy to a safe-cracking outfit. I know that this man has been trying to dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among jewellers in Maiden Lane. I'll bet he has been disposing of some of the Branford pearls, one by one. I'll follow that up. I'll arrest this 'fence' and hold him till he tells me what yeggman came to him with the pearls." "And if you find out, will you go with me to that house near Chatham Square, providing it was some one in that gang?" asked Craig eagerly. O'Connor shook his head. "I'd better keep out of it. They know me too well. Go alone. I'll get that stool-pigeon--the Gay Cat is his name--to go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the moment you get the evidence. But you'll never get any evidence if they know I'm in the neighbourhood." The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made me bolt my food most unceremoniously. We were out in Montclair again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that in spite of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the way and had got a package which he carried carefully. Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar to attic in daylight. What he expected to find, I did not know, but I am quite sure nothing escaped him. "Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there remains just one place. Here is this little wall safe in Mrs. Branford's room. We must open it." For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening to the fall of the tumblers in the lock. It was a simple little thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have opened it in short order. The perspiration stood out on his forehead, so intent was he in working the thing. At last it yielded. Except for some of the family silver, the safe was empty. Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it was not at all conspicuous, and focused it on the safe. "This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before that it is possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an alarm I'll attach them to the camera so that we can get a picture. I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It may or it may not work. If it does we'll catch somebody, right in the act." About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary insurance. I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise. He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs. Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable ability in the first place in locating Mrs. Branford. "I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have needed money for some reason or other," said Maloney. "So I went to the commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford. I can't say he has been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake burglaries. Then there is another possibility," he continued triumphantly. "I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports to me that Mrs. Stanford was seen with the actor Jack Delarue last night, I imagine they quarrelled, for she returned alone, much agitated, in a taxi-cab. Any way you look at it, the clues are promising--whether she needed money for Branford's speculations or for the financing of that rake Delarue." Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford to patronise a good amateur--but after all an amateur. Kennedy said nothing, and of course I took the cue. "Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty good one. Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around in a bog of false scents." "It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden somewhere by Mrs. Branford herself." He said nothing of his own unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd hardly trust them in his hands. But she might have been foolish enough for that. Of course it's another possibility that he really got away with them. I doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or even if she would personally put them in a safe deposit vault. Perhaps Delarue figures in that end of it. We must let no stone go unturned." "That's right," meditated Maloney, apparently turning something over in his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some evidence, even part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would clinch the case. That's a good idea, Kennedy." Craig said nothing, but I could see, or fancied I saw, that he was gratified at the thought that he had started Maloney off on another trail, leaving us to follow ours unhampered. The interview with Blake was soon over, and as we left I looked inquiringly at Craig. "I want to see Mrs. Branford again," he said. "I think we can do better alone today than we did last night." I must say I half expected that she would refuse to see us and was quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things began to look unmistakably black? Kennedy was quick to see his advantage. "Mrs. Branford," he began, "since last night I have come into the possession of some facts that are very important. I have heard that several loose pearls which may or may not be yours have been offered for sale by a man on the Bowery who is what the yeggmen call a 'fence.'" "Yeggmen--'fence'?" she repeated. "Mr. Kennedy, really I do not care to discuss the pearls any longer. It is immaterial to me what becomes of them. My first desire is to collect the insurance. If anything is recovered I am quite willing to deduct that amount from the total. But I must insist on the full insurance or the return of the pearls. As soon as Mr. Branford arrives I shall take other steps to secure redress." A boy rapped at the door and brought in a telegram which she tore open nervously. "He will be here in four days," she said, tearing the telegram petulantly, and not at all as if she were glad to receive it. "Is there anything else that you wish to say?" She was tapping her foot on the rug as if anxious to conclude the interview. Kennedy leaned forward earnestly and played his trump card boldly. "Do you remember that scene in 'The Grass Widower,'" he said slowly, "where Jack Delarue meets his runaway wife at the masquerade ball?" She coloured slightly, but instantly regained her composure. "Vaguely," she murmured, toying with the flowers in her dress. "In real life," said Kennedy, his voice purposely betraying that he meant it to have a personal application, "husbands do not forgive even rumours of--ah--shall we say affinities?--much less the fact." "In real life," she replied, "wives do not have affinities as often as some newspapers and plays would have us believe." "I saw Delarue after the performance last night," went on Kennedy inexorably. "I was not seen, but I saw, and he was with----" She was pacing the room now in unsuppressed excitement. "Will you never stop spying on me?" she cried. "Must my every act be watched and misrepresented? I suppose a distorted version of the facts will be given to my husband. Have you no chivalry, or justice, or--or mercy?" she pleaded, stopping in front of Kennedy. "Mrs. Branford," he replied coldly, "I cannot promise what I shall do. My duty is simply to get at the truth about the pearls. If it involves some other person, it is still my duty to get at the truth. Why not tell me all that you really know about the pearls and trust me to bring it out all right?" She faced him, pale and haggard. "I have told," she repeated steadily. "I cannot tell any more--I know nothing more." Was she lying? I was not expert enough in feminine psychology to judge, but down in my heart I knew that the woman was hiding something behind that forced steadiness. What was it she was battling for? We had reached an impasse. It was after dinner when I met Craig at the laboratory. He had made a trip to Montclair again, where his stay had been protracted because Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought back the camera, and had had another talk with O'Connor, at which he had mapped out a plan of battle. "We are to meet the Gay Cat at the City Hall at nine o'clock," explained Craig laconically. "We are going to visit a haunt of yeggmen, Walter, that few outsiders have ever seen. Are you game? O'Connor and his men will be close by--hiding, of course." "I suppose so," I replied slowly. "But what excuse are you going to have for getting into this yegg-resort?" "Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article, without names, dates, or places--just a good story of yeggmen and tramps. I've got a little--well, we'll call it a little camera outfit that I'm going to sling over my shoulder. You are the reporter, remember, and I'm the newspaper photographer. They won't pose for us, of course, but that will be all right. Speaking about photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is interesting. I'll show it to you later in the evening--and in case anything should happen to me, Walter, you'll find the original plate locked here in the top drawer of my desk. I guess we'd better be getting downtown." The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross street within a block or two of Chatham Square. If we had passed it casually in the daytime there would have been nothing to distinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street, except that the other houses were cluttered with children and baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed, and the blinds tightly drawn. As we approached, a furtive figure shambled from the basement areaway and slunk off into the crowd for the night's business of pocket-picking or second-story work. I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all--I might almost say hopes--but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a ready response at the basement door. The house itself was the dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery. The iron handrail on the steps was still graceful, though rusted and insecure. The stones of the steps were decayed and eaten away by time, and the front door was never opened. As we entered the low basement door, I felt that those who entered here did indeed abandon hope. Inside, the evidences of the past grandeur were still more striking. What had once been a drawing-room was now the general assembly room of the resort. Broken-down chairs lined the walls, and the floor was generously sprinkled with sawdust. A huge pot-bellied stove occupied the centre of the room, and by it stood a box of sawdust plentifully discoloured with tobacco-juice. Three or four of the "guests"--there was no "register" in this yeggman's hotel--were seated about the stove discussing something in a language that was English, to be sure, but of a variation that only a yegg could understand. I noted the once handsome white marble mantel, now stained by age, standing above the unused grate. Double folding-doors led to what, I imagine, was once a library. Dirt and grime indescribable were everywhere. There was the smell of old clothes and old cooking, the race odours of every nationality known to the metropolis. I recalled a night I once spent in a Bowery lodging-house for "local colour." Only this was infinitely worse. No law regulated this house. There was an atmosphere of cheerlessness that a half-blackened Welsbach mantle turned into positive ghastliness. Our guide introduced us. There was a dead silence as eight eyes were craftily fixed on us, sizing us up. What should I say? Craig came to the rescue. To him the adventure was a lark. It was novel, and that was merit enough. "Ask about the slang," he suggested. "That makes a picturesque story." It seemed to me innocuous enough, so I engaged in conversation with a man whom the Gay Cat had introduced as the proprietor. Much of the slang I already knew by hearsay, such as "bulls" for policemen, a "mouthpiece" for a lawyer to defend one when he is "ditched" or arrested; in fact, as I busily scribbled away I must have collected a lexicon of a hundred words or so for future reference. "And names?" I queried. "You have some queer nicknames." "Oh, yes," replied the man. "Now here's the Gay Cat--that's what we call a fellow who is the finder, who enters a town ahead of the gang. Then there's Chi Fat--that means he's from Chicago and fat. And Pitts Slim--he's from Pittsburgh and--" "Aw, cut it," broke in one of the others. "Pitts Slim'll be here to-night. He'll give you the devil if he hears you talking to reporters about him." The proprietor began to talk of less dangerous subjects. Craig succeeded in drawing out from him the yegg recipe for making "soup." "It's here in this cipher," said the man, drawing out a dirty piece of paper. "It's well known, and you can have this. Here's the key. It was written by 'Deafy' Smith, and the police pinched it." Craig busily translated the curious document: Take ten or a dozen sticks of dynamite, crumble it up fine, and put it in a pan or washbowl, then pour over it enough alcohol, wood or pure, to cover it well. Stir it up well with your hands, being careful to break all the lumps. Leave it set for a few minutes. Then get a few yards of cheesecloth and tear it up in pieces and strain the mixture through the cloth into another vessel. Wring the sawdust dry and throw it away. The remains will be the soup and alcohol mixed. Next take the same amount of water as you used of alcohol and pour it in. Leave the whole set for a few minutes. "Very interesting," commented Craig. "Safeblowing in one lesson by correspondence school. The rest of this tells how to attack various makes, doesn't it?" Just then a thin man in a huge, worn ulster came stamping upstairs from the basement, his collar up and his hat down over his eyes. There was something indefinably familiar about him, but as his face and figure were so well concealed, I could not tell just why I thought so. Catching a glimpse of us, he beat a retreat across the opposite end of the room, beckoning to the proprietor, who joined him outside the door. I thought I heard him ask: "Who are those men? Who let them in?" but I could not catch the reply. One by one the other occupants of the room rose and sidled out, leaving us alone with the Gay Cat. Kennedy reached over to get a cigarette from my case and light it from one that I was smoking. "That's our man, I think," he whispered--"Pitts Slim." I said nothing, but I would have been willing to part with a large section of my bank-account to be up on the Chatham Square station of the Elevated just then. There was a rush from the half-open door behind us. Suddenly everything turned black before me; my eyes swam; I felt a stinging sensation on my head and a weak feeling about the stomach; I sank half-conscious to the floor. All was blank, but, dimly, I seemed to be dragged and dropped down hard. How long I lay there I don't know. Kennedy says it was not over five minutes. It may have been so, but to me it seemed an age. When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back on a very dirty sofa in another room. Kennedy was bending over me with blood streaming from a long deep gash on his head. Another figure was groaning in the semi-darkness opposite; it was the Gay Cat. "They blackjacked us," whispered Kennedy to me as I staggered to my feet. "Then they dragged us through a secret passage into another house. How do you feel?" "All right," I answered, bracing myself against a chair, for I was weak from the loss of blood, and dizzy. I was sore in every joint and muscle. I looked about, only half comprehending. Then my recollection flooded back with a rush. We had been locked in another room after the attack, and left to be dealt with later. I felt in my pocket. I had left my watch at the laboratory, but even the dollar watch I had taken and the small sum of money in my pocketbook were gone. Kennedy still had his camera slung over his shoulder, where he had fastened it securely. Here we were, imprisoned, while Pitts Slim, the man we had come after, whoever he was, was making his escape. Somewhere across the street was O'Connor, waiting in a room as we had agreed. There was only one window in our room, and it opened on a miserable little dumbwaiter air-shaft. It would be hours yet before his suspicions would be aroused and he would discover which of the houses we were held in. Meanwhile what might not happen to us? Kennedy calmly set up his tripod. One leg had been broken in the rough-house, but he tied it together with his handkerchief, now wet with blood. I wondered how he could think of taking a picture. His very deliberation set me fretting and fuming, and I swore at him under my breath. Still, he worked calmly ahead. I saw him take the black box and set it on the tripod. It was indistinct in the darkness. It looked like a camera, and yet it had some attachment at the side that was queer, including a little lamp. Craig bent and attached some wires about the box. At last he seemed ready. "Walter," he whispered, "roll that sofa quietly over against the door. There, now the table and that bureau, and wedge the chairs in. Keep that door shut at any cost. It's now or never--here goes." He stopped a moment and tinkered with the box on the tripod. "Hello! Hello! Hello! Is that you, O'Connor?" he shouted. I watched him in amazement. Was the man crazy? Had the blow affected his brain? Here he was, trying to talk into a camera. A little signalling-bell in the box commenced to ring, as if by spirit hands. "Shut up in that room," growled a voice from outside the door. "By God, they've barricaded the door. Come on, pals, we'll kill the spies." A smile of triumph lighted up Kennedy's pale face. "It works, it works," he cried as the little bell continued to buzz. "This is a wireless telephone you perhaps have seen announced recently--good for several hundred feet--through walls and everything. The inventor placed it in a box easily carried by a man, including a battery, and mounted on an ordinary camera tripod so that the user might well be taken for a travelling photographer. It is good in one direction only, but I have a signalling-bell here that can be rung from the other end by Hertzian waves. Thank Heaven, it's compact and simple. "O'Connor," he went on, "it is as I told you. It was Pitts Slim. He left here ten or fifteen minutes ago--I don't know by what exit, but I heard them say they would meet at the Central freightyards at midnight. Start your plain-clothes men out and send some one here, quick, to release us. We are locked in a room in the fourth or fifth house from the corner. There's a secret passage to the yegg-house. The Gay Cat is still unconscious, Jameson is groggy, and I have a bad scalp wound. They are trying to beat in our barricade. Hurry." I think I shall never get straight in my mind the fearful five minutes that followed, the battering at the door, the oaths, the scuffle outside, the crash as the sofa, bureau, table, and chairs all yielded at once--and my relief when I saw the square-set, honest face of O'Connor and half a dozen plainclothes men holding the yeggs who would certainly have murdered us this time to protect their pal in his getaway. The fact is I didn't think straight until we were halfway uptown, speeding toward the railroad freight-yards in O'Connor's car. The fresh air at last revived me, and I began to forget my cute and bruises in the renewed excitement. We entered the yards carefully, accompanied by several of the railroad's detectives, who met us with a couple of police dogs. Skulking in the shadow under the high embankment that separated the yards with their interminable lines of full and empty cars on one side and the San Juan Hill district of New York up on the bluff on the other side, we came upon a party of three men who were waiting to catch the midnight "side-door Pullman"--the fast freight out of New York. The fight was brief, for we outnumbered them more than three to one. O'Connor himself snapped a pair of steel bracelets on the thin man, who seemed to be leader of the party. "It's all up, Pitts Slim," he ground out from his set teeth. One of our men flashed his bull's-eye on the three prisoners. I caught myself as in a dream. Pitts Slim was Maloney, the detective. An hour later, at headquarters, after the pedigrees had been taken, the "mugging" done, and the jewels found on the three yeggs checked off from the list of the Branford pearls, leaving a few thousand dollars' worth unaccounted for, O'Connor led the way into his private office. There were Mrs. Branford and Blake, waiting. Maloney sullenly refused to look at his former employer, as Blake rushed over and grasped Kennedy's hand, asking eagerly: "How did you do it, Kennedy? This is the last thing I expected." Craig said nothing, but slowly opened a now crumpled envelope, which contained an untoned print of a photograph. He laid it on the desk. "There is your yeggman--at work," he said. We bent over to look. It was a photograph of Maloney in the act of putting something in the little wall safe in Mrs. Branford's room. In a flash it dawned on me--the quick-shutter camera, the wire connected with the wall safe, Craig's hint to Maloney that if some of the jewels were found hidden in a likely place in the house, it would furnish the last link in the chain against her, Maloney's eager acceptance of the suggestion, and his visit to Montclair during which Craig had had hard work to avoid him. "Pitts Slim, alias Maloney," added Kennedy, turning to Blake, "your shrewdest private detective, was posing in two characters at once very successfully. He was your trusted agent in possession of the most valuable secrets of your clients, at the same time engineering all the robberies that you thought were fakes, and then working up the evidence incriminating the victims themselves. He got into the Branford house with a skeleton key, and killed the maid. The picture shows him putting this shield-shaped brooch in the safe this afternoon--here's the brooch. And all this time he was the leader of the most dangerous band of yeggmen in the country." "Mrs. Branford," exclaimed Blake, advancing and bowing most profoundly, "I trust that you understand my awkward position? My apologies cannot be too humble. It will give me great pleasure to hand you a certified check for the missing gems the first thing in the morning." Mrs. Branford bit her lip nervously. The return of the pearls did not seem to interest her in the least. "And I, too, must apologise for the false suspicion I had of you and--and--depend on me, it is already forgotten," said Kennedy, emphasising the "false" and looking her straight in the eyes. She read his meaning and a look of relief crossed her face. "Thank you," she murmured simply, then dropping her eyes she added in a lower tone which no one heard except Craig: "Mr. Kennedy, how can I ever thank you? Another night, and it would have been too late to save me from myself." III THE GERM OF DEATH By this time I was becoming used to Kennedy's strange visitors and, in fact, had begun to enjoy keenly the uncertainty of not knowing just what to expect from them next. Still, I was hardly prepared one evening to see a tall, nervous foreigner stalk noiselessly and unannounced into our apartment and hand his card to Kennedy without saying a word. "Dr. Nicholas Kharkoff--hum--er, Jameson, you must have forgotten to latch the door. Well, Dr. Kharkoff, what can I do for you? It is evident something has upset you." The tall Russian put his forefinger to his lips and, taking one of our good chairs, placed it by the door. Then he stood on it and peered cautiously through the transom into the hallway. "I think I eluded him this time," he exclaimed, as he nervously took a seat. "Professor Kennedy, I am being followed. Every step that I take somebody shadows me, from the moment I leave my office until I return. It is enough to drive me mad. But that is only one reason why I have come here to-night. I believe that I can trust you as a friend of justice--a friend of Russian freedom?" He had included me in his earnest but somewhat vague query, so that I did not withdraw. Somehow, apparently, he had heard of Kennedy's rather liberal political views. "It is about Vassili Saratovsky, the father of the Russian revolution, as we call him, that I have come to consult you," he continued quickly. "Just two weeks ago he was taken ill. It came on suddenly, a violent fever which continued for a week. Then he seemed to grow better, after the crisis had passed, and even attended a meeting of our central committee the other night. But in the meantime Olga Samarova, the little Russian dancer, whom yon have perhaps seen, fell ill in the same way. Samarova is an ardent revolutionist, you know. This morning the servant at my own home on East Broadway was also stricken, and--who knows?--perhaps it will be my turn next. For to-night Saratovsky had an even more violent return of the fever, with intense shivering, excruciating pains in the limbs, and delirious headache. It is not like anything I ever saw before. Can you look into the case before it grows any worse, Professor?" Again the Russian got on the chair and looked over the transom to be sure that he was not being overheard. "I shall be only too glad to help you in any way I can," returned Kennedy, his manner expressing the genuine interest that he never feigned over a particularly knotty problem in science and crime. "I had the pleasure of meeting Saratovsky once in London. I shall try to see him the first thing in the morning." Dr. Kharkov's face fell. "I had hoped you would see him to-night. If anything should happen----" "Is it as urgent as that?" "I believe it is," whispered Kharkoff, leaning forward earnestly. "We can call a taxicab--it will not take long, sir. Consider, there are many lives possibly at stake," he pleaded. "Very well, I will go," consented Kennedy. At the street door Kharkoff stopped short and drew Kennedy back. "Look--across the street in the shadow. There is the man. If I start toward him he will disappear; he is very clever. He followed me from Saratovsky's here, and has been waiting for me to come out." "There are two taxicabs waiting at the stand," suggested Kennedy. "Doctor, you jump in the first, and Jameson and I will take the second. Then he can't follow us." It was done in a moment, and we were whisked away, to the chagrin of the figure, which glided impotently out of the shadow in vain pursuit, too late even to catch the number of the cab. "A promising adventure," commented Kennedy, as we bumped along over New York's uneven asphalt. "Have you ever met Saratovsky?" "No," I replied dubiously. "Will you guarantee that he will not blow us up with a bomb?" "Grandmother!" replied Craig. "Why, Walter, he is the most gentle, engaging old philosopher----" "That ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship?" I interrupted. "On the contrary," insisted Kennedy, somewhat nettled, "he is a patriarch, respected by every faction of the revolutionists, from the fighting organisation to the believers in non-resistance and Tolstoy. I tell you, Walter, the nation that can produce a man such as Saratovsky deserves and some day will win political freedom. I have heard of this Dr. Kharkoff before, too. His life would be a short one if he were in Russia. A remarkable man, who fled after those unfortunate uprisings in 1905. Ah, we are on Fifth Avenue. I suspect that he is taking us to a club on the lower part of the avenue, where a number of the Russian reformers live, patiently waiting and planning for the great 'awakening' in their native land." Kharkoff's cab had stopped. Our quest had indeed brought us almost to Washington Square. Here we entered an old house of the past generation. As we passed through the wide hall, I noted the high ceilings, the old-fashioned marble mantels stained by time, the long, narrow rooms and dirty-white woodwork, and the threadbare furniture of black walnut and horsehair. Upstairs in a small back room we found the venerable Saratovsky, tossing, half-delirious with the fever, on a disordered bed. His was a striking figure in this sordid setting, with a high intellectual forehead and deep-set, glowing coals of eyes which gave a hint at the things which had made his life one of the strangest among all the revolutionists of Russia and the works he had done among the most daring. The brown dye was scarcely yet out of his flowing white beard--a relic of his last trip back to his fatherland, where he had eluded the secret police in the disguise of a German gymnasium professor. Saratovsky extended a thin, hot, emaciated hand to us, and we remained standing. Kennedy said nothing for the moment. The sick man motioned feebly to us to come closer. "Professor Kennedy," he whispered, "there is some deviltry afoot. The Russian autocracy would stop at nothing. Kharkoff has probably told you of it. I am so weak----" He groaned and sank back, overcome by a chill that seemed to rack his poor gaunt form. "Kazanovitch can tell Professor Kennedy something, Doctor. I am too weak to talk, even at this critical time. Take him to see Boris and Ekaterina." Almost reverently we withdrew, and Kharkoff led us down the hall to another room. The door was ajar, and a light disclosed a man in a Russian peasant's blouse, bending laboriously over a writing-desk. So absorbed was he that not until Kharkoff spoke did he look up. His figure was somewhat slight and his face pointed and of an ascetic mould. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "You have recalled me from a dream. I fancied I was on the old mir with Ivan, one of my characters. Welcome, comrades." It flashed over me at once that this was the famous Russian novelist, Boris Kazanovitch. I had not at first connected the name with that of the author of those gloomy tales of peasant life. Kazanovitch stood with his hands tucked under his blouse. "Night is my favourite time for writing," he explained. "It is then that the imagination works at its best." I gazed curiously about the room. There seemed to be a marked touch of a woman's hand here and there; it was unmistakable. At last my eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair in the corner. "Where is Nevsky?" asked Dr. Kharkoff, apparently missing the person who owned the garments. "Ekaterina has gone to a rehearsal of the little play of Gershuni's escape from Siberia and betrayal by Rosenberg. She will stay with friends on East Broadway to-night. She has deserted me, and here I am all alone, finishing a story for one of the American magazines." "Ah, Professor Kennedy, that is unfortunate," commented Kharkoff. "A brilliant woman is Mademoiselle Nevsky--devoted to the cause. I know only one who equals her, and that is my patient downstairs, the little dancer, Samarova." "Samarova is faithful--Nevsky is a genius," put in Kazanovitch. Kharkoff said nothing for a time, though it was easy to see he regarded the actress highly. "Samarova," he said at length to us, "was arrested for her part in the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius and thrown into solitary confinement in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. They tortured her, the beasts--burned her body with their cigarettes. It was unspeakable. But she would not confess, and finally they had to let her go. Nevsky, who was a student of biology at the University of St. Petersburg when Von Plehve was assassinated, was arrested, but her relatives had sufficient influence to secure her release. They met in Paris, and Nevsky persuaded Olga to go on the stage and come to New York." "Next to Ekaterina's devotion to the cause is her devotion to science," said Kazanovitch, opening a door to a little room. Then he added: "If she were not a woman, or if your universities were less prejudiced, she would be welcome anywhere as a professor. See, here is her laboratory. It is the best we--she can afford. Organic chemistry, as you call it in English, interests me too, but of course I am not a trained scientist--I am a novelist." The laboratory was simple, almost bare. Photographs of Koch, Ehrlich, Metchnikoff, and a number of other scientists adorned the walls. The deeply stained deal table was littered with beakers and test-tubes. "How is Saratovsky?" asked the writer of the doctor, aside, as we gazed curiously about. Kharkoff shook his head gravely. "We have just come from his room. He was too weak to talk, but he asked that you tell Mr. Kennedy anything that it is necessary he should know about our suspicions." "It is that we are living with the sword of Damocles constantly dangling over our heads, gentlemen," cried Kazanovitch passionately, turning toward us. "You will excuse me if I get some cigarettes downstairs? Over them I will tell you what we fear." A call from Saratovsky took the doctor away also at the same moment, and we were left alone. "A queer situation, Craig," I remarked, glancing involuntarily at the heap of feminine finery on the chair, as I sat down before Kazanovitch's desk. "Queer for New York; not for St. Petersburg," was his laconic reply, as he looked around for another chair. Everything was littered with books, and papers, and at last he leaned over and lifted the dress from the chair to place it on the bed, as the easiest way of securing a seat in the scantily furnished room. A pocketbook and a letter fell to the floor from the folds of the dress. He stooped to pick them up, and I saw a strange look of surprise on his face. Without a moment's hesitation he shoved the letter into his pocket and replaced the other things as he had found them. A moment later Kazanovitch returned with a large box of Russian cigarettes. "Be seated, sir," he said to Kennedy, sweeping a mass of books and papers off a large divan. "When Nevsky is not here the room gets sadly disarranged. I have no genius for order." Amid the clouds of fragrant light smoke we waited for Kazanovitch to break the silence. "Perhaps you think that the iron hand of the Russian prime minister has broken the backbone of revolution in Russia," he began at length. "But because the Duma is subservient, it does not mean that all is over. Not at all. We are not asleep. Revolution is smouldering, ready to break forth at any moment. The agents of the government know it. They are desperate. There is no means they would not use to crush us. Their long arm reaches even to New York, in this land of freedom." He rose and excitedly paced the room. Somehow or other, this man did not prepossess me. Was it that I was prejudiced by a puritanical disapproval of the things that pass current in Old World morality? Or was it merely that I found the great writer of fiction seeking the dramatic effect always at the cost of sincerity? "Just what is it that you suspect?" asked Craig, anxious to dispense with the rhetoric and to get down to facts. "Surely, when three persons are stricken, you must suspect something." "Poison," replied Kazanovitch quickly. "Poison, and of a kind that even the poison doctors of St. Petersburg have never employed. Dr. Kharkoff is completely baffled. Your American doctors--two were called in to see Saratovsky--say it is the typhus fever. But Kharkoff knows better. There is no typhus rash. Besides"--and he leaned forward to emphasise his words--"one does not get over typhus in a week and have it again as Saratovsky has." I could see that Kennedy was growing impatient. An idea had occurred to him, and only politeness kept him listening to Kazanovitch longer. "Doctor," he said, as Kharkoff entered the room again, "do you suppose you could get some perfectly clean test-tubes and sterile bouillon from Miss Nevsky's laboratory? I think I saw a rack of tubes on the table." "Surely," answered Kharkoff. "You will excuse us, Mr. Kazanovitch," apologised Kennedy briskly, "but I feel that I am going to have a hard day to-morrow and--by the way, would you be so kind as to come up to my laboratory some time during the day, and continue your story." On the way out Craig took the doctor aside for a moment, and they talked earnestly. At last Craig motioned to me. "Walter," he explained, "Dr. Kharkoff is going to prepare some cultures in the test-tubes to-night so that I can make a microscopic examination of the blood of Saratovsky, Samarova, and later of his servant. The tubes will be ready early in the morning, and I have arranged with the doctor for you to call and get them if you have no objection." I assented, and we started downstairs. As we passed a door on the second floor, a woman's voice called out, "Is that you, Boris?" "No, Olga, this is Nicholas," replied the doctor. "It is Samarova," he said to us as he entered. In a few moments he rejoined us. "She is no better," he continued, as we again started away. "I may as well tell you, Professor Kennedy, just how matters stand here. Samarova is head over heels in love with Kazanovitch--you heard her call for him just now? Before they left Paris, Kazanovitch showed some partiality for Olga, but now Nevsky has captured him. She is indeed a fascinating woman, but as for me, if Olga would consent to become Madame Kharkoff, it should be done tomorrow, and she need worry no longer over her broken contract with the American theatre managers. But women are not that way. She prefers the hopeless love. Ah, well, I shall let you know if anything new happens. Good-night, and a thou-sand thanks for your help, gentlemen." Nothing was said by either of us on our journey uptown, for it was late and I, at least, was tired. But Kennedy had no intention of going to bed, I found. Instead, he sat down in his easy chair and shaded his eyes, apparently in deep thought. As I stood by the table to fill my pipe for a last smoke, I saw that he was carefully regarding the letter he had picked up, turning it over and over, and apparently debating with himself what to do with it. "Some kinds of paper can be steamed open without leaving any trace," he remarked in answer to my unspoken question, laying the letter down before me. I read the address: "M. Alexander Alexandrovitch Orloff,--Rue de----, Paris, France." "Letter-opening has been raised to a fine art by the secret service agents of foreign countries," he continued. "Why not take a chance? The simple operation of steaming a letter open is followed by reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument, and no trace is left. I can't do that, for this letter is sealed with wax. One way would be to take a matrix of the seal before breaking the wax and then replace a duplicate of it. No, I won't risk it. I'll try a scientific way." Between two pieces of smooth wood, Craig laid the letter flat, so that the edges projected about a thirty-second of an inch. He flattened the projecting edge of the envelope, then roughened it, and finally slit it open. "You see, Walter, later I will place the letter back, apply a hair line of strong white gum, and unite the edges of the envelope under pressure. Let us see what we have here." He drew out what seemed to be a manuscript on very thin paper, and spread it out flat on the table before us. Apparently it was a scientific paper on a rather unusual subject, "Spontaneous Generation of Life." It was in longhand and read: Many thanks for the copy of the paper by Prof. Betaillon of Dijon on the artificial fertilization of the eggs of frogs. I consider it a most important advance in the artificial generation of life. I will not attempt to reproduce in facsimile the entire manuscript, for it is unnecessary, and, in fact, I merely set down part of its contents here because it seemed so utterly valueless to me at the time. It went on to say: While Betaillon punctured the eggs with a platinum needle and developed them by means of electric discharges, Loeb in America placed eggs of the sea-urchin in a strong solution of sea water, then in a bath where they were subjected to the action of butyric acid. Finally they were placed in ordinary sea water again, where they developed in the natural manner. Delage at Roscorf used a liquid containing salts of magnesia and tannate of ammonia to produce the same result. In his latest book on the Origin of Life Dr. Charlton Bastian tells of using two solutions. One consisted of two or three drops of dilute sodium silicate with eight drops of liquor ferri pernitratis to one ounce of distilled water. The other was composed of the same amount of the silicate with six drops of dilute phosphoric acid and six grains of ammonium phosphate. He filled sterilised tubes, sealed them hermetically, and heated them to 125 or 145 degrees, Centigrade, although 60 or 70 degrees would have killed any bacteria remaining in them. Next he exposed them to sunlight in a south window for from two to four months. When the tubes were opened Dr. Bastian found organisms in them which differed in no way from real bacteria. They grew and multiplied. He contends that he has proved the possibility of spontaneous generation of life. Then there were the experiments of John Butler Burke of Cambridge, who claimed that he had developed "radiobes" in tubes of sterilised bouillon by means of radium emanations. Daniel Berthelot in France last year announced that he had used the ultra-violet rays to duplicate nature's own process of chlorophyll assimilation. He has broken up carbon dioxide and water-vapour in the air in precisely the same way that the green cells of plants do it. Leduc at Nantes has made crystals grow from an artificial "egg" composed of certain chemicals. These crystals show all the apparent vital phenomena without being actually alive. His work is interesting, for it shows the physical forces that probably control minute life cells, once they are created. "What do you make of it?" asked Kennedy, noting the puzzled look on my face as I finished reading. "Well, recent research in the problem of the origin of life may be very interesting," I replied. "There are a good many chemicals mentioned here--I wonder if any of them is poisonous? But I am of the opinion that there is something more to this manuscript than a mere scientific paper." "Exactly, Walter," said Kennedy in half raillery. "What I wanted to know was how you would suggest getting at that something." Study as I might, I could make nothing out of it. Meanwhile Craig was busily figuring with a piece of paper and a pencil. "I give it up, Craig," I said at last. "It is late. Perhaps we had better both turn in, and we may have some ideas on it in the morning." For answer he merely shook his head and continued to scribble and figure on the paper. With a reluctant good-night I shut my door, determined to be up early in the morning and go for the tubes that Kharkoff was to prepare. But in the morning Kennedy was gone. I dressed hastily, and was just about to go out when he hurried in, showing plainly the effects of having spent a sleepless night. He flung an early edition of a newspaper on the table. "Too late," he exclaimed. "I tried to reach Kharkoff, but it was too late." "Another East Side Bomb Outrage," I read. "While returning at a late hour last night from a patient, Dr. Nicholas Kharkoff, of--East Broadway, was severely injured by a bomb which had been placed in his hallway earlier in the evening. Dr. Kharkoff, who is a well-known physician on the East Side, states that he has been constantly shadowed by some one unknown for the past week or two. He attributes his escape with his life to the fact that since he was shadowed he has observed extreme caution. Yesterday his cook was poisoned and is now dangerously ill. Dr. Kharkoff stands high in the Russian community, and it is thought by the police that the bomb was placed by a Russian political agent, as Kharkoff has been active in the ranks of the revolutionists." "But what made you anticipate it?" I asked of Kennedy, considerably mystified. "The manuscript," he replied. "The manuscript? How? Where is it?" "After I found that it was too late to save Kharkoff and that he was well cared for at the hospital, I hurried to Saratovsky's. Kharkoff had fortunately left the tubes there, and I got them. Here they are. As for the manuscript in the letter, I was going to ask you to slip upstairs by some strategy and return it where I found it, when you went for the tubes this morning. Kazanovitch was out, and I have returned it myself, so you need not go, now." "He's coming to see you today, isn't he?" "I hope so. I left a note asking him to bring Miss Nevsky, if possible, too. Come, let us breakfast and go over to the laboratory. They may arrive at any moment. Besides, I'm interested to see what the tubes disclose." Instead of Kazanovitch awaiting us at the laboratory, however, we found Miss Nevsky, haggard and worn. She was a tall, striking girl with more of the Gaul than the Slav in her appearance. There was a slightly sensuous curve to her mouth, but on the whole her face was striking and intellectual. I felt that if she chose she could fascinate a man so that he would dare anything. I never before understood why the Russian police feared the women revolutionists so much. It was because they were themselves, plus every man they could influence. Nevsky appeared very excited. She talked rapidly, and fire flashed from her grey eyes. "They tell me at the club," she began, "that you are investigating the terrible things that are happening to us. Oh, Professor Kennedy, it is awful! Last night I was staying with some friends on East Broadway. Suddenly we heard a terrific explosion up the street. It was in front of Dr. Kharkoff's house. Thank Heaven, he is still alive I But I was so unnerved I could not sleep. I fancied I might be the next to go. "Early this morning I hastened to return to Fifth Avenue. As I entered the door of my room I could not help thinking of the horrible fate of Dr. Kharkoff. For some unknown reason, just as I was about to push the door farther open, I hesitated and looked--I almost fainted. There stood another bomb just inside. If I had moved the door a fraction of an inch it would have exploded. I screamed, and Olga, sick as she was, ran to my assistance--or perhaps she thought something had happened to Boris. It is standing there yet. None of us dares touch it. Oh, Professor Kennedy, it is dreadful, dreadful. And I cannot find Boris--Mr. Kazanovitch, I mean. Saratovsky, who is like a father to us all, is scarcely able to speak. Dr. Kharkoff is helpless in the hospital. Oh, what are we to do, what are we to do?" She stood trembling before us, imploring. "Calm yourself, Miss Nevsky," said Kennedy in a reassuring tone. "Sit down and let us plan. I take it that it was a chemical bomb and not one with a fuse, or you would have a different story to tell. First of all, we must remove it. That is easily done." He called up a near-by garage and ordered an automobile. "I will drive it myself," he ordered, "only send a man around with it immediately." "No, no, no," she cried, running toward him, "you must not risk it. It is bad enough that we should risk our lives. But strangers must not. Think, Professor Kennedy. Suppose the bomb should explode at a touch! Had we not better call the police and let them take the risk, even if it does get into the papers?" "No," replied Kennedy firmly. "Miss Nevsky, I am quite willing to take the risk. Besides, here comes the automobile." "You are too kind," she exclaimed. "Kazanovitch himself could do no more. How am I ever to thank you?" On the back of the automobile Kennedy placed a peculiar oblong box, swung on two concentric rings balanced on pivots, like a most delicate compass. We rode quickly downtown, and Kennedy hurried into the house, bidding us stand back. With a long pair of tongs he seized the bomb firmly. It was a tense moment. Suppose his hand should unnecessarily tremble, or he should tip it just a bit--it might explode and blow him to atoms. Keeping it perfectly horizontal he carried it carefully out to the waiting automobile and placed it gingerly in the box. "Wouldn't it be a good thing to fill the box with water?" I suggested, having read somewhere that that was the usual way of opening a bomb, under water. "No," he replied, as he closed the lid, "that wouldn't do any good with a bomb of this sort. It would explode under water just as well as in air. This is a safety bomb-carrier. It is known as the Cardan suspension. It was invented by Professor Cardono, an Italian. You see, it is always held in a perfectly horizontal position, no matter how you jar it. I am now going to take the bomb to some safe and convenient place where I can examine it at my leisure. Meanwhile, Miss Nevsky, I will leave you in charge of Mr. Jameson." "Thank you so much," she said. "I feel better now. I didn't dare go into my own room with that bomb at the door. If Mr. Jameson can only find out what has become of Mr. Kazanovitch, that is all I want. What do you suppose has happened to him? Is he, too, hurt or ill?" "Very well, then," Craig replied. "I will commission you, Walter, to find Kazanovitch. I shall be back again shortly before noon to examine the wreck of Kharkoff's office. Meet me there. Goodbye, Miss Nevsky." It was not the first time that I had had a roving commission to find some one who had disappeared in New York. I started by inquiring for every possible place that he might be found. No one at the Fifth Avenue house could tell me anything definite, though they were able to give me a number of places where he was known. I consumed practically the whole morning going from one place to another on the East Side. Some of the picturesque haunts of the revolutionists would have furnished material for a story in themselves. But nowhere had they any word of Kazanovitch, until I visited a Polish artist who was illustrating his stories. He had been there, looking very worn and tired, and had talked vacantly about the sketches which the artist had showed him. After that I lost all trace of him again. It was nearly noon as I hurried to meet Craig at Kharkoff's. Imagine my surprise to see Kazanovitch already there, seated in the wrecked office, furiously smoking cigarettes and showing evident signs of having something very disturbing on his mind. The moment he caught sight of me, he hurried forward. "Is Professor Kennedy coming soon?" he inquired eagerly. "I was going up to his laboratory, but I called up Nevsky, and she said he would be here at noon." Then he put his hand up to my ear and whispered, "I have found out who it was who shadowed Kharkoff." "Who?" I asked, saying nothing of my long search of the morning. "His name is Revalenko--Feodor Revalenko. I saw him standing across the street in front of the house last night after you had gone. When Kharkoff left, he followed him. I hurried out quietly and followed both of them. Then the explosion came. This man slipped down a narrow street as soon as he saw Kharkoff fall. As people were running to Kharkoff's assistance, I did the same. He saw me following him and ran, and I ran, too, and overtook him. Mr. Jameson, when I looked into his face I could not believe it. Revalenko--he is one of the most ardent members of our organisation. He would not tell me why he had followed Kharkoff. I could make him confess nothing. But I am sure he is an agent provocateur of the Russian government, that he is secretly giving away the plans that we are making, everything. We have a plot on now--perhaps he has informed them of that. Of course he denied setting the bomb or trying to poison any of us, but he was very frightened. I shall denounce him at the first opportunity." I said nothing. Kazanovitch regarded me keenly to see what impression the story made on me, but I did not let my looks betray anything, except proper surprise, and he seemed satisfied. It might be true, after all, I reasoned, the more I thought of it. I had heard that the Russian consul-general had a very extensive spy system in the city. In fact, even that morning I had had pointed out to me some spies at work in the public libraries, watching what young Russians were reading. I did not doubt that there were spies in the very inner circle of the revolutionists themselves. At last Kennedy appeared. While Kazanovitch poured forth his story, with here and there, I fancied, an elaboration of a particularly dramatic point, Kennedy quickly examined the walls and floor of the wrecked office with his magnifying-glass. When he had concluded his search, he turned to Kazanovitch. "Would it be possible," he asked, "to let this Revalenko believe that he could trust you, that it would be safe for him to visit you to-night at Saratovsky's? Surely you can find some way of reassuring him." "Yes, I think that can be arranged," said Kazanovitch. "I will go to him, will make him think I have misunderstood him, that I have not lost faith in him, provided he can explain all. He will come. Trust me." "Very well, then. To-night at eight I shall be there," promised Kennedy, as the novelist and he shook hands. "What do you think of the Revalenko story?" I asked of Craig, as we started uptown again. "Anything is possible in this case," he answered sententiously. "Well," I exclaimed, "this all is truly Russian. For intrigue they are certainly the leaders of the world to-day. There is only one person that I have any real confidence in, and that is old Saratovsky himself. Somebody is playing traitor, Craig. Who is it?" "That is what science will tell us to-night," was his brief reply. There was no getting anything out of Craig until he was absolutely sure that his proofs had piled up irresistibly. Promptly at eight we met at the old house on Fifth Avenue. Kharkoff's wounds had proved less severe than had at first been suspected, and, having recovered from the shock, he insisted on being transferred from the hospital in a private ambulance so that he could be near his friends. Saratovsky, in spite of his high fever, ordered that the door to his room be left open and his bed moved so that he could hear and see what passed in the room down the hall. Nevsky was there and Kazanovitch, and even brave Olga Samarova, her pretty face burning with the fever, would not be content until she was carried upstairs, although Dr. Kharkoff protested vigorously that it might have fatal consequences. Revalenko, an enigma of a man, sat stolidly. The only thing I noticed about him was an occasional look of malignity at Nevsky and Kazanovitch when he thought he was unobserved. It was indeed a strange gathering, the like of which the old house had never before harboured in all its varied history. Every one was on the qui vive, as Kennedy placed on the table a small wire basket containing some test-tubes, each tube corked with a small wadding of cotton. There was also a receptacle holding a dozen glass-handled platinum wires, a microscope, and a number of slides. The bomb, now rendered innocuous by having been crushed in a huge hydraulic press, lay in fragments in the box. "First, I want you to consider the evidence of the bomb," began Kennedy. "No crime, I firmly believe, is ever perpetrated without leaving some clue. The slightest trace, even a drop of blood no larger than a pin-head, may suffice to convict a murderer. The impression made on a cartridge by the hammer of a pistol, or a single hair found on the clothing of a suspected person, may serve as valid proof of crime. "Until lately, however, science was powerless against the bomb-thrower. A bomb explodes into a thousand parts, and its contents suddenly become gaseous. You can't collect and investigate the gases. Still, the bomb-thrower is sadly deceived if he believes the bomb leaves no trace for the scientific detective. It is difficult for the chemist to find out the secrets of a shattered bomb. But it can be done. "I examined the walls of Dr. Kharkoff's house, and fortunately was able to pick out a few small fragments of the contents of the bomb which had been thrown out before the flame ignited them. I have analysed them, and find them to be a peculiar species of blasting-gelatine. It is made at only one factory in this country, and I have a list of purchasers for some time back. One name, or rather the description of an assumed name, in the list agrees with other evidence I have been able to collect. Moreover, the explosive was placed in a lead tube. Lead tubes are common enough. However, there is no need of further evidence." He paused, and the revolutionists stared fixedly at the fragments of the now harmless bomb before them. "The exploded bomb," concluded Craig, "was composed of the same materials as this, which I found unexploded at the door of Miss Nevsky's room--the same sort of lead tube, the same blasting-gelatine. The fuse, a long cord saturated in sulphur, was merely a blind. The real method of explosion was by means of a chemical contained in a glass tube which was inserted after the bomb was put in place. The least jar, such as opening a door, which would tip the bomb ever so little out of the horizontal, was all that was necessary to explode it. The exploded bomb and the unexploded were in all respects identical--the same hand set both." A gasp of astonishment ran through the circle. Could it be that one of their own number was playing false? In at least this instance in the warfare of the chemist and the dynamiter the chemist had come out ahead. "But," Kennedy hurried along, "the thing that interests me most about this case is not the evidence of the bombs. Bombs are common enough weapons, after all. It is the evidence of almost diabolical cunning that has been shown in the effort to get rid of the father of the revolution, as you like to call him." Craig cleared his throat and played with our feelings as a cat does with a mouse. "Strange to say, the most deadly, the most insidious, the most elusive agency for committing murder is one that can be obtained and distributed with practically no legal restrictions. Any doctor can purchase disease germs in quantities sufficient to cause thousands and thousands of deaths without giving any adequate explanation for what purpose he requires them. More than that, any person claiming to be a scientist or having some acquaintance with science and scientists can usually obtain germs without difficulty. Every pathological laboratory contains stores of disease germs, neatly sealed up in test-tubes, sufficient to depopulate whole cities and even nations. With almost no effort, I myself have actually cultivated enough germs to kill every person within a radius of a mile of the Washington Arch down the street. They are here in these test-tubes." We scarcely breathed. Suppose Kennedy should let loose this deadly foe, these germs of death, whatever they were? Yet that was precisely what some fiend incarnate had done, and that fiend was sitting in the room with us. "Here I have one of the most modern dark-field microscopes," he resumed. "On this slide I have placed a little pin-point of a culture made from the blood of Saratovsky. I will stain the culture. Now--er--Walter, look through the microscope under this powerful light and tell us what you see on the slide." I bent over. "In the darkened field I see a number of germs like dancing points of coloured light," I said. "They are wriggling about with a peculiar twisting motion." "Like a corkscrew," interrupted Kennedy, impatient to go on. "They are of the species known as Spirilla. Here is another slide, a culture from the blood of Samarova." "I see them there, too," I exclaimed. Every one was now crowding about for a glimpse, as I raised my head. "What is this germ?" asked a hollow voice from the doorway. We looked, startled. There stood Saratovsky, more like a ghost than a living being. Kennedy sprang forward and caught him as he swayed, and I moved up an armchair for him. "It is the spirillum Obermeieri," said Kennedy, "the germ of the relapsing fever, but of the most virulent Asiatic strain. Obermeyer, who discovered it, caught the disease and died of it, a martyr to science." A shriek of consternation rang forth from Samarova. The rest of us paled, but repressed our feelings. "One moment," added Kennedy hastily. "Don't be unnecessarily alarmed. I have something more to say. Be calm for a moment longer." He unrolled a blue-print and placed it on the table. "This," he continued, "is the photographic copy of a message which, I suppose, is now on its way to the Russian minister to France in Paris. Some one in this room besides Mr. Jameson and myself has seen this letter before. I will hold it up as I pass around and let each one see it." In intense silence Kennedy passed before each of us, holding up the blue-print and searchingly scanning the faces. No one betrayed by any sign that he recognised it. At last it came to Revalenko himself. "The checkerboard, the checkerboard!" he cried, his eyes half starting from their sockets as he gazed at it. "Yes," said Kennedy in a low tone, "the checkerboard. It took me some time to figure it out. It is a cipher that would have baffled Poe. In fact, there is no means of deciphering it unless you chance to know its secret. I happened to have heard of it a long time ago abroad, yet my recollection was vague, and I had to reconstruct it with much difficulty. It took me all night to do it. It is a cipher, however, that is well known among the official classes of Russia. "Fortunately I remember the crucial point, without which I should still be puzzling over it. It is that a perfectly innocent message, on its face, may be used to carry a secret, hidden message. The letters which compose the words, instead of being written continuously along, as we ordinarily write, have, as you will observe if you look twice, breaks, here and there. These breaks in the letters stand for numbers. "Thus the first words are 'Many thanks.' The first break is at the end of the letter 'n,' between it and the 'y.' There are three letters before this break. That stands for the number 3. "When you come to the end of a word, if the stroke is down at the end of the last letter, that means no break; if it is up, it means a break. The stroke at the end of the 'y' is plainly down. Therefore there is no break until after the 't.' That gives us the number 2. So we get 1 next, and again 1, and still again 1; then 5; then 5; then 1; and so on. "Now, take these numbers in pairs, thus 3-2; 1-1; 1-5; 5-1. By consulting this table you can arrive at the hidden message." He held up a cardboard bearing the following arrangement of the letters of the alphabet: 1 2 3 4 5 1 A B C D E 2 F G H IJ K 3 L M N O P 4 Q R S T U 5 V W X Y Z "Thus," he continued, "3-2 means the third column and second line. That is 'H.' Then 1-1 is 'A '; 1-5 is 'V '; 5-1 is 'E'--and we get the word 'Have.'" Not a soul stirred as Kennedy unfolded the cipher. What was the terrible secret in that scientific essay I had puzzled so unsuccessfully over, the night before? "Even this can be complicated by choosing a series of fixed numbers to be added to the real numbers over and over again. Or the order of the alphabet can be changed. However, we have the straight cipher only to deal with here." "And what for Heaven's sake does it reveal?" asked Saratovsky, leaning forward, forgetful of the fever that was consuming him. Kennedy pulled out a piece of paper on which he had written the hidden message and read: "Have successfully inoculated S. with fever. Public opinion America would condemn violence. Think best death should appear natural. Samarova infected also. Cook unfortunately took dose in food intended Kharkoff. Now have three cases. Shall stop there at present. Dangerous excite further suspicion health authorities." Rapidly I eliminated in my mind the persons mentioned, as Craig read. Saratovsky of course was not guilty, for the plot had centred about him. Nor was little Samarova, nor Dr. Kharkoff. I noted Revalenko and Kazanovitch glaring at each other and hastily tried to decide which I more strongly suspected. "Will get K.," continued Kennedy. "Think bomb perhaps all right. K. case different from S. No public sentiment." "So Kharkoff had been marked for slaughter," I thought. Or was "K." Kazanovitch? I regarded Revalenko more closely. He was suspiciously sullen. "Must have more money. Cable ten thousand rubles at once Russian consul-general. Will advise you plot against Czar as details perfected here. Expect break up New York band with death of S." If Kennedy himself had thrown a bomb or scattered broadcast the contents of the test-tubes, the effect could not have been more startling than his last quiet sentence--and sentence it was in two senses. "Signed," he said, folding the paper up deliberately, "Ekaterina Nevsky." It was as if a cable had snapped and a weight had fallen. Revalenko sprang up and grasped Kazanovitch by the hand. "Forgive me, comrade, for ever suspecting you," he cried. "And forgive me for suspecting you," replied Kazanovitch, "but how did you come to shadow Kharkoff?" "I ordered him to follow Kharkoff secretly and protect him," explained Saratovsky. Olga and Ekaterina faced each other fiercely. Olga was trembling with emotion. Nevsky stood coldly, defiantly. If ever there was a consummate actress it was she, who had put the bomb at her own door and had rushed off to start Kennedy on a blind trail. "You traitress," cried Olga passionately, forgetting all in her outraged love. "You won his affections from me by your false beauty--yet all the time you would have killed him like a dog for the Czar's gold. At last you are unmasked--you Azeff in skirts. False friend--you would have killed us all--Saratovsky, Kharkoff--" "Be still, little fool," exclaimed Nevsky contemptuously. "The spirilla fever has affected your brains. Bah! I will not stay with those who are so ready to suspect an old comrade on the mere word of a charlatan. Boris Kazanovitch, do you stand there SILENT and let this insult be heaped upon me?" For answer, Kazanovitch deliberately turned his back on his lover of a moment ago and crossed the room. "Olga," he pleaded, "I have been a fool. Some day I may be worthy of your love. Fever or not, I must beg your forgiveness." With a cry of delight the actress flung her arms about Boris, as he imprinted a penitent kiss on her warm lips. "Simpleton," hissed Nevsky with curling lips. "Now you, too, will die." "One moment, Ekaterina Nevsky," interposed Kennedy, as he picked up some vacuum tubes full of a golden-yellow powder, that lay on the table. "The spirilla, as scientists now know, belong to the same family as those which cause what we call, euphemistically, the 'black plague.' It is the same species as that of the African sleeping sickness and the Philippine yaws. Last year a famous doctor whose photograph I see in the next room, Dr. Ehrlich of Frankfort, discovered a cure for all these diseases. It will rid the blood of your victims of the Asiatic relapsing fever germs in forty-eight hours. In these tubes I have the now famous salvarsan." With a piercing shriek of rage at seeing her deadly work so quickly and completely undone, Nevsky flung herself into the little laboratory behind her and bolted the door. Her face still wore the same cold, contemptuous smile, as Kennedy gently withdrew a sharp scalpel from her breast. "Perhaps it is best this way, after all," he said simply. IV THE FIREBUG A big, powerful, red touring-car, with a shining brass bell on the front of it, was standing at the curb before our apartment late one afternoon as I entered. It was such a machine as one frequently sees threading its reckless course in and out among the trucks and street-cars, breaking all rules and regulations, stopping at nothing, the bell clanging with excitement, policemen holding back traffic instead of trying to arrest the driver--in other words, a Fire Department automobile. I regarded it curiously for a moment, for everything connected with modern fire-fighting is interesting. Then I forgot about it as I was whisked up in the elevator, only to have it recalled sharply by the sight of a strongly built, grizzled man in a blue uniform with red lining. He was leaning forward, earnestly pouring forth a story into Kennedy's ear. "And back of the whole thing, sir," I heard him say as he brought his large fist down on the table, "is a firebug--mark my words." Before I could close the door, Craig caught my eye, and I read in his look that he had a new case--one that interested him greatly. "Walter," he cried, "this is Fire Marshal McCormick. It's all right, McCormick. Mr. Jameson is an accessory both before and after the fact in my detective cases." A firebug!--one of the most dangerous of criminals. The word excited my imagination at once, for the newspapers had lately been making much of the strange and appalling succession of apparently incendiary fires that had terrorised the business section of the city. "Just what makes you think that there is a firebug--one firebug, I mean--back of this curious epidemic of fires?" asked Kennedy, leaning back in his morrischair with his finger-tips together and his eyes half closed as if expecting a revelation from some subconscious train of thought while the fire marshal presented his case. "Well, usually there is no rhyme or reason about the firebug," replied McCormick, measuring his words, "but this time I think there is some method in his madness. You know the Stacey department-stores and their allied dry-goods and garment-trade interests?" Craig nodded. Of course we knew of the gigantic dry-goods combination. It had been the talk of the press at the time of its formation, a few months ago, especially as it included among its organisers one very clever business woman, Miss Rebecca Wend. There had been considerable opposition to the combination in the trade, but Stacey had shattered it by the sheer force of his personality. McCormick leaned forward and, shaking his forefinger to emphasise his point, replied slowly, "Practically every one of these fires has been directed against a Stacey subsidiary or a corporation controlled by them." "But if it has gone as far as that," put in Kennedy, "surely the regular police ought to be of more assistance to you than I." "I have called in the police," answered McCormick wearily, "but they haven't even made up their minds whether it is a single firebug or a gang. And in the meantime, my God, Kennedy, the firebug may start a fire that will get beyond control!" "You say the police haven't a single clue to any one who might be responsible for the fires?" I asked, hoping that perhaps the marshal might talk more freely of his suspicions to us than he had already expressed himself in the newspaper interviews I had read. "Absolutely not a clue--except such as are ridiculous," replied McCormick, twisting his cap viciously. No one spoke. We were waiting for McCormick to go on. "The first fire," he began, repeating his story for my benefit, although Craig listened quite as attentively as if he had not heard it already, "was at the big store of Jones, Green leaders have been arrested, but I can't say we have anything against any of them. Still, Max Bloom, the manager of this company, insists that the fire was set for revenge, and indeed it looks as much like a fire for revenge as the Jones-Green fire does"--here he lowered his voice confidentially--"for the purpose of collecting insurance. "Then came the fire in the Slawson Building, a new loft-building that had been erected just off Fourth Avenue. Other than the fact that the Stacey interests put up the money for financing this building there seemed to be no reason for that fire at all. The building was reputed to be earning a good return on the investment, and I was at a loss to account for the fire. I have made no arrests for it--just set it down as the work of a pure pyromaniac, a man who burns buildings for fun, a man with an inordinate desire to hear the fire-engines screech through the streets and perhaps get a chance to show a little heroism in 'rescuing' tenants. However, the adjuster for the insurance company, Lazard, and the adjuster for the insured, Hartstein, have reached an agreement, and I believe the insurance is to be paid." "But," interposed Kennedy, "I see no evidence of organised arson so far." "Wait," replied the fire marshal. "That was only the beginning, you understand. A little later came a fire that looked quite like an attempt to mask a robbery by burning the building afterward. That was in a silk-house near Spring Street. But after a controversy the adjusters have reached an agreement on that case. I mention these fires because they show practically all the types of work of the various kinds of firebug--insurance, revenge, robbery, and plain insanity. But since the Spring Street fire, the character of the fires has been more uniform. They have all been in business places, or nearly all." Here the fire marshal launched forth into a catalogue of fires of suspected incendiary origin, at least eight in all. I took them down hastily, intending to use the list some time in a box head with an article in the Star. When he had finished his list I hastily counted up the number of killed. There were six, two of them firemen, and four employees. The money loss ranged into the millions. McCormick passed his hand over his forehead to brush off the perspiration. "I guess this thing has got on my nerves," he muttered hoarsely. "Everywhere I go they talk about nothing else. If I drop into the restaurant for lunch, my waiter talks of it. If I meet a newspaper man, he talks of it. My barber talks of it--everybody. Sometimes I dream of it; other times I lie awake thinking about it. I tell you, gentlemen, I've sweated blood over this problem." "But," insisted Kennedy, "I still can't see why you link all these fires as due to one firebug. I admit there is an epidemic of fires. But what makes you so positive that it is all the work of one man?" "I was coming to that. For one thing, he isn't like the usual firebug at all. Ordinarily they start their fires with excelsior and petroleum, or they smear the wood with paraffin or they use gasoline, benzine, or something of that sort. This fellow apparently scorns such crude methods. I can't say how he starts his fires, but in every case I have mentioned we have found the remains of a wire. It has something to do with electricity--but what, I don't know. That's one reason why I think these fires are all connected. Here's another." McCormick pulled a dirty note out of his pocket and laid it on the table. We read it eagerly: Hello, Chief! Haven't found the firebug yet, have you? You will know who he is only when I am dead and the fires stop. I don't suppose you even realise that the firebug talks with you almost every day about catching the firebug. That's me. I am the real firebug, that is writing this letter. I am going to tell you why I am starting these fires. There's money in it--an easy living. They never caught me in Chicago or anywhere, so you might as well quit looking for me and take your medicine. A. SPARK. "Humph!" ejaculated Kennedy, "he has a sense of humour, anyhow--A. Spark!" "Queer sense of humour," growled McCormick, gritting his teeth. "Here's another I got to-day: Say, Chief: We are going to get busy again and fire a big department-store next. How does that suit Your Majesty? Wait till the fun begins when the firebug gets to work again. A. SPARK. "Well, sir, when I got that letter," cried McCormick, "I was almost ready to ring in a double-nine alarm at once--they have me that bluffed out. But I said to myself, 'There's only one thing to do--see this man Kennedy.' So here I am. You see what I am driving at? I believe that firebug is an artist at the thing, does it for the mere fun of it and the ready money in it. But more than that, there must be some one back of him. Who is the man higher up--we must catch him. See?" "A big department-store," mused Kennedy. "That's definite--there are only a score or so of them, and the Stacey interests control several. Mac, I'll tell you what I'll do. Let me sit up with you to-night at headquarters until we get an alarm. By George, I'll see this case through to a finish!" The fire marshal leaped to his feet and bounded over to where Kennedy was seated. With one hand on Craig's shoulder and the other grasping Craig's hand, he started to speak, but his voice choked. "Thanks," he blurted out huskily at last. "My reputation in the department is at stake, my promotion, my position itself, my--my family--er--er--" "Not a word, sir," said Kennedy, his features working sympathetically. "To-night at eight I will go on watch with you. By the way, leave me those A. Spark notes." McCormick had so far regained his composure as to say a hearty farewell. He left the room as if ten years had been lifted off his shoulders. A moment later he stuck his head in the door again. "I'll have one of the Department machines call for you, gentlemen," he said. After the marshal had gone, we sat for several minutes in silence. Kennedy was reading and rereading the notes, scowling to himself as if they presented a particularly perplexing problem. I said nothing, though my mind was teeming with speculations. At length he placed the notes very decisively on the table and snapped out the remark, "Yes, it must be so." "What?" I queried, still drumming away at my typewriter, copying the list of incendiary fires against the moment when the case should be complete and the story "released for publication," as it were. "This note," he explained, picking up the first one and speaking slowly, "was written by a woman." I swung around in my chair quickly. "Get out!" I exclaimed sceptically. "No woman ever used such phrases." "I didn't say composed by a woman--I said written by a woman," he replied. "Oh," I said, rather chagrined. "It is possible to determine sex from handwriting in perhaps eighty cases out of a hundred," Kennedy went on, enjoying my discomfiture. "Once I examined several hundred specimens of writing to decide that point to my satisfaction. Just to test my conclusions I submitted the specimens to two professional graphologists. I found that our results were slightly different, but I averaged the thing up to four cases out of five correct. The so-called sex signs are found to be largely influenced by the amount of writing done, by age, and to a certain extent by practice and professional requirements, as in the conventional writing of teachers and the rapid hand of bookkeepers. Now in this case the person who wrote the first note was only an indifferent writer. Therefore the sex signs are pretty likely to be accurate. Yes, I'm ready to go on the stand and swear that this note was written by a woman and the second by a man." "Then there's a woman in the case, and she wrote the first note for the firebug--is that what you mean?" I asked. "Exactly. There nearly always is a woman in the case, somehow or other. This woman is closely connected with the firebug. As for the firebug, whoever it may be, he performs his crimes with cold premeditation and, as De Quincey said, in a spirit of pure artistry. The lust of fire propels him, and he uses his art to secure wealth. The man may be a tool in the hands of others, however. It's unsafe to generalise on the meagre facts we now have. Oh, well, there is nothing we can do just yet. Let's take a walk, get an early dinner, and be back here before the automobile arrives." Not a word more did Kennedy say about the case during our stroll or even on the way downtown to fire headquarters. We found McCormick anxiously waiting for us. High up in the sandstone tower at headquarters, we sat with him in the maze of delicate machinery with which the fire game is played in New York. In great glass cases were glistening brass and nickel machines with discs and levers and bells, tickers, sheets of paper, and annunciators without number. This was the fire-alarm telegraph, the "roulettewheel of the fire demon," as some one has aptly called it. "All the alarms for fire from all the boroughs, both from the regular alarm-boxes and the auxiliary systems, come here first over the network of three thousand miles or more of wire nerves that stretch out through the city," McCormick was explaining to us. A buzzer hissed. "Here's an alarm now," he exclaimed, all attention. "Three," "six," "seven," the numbers appeared on the annunciator. The clerks in the office moved as if they were part of the mechanism. Twice the alarm was repeated, being sent out all over the city. McCormick relapsed from his air of attention. "That alarm was not in the shopping district," he explained, much relieved. "Now the fire-houses in the particular district where that fire is have received the alarm instantly. Four engines, two hook-and-ladders, a water-tower, the battalion chief, and a deputy are hurrying to that fire. Hello, here comes another." Again the buzzer sounded. "One," "four," "five" showed in the annunciator. Even before the clerks could respond, McCormick had dragged us to the door. In another instant we were wildly speeding uptown, the bell on the front of the automobile clanging like a fire-engine, the siren horn going continuously, the engine of the machine throbbing with energy until the water boiled in the radiator. "Let her out, Frank," called McCormick to his chauffeur, as we rounded into a broad and now almost deserted thoroughfare. Like a red streak in the night we flew up that avenue, turned into Fourteenth Street on two wheels, and at last were on Sixth Avenue. With a jerk and a skid we stopped. There were the engines, the hose-carts, the hook-and-ladders, the salvage corps, the police establishing fire lines--everything. But where was the fire? The crowd indicated where it ought to be--it was Stacey's. Firemen and policemen were entering the huge building. McCormick shouldered in after them, and we followed. "Who turned in the alarm?" he asked as we mounted the stairs with the others. "I did," replied a night watchman on the third landing. "Saw a light in the office on the third floor back--something blazing. But it seems to be out now." We had at last come to the office. It was dark and deserted, yet with the lanterns we could see the floor of the largest room littered with torn books and ledgers. Kennedy caught his foot in something. It was a loose wire on the floor. He followed it. It led to an electric-light socket, where it was attached. "Can't you turn on the lights?" shouted McCormick to the watchman. "Not here. They're turned on from downstairs, and they're off for the night. I'll go down if you want me to and--" "No," roared Kennedy. "Stay where you are until I follow the wire to the other end." At last we came to a little office partitioned off from the main room. Kennedy carefully opened the door. One whiff of the air from it was sufficient. He banged the door shut again. "Stand back with those lanterns, boys," he ordered. I sniffed, expecting to smell illuminating-gas. Instead, a peculiar, sweetish odour pervaded the air. For a moment it made me think of a hospital operating-room. "Ether," exclaimed Kennedy. "Stand back farther with those lights and hold them up from the floor." For a moment he seemed to hesitate as if at loss what to do next. Should he open the door and let this highly inflammable gas out or should he wait patiently until the natural ventilation of the little office had dispelled it? While he was debating he happened to glance out of the window and catch sight of a drug-store across the street. "Walter," he said to me, "hurry across there and get all the saltpeter and sulphur the man has in the shop." I lost no time in doing so. Kennedy dumped the two chemicals into a pan in the middle of the main office, about three-fifths saltpeter and two-fifths sulphur, I should say. Then he lighted it. The mass burned with a bright flame but without explosion. We could smell the suffocating fumes from it, and we retreated. For a moment or two we watched it curiously at a distance. "That's very good extinguishing-powder," explained Craig as we sniffed at the odour. "It yields a large amount of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Now--before it gets any worse--I guess it's safe to open the door and let the ether out. You see this is as good a way as any to render safe a room full of inflammable vapour. Come, we'll wait outside the main office for a few minutes until the gases mix." It seemed hours before Kennedy deemed it safe to enter the office again with a light. When we did so, we made a rush for the little cubby-hole of an office at the other end. On the floor was a little can of ether, evaporated of course, and beside it a small apparatus apparently used for producing electric sparks. "So, that's how he does it," mused Kennedy, fingering the can contemplatively. "He lets the ether evaporate in a room for a while and then causes an explosion from a safe distance with this little electric spark. There's where your wire comes in, McCormick. Say, my man, you can switch on the lights from downstairs, now." As we waited for the watchman to turn on the lights I exclaimed, "He failed this time because the electricity was shut off." "Precisely, Walter," assented Kennedy. "But the flames which the night watchman saw, what of them?" put in McCormick, considerably mystified. "He must have seen something." Just then the lights winked up. "Oh, that was before the fellow tried to touch off the ether vapour," explained Kennedy. "He had to make sure of his work of destruction first--and, judging by the charred papers about, he did it well. See, he tore leaves from the ledgers and lighted them on the floor. There was an object in all that. What was it? Hello! Look at this mass of charred paper in the corner." He bent down and examined it carefully. "Memoranda of some kind, I guess. I'll save this burnt paper and look it over later. Don't disturb it. I'll take it away myself." Search as we might, we could find no other trace of the firebug, and at last we left. Kennedy carried the charred paper carefully in a large hat-box. "There'll be no more fires to-night, McCormick," he said. "But I'll watch with you every night until we get this incendiary. Meanwhile I'll see what I can decipher, if anything, in this burnt paper." Next day McCormick dropped in to see us again. This time he had another note, a disguised scrawl which read: Chief: I'm not through. Watch me get another store yet. I won't fall down this time. A. SPARK. Craig scowled as he read the note and handed it to me. "The man's writing this time--like the second note," was all he said. "McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike, don't you think it would be wiser to make our headquarters in one of the engine-houses in that district?" The fire marshal agreed, and that night saw us watching at the fire-house nearest the department-store region. Kennedy and I were assigned to places on the hose-cart and engine, respectively, Kennedy being in the hose-cart so that he could be with McCormick. We were taught to descend one of the four brass poles hand under elbow, from the dormitory on the second floor. They showed us how to jump into the "turn-outs"--a pair of trousers opened out over the high top boots. We were given helmets which we placed in regulation fashion on our rubber coats, turned inside out with the right armhole up. Thus it came about that Craig and I joined the Fire Department temporarily. It was a novel experience for us both. "Now, Walter," said Kennedy, "as long as we have gone so far, we'll 'roll' to every fire, just like the regulars. We won't take any chances of missing the firebug at any time of night or day." It proved to be a remarkably quiet evening with only one little blaze in a candy-shop on Seventh Avenue. Most of the time we sat around trying to draw the men out about their thrilling experiences at fires. But if there is one thing the fireman doesn't know it is the English language when talking about himself. It was quite late when we turned into the neat white cots upstairs. We had scarcely fallen into a half doze in our strange surroundings when the gong downstairs sounded. It was our signal. We could hear the rapid clatter of the horses' hoofs as they were automatically released from their stalls and the collars and harness mechanically locked about them. All was stir, and motion, and shouts. Craig and I had bounded awkwardly into our paraphernalia at the first sound. We slid ungracefully down the pole and were pushed and shoved into our places, for scientific management in a New York fire-house has reached one hundred per cent. efficiency, and we were not to be allowed to delay the game. The oil-torch had been applied to the engine, and it rolled forth, belching flames. I was hanging on for dear life, now and then catching sight of the driver urging his plunging horses onward like a charioteer in a modern Ben Hur race. The tender with Craig and McCormick was lost in the clouds of smoke and sparks that trailed behind us. On we dashed until we turned into Sixth Avenue. The glare of the sky told us that this time the firebug had made good. "I'll be hanged if it isn't the Stacey store again," shouted the man next me on the engine as the horses lunged up the avenue and stopped at the allotted hydrant. It was like a war game. Every move had been planned out by the fire-strategists, even down to the hydrants that the engines should take at a given fire. Already several floors were aflame, the windows glowing like open-hearth furnaces, the glass bulging and cracking and the flames licking upward and shooting out in long streamers. The hose was coupled up in an instant, the water turned on, and the limp rubber and canvas became as rigid as a post with the high pressure of the water being forced through it. Company after company dashed into the blazing "fireproof" building, urged by the hoarse profanity of the chief. Twenty or thirty men must have disappeared into the stifle from which the police retreated. There was no haste, no hesitation. Everything moved as smoothly as if by clockwork. Yet we could not see one of the men who had disappeared into the burning building. They had been swallowed up, as it were. For that is the way with the New York firemen. They go straight to the heart of the fire. Now and then a stream of a hose spat out of a window, showing that the men were still alive and working. About the ground floors the red-helmeted salvage corps were busy covering up what they could of the goods with rubber sheets to protect them from water. Doctors with black bags and white trousers were working over the injured. Kennedy and I were busy about the engine, and there was plenty for us to do. Above the shrill whistle for more coal I heard a voice shout, "Began with an explosion--it's the firebug, all right." I looked up. It was McCormick, dripping and grimy, in a high state of excitement, talking to Kennedy. I had been so busy trying to make myself believe that I was really of some assistance about the engine that I had not taken time to watch the fire itself. It was now under control. The sharp and scientific attack had nipped what might have been one of New York's historic conflagrations. "Are you game to go inside?" I heard McCormick ask. For answer Kennedy simply nodded. As for me, where Craig went I went. The three of us drove through the scorching door, past twisted masses of iron still glowing dull red in the smoke and steam, while the water hissed and spattered and slopped. The smoke was still suffocating, and every once in a while we were forced to find air close to the floor and near the wall. My hands and arms and legs felt like lead, yet on we drove. Coughing and choking, we followed McCormick to what had been the heart of the fire, the office. Men with picks and axes and all manner of cunningly devised instruments were hacking and tearing at the walls and woodwork, putting out the last smouldering sparks while a thousand gallons of water were pouring in at various parts of the building where the fire still showed spirit. There on the floor of the office lay a charred, shapeless, unrecognisable mass. What was that gruesome odour in the room? Burned human flesh? I recoiled from what had once been the form of a woman. McCormick uttered a cry, and as I turned my eyes away, I saw him holding a wire with the insulation burned off. He had picked it up from the wreckage of the floor. It led to a bent and blackened can--that had once been a can of ether. My mind worked rapidly, but McCormick blurted out the words before I could form them, "Caught in her own trap at last!" Kennedy said nothing, but as one of the firemen roughly but reverently covered the remains with a rubber sheet, he stooped down and withdrew from the breast of the woman a long letter-file. "Come, let us go," he said. Back in our apartment again we bathed our racking heads, gargled our parched throats, and washed out our bloodshot eyes, in silence. The whole adventure, though still fresh and vivid in my mind, seemed unreal, like a dream. The choking air, the hissing steam, the ghastly object under the tarpaulin--what did it all mean? Who was she? I strove to reason it out, but could find no answer. It was nearly dawn when the door opened and McCormick came in and dropped wearily into a chair. "Do you know who that woman was?" he gasped. "It was Miss Wend herself." "Who identified her?" asked Kennedy calmly. "Oh, several people. Stacey recognised her at once. Then Hartstein, the adjuster for the insured, and Lazard, the adjuster for the company, both of whom had had more or less to do with her in connection with settling up for other fires, recognised her. She was a very clever woman, was Miss Wend, and a very important cog in the Stacey enterprises. And to think she was the firebug, after all. I can hardly believe it." "Why believe it?" asked Kennedy quietly. "Why believe it?" echoed McCormick. "Stacey has found shortages in his books due to the operation of her departments. The bookkeeper who had charge of the accounts in her department, a man named Douglas, is missing. She must have tried to cover up her operations by fires and juggling the accounts. Failing in that she tried to destroy Stacey's store itself, twice. She was one of the few that could get into the office unobserved. Oh, it's a clear case now. To my mind, the heavy vapours of ether--they are heavier than air, you know--must have escaped along the surface of the floor last night and become ignited at a considerable distance from where she expected. She was caught in a back-draught, or something of the sort. Well, thank God, we've seen the last of this firebug business. What's that?" Kennedy had laid the letter-file on the table. "Nothing. Only I found this embedded in Miss Wend's breast right over her heart." "Then she was murdered?" exclaimed McCormick. "We haven't come to the end of this case yet," replied Craig evasively. "On the contrary, we have just got our first good clue. No, McCormick, your theory will not hold water. The real point is to find this missing bookkeeper at any cost. You must persuade him to confess what he knows. Offer him immunity--he was only a pawn in the hands of those higher up." McCormick was not hard to convince. Tired as he was, he grabbed up his hat and started off to put the final machinery in motion to wind up the long chase for the firebug. "I must get a couple of hours' sleep," he yawned as he left us, "but first I want to start something toward finding Douglas. I shall try to see you about noon." I was too exhausted to go to the office. In fact, I doubt if I could have written a line. But I telephoned in a story of personal experiences at the Stacey fire and told them they could fix it up as they chose and even sign my name to it. About noon McCormick came in again, looking as fresh as if nothing had happened. He was used to it. "I know where Douglas is," he announced breathlessly. "Fine," said Kennedy, "and can you produce him at any time when it is necessary?" "Let me tell you what I have done. I went down to the district attorney from here--routed him out of bed. He has promised to turn loose his accountants to audit the reports of the adjusters, Hartstein and Lazard, as well as to make a cursory examination of what Stacey books there are left. He says he will have a preliminary report ready to-night, but the detailed report will take days, of course. "It's the Douglas problem that is difficult, though. I haven't seen him, but one of the central-office men, by shadowing his wife, has found that he is in hiding down on the East Side. He's safe there; he can't make a move to get away without being arrested. The trouble is that if I arrest him, the people higher up will know it and will escape before I can get his confession and the warrants. I'd much rather have the whole thing done at once. Isn't there some way we can get the whole Stacey crowd together, make the arrest of Douglas and nab the guilty ones in the case, all together without giving them a chance to escape or to shield the real firebug?" Kennedy thought a moment. "Yes," he answered slowly. "There is. If you can get them all together at my laboratory to-night at, say, eight o'clock, I'll give you two clear hours to make the arrest of Douglas, get the confession, and swear out the warrants. All that you'll need to do is to let me talk a few minutes this afternoon with the judge who will sit in the night court to-night. I shall install a little machine on his desk in the court, and we'll catch the real criminal--he'll never get a chance to cross the state line or disappear in any way. You see, my laboratory will be neutral ground. I think you can get them to come, inasmuch as they know the bookkeeper is safe and that dead women tell no tales." When next I saw Kennedy it was late in the afternoon, in the laboratory. He was arranging something in the top drawer of a flat-top desk. It seemed to be two instruments composed of many levers and discs and magnets, each instrument with a roll of paper about five inches wide. On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords attached at right angles to each other near the point. On the other was a capillary glass tube at the junction of two aluminum arms, also at right angles to each other. It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his laboratory preparing for a "seance." He said nothing as I watched him curiously, and I asked nothing. Two sets of wires were attached to each of the instruments, and these he carefully concealed and led out the window. Then he arranged the chairs on the opposite side of the desk from his own. "Walter," he said, "when our guests begin to arrive I want you to be master of ceremonies. Simply keep them on the opposite side of the desk from me. Don't let them move their chairs around to the right or left. And, above all, leave the doors open. I don't want any one to be suspicious or to feel that he is shut in in any way. Create the impression that they are free to go and come when they please." Stacey arrived first in a limousine which he left standing at the door of the Chemistry Building. Bloom and Warren came together in the latter's car. Lazard came in a taxicab which he dismissed, and Hartstein came up by the subway, being the last to arrive. Every one seemed to be in good humour. I seated them as Kennedy had directed. Kennedy pulled out the extension on the left of his desk and leaned his elbow on it as he began to apologise for taking up their time at such a critical moment. As near as I could make out, he had quietly pulled out the top drawer of his desk on the right, the drawer in which I had seen him place the complicated apparatus. But as nothing further happened I almost forgot about it in listening to him. He began by referring to the burned papers he had found in the office. "It is sometimes possible," he continued, "to decipher writing on burned papers if one is careful. The processes of colour photography have recently been applied to obtain a legible photograph of the writing on burned manuscripts which are unreadable by any other known means. As long as the sheet has not been entirely disintegrated positive results can be obtained every time. The charred manuscript is carefully arranged in as near its original shape as possible, on a sheet of glass and covered with a drying varnish, after which it is backed by another sheet of glass. "By using carefully selected colour screens and orthochromatic plates a perfectly legible photograph of the writing may be taken, although there may be no marks on the charred remains that are visible to the eye. This is the only known method in many cases. I have here some burned fragments of paper which I gathered up after the first attempt to fire your store, Mr. Stacey." Stacey coughed in acknowledgment. As for Craig, he did not mince matters in telling what he had found. "Some were notes given in favour of Rebecca Wend and signed by Joseph Stacey," he said quietly. "They represent a large sum of money in the aggregate. Others were memoranda of Miss Wend's, and still others were autograph letters to Miss Wend of a very incriminating nature in connection with the fires by another person." Here he laid the "A. Spark" letters on the desk before him. "Now," he added "some one, in a spirit of bravado, sent these notes to the fire marshal at various times. Curiously enough, I find that the handwriting of the first one bears a peculiar resemblance to that of Miss Wend, while the second and third, though disguised also, greatly suggest the handwriting of Miss Wend's correspondent." No one moved. But I sat aghast. She had been a part of the conspiracy, after all, not a pawn. Had they played fair? "Taking up next the remarkable succession of fires," resumed Kennedy, "this case presents some unique features. In short, it is a clear case of what is known as a 'firebug trust.' Now just what is a firebug trust? Well, it is, as near as I can make out, a combination of dishonest merchants and insurance adjusters engaged in the business of deliberately setting fires for profit. These arson trusts are not the ordinary kind of firebugs whom the firemen plentifully damn in the fixed belief that one-fourth of all fires are kindled by incendiaries. Such 'trusts' exist all over the country. They have operated in Chicago, where they are said to have made seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one year. Another group is said to have its headquarters in Kansas City. Others have worked in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo. The fire marshals of Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio have investigated their work. But until recently New York has been singularly free from the organised work of this sort. Of course we have plenty of firebugs and pyromaniacs in a small way, but the big conspiracy has never come to my personal attention before. "Now, the Jones-Green fire, the Quadrangle fire, the Slawson Building fire, and the rest, have all been set for one purpose--to collect insurance. I may as well say right here that some people are in bad in this case, but that others are in worse. Miss Wend was originally a party to the scheme. Only the trouble with Miss Wend was that she was too shrewd to be fooled. She insisted that she have her full share of the pickings. In that case it seems to have been the whole field against Miss Wend, not a very gallant thing, nor yet according to the adage about honour among thieves. "A certain person whose name I am frank to say I do not know--yet--conceived the idea of destroying the obligations of the Stacey companies to Miss Wend as well as the incriminating evidence which she held of the 'firebug trust,' of which she was a member up to this time. The plan only partly succeeded. The chief coup, which was to destroy the Stacey store into the bargain, miscarried. "What was the result? Miss Wend, who had been hand in glove with the 'trust,' was now a bitter enemy, perhaps would turn state's evidence. What more natural than to complete the conspiracy by carrying out the coup and at the same time get rid of the dangerous enemy of the conspirators? I believe that Miss Wend was lured under some pretext or other to the Stacey store on the night of the big fire. The person who wrote the second and third 'A. Spark' letters did it. She was murdered with this deadly instrument"--Craig laid the letter-file on the table--"and it was planned to throw the entire burden of suspicion on her by asserting that there was a shortage in the books of her department." "Pooh!" exclaimed Stacey, smoking complacently at his cigar. "We have been victimised in those fires by people who have grudges against us, labour unions and others. This talk of an arson trust is bosh--yellow journalism. More than that, we have been systematically robbed by a trusted head of a department, and the fire at Stacey's was the way the thief took to cover--er--her stealings. At the proper time we shall produce the bookkeeper Douglas and prove it." Kennedy fumbled in the drawer of the desk, then drew forth a long strip of paper covered with figures. "All the Stacey companies," he said, "have been suffering from the depression that exists in the trade at present. They are insolvent. Glance over that, Stacey. It is a summary of the preliminary report of the accountants of the district attorney who have been going over your books to-day." Stacey gasped. "How did you get it? The report was not to be ready until nine o'clock, and it is scarcely a quarter past now." "Never mind how I got it. Go over it with the adjusters, anybody. I think you will find that there was no shortage in Miss Wend's department, that you were losing money, that you were in debt to Miss Wend, and that she would have received the lion's share of the proceeds of the insurance if the firebug scheme had turned out as planned." "We absolutely repudiate these figures as fiction," said Stacey, angrily turning toward Kennedy after a hurried consultation. "Perhaps, then, you'll appreciate this," replied Craig, pulling another piece of paper from the desk. "I'll read it. 'Henry Douglas, being duly sworn, deposes and says that one'--we'll call him 'Blank' for the present--'with force and arms did feloniously, wilfully, and intentionally kill Rebecca Wend whilst said Blank was wilfully burning and setting on fire--'" "One moment," interrupted Stacey. "Let me see that paper." Kennedy laid it down so that only the signature showed. The name was signed in a full round hand, "Henry Douglas." "It's a forgery," cried Stacey in rage. "Not an hour before I came into this place I saw Henry Douglas. He had signed no such paper then. He could not have signed it since, and you could not have received it. I brand that document as a forgery." Kennedy stood up and reached down into the open drawer on the right of his desk. From it he lifted the two machines I had seen him place there early in the evening. "Gentlemen," he said, "this is the last scene of the play you are enacting. You see here on the desk an instrument that was invented many years ago, but has only recently become really practical. It is the telautograph--the long-distance writer. In this new form it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the knowledge of a caller. It makes it possible to write a message under these conditions and receive an answer concerning the personality or business of the individual seated at one's elbow without leaving the desk or seeming to make inquiries. "With an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of the transmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the current which controls a pencil at the other end of the line. The receiving pencil moves simultaneously with my pencil. It is the principle of the pantagraph cut in half, one half here, the other half at the end of the line, two telephone wires in this case connecting the halves. "While we have been sitting here I have had my right hand in the half-open drawer of my desk writing with this pencil notes of what has transpired in this room. These notes, with other evidence, have been simultaneously placed before Magistrate Brenner in the night court. At the same time, on this other, the receiving, instrument the figures of the accountants written in court have been reproduced here. You have seen them. Meanwhile, Douglas was arrested, taken before the magistrate, and the information for a charge of murder in the first degree perpetrated in committing arson has been obtained. You have seen it. It came in while you were reading the figures." The conspirators seemed dazed. "And now," continued Kennedy, "I see that the pencil of the receiving instrument is writing again. Let us see what it is." We bent over. The writing started: "County of New York. In the name of the People of the State of New York--" Kennedy did not wait for us to finish reading. He tore the writing from the telautograph and waved it over his head. "It is a warrant. You are all under arrest for arson. But you, Samuel Lazard, are also under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Wend and six other persons in fires which you have set. You are the real firebug, the tool of Joseph Stacey, perhaps, but that will all come out in the trial. McCormick, McCormick," called Craig, "it's all right. I have the warrant. Are the police there?" There was no answer. Lazard and Stacey made a sudden dash for the door, and in an instant they were in Stacey's waiting car. The chauffeur took off the brake and pulled the lever. Suddenly Craig's pistol flashed, and the chauffeur's arms hung limp and useless on the steering-wheel. As McCormick with the police loomed up, a moment late, out of the darkness and after a short struggle clapped the irons on Stacey and Lazard in Stacey's own magnificently upholstered car, I remarked reproachfully to Kennedy: "But, Craig, you have shot the innocent chauffeur. Aren't you going to attend to him?" "Oh," replied Kennedy nonchalantly, "don't worry about that. They were only rock-salt bullets. They didn't penetrate far. They'll sting for some time, but they're antiseptic, and they'll dissolve and absorb quickly." V THE CONFIDENCE KING "Shake hands with Mr. Burke of the secret service, Professor Kennedy." It was our old friend First Deputy O'Connor who thus in his bluff way introduced a well-groomed and prosperous-looking man whom he brought up to our apartment one evening. The formalities were quickly over. "Mr. Burke and I are old friends," explained O'Connor. "We try to work together when we can, and very often the city department can give the government service a lift, and then again it's the other way--as it was in the trunk-murder mystery. Show Professor Kennedy the 'queer,' Tom." Burke drew a wallet out of his pocket, and from it slowly and deliberately selected a crisp, yellow-backed hundred-dollar bill. He laid it flat on the table before us. Diagonally across its face from the upper left-to the lower right-hand corner extended two parallel scorings in indelible ink. Not being initiated into the secrets of the gentle art of "shoving the queer," otherwise known as passing counterfeit money, I suppose my questioning look betrayed me. "A counterfeit, Walter," explained Kennedy. "That's what they do with bills when they wish to preserve them as records in the secret service and yet render them valueless." Without a word Burke handed Kennedy a pocket magnifying-glass, and Kennedy carefully studied the bill. He was about to say something when Burke opened his capacious wallet again and laid down a Bank of England five-pound note which had been similarly treated. Again Kennedy looked through the glass with growing amazement written on his face, but before he could say anything, Burke laid down an express money-order on the International Express Company. "I say," exclaimed Kennedy, putting down the glass, "stop! How many more of these are there?" Burke smiled. "That's all," he replied, "but it's not the worst." "Not the worst? Good heavens, man, next you'll tell me that the government is counterfeiting its own notes! How much of this stuff do you suppose has been put into circulation?" Burke chewed a pencil thoughtfully, jotted down some figures on a piece of paper, and thought some more. "Of course I can't say exactly, but from hints I have received here and there I should think that a safe bet would be that some one has cashed in upward of half a million dollars already." "Whew," whistled Kennedy, "that's going some. And I suppose it is all salted away in some portable form. What an inventory it must be--good bills, gold, diamonds, and jewellery. This is a stake worth playing for." "Yes," broke in O'Connor, "but from my standpoint, professionally, I mean, the case is even worse than that. It's not the counterfeits that bother us. We understand that, all right. But," and he leaned forward earnestly and brought his fist down hard on the table with a resounding Irish oath, "the finger-print system, the infallible finger-print system, has gone to pieces. We've just imported this new 'portrait parle' fresh from Paris and London, invented by Bertillon and all that sort of thing--it has gone to pieces, too. It's a fine case, this is, with nothing left of either scientific or unscientific criminal-catching to rely on. There--what do you know about that?" "You'll have to tell me the facts first," said Kennedy. "I can't diagnose your disease until I know the symptoms." "It's like this," explained Burke, the detective in him showing now with no effort at concealment. "A man, an Englishman, apparently, went into a downtown banker's office about three months ago and asked to have some English bank-notes exchanged for American money. After he had gone away, the cashier began to get suspicious. He thought there was something phoney in the feel of the notes. Under the glass he noticed that the little curl on the 'e' of the 'Five' was missing. It's the protective mark. The water-mark was quite equal to that of the genuine--maybe better. Hold that note up to the light and see for yourself. "Well, the next day, down to the Custom House, where my office is, a man came who runs a swell gambling-house uptown. He laid ten brand-new bills on my desk. An Englishman had been betting on the wheel. He didn't seem to care about winning, and he cashed in each time with a new one-hundred-dollar bill. Of course he didn't care about winning. He cared about the change--that was his winning. The bill on the table is one of the original ten, though since then scores have been put into circulation. I made up my mind that it was the same Englishman in both cases. "Then within a week, in walked the manager of the Mozambique Hotel--he had been stung with the fake International Express money-order--same Englishman, too, I believe." "And you have no trace of him?" asked Kennedy eagerly. "We had him under arrest once--we thought. A general alarm was sent out, of course, to all the banks and banking-houses. But the man was too clever to turn up in that way again. In one gambling-joint which women frequent a good deal, a classy dame who might have been a duchess or a--well, she was a pretty good loser and always paid with hundred-dollar bills. Now, you know women are NOT good losers. Besides, the hundred-dollar-bill story had got around among the gambling-houses. This joint thought it worth taking a chance, so they called me up on the 'phone, extracted a promise that I'd play fair and keep O'Connor from raiding them, but wouldn't I please come up and look over the dame of the yellow bills? Of course I made a jump at it. Sure enough, they were the same counterfeits. I could tell because the silk threads were drawn in with coloured ink. But instead of making an arrest I decided to trail the lady. "Now, here comes the strange part of it. Let me see, this must have been over two months ago. I followed her out to a suburban town, Riverwood along the Hudson, and to a swell country house overlooking the river, private drive, stone gate, hedges, old trees, and all that sort of thing. A sporty-looking Englishman met her at the gate with one of those big imported touring-cars, and they took a spin. "I waited a day or so, but nothing more happened, and I began to get anxious. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. Anyhow I watched my chance and made an arrest of both of them when they came to New York on a shopping expedition. You should have heard that Englishman swear. I didn't know such language was possible. But in his pocket we found twenty more of those hundred-dollar bills--that was all. Do you think he owned up? Not a bit of it. He swore he had picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the pier as he left the steamer. I laughed. But when he was arraigned in court he told the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised his find at the time. Sure enough, in the files of the papers we discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad., just as he claimed. We couldn't even prove that he had passed the bills. So the magistrate refused to hold them, and they were both released. But we had had them in our power long enough to take their finger-prints and get descriptions and measurements of them, particularly by this new 'portrait parle' system. We felt we could send out a strange detective and have him pick them out of a crowd--you know the system, I presume?" Kennedy nodded, and I made a mental note of finding out more about the "portrait parle" later. Burke paused, and O'Connor prompted, "Tell them about Scotland Yard, Tom." "Oh, yes," resumed Burke. "Of course I sent copies of the finger-prints to Scotland Yard. Within two weeks they replied that one set belonged to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they understood, had sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there. They were glad to learn that he was in America, and advised me to look after him sharply. The woman was also a noted character--Harriet Wollstone, an adventuress." "I suppose you have shadowed them ever since?" Kennedy asked. "Yes, a few days after they were arrested the man had an accident with his car. It was said he was cranking the engine and that it kicked back and splintered the bone in his forearm. Anyhow, he went about with his hand and arm in a sling." "And then?" "They gave my man the slip that night in their fast touring-car. You know automobiles have about made shadowing impossible in these days. The house was closed up, and it was said by the neighbours that Williams and Mrs. Williams--as they called themselves--had gone to visit a specialist in Philadelphia. Still, as they had a year's lease on the house, I detailed a man to watch it more or less all the time. They went to Philadelphia all right; some of the bills turned up there. But we saw nothing of them. "A short time ago, word came to me that the house was open again. It wasn't two hours later that the telephone rang like mad. A Fifth Avenue jeweller had just sold a rope of pearls to an Englishwoman who paid for it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar bills. The bank had returned them to him that very afternoon--counterfeits. I didn't lose any time making a second arrest up at the house of mystery at Riverwood. I had the county authorities hold them--and, now, O'Connor, tell the rest of it. You took the finger-prints up there." O'Connor cleared his throat as if something stuck in it, in the telling. "The Riverwood authorities refused to hold them," he said with evident chagrin. "As soon as I heard of the arrest I started up myself with the finger-print records to help Burke. It was the same man, all right--I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So will Burke. I'll never forget that snub nose--the concave nose, the nose being the first point of identification in the 'portrait parle.' And the ears, too--oh, it was the same man, all right. But when we produced the London finger-prints which tallied with the New York fingerprints which we had made--believe it or not, but it is a fact, the Riverwood finger-prints did not tally at all." He laid the prints on the table. Kennedy examined them closely. His face clouded. It was quite evident that he was stumped, and he said so. "There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but more points of difference. Any points of difference are usually considered fatal to the finger-print theory." "We had to let the man go," concluded Burke. "We could have held the woman, but we let her go, too, because she was not the principal in the case. My men are shadowing the house now and have been ever since then. But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New York, who looked like a doctor, made a visit. The secret-service man on the job didn't dare leave the house to follow him, but as he never came again perhaps it doesn't matter. Since then the house has been closed." The telephone rang. It was Burke's office calling him. As he talked we could gather that something tragic must have happened at Riverwood, and we could hardly wait until he had finished. "There has been an accident up there," he remarked as he hung up the receiver rather petulantly. "They returned in the car this afternoon with a large package in the back of the tonneau. But they didn't stay long. After dark they started out again in the car. The accident was at the bad railroad crossing just above Riverwood. It SEEMS Williams's car got stalled on the track just as the Buffalo express was due. No one saw it, but a man in a buggy around the bend in the road heard a woman scream. He hurried down. The train had smashed the car to bits. How the woman escaped was a miracle, but they found the man's body up the tracks, horribly mangled. It was Williams, they say. They identified him by the clothes and by letters in his pockets. But my man tells me he found a watch on him with 'W. F.' engraved on it. His hands and arms and head must have been right under the locomotive when it struck him, I judge." "I guess that winds the case up, eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with evident chagrin. "Where's the woman?" "They said she was in the little local hospital, but not much hurt. Just the shock and a few bruises." O'Connor's question seemed to suggest an idea to Burke, and he reached for the telephone again. "Riverwood 297," he ordered; then to us as he waited he said: "We must hold the woman. Hello, 297? The hospital? This is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell my man, who must be somewhere about, that I would like to have him hold that woman who was in the auto smash until I can--what? Gone? The deuce!" He hung up the receiver angrily. "She left with a man who called for her about half an hour ago," he said. "There must be a gang of them. Forbes is dead, but we must get the rest. Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry to have bothered you, but I guess we can handle this alone, after all. It was the finger-prints that fooled us, but now that Forbes is out of the way it's just a straight case of detective work of the old style which won't interest you." "On the contrary," answered Kennedy, "I'm just beginning to be interested. Does it occur to you that, after all, Forbes may not be dead?" "Not dead?" echoed Burke and O'Connor together. "Exactly; that's just what I said--not dead. Now stop and think a moment. Would the great Forbes be so foolish as to go about with a watch marked 'W. F.' if he knew, as he must have known, that you would communicate with London and by means of the prints find out all about him?" "Yes," agreed Burke, "all we have to go by is his watch found on Williams. I suppose there is some possibility that Forbes may still be alive." "Who is this third man who comes in and with whom Harriet Wollstone goes away so willingly?" put in O'Connor. "You said the house had been closed--absolutely closed?" Burke nodded. "Been closed ever since the last arrest. There's a servant who goes in now and then, but the car hasn't been there before to-night, wherever it has been." "I should like to watch that house myself for a while," mused Kennedy. "I suppose you have no objections to my doing so?" "Of course not. Go ahead," said Burke. "I will go along with you if you wish, or my man can go with you." "No," said Kennedy, "too many of us might spoil the broth. I'll watch alone to-night and will see you in the morning. You needn't even say anything to your man there about us." "Walter, what's on for to-night?" he asked when they had gone. "How are you fixed for a little trip out to Riverwood?" "To tell the truth, I had an engagement at the College Club with some of the fellows." "Oh, cut it." "That's what I intend to do," I replied. It was a raw night, and we bundled ourselves up in old football sweaters under our overcoats. Half an hour later we were on our way up to Riverwood. "By the way, Craig," I asked, "I didn't like to say anything before those fellows. They'd think I was a dub. But I don't mind asking you. What is this 'portrait parle' they talk about, anyway?" "Why, it's a word-picture--a 'spoken picture,' to be literal. I took some lessons in it at Bertillon's school when I was in Paris. It's a method of scientific apprehension of criminals, a sort of necessary addition and completion to the methods of scientific identification of them after they are arrested. For instance, in trying to pick out a given criminal from his mere description you begin with the nose. Now, noses are all concave, straight, or convex. This Forbes had a nose that was concave, Burke says. Suppose you were sent out to find him. Of all the people you met, we'll say, roughly, two-thirds wouldn't interest you. You'd pass up all with straight or convex noses. Now the next point to observe is the ear. There are four general kinds of ears-triangular, square, oval, and round, besides a number of other differences which are clear enough after you study ears. This fellow is a pale man with square ears and a peculiar lobe to his ear. So you wouldn't give a second glance to, say, three-fourths of the square-eared people. So by a process of elimination of various features, the eyes, the mouth, the hair, wrinkles, and so forth, you would be able to pick your man out of a thousand--that is, if you were trained." "And it works?" I asked rather doubtfully. "Oh, yes. That's why I'm taking up this case. I believe science can really be used to detect crime, any crime, and in the present instance I've just pride enough to stick to this thing until--until they begin to cut ice on the Styx. Whew, but it will be cold out in the country to-night, Walter--speaking about ice." It was quite late when we reached Riverwood, and Kennedy hurried along the dimly lighted streets, avoiding the main street lest some one might be watching or following us. He pushed on, following the directions Burke had given him. The house in question was a large, newly built affair of concrete, surrounded by trees and a hedge, directly overlooking the river. A bitter wind swept in from the west, but in the shadow of an evergreen tree and of the hedge Kennedy established our watch. Of all fruitless errands this seemed to me to be the acme. The house was deserted; that was apparent, I thought, and I said so. Hardly had I said it when I heard the baying of a dog. It did not come from the house, however, and I concluded that it must have come from the next estate. "It's in the garage," whispered Kennedy. "I can hardly think they would go away and leave a dog locked up in it. They would at least turn him loose." Hour after hour we waited. Midnight passed, and still nothing happened. At last when the moon had disappeared under the clouds, Kennedy pulled me along. We had seen not a sign of life in the house, yet he observed all the caution he would have if it had been well guarded. Quickly we advanced over the open space to the house, approaching in the shadow as much as possible, on the side farthest from the river. Tiptoeing over the porch, Kennedy tried a window. It was fastened. Without hesitation he pulled out some instruments. One of them was a rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the window-pane. Then with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large section. It soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor by the string and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and unlatched the window, and we stepped in. All was silent. Apparently the house was deserted. Cautiously Kennedy pressed the button of his pocket storage-battery lamp and flashed it slowly about the room. It was a sort of library, handsomely furnished. At last the beam of light rested on a huge desk at the opposite end. It seemed to interest Kennedy, and we tiptoed over to it. One after another he opened the drawers. One was locked, and he saved that until the last. Quietly as he could, he jimmied it open, muffling the jimmy in a felt cloth that was on a table. Most people do not realise the disruptive force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until I saw the solid drawer with its heavy lock yield with just the trace of a noise. Kennedy waited an instant and listened. Nothing happened. Inside the drawer was a most nondescript collection of useless articles. There were a number of pieces of fine sponge, some of them very thin and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol strongly; several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some paraffin, bandages, antiseptic gauze, cotton--in fact, it looked like a first-aid kit. As soon as he saw it Kennedy seemed astonished but not at a loss to account for it. "I thought he left that sort of thing to the doctors, but I guess he took a hand in it himself," he muttered, continuing to fumble with the knives in the drawer. It was no time to ask questions, and I did not. Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets. One bottle he opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish immediately the volatile smell of ether. He closed it quickly, and it, too, went into his pocket with the remark, "Somebody must have known how to administer an anaesthetic--probably the Wollstone woman." A suppressed exclamation from Kennedy caused me to look. The drawer had a false back. Safely tucked away in it reposed a tin box, one of those so-called strong-boxes which are so handy in that they save a burglar much time and trouble in hunting all over for the valuables he has come after. Kennedy drew it forth and laid it on the desk. It was locked. Even that did not seem to satisfy Kennedy, who continued to scrutinise the walls and corners of the room as if looking for a safe or something of that sort. "Let's look in the room across the hall," he whispered. Suddenly a piercing scream of a woman rang out upstairs. "Help! Help! There's some one in the house! Billy, help!" I felt an arm grasp me tightly, and for a moment a chill ran over me at being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering a dwelling-house at night. But it was only Kennedy, who had already tucked the precious little tin box under his arm. With a leap he dragged me to the open window, cleared it, vaulted over the porch, and we were running for the clump of woods that adjoined the estate on one side. Lights flashed in all the windows of the house at once. There must have been some sort of electric-light system that could be lighted instantly as a "burglar-expeller." Anyhow, we had made good our escape. As we lost ourselves in the woods I gave a last glance back and saw a lantern carried from the house to the garage. As the door was unlocked I could see, in the moonlight, a huge dog leap out and lick the hands and face of a man. Quickly we now crashed through the frozen underbrush. Evidently Kennedy was making for the station by a direct route across country instead of the circuitous way by the road and town. Behind us we could hear a deep baying. "By the Lord, Walter," cried Kennedy, for once in his life thoroughly alarmed, "it's a bloodhound, and our trail is fresh." Closer it came. Press forward as we might, we could never expect to beat that dog. "Oh, for a stream," groaned Kennedy, "but they are all frozen--even the river." He stopped short, fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the bottle of ether. "Raise your foot, Walter," he ordered. I did so and he smeared first mine and then his with the ether. Then we doubled on our trail once or twice and ran again. "The dog will never be able to pick up the ether as our trail," panted Kennedy; "that is, if he is any good and trained not to go off on wild-goose chases." On we hurried from the woods to the now dark and silent town. It was indeed fortunate that the dog had been thrown off our scent, for the station was closed, and, indeed, if it had been open I am sure the station agent would have felt more like locking the door against two such tramps as we were, carrying a tin box and pursued by a dog, than opening it for us. The best we could do was to huddle into a corner until we succeeded in jumping a milk-train that luckily slowed down as it passed Riverwood station. Neither of us could wait to open the tin box in our apartment, and instead of going uptown Kennedy decided it would be best to go to a hotel near the station. Somehow we succeeded in getting a room without exciting suspicion. Hardly had the bellboy's footsteps ceased echoing in the corridor than Kennedy was at work wrenching off the lid of the box with such leverage as the scanty furnishings of the room afforded. At last it yielded, and we looked in curiously, expecting to find fabulous wealth in some form. A few hundred dollars and a rope of pearls lay in it. It was a good "haul," but where was the vast spoil the counterfeiters had accumulated? We had missed it. So far we were completely baffled. "Perhaps we had better snatch a couple of hours' sleep," was all that Craig said, stifling his chagrin. Over and over in my mind I was turning the problem of where they had hidden the spoil. I dozed off, still thinking about it and thinking that, even should they be captured, they might have stowed away perhaps a million dollars to which they could go back after their sentences were served. It was still early for New York when Kennedy roused me by talking over the telephone in the room. In fact, I doubt if he had slept at all. Burke was at the other end of the wire. His man had just reported that something had happened during the night at Riverwood, but he couldn't give a very clear account. Craig seemed to enjoy the joke immensely as he told his story to Burke. The last words I heard were: "All right. Send a man up here to the station--one who knows all the descriptions of these people. I'm sure they will have to come into town to-day, and they will have to come by train, for their car is wrecked. Better watch at the uptown stations, also." After a hasty breakfast we met Burke's man and took our places at the exit from the train platforms. Evidently Kennedy had figured out that the counterfeiters would have to come into town for some reason or other. The incoming passengers were passing us in a steady stream, for a new station was then being built, and there was only a temporary structure with one large exit. "Here is where the 'portrait parle' ought to come in, if ever," commented Kennedy as he watched eagerly. And yet neither man nor woman passed us who fitted the description. Train after train emptied its human freight, yet the pale man with the concave nose and the peculiar ear, accompanied perhaps by a lady, did not pass us. At last the incoming stream began to dwindle down. It was long past the time when the counterfeiters should have arrived if they had started on any reasonable train. "Perhaps they have gone up to Montreal, instead," I ventured. Kennedy shook his head. "No," he answered. "I have an idea that I was mistaken about the money being kept at Riverwood. It would have been too risky. I thought it out on the way back this morning. They probably kept it in a safe deposit vault here. I had figured that they would come down and get it and leave New York after last night's events. We have failed--they have got by us. Neither the 'portrait parle' nor the ordinary photography nor any other system will suffice alone against the arch-criminal back of this, I'm afraid. Walter, I am sore and disgusted. What I should have done was to accept Burke's offer--surround the house with a posse if necessary, last night, and catch the counterfeiters by sheer force. I was too confident. I thought I could do it with finesse, and I have failed. I'd give anything to know what safe deposit vault they kept the fake money in." I said nothing as we strolled away, leaving Burke's man still to watch, hoping against hope. Kennedy walked disconsolately through the station, and I followed. In a secluded part of the waiting-room he sat down, his face drawn up in a scowl such as I had never seen. Plainly he was disgusted with himself--with only himself. This was no bungling of Burke or any one else. Again the counterfeiters had escaped from the hand of the law. As he moved his fingers restlessly in the pockets of his coat, he absently pulled out the little pieces of sponge and the ether bottle. He regarded them without much interest. "I know what they were for," he said, diving back into his pocket for the other things and bringing out the sharp little knives in their case. I said nothing, for Kennedy was in a deep study. At last he put the things back into his pocket. As he did so his hand encountered something which he drew forth with a puzzled air. It was the piece of paraffin. "Now, what do you suppose that was for?" he asked, half to himself. "I had forgotten that. What was the use of a piece of paraffin? Phew, smell the antiseptic worked into it." "I don't know," I replied, rather testily. "If you would tell me what the other things were for I might enlighten you, but--" "By George, Walter, what a chump I am!" cried Kennedy, leaping to his feet, all energy again. "Why did I forget that lump of paraffin? Why, of course--I think I can guess what they have been doing--of course. Why, man alive, he walked right past us, and we never knew it. Boy, boy," he shouted to a newsboy who passed, "what's the latest sporting edition you have?" Eagerly he almost tore a paper open and scanned the sporting pages. "Racing at Lexington begins to-morrow," he read. "Yes, I'll bet that's it. We don't have to know the safe deposit vault, after all. It would be too late, anyhow. Quick, let us look up the train to Lexington." As we hurried over to the information booth, I gasped, in a whirl: "Now, look here, Kennedy, what's all this lightning calculation? What possible connection is there between a lump of paraffin and one of the few places in the country where they still race horses?" "None," he replied, not stopping an instant. "None. The paraffin suggested to me the possible way in which our man managed to elude us under our very eyes. That set my mind at work again. Like a flash it occurred to me: Where would they be most likely to go next to work off some of the bills? The banks are on, the jewellery-houses are on, the gambling-joints are on. Why, to the racetracks, of course. That's it. Counterfeiters all use the bookmakers, only since racing has been killed in New York they have had to resort to other means here. If New York has suddenly become too hot, what more natural than to leave it? Here, let me see--there's a train that gets there early to-morrow, the best train, too. Say, is No. 144 made up yet?" he inquired at the desk. "No. 144 will be ready in fifteen minutes. Track 8." Kennedy thanked the man, turned abruptly, and started for the still closed gate at Track 8. "Beg pardon--why, hulloa--it's Burke," he exclaimed as we ran plump into a man staring vacantly about. It was not the gentleman farmer of the night before, nor yet the supposed college graduate. This man was a Western rancher; his broad-brimmed hat, long moustache, frock coat, and flowing tie proclaimed it. Yet there was something indefinably familiar about him, too. It was Burke in another disguise. "Pretty good work, Kennedy," nodded Burke, shifting his tobacco from one side of his jaws to the other. "Now, tell me how your man escaped you this morning, when you can recognise me instantly in this rig." "You haven't altered your features," explained Kennedy simply. "Our pale-faced, snub-nosed peculiar-eared friend has. What do you think of the possibility of his going to the Lexington track, now that he finds it too dangerous to remain in New York?" Burke looked at Kennedy rather sharply. "Say, do you add telepathy to your other accomplishments?" "No," laughed Craig, "but I'm glad to see that two of us working independently have arrived at the same conclusion. Come, let us saunter over to Track 8--I guess the train is made up." The gate was just opened, and the crowd filed through. No one who seemed to satisfy either Burke or Kennedy appeared. The train-announcer made his last call. Just then a taxicab pulled up at the street-end of the platform, not far from Track 8. A man jumped out and assisted a heavily veiled lady, paid the driver, picked up the grips, and turned toward us. We waited expectantly. As he turned I saw a dark-skinned, hook-nosed man, and I exclaimed disgustedly to Burke: "Well, if they are going to Lexington they can't make this train. Those are the last people who have a chance." Kennedy, however, continued to regard the couple steadily. The man saw that he was being watched and faced us defiantly, "Such impertinence!" Then to his wife, "Come, my dear, we'll just make it." "I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to show us what's in that grip," said Kennedy, calmly laying his hand on the man's arm. "Well, now, did you ever hear of such blasted impudence? Get out of my way, sir, this instant, or I'll have you arrested." "Come, come, Kennedy," interrupted Burke. "Surely you are getting in wrong here. This can't be the man." Craig shook his head decidedly. "You can make the arrest or not, Burke, as you choose. If not, I am through. If so--I'll take all the responsibility." Reluctantly Burke yielded. The man protested; the woman cried; a crowd collected. The train-gate shut with a bang. As it did so the man's demeanour changed instantly. "There," he shouted angrily, "you have made us miss our train. I'll have you in jail for this. Come on now to the nearest magistrate's court. I'll have my rights as an American citizen. You have carried your little joke too far. Knight is my name--John Knight, of Omaha, pork-packer. Come on now. I'll see that somebody suffers for this if I have to stay in New York a year. It's an outrage--an outrage." Burke was now apparently alarmed--more at the possibility of the humorous publicity that would follow such a mistake by the secret service than at anything else. However, Kennedy did not weaken, and on general principles I stuck to Kennedy. "Now," said the man surlily while he placed "Mrs. Knight" in as easy a chair as he could find in the judge's chambers, "what is the occasion of all this row? Tell the judge what a bad man from Bloody Gulch I am." O'Connor had arrived, having broken all speed laws and perhaps some records on the way up from headquarters. Kennedy laid the Scotland Yard finger-prints on the table. Beside them he placed those taken by O'Connor and Burke in New York. "Here," he began, "we have the finger-prints of a man who was one of the most noted counterfeiters in Great Britain. Beside them are those of a man who succeeded in passing counterfeits of several kinds recently in New York. Some weeks later this third set of prints was taken from a man who was believed to be the same person." The magistrate was examining the three sets of prints. As he came to the third, he raised his head as if about to make a remark, when Kennedy quickly interrupted. "One moment, sir. You were about to say that finger-prints never change, never show such variations as these. That is true. There are fingerprints of people taken fifty years ago that are exactly the same as their finger-prints of to-day. They don't change--they are permanent. The fingerprints of mummies can be deciphered even after thousands of years. But," he added slowly, "you can change fingers." The idea was so startling that I could scarcely realise what he meant at first. I had read of the wonderful work of the surgeons of the Rockefeller Institute in transplanting tissues and even whole organs, in grafting skin and in keeping muscles artificially alive for days under proper conditions. Could it be that a man had deliberately amputated his fingers and grafted on new ones? Was the stake sufficient for such a game? Surely there must be some scars left after such grafting. I picked up the various sets of prints. It was true that the third set was not very clear, but there certainly were no scars there. "Though there is no natural changeability of finger-prints," pursued Kennedy, "such changes can be induced, as Dr. Paul Prager of Vienna has shown, by acids and other reagents, by grafting and by injuries. Now, is there any method by which lost finger-tips can be restored? I know of one case where the end of a finger was taken off and only one-sixteenth inch of the nail was left. The doctor incised the edges of the granulating surface and then led the granulations on by what is known in the medical profession as the 'sponge graft.' He grew a new finger-tip. "The sponge graft consists in using portions of a fine Turkish surgical sponge, such I have here. I found these pieces in a desk at Riverwood. The patient is anaesthetised. An incision is made from side to side in the stump of the finger and flaps of skin are sliced off and turned up for the new end of the finger to develop in--a sort of shell of living skin. Inside this, the sponge is placed, not a large piece, but a very thin piece sliced off and cut to the shape of the finger-stump. It is perfectly sterilised in water and washed in green soap after all the stony particles are removed by hydrochloric acid. Then the finger is bound up and kept moist with normal salt solution. "The result is that the end of the finger, instead of healing over, grows into the fine meshes of the pieces of sponge, by capillary attraction. Of course even this would heal in a few days, but the doctor does not let it heal. In three days he pulls the sponge off gently. The end of the finger has grown up just a fraction of an inch. Then a new thin layer of sponge is added. Day after day this process is repeated, each time the finger growing a little more. A new nail develops if any of the matrix is left, and I suppose a clever surgeon by grafting up pieces of epidermis could produce on such a stump very passable finger-prints." No one of us said anything, but Kennedy seemed to realise the thought in our minds and proceeded to elaborate the method. "It is known as the 'education sponge method,' and was first described by Dr. D. J. Hamilton, of Edinburgh, in 1881. It has frequently been used in America since then. The sponge really acts in a mechanical manner to support the new finger-tissue that is developed. The meshes are filled in by growing tissue, and as it grows the tissue absorbs part of the sponge, which is itself an animal tissue and acts like catgut. Part of it is also thrown off. In fact, the sponge imitates what happens naturally in the porous network of a regular blood-clot. It educates the tissue to grow, stimulates it--new blood-vessels and nerves as well as flesh. "In another case I know of, almost the whole of the first joint of a finger was crushed off, and the doctor was asked to amputate the stump of bone that protruded. Instead, he decided to educate the tissue to grow out to cover it and appear like a normal finger. In these cases the doctors succeeded admirably in giving the patients entire new finger-tips, without scars, and, except for the initial injury and operation, with comparatively little inconvenience except that absolute rest of the hands was required. "That is what happened, gentlemen," concluded Kennedy. "That is why Mr. Forbes, alias Williams, made a trip to Philadelphia to be treated--for crushed finger-tips, not for the kick of an automobile engine. He may have paid the doctors in counterfeits. In reality this man was playing a game in which there was indeed a heavy stake at issue. He was a counterfeiter sought by two governments with the net closing about him. What are the tips of a few fingers compared with life, liberty, wealth, and a beautiful woman? The first two sets of prints are different from the third because they are made by different finger-tips--on the same man. The very core of the prints was changed. But the finger-print system is vindicated by the very ingenuity of the man who so cleverly has contrived to beat it." "Very interesting--to one who is interested," remarked the stranger, "but what has that to do with detaining my wife and myself, making us miss our train, and insulting us?" "Just this," replied Craig. "If you will kindly oblige us by laying your fingers on this inking-pad and then lightly on this sheet of paper, I think I can show you an answer." Knight demurred, and his wife grew hysterical at the idea, but there was nothing, to do but comply. Kennedy glanced at the fourth set of prints, then at the third set taken a week ago, and smiled. No one said a word. Knight or Williams, which was it? He nonchalantly lit a cigarette. "So you say I am this Williams, the counterfeiter?" he asked superciliously. "I do," reiterated Kennedy. "You are also Forbes." "I don't suppose Scotland Yard has neglected to furnish you with photographs and a description of this Forbes?" Burke reluctantly pulled out a Bertillon card from his pocket and laid it on the table. It bore the front face and profile of the famous counterfeiter, as well as his measurements. The man picked it up as if indeed it was a curious thing. His coolness nearly convinced me. Surely he should have hesitated in actually demanding this last piece of evidence. I had heard, however, that the Bertillon system of measurements often depended on the personal equation of the measurer as well as on the measured. Was he relying on that, or on his difference in features? I looked over Kennedy's shoulder at the card on the table. There was the concave nose of the "portrait parle" of Forbes, as it had first been described to us. Without looking further I involuntarily glanced at the man, although I had no need to do so. I knew that his nose was the exact opposite of that of Forbes. "Ingenious at argument as you are," he remarked quietly, "you will hardly deny that Knight, of Omaha, is the exact opposite of Forbes, of London. My nose is almost Jewish--my complexion is dark as an Arab's. Still, I suppose I am the sallow, snub-nosed Forbes described here, inasmuch as I have stolen Forbes's fingers and lost them again by a most preposterous method." "The colour of the face is easily altered," said Kennedy. "A little picric acid will do that. The ingenious rogue Sarcey in Paris eluded the police very successfully until Dr. Charcot exposed him and showed how he changed the arch of his eyebrows and the wrinkles of his face. Much is possible to-day that would make Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau look clumsy and antiquated." A sharp feminine voice interrupted. It was the woman, who had kept silent up to this time. "But I have read in one of the papers this morning that a Mr. Williams was found dead in an automobile accident up the Hudson yesterday. I remember reading it, because I am afraid of accidents myself." All eyes were now fixed on Kennedy. "That body," he answered quickly, "was a body purchased by you at a medical school, brought in your car to Riverwood, dressed in Williams's clothes with a watch that would show he was Forbes, placed on the track in front of the auto, while you two watched the Buffalo express run it down, and screamed. It was a clever scheme that you concocted, but these facts do not agree." He laid the measurements of the corpse obtained by Burke and those from the London police card side by side. Only in the roughest way did they approximate each other. "Your honour, I appeal to your sense of justice," cried our prisoner impatiently. "Hasn't this farce been allowed to go far enough? Is there any reason why this fake detective should make fools out of us all and keep my wife longer in this court? I'm not disposed to let the matter drop. I wish to enter a charge against him of false arrest and malicious prosecution. I shall turn the whole thing over to my attorney this afternoon. The deuce with the races--I'll have justice." The man had by this time raised himself to a high pitch of apparently righteous wrath. He advanced menacingly toward Kennedy, who stood with his shoulders thrown back, and his hands deep in his pockets, and a half amused look on his face. "As for you, Mr. Detective," added the man, "for eleven cents I'd lick you to within an inch of your life. 'Portrait parle,' indeed! It's a fine scientific system that has to deny its own main principles in order to vindicate itself. Bah! Take that, you scoundrel!" Harriet Wollstone threw her arms about him, but he broke away. His fist shot out straight. Kennedy was too quick for him, however. I had seen Craig do it dozens of times with the best boxers in the "gym." He simply jerked his head to one side, and the blow passed just a fraction of an inch from his jaw, but passed it as cleanly as if it had been a yard away. The man lost his balance, and as he fell forward and caught himself, Kennedy calmly and deliberately slapped him on the nose. It was an intensely serious instant, yet I actually laughed. The man's nose was quite out of joint, even from such a slight blow. It was twisted over on his face in the most ludicrous position imaginable. "The next time you try that, Forbes," remarked Kennedy, as he pulled the piece of paraffin from his pocket and laid it on the table with the other exhibits, "don't forget that a concave nose built out to hook-nose convexity by injections of paraffin, such as the beauty-doctors everywhere advertise, is a poor thing for a White Hope." Both Burke and O'Connor had seized Forbes, but Kennedy had turned his attention to the larger of Forbes's grips, which the Wollstone woman vociferously claimed as her own. Quickly he wrenched it open. As he turned it up on the table my eyes fairly bulged at the sight. Forbes' suit-case might have been that of a travelling salesman for the Kimberley, the Klondike, and the Bureau of Engraving, all in one. Craig dumped the wealth out on the table--stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls, everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to turn them into real gold. "Forbes, you have failed in your get-away," said Craig triumphantly. "Gentlemen, you have here a master counterfeiter, surely--a master counterfeiter of features and fingers as well as of currency." VI THE SAND-HOG "Interesting story, this fight between the Five-Borough and the Inter-River Transit," I remarked to Kennedy as I sketched out the draft of an expose of high finance for the Sunday Star. "Then that will interest you, also," said he, throwing a letter down on my desk. He had just come in and was looking over his mail. The letterhead bore the name of the Five-Borough Company. It was from Jack Orton, one of our intimates at college, who was in charge of the construction of a new tunnel under the river. It was brief, as Jack's letters always were. "I have a case here at the tunnel that I am sure will appeal to you, my own case, too," it read. "You can go as far as you like with it, but get to the bottom of the thing, no matter whom it hits. There is some deviltry afoot, and apparently no one is safe. Don't say a word to anybody about it, but drop over to see me as soon as you possibly can." "Yes," I agreed, "that does interest me. When are you going over?" "Now," replied Kennedy, who had not taken off his hat. "Can you come along?" As we sped across the city in a taxicab, Craig remarked: "I wonder what is the trouble? Did you see in the society news this morning the announcement of Jack's engagement to Vivian Taylor, the daughter of the president of the Five-Borough?" I had seen it, but could not connect it with the trouble, whatever it was, at the tunnel, though I did try to connect the tunnel mystery with my expose. We pulled up at the construction works, and a strapping Irishman met us. "Is this Professor Kennedy?" he asked of Craig. "It is. Where is Mr. Orton's office?" "I'm afraid, sir, it will be a long time before Mr. Orton is in his office again, sir. The doctor have just took him out of the medical lock, an' he said if you was to come before they took him to the 'orspital I was to bring you right up to the lock." "Good heavens, man, what has happened?" exclaimed Kennedy. "Take us up to him quick." Without waiting to answer, the Irishman led the way up and across a rough board platform until at last we came to what looked like a huge steel cylinder, lying horizontally, in which was a floor with a cot and some strange paraphernalia. On the cot lay Jack Orton, drawn and contorted, so changed that even his own mother would scarcely have recognised him. A doctor was bending over him, massaging the joints of his legs and his side. "Thank you, Doctor, I feel a little better," he groaned. "No, I don't want to go back into the lock again, not unless the pain gets worse." His eyes were closed, but hearing us he opened them and nodded. "Yes, Craig," he murmured with difficulty, "this is Jack Orton. What do you think of me? I'm a pretty sight. How are you? And how are you, Walter? Not too vigorous with the hand-shakes, fellows. Sorry you couldn't get over before this happened." "What's the matter?" we asked, glancing blankly from Orton to the doctor. Orton forced a half smile. "Just a touch of the 'bends' from working in compressed air," he explained. We looked at him, but could say nothing. I, at least, was thinking of his engagement. "Yes," he added bitterly, "I know what you are thinking about, fellows. Look at me! Do you think such a wreck as I am now has any right to be engaged to the dearest girl in the world?" "Mr. Orton," interposed the doctor, "I think you'll feel better if you'll keep quiet. You can see your friends in the hospital to-night, but for a few hours I think you had better rest. Gentlemen, if you will be so good as to postpone your conversation with Mr. Orton until later it would be much better." "Then I'll see you to-night," said Orton to us feebly. Turning to a tall, spare, wiry chap, of just the build for tunnel work, where fat is fatal, he added: "This is Mr. Capps, my first assistant. He will show you the way down to the street again." "Confound it!" exclaimed Craig, after we had left Capps. "What do you think of this? Even before we can get to him something has happened. The plot thickens before we are well into it. I think I'll not take a cab, or a car either. How are you for a walk until we can see Orton again?" I could see that Craig was very much affected by the sudden accident that had happened to our friend, so I fell into his mood, and we walked block after block scarcely exchanging a word. His only remark, I recall, was, "Walter, I can't think it was an accident, coming so close after that letter." As for me, I scarcely knew what to think. At last our walk brought us around to the private hospital where Orton was. As we were about to enter, a very handsome girl was leaving. Evidently she had been visiting some one of whom she thought a great deal. Her long fur coat was flying carelessly, unfastened in the cold night air; her features were pale, and her eyes had the fixed look of one who saw nothing but grief. "It's terrible, Miss Taylor," I heard the man with her say soothingly, "and you must know that I sympathise with you a great deal." Looking up quickly, I caught sight of Capps and bowed. He returned our bows and handed her gently into an automobile that was waiting. "He might at least have introduced us," muttered Kennedy, as we went on into the hospital. Orton was lying in bed, white and worn, propped up by pillows which the nurse kept arranging and rearranging to ease his pain. The Irishman whom we had seen at the tunnel was standing deferentially near the foot of the bed. "Quite a number of visitors, nurse, for a new patient," said Orton, as he welcomed us. "First Capps and Paddy from the tunnel, then Vivian"--he was fingering some beautiful roses in a vase on a table near him--"and now, you fellows. I sent her home with Capps. She oughtn't to be out alone at this hour, and Capps is a good fellow. She's known him a long time. No, Paddy, put down your hat. I want you to stay. Paddy, by the way, fellows, is my right-hand man in managing the 'sandhogs' as we call the tunnel-workers. He has been a sand-hog on every tunnel job about the city since the first successful tunnel was completed. His real name is Flanagan, but we all know him best as Paddy." Paddy nodded. "If I ever get over this and back to the tunnel," Orton went on, "Paddy will stick to me, and we will show Taylor, my prospective father-in-law and the president of the railroad company from which I took this contract, that I am not to blame for all the troubles we are having on the tunnel. Heaven knows that--" "Oh, Mr. Orton, you ain't so bad," put in Paddy without the faintest touch of undue familiarity. "Look what I was when ye come to see me when I had the bends, sir." "You old rascal," returned Orton, brightening up. "Craig, do you know how I found him? Crawling over the floor to the sink to pour the doctor's medicine down." "Think I'd take that medicine," explained Paddy, hastily. "Not much. Don't I know that the only cure for the bends is bein' put back in the 'air' in the medical lock, same as they did with you, and bein' brought out slowly? That's the cure, that, an' grit, an' patience, an' time. Mark me wurds, gintlemen, he'll finish that tunnel an' beggin' yer pardon, Mr. Orton, marry that gurl, too. Didn't I see her with tears in her eyes right in this room when he wasn't lookin', and a smile when he was? Sure, ye'll be all right," continued Paddy, slapping his side and thigh. "We all get the bends more or less--all us sand-hogs. I was that doubled up meself that I felt like a big jack-knife. Had it in the arm, the side, and the leg all at once, that time he was just speakin' of. He'll be all right in a couple more weeks, sure, an' down in the air again, too, with the rest of his men. It's somethin' else he has on his moind." "Then the case has nothing to do with your trouble, nothing to do with the bends?" asked Kennedy, keenly showing his anxiety to help our old friend. "Well, it may and it may not," replied Orton thoughtfully. "I begin to think it has. We have had a great many cases of the bends among the men, and lots of the poor fellows have died, too. You know, of course, how the newspapers are roasting us. We are being called inhuman; they are going to investigate us; perhaps indict me. Oh, it's an awful mess; and now some one is trying to make Taylor believe it is my fault. "Of course," he continued, "we are working under a high air-pressure just now, some days as high as forty pounds. You see, we have struck the very worst part of the job, a stretch of quicksand in the river-bed, and if we can get through this we'll strike pebbles and rock pretty soon, and then we'll be all right again." He paused. Paddy quietly put in: "Beggin' yer pardon again, Mr. Orton, but we had intirely too many cases of the bends even when we were wurkin' at low pressure, in the rock, before we sthruck this sand. There's somethin' wrong, sir, or ye wouldn't be here yerself like this. The bends don't sthrike the ingineers, them as don't do the hard work, sir, and is careful, as ye know--not often." "It's this way, Craig," resumed Orton. "When I took this contract for the Five-Borough Transit Company, they agreed to pay me liberally for it, with a big bonus if I finished ahead of time, and a big penalty if I exceeded the time. You may or may not know it, but there is some doubt about the validity of their franchise after a certain date, provided the tunnel is not ready for operation. Well, to make a long story short, you know there are rival companies that would like to see the work fail and the franchise revert to the city, or at least get tied up in the courts. I took it with the understanding that it was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." "Have you yourself seen any evidences of rival influences hindering the work?" asked Kennedy. Orton carefully weighed his reply. "To begin with," he answered at length, "while I was pushing the construction end, the Five-Borough was working with the state legislature to get a bill extending the time-limit of the franchise another year. Of course, if it had gone through it would have been fine for us. But some unseen influence blocked the company at every turn. It was subtle; it never came into the open. They played on public opinion as only demagogues of high finance can, very plausibly of course, but from the most selfish and ulterior motives. The bill was defeated." I nodded. I knew all about that part of it, for it was in the article which I had been writing for the Star. "But I had not counted on the extra year, anyhow," continued Orton, "so I wasn't disappointed. My plans were laid for the shorter time from the start. I built an island in the river so that we could work from each shore to it, as well as from the island to each shore, really from four points at once. And then, when everything was going ahead fine, and we were actually doubling the speed in this way, these confounded accidents"--he was leaning excitedly forward--"and lawsuits and delays and deaths began to happen." Orton sank back as a paroxysm of the bends seized him, following his excitement. "I should like very much to go down into the tunnel," said Kennedy simply. "No sooner said than done," replied Orton, almost cheerfully, at seeing Kennedy so interested. "We can arrange that easily. Paddy will be glad to do the honours of the place in my absence." "Indade I will do that same, sor," responded the faithful Paddy, "an' it's a shmall return for all ye've done for me." "Very well, then," agreed Kennedy. "Tomorrow morning we shall be on hand. Jack, depend on us. We will do our level best to get you out of this scrape." "I knew you would, Craig," he replied. "I've read of some of your and Walter's exploits. You're a pair of bricks, you are. Good-bye, fellows," and his hands mechanically sought the vase of flowers which reminded him of their giver. At home we sat for a long time in silence. "By George, Craig," I exclaimed at length, my mind reverting through the whirl of events to the glimpse of pain I had caught on the delicate face of the girl leaving the hospital, "Vivian Taylor is a beauty, though, isn't she?" "And Capps thinks so, too," he returned, sinking again into his shell of silence. Then he suddenly rose and put on his hat and coat. I could see the old restless fever for work which came into his eyes whenever he had a case which interested him more than usual. I knew there would be no rest for Kennedy until he had finished it. Moreover, I knew it was useless for me to remonstrate with him, so I kept silent. "Don't wait up for me," he said. "I don't know when I'll be back. I'm going to the laboratory and the university library. Be ready early in the morning to help me delve into this tunnel mystery." I awoke to find Kennedy dozing in a chair, partly dressed, but just as fresh as I was after my sleep. I think he had been dreaming out his course of action. At any rate, breakfast was a mere incident in his scheme, and we were over at the tunnel works when the night shift were going off. Kennedy carried with him a moderate-sized box of the contents of which he seemed very careful. Paddy was waiting for us, and after a hasty whispered conversation, Craig stowed the box away behind the switchboard of the telephone central, after attaching it to the various wires. Paddy stood guard while this was going on so that no one would know about it, not even the telephone girl, whom he sent off on an errand. Our first inspection was of that part of the works which was above ground. Paddy, who conducted us, introduced us first to the engineer in charge of this part of the work, a man named Shelton, who had knocked about the world a great deal, but had acquired a taciturnity that was Sphinx-like. If it had not been for Paddy, I fear we should have seen very little, for Shelton was not only secretive, but his explanations were such that even the editor of a technical journal would have had to blue pencil them considerably. However, we gained a pretty good idea of the tunnel works above ground--at least Kennedy did. He seemed very much interested in how the air was conveyed below ground, the tank for storing compressed air for emergencies, and other features. It quite won Paddy, although Shelton seemed to resent his interest even more than he despised my ignorance. Next Paddy conducted us to the dressing-rooms. There we put on old clothes and oilskins, and the tunnel doctor examined us and extracted a written statement that we went down at our own risk and released the company from all liability--much to the disgust of Paddy. "We're ready now, Mr. Capps," called Paddy, opening an office door on the way out. "Very well, Flanagan," answered Capps, barely nodding to us. We heard him telephone some one, but could not catch the message, and in a minute he joined us. By this time I had formed the opinion, which I have since found to be correct, that tunnel men are not as a rule loquacious. It was a new kind of thrill to me to go under the "air," as the men called it. With an instinctive last look at the skyline of New York and the waves playing in the glad sunlight, we entered a rude construction elevator and dropped from the surface to the bottom of a deep shaft. It was like going down into a mine. There was the air-lock, studded with bolts, and looking just like a huge boiler, turned horizontally. The heavy iron door swung shut with a bang as Paddy and Capps, followed by Kennedy and myself, crept into the air-lock. Paddy turned on a valve, and compressed air from the tunnel began to rush in with a hiss as of escaping steam. Pound after pound to the square inch the pressure slowly rose until I felt sure the drums of my ears would burst. Then the hissing noise began to dwindle down to a wheeze, and then it stopped all of a sudden. That meant that the air-pressure in the lock was the same as that in the tunnel. Paddy pushed open the door in the other end of the lock from that by which we had entered. Along the bottom of the completed tube we followed Paddy and Capps. On we trudged, fanned by the moist breath of the tunnel. Every few feet an incandescent light gleamed in the misty darkness. After perhaps a hundred paces we had to duck down under a semicircular partition covering the upper half of the tube. "What is that?" I shouted at Paddy, the nasal ring of my own voice startling me. "Emergency curtain," he shouted back. Words were economised. Later, I learned that should the tunnel start to flood, the other half of the emergency curtain could be dropped so as to cut off the inrushing water. Men passed, pushing little cars full of "muck" or sand taken out from before the "shield"--which is the head by which this mechanical mole advances under the river-bed. These men and others who do the shovelling are the "muckers." Pipes laid along the side of the tunnel conducted compressed air and fresh water, while electric light and telephone wires were strung all about. These and the tools and other things strewn along the tunnel obstructed the narrow passage to such an extent that we had to be careful in picking our way. At last we reached the shield, and on hands and knees we crawled out into one of its compartments. Here we experienced for the first time the weird realisation that only the "air" stood between us and destruction from the tons and tons of sand and water overhead. At some points in the sand we could feel the air escaping, which appeared at the surface of the river overhead in bubbles, indicating to those passing in the river boats just how far each tunnel heading below had proceeded. When the loss of air became too great, I learned, scows would dump hundreds of tons of clay overhead to make an artificial river bed for the shield to stick its nose safely through, for if the river bed became too thin overhead the "air" would blow a hole in it. Capps, it seemed to me, was unusually anxious to have the visit over. At any rate, while Kennedy and Paddy were still crawling about the shield, he stood aside, now and then giving the men an order and apparently forgetful of us. My own curiosity was quickly satisfied, and I sat down on a pile of the segments out of which the successive rings of the tunnel were made. As I sat there waiting for Kennedy, I absently reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. It burned amazingly fast, as if it were made of tinder, the reason being the excess of oxygen in the compressed air. I was looking at it in astonishment, when suddenly I felt a blow on my hand. It was Capps. "You chump!" he shouted as he ground the cigarette under his boot. "Don't you know it is dangerous to smoke in compressed air?" "Why, no," I replied, smothering my anger at his manner. "No one said anything about it." "Well, it is dangerous, and Orton's a fool to let greenhorns come in here." "And to whom may it be dangerous?" I heard a voice inquire over my shoulder. It was Kennedy. "To Mr. Jameson or the rest of us?" "Well," answered Capps, "I supposed everybody knew it was reckless, and that he would hurt himself more by one smoke in the air than by a hundred up above. That's all." He turned on Kennedy sullenly, and started to walk back up the tunnel. But I could not help thinking that his manner was anything but solicitude for my own health. I could just barely catch his words over the tunnel telephone some feet away. I thought he said that everything was going along all right and that he was about to start back again. Then he disappeared in the mist of the tube without even nodding a farewell. Kennedy and I remained standing, not far from the outlet of the pipe by which the compressed air was being supplied in the tunnel from the compressors above, in order to keep the pressure up to the constant level necessary. I saw Kennedy give a hurried glance about, as if to note whether any one were looking at us. No one was. With a quick motion he reached down. In his hand was a stout little glass flask with a tight-fitting metal top. For a second he held it near the outlet of the pipe; then he snapped the top shut and slipped it back into his pocket as quickly as he had produced it. Slowly we commenced to retrace our steps to the air-lock, our curiosity satisfied by this glimpse of one of the most remarkable developments of modern engineering. "Where's Paddy?" asked Kennedy, stopping suddenly. "We've forgotten him." "Back there at the shield, I suppose," said I. "Let's whistle and attract his attention." I pursed up my lips, but if I had been whistling for a million dollars I couldn't have done it. Craig laughed. "Walter, you are indeed learning many strange things. You can't whistle in compressed air." I was too chagrined to answer. First it was Capps; now it was my own friend Kennedy chaffing me for my ignorance. I was glad to see Paddy's huge form looming in the semi-darkness. He had seen that we were gone and hurried after us. "Won't ye stay down an' see some more, gintlemen?" he asked. "Or have ye had enough of the air? It seems very smelly to me this mornin'--I don't blame ye. I guess them as doesn't have to stay here is satisfied with a few minutes of it." "No, thanks, I guess we needn't stay down any longer," replied Craig. "I think I have seen all that is necessary--at least for the present. Capps has gone out ahead of us. I think you can take us out now, Paddy. I would much rather have you do it than to go with anybody else." Coming out, I found, was really more dangerous than going in, for it is while coming out of the "air" that men are liable to get the bends. Roughly, half a minute should be consumed in coming out from each pound of pressure, though for such high pressures as we had been under, considerably more time was required in order to do it safely. We spent about half an hour in the air-lock, I should judge. Paddy let the air out of the lock by turning on a valve leading to the outside, normal atmosphere. Thus he let the air out rapidly at first until we had got down to half the pressure of the tunnel. The second half he did slowly, and it was indeed tedious, but it was safe. There was at first a hissing sound when he opened the valve, and it grew colder in the lock, since air absorbs heat from surrounding objects when it expands. We were glad to draw sweaters on over our heads. It also grew as misty as a London fog as the water-vapour in the air was condensed. At last the hiss of escaping air ceased. The door to the modern dungeon of science grated open. We walked out of the lock to the elevator shaft and were hoisted up to God's air again. We gazed out across the river with its waves dancing in the sunlight. There, out in the middle, was a wreath of bubbles on the water. That marked the end of the tunnel, over the shield. Down beneath those bubbles the sand-hogs were rooting. But what was the mystery that the tunnel held in its dark, dank bosom? Had Kennedy a clue? "I think we had better wait around a bit," remarked Kennedy, as we sipped our hot coffee in the dressing-room and warmed ourselves from the chill of coming out of the lock. "In case anything should happen to us and we should get the bends, this is the place for us, near the medical lock, as it is called--that big steel cylinder over there, where we found Orton. The best cure for the bends is to go back under the air--recompression they call it. The renewed pressure causes the gas in the blood to contract again, and thus it is eliminated--sometimes. At any rate, it is the best-known cure and considerably reduces the pain in the worst cases. When you have a bad case like Orton's it means that the damage is done; the gas has ruptured some veins. Paddy was right. Only time will cure that." Nothing happened to us, however, and in a couple of hours we dropped in on Orton at the hospital where he was slowly convalescing. "What do you think of the case?" he asked anxiously. "Nothing as yet," replied Craig, "but I have set certain things in motion which will give us a pretty good line on what is taking place in a day or so." Orton's face fell, but he said nothing. He bit his lip nervously and looked out of the sun-parlour at the roofs of New York around him. "What has happened since last night to increase your anxiety, Jack?" asked Craig sympathetically. Orton wheeled his chair about slowly, faced us, and drew a letter from his pocket. Laying it flat on the table he covered the lower part with the envelope. "Read that," he said. "Dear Jack," it began. I saw at once that it was from Miss Taylor. "Just a line," she wrote, "to let you know that I am thinking about you always and hoping that you are better than when I saw you this evening. Papa had the chairman of the board of directors of the Five-Borough here late to-night, and they were in the library for over an hour. For your sake, Jack, I played the eavesdropper, but they talked so low that I could hear nothing, though I know they were talking about you and the tunnel. When they came out, I had no time to escape, so I slipped behind a portiere. I heard father say: 'Yes, I guess you are right, Morris. The thing has gone on long enough. If there is one more big accident we shall have to compromise with the Inter-River and carry on the work jointly. We have given Orton his chance, and if they demand that this other fellow shall be put in, I suppose we shall have to concede it.' Mr. Morris seemed pleased that father agreed with him and said so. Oh, Jack, can't you DO something to show them they are wrong, and do it quickly? I never miss an opportunity of telling papa it is not your fault that all these delays take place." The rest of the letter was covered by the envelope, and Orton would not have shown it for worlds. "Orton," said Kennedy, after a few moments' reflection, "I will take a chance for your sake--a long chance, but I think a good one. If you can pull yourself together by this afternoon, be over at your office at four. Be sure to have Shelton and Capps there, and you can tell Mr. Taylor that you have something very important to set before him. Now, I must hurry if I am to fulfil my part of the contract. Good-bye, Jack. Keep a stiff upper lip, old man. I'll have something that will surprise you this afternoon." Outside, as he hurried uptown, Craig was silent, but I could see his features working nervously, and as we parted he merely said: "Of course, you'll be there, Walter. I'll put the finishing touches on your story of high finance." Slowly enough the few hours passed before I found myself again in Orton's office. He was there already, despite the orders of his physician, who was disgusted at this excursion from the hospital. Kennedy was there, too, grim and silent. We sat watching the two indicators beside Orton's desk, which showed the air pressure in the two tubes. The needles were vibrating ever so little and tracing a red-ink line on the ruled paper that unwound from the drum. From the moment the tunnels were started, here was preserved a faithful record of every slightest variation of air pressure. "Telephone down into the tube and have Capps come up," said Craig at length, glancing at Orton's desk clock. "Taylor will be here pretty soon, and I want Capps to be out of the tunnel by the time he comes. Then get Shelton, too." In response to Orton's summons Capps and Shelton came into the office, just as a large town car pulled up outside the tunnel works. A tall, distinguished-looking man stepped out and turned again toward the door of the car. "There's Taylor," I remarked, for I had seen him often at investigations before the Public Service Commission. "And Vivian, too," exclaimed Orton excitedly. "Say, fellows, clear off these desks. Quick, before she gets up here. In the closet with these blueprints, Walter. There, that's a little better. If I had known she was coming I would at least have had the place swept out. Puff! look at the dust on this desk of mine. Well, there's no help for it. There they are at the door now. Why, ivian, what a surprise." "Jack!" she exclaimed, almost ignoring the rest of us and quickly crossing to his chair to lay a restraining hand on his shoulder as he vainly tried to stand up to welcome her. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked eagerly. "I would have had the place fixed up a bit." "I prefer it this way," she said, looking curiously around at the samples of tunnel paraphernalia and the charts and diagrams on the walls. "Yes, Orton," said President Taylor, "she would come--dropped in at the office and when I tried to excuse myself for a business appointment, demanded which way I was going. When I said I was coming here, she insisted on coming, too." Orton smiled. He knew that she had taken this simple and direct means of being there, but he said nothing, and merely introduced us to the president and Miss Taylor. An awkward silence followed. Orton cleared his throat. "I think you all know why we are here," he began. "We have been and are having altogether too many accidents in the tunnel, too many cases of the bends, too many deaths, too many delays to the work. Well--er--I--er--Mr. Kennedy has something to say about them, I believe." No sound was heard save the vibration of the air-compressors and an occasional shout of a workman at the shaft leading down to the air-locks. "There is no need for me to say anything about caisson disease to you, gentlemen, or to you, Miss Taylor," began Kennedy. "I think you all know how it is caused and a good deal about it already. But, to be perfectly clear, I will say that there are five things that must, above all others, be looked after in tunnel work: the air pressure, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the length of the shifts which the men work, the state of health of the men as near as physical examination can determine it, and the rapidity with which the men come out of the 'air,' so as to prevent carelessness which may cause the bends. "I find," he continued, "that the air pressure is not too high for safety. Proper examinations for carbon dioxide are made, and the amount in the air is not excessive. The shifts are not even as long as those prescribed by the law. The medical inspection is quite adequate and as for the time taken in coming out through the locks the rules are stringent." A look of relief crossed the face of Orton at this commendation of his work, followed by a puzzled expression that plainly indicated that he would like to know what was the matter, if all the crucial things were all right. "But," resumed Kennedy, "the bends are still hitting the men, and there is no telling when a fire or a blow-out may occur in any of the eight headings that are now being pushed under the river. Quite often the work has been delayed and the tunnel partly or wholly flooded. Now, you know the theory of the bends. It is that air--mostly the nitrogen in the air--is absorbed by the blood under the pressure. In coming out of the 'air' if the nitrogen is not all eliminated, it stays in the blood and, as the pressure is reduced, it expands. It is just as if you take a bottle of charged water and pull the cork suddenly. The gas rises in big bubbles. Cork it again and the gas bubbles cease to rise and finally disappear. If you make a pin-hole in the cork the gas will escape slowly, without a bubble. You must decompress the human body slowly, by stages, to let the super-saturated blood give up its nitrogen to the lungs, which can eliminate it. Otherwise these bubbles catch in the veins, and the result is severe pains, paralysis, and even death. Gentlemen, I see that I am just wasting time telling you this, for you know it all well. But consider." Kennedy placed an empty corked flask on the table. The others regarded it curiously, but I recalled having seen it in the tunnel. "In this bottle," explained Kennedy, "I collected some of the air from the tunnel when I was down there this morning. I have since analysed it. The quantity of carbon dioxide is approximately what it should be--not high enough of itself to cause trouble. But," he spoke slowly to emphasise his words, "I found something else in that air beside carbon dioxide." "Nitrogen?" broke in Orton quickly, leaning forward. "Of course; it is a constituent of air. But that is not what I mean." "Then, for Heaven's sake, what did you find?" asked Orton. "I found in this air," replied Kennedy, "a very peculiar mixture--an explosive mixture." "An explosive mixture?" echoed Orton. "Yes, Jack, the blow-outs that you have had at the end of the tunnel were not blow-outs at all, properly speaking. They were explosions." We sat aghast at this revelation. "And, furthermore," added Kennedy, "I should, if I were you, call back all the men from the tunnel until the cause for the presence of this explosive mixture is discovered and remedied." Orton reached mechanically for the telephone to give the order, but Taylor laid his hand on his arm. "One moment, Orton," he said. "Let's hear Professor Kennedy out. He may be mistaken, and there is no use frightening the men, until we are certain." "Shelton," asked Kennedy, "what sort of flash oil is used to lubricate the machinery?" "It is three-hundred-and-sixty-degree Fahrenheit flash test," he answered tersely. "And are the pipes leading air down into the tunnel perfectly straight?" "Straight?" "Yes, straight--no joints, no pockets where oil, moisture, and gases can collect." "Straight as lines, Kennedy," he said with a sort of contemptuous defiance. They were facing each other coldly, sizing each other up. Like a skilful lawyer, Kennedy dropped that point for a moment, to take up a new line of attack. "Capps," he demanded, turning suddenly, "why do you always call up on the telephone and let some one know when you are going down in the tunnel and when you are coming out?" "I don't," replied Capps, quickly recovering his composure. "Walter," said Craig to me quietly, "go out in the outer office. Behind the telephone switchboard you will find a small box which you saw me carry in there this morning and connect with the switchboard. Detach the wires, as you saw me attach them, and bring it here." No one moved, as I placed the box on a drafting-table before them. Craig opened it. Inside he disclosed a large disc of thin steel, like those used by some mechanical music-boxes, only without any perforations. He connected the wires from the box to a sort of megaphone. Then he started the disc revolving. Out of the little megaphone horn, sticking up like a miniature talking-machine, came a voice: "Number please. Four four three o, Yorkville. Busy, I'll call you. Try them again, Central. Hello, hello, Central--" Kennedy stopped the machine. "It must be further along on the disc," he remarked. "This, by the way, is an instrument known as the telegraphone, invented by a Dane named Poulsen. It records conversations over a telephone on this plain metal disc by means of localised, minute electric charges." Having adjusted the needle to another place on the disc he tried again. "We have here a record of the entire day's conversations over the telephone, preserved on this disc. I could wipe out the whole thing by pulling a magnet across it, but, needless to say, I wouldn't do that--yet. Listen." This time it was Capps speaking. "Give me Mr. Shelton. Oh, Shelton, I'm going down in the south tube with those men Orton has sent nosing around here. I'll let you know when I start up again. Meanwhile--you know--don't let anything happen while I am there. Good-bye." Capps sat looking defiantly at Kennedy, as he stopped the telegraphone. "Now," continued Kennedy suavely, "what COULD happen? I'll answer my own question by telling what actually did happen. Oil that was smoky at a lower point than its flash was being used in the machinery--not really three-hundred-and-sixty-degree oil. The water-jacket had been tampered with, too. More than that, there is a joint in the pipe leading down into the tunnel, where explosive gases can collect. It is a well-known fact in the use of compressed air that such a condition is the best possible way to secure an explosion. "It would all seem so natural, even if discovered," explained Kennedy rapidly. "The smoking oil--smoking just as an automobile often does--is passed into the compressed-air pipe. Condensed oil, moisture, and gases collect in the joint, and perhaps they line the whole distance of the pipe. A spark from the low-grade oil--and they are ignited. What takes place is the same thing that occurs in the cylinder of an automobile where the air is compressed with gasoline vapour. Only here we have compressed air charged with vapour of oil. The flame proceeds down the pipe--exploding through the pipe, if it happens to be not strong enough. This pipe, however, is strong. Therefore, the flame in this case shoots out at the open end of the pipe, down near the shield, and if the air in the tunnel happens also to be surcharged with oil-vapour, an explosion takes place in the tunnel--the river bottom is blown out--then God help the sand-hogs! "That's how your accidents took place, Orton," concluded Kennedy in triumph, "and that impure air--not impure from carbon dioxide, but from this oil-vapour mixture--increased the liability of the men for the bends. Capps knew about it. He was careful while he was there to see that the air was made as pure as possible under the circumstances. He was so careful that he wouldn't even let Mr. Jameson smoke in the tunnel. But as soon as he went to the surface, the same deadly mixture was pumped down again--I caught some of it in this flask, and--" "My God, Paddy's down there now," cried Orton, suddenly seizing his telephone. "Operator, give me the south tube--quick--what--they don't answer?" Out in the river above the end of the heading, where a short time before there had been only a few bubbles on the surface of the water, I could see what looked like a huge geyser of water spouting up. I pulled Craig over to me and pointed. "A blow-out," cried Kennedy, as he rushed to the door, only to be met by a group of blanched-faced workers who had come breathless to the office to deliver the news. Craig acted quickly. "Hold these men," he ordered, pointing to Capps and Shelton, "until we come back. Orton, while we are gone, go over the entire day's record on the telegraphone. I suspect you and Miss Taylor will find something there that will interest you." He sprang down the ladder to the tunnel air-lock, not waiting for the elevator. In front of the closed door of the lock, an excited group of men was gathered. One of them was peering through the dim, thick, glass porthole in the door. "There he is, standin' by the door with a club, an' the men's crowdin' so fast that they're all wedged so's none can get in at all. He's beatin' 'em back with the stick. Now, he's got the door clear and has dragged one poor fellow in. It's Jimmy Rourke, him with the eight childer. Now he's dragged in a Polack. Now he's fightin' back a big Jamaica nigger who's tryin' to shove ahead of a little Italian." "It's Paddy," cried Craig. "If he can bring them all out safely without the loss of a life he'll save the day yet for Orton. And he'll do it, too, Walter." Instantly I reconstructed in my mind the scene in the tunnel--the explosion of the oil-vapour, the mad race up the tube, perhaps the failure of the emergency curtain to work, the frantic efforts of the men, in panic, all to crowd through the narrow little door at once; the rapidly rising water--and above all the heroic Paddy, cool to the last, standing at the door and single-handed beating the men back with a club, so that they could go through one at a time. Only when the water had reached the level of the door of the lock, did Paddy bang it shut as he dragged the last man in. Then followed an interminable wait for the air in the lock to be exhausted. When, at last, the door at our end of the lock swung open, the men with a cheer seized Paddy and, in spite of his struggles, hoisted him on to their shoulders, and carried him off, still struggling, in triumph up the construction elevator to the open air above. The scene in Orton's office was dramatic as the men entered with Paddy. Vivian Taylor was standing defiantly, with burning eyes, facing Capps, who stared sullenly at the floor before him. Shelton was plainly abashed. "Kennedy," cried Orton, vainly trying to rise, "listen. Have you still that place on the telegraphone record, Vivian?" Miss Taylor started the telegraphone, while we all crowded around leaning forward eagerly. "Hello. Inter-River? Is this the president's office? Oh, hello. This is Capps talking. How are you? Oh, you've heard about Orton, have you? Not so bad, eh? Well, I'm arranging with my man Shelton here for the final act this afternoon. After that you can compromise with the Five-Borough on your own terms. I think I have argued Taylor and Morris into the right frame of mind for it, if we have one more big accident. What's that? How is my love affair? Well, Orton's in the way yet, but you know why I went into this deal. When you put me into his place after the compromise, I think I will pull strong with her. Saw her last night. She feels pretty bad about Orton, but she'll get over it. Besides, the pater will never let her marry a man who's down and out. By the way, you've got to do something handsome for Shelton. All right. I'll see you to-night and tell you some more. Watch the papers in the meantime for the grand finale. Good-bye." An angry growl rose from one or two of the more quick-witted men. Kennedy reached over and pulled me with him quickly through the crowd. "Hurry, Walter," he whispered hoarsely, "hustle Shelton and Capps out quick before the rest of the men wake up to what it's all about, or we shall have a lynching instead of an arrest." As we shoved and pushed them out, I saw the rough and grimy sand-hogs in the rear move quickly aside, and off came their muddy, frayed hats. A dainty figure flitted among them toward Orton. It was Vivian Taylor. "Papa," she cried, grasping Jack by both hands and turning to Taylor, who followed her closely, "Papa, I told you not to be too hasty with Jack." VII THE WHITE SLAVE Kennedy and I had just tossed a coin to decide whether it should be a comic opera or a good walk in the mellow spring night air and the opera had won, but we had scarcely begun to argue the vital point as to where to go, when the door buzzer sounded--a sure sign that some box-office had lost four dollars. It was a much agitated middle-aged couple who entered as Craig threw open the door. Of our two visitors, the woman attracted my attention first, for on her pale face the lines of sorrow were almost visibly deepening. Her nervous manner interested me greatly, though I took pains to conceal the fact that I noticed it. It was quickly accounted for, however, by the card which the man presented, bearing the name "Mr. George Gilbert" and a short scribble from First Deputy O'Connor: Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert desire to consult you with regard to the mysterious disappearance of their daughter, Georgette. I am sure I need say nothing further to interest you than that the M. P. Squad is completely baffled. O'CONNOR. "H-m," remarked Kennedy; "not strange for the Missing Persons Squad to be baffled--at least, at this case." "Then you know of our daughter's strange--er--departure?" asked Mr. Gilbert, eagerly scanning Kennedy's face and using a euphemism that would fall less harshly on his wife's ears than the truth. "Indeed, yes," nodded Craig with marked sympathy: "that is, I have read most of what the papers have said. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson. You recall we were discussing the Georgette Gilbert case this morning, Walter?" I did, and perhaps before I proceed further with the story I should quote at least the important parts of the article in the morning Star which had occasioned the discussion. The article had been headed, "When Personalities Are Lost," and with the Gilbert case as a text many instances had been cited which had later been solved by the return of the memory of the sufferer. In part the article had said: Mysterious disappearances, such as that of Georgette Gilbert, have alarmed the public and baffled the police before this, disappearances that in their suddenness, apparent lack of purpose, and inexplicability, have had much in common with the case of Miss Gilbert. Leaving out of account the class of disappearances such as embezzlers, blackmailers, and other criminals, there is still a large number of recorded cases where the subjects have dropped out of sight without apparent cause or reason and have left behind them untarnished reputations. Of these a small percentage are found to have met with violence; others have been victims of a suicidal mania; and sooner or later a clue has come to light, for the dead are often easier to find than the living. Of the remaining small proportion there are on record a number of carefully authenticated cases where the subjects have been the victims of a sudden and complete loss of memory. This dislocation of memory is a variety of aphasia known as amnesia, and when the memory is recurrently lost and restored it is an "alternating personality." The psychical researchers and psychologists have reported many cases of alternating personality. Studious efforts are being made to understand and to explain the strange type of mental phenomena exhibited in these cases, but no one has as yet given a final, clear, and comprehensive explanation of them. Such cases are by no means always connected with disappearances, but the variety known as the ambulatory type, where the patient suddenly loses all knowledge of his own identity and of his past and takes himself off, leaving no trace or clue, is the variety which the present case calls to popular attention. Then followed a list of a dozen or so interesting cases of persons who had vanished completely and had, some several days and some even years later, suddenly "awakened" to their first personality, returned, and taken up the thread of that personality where it had been broken. To Kennedy's inquiry I was about to reply that I recalled the conversation distinctly, when Mr. Gilbert shot an inquiring glance from beneath his bushy eyebrows, quickly shifting from my face to Kennedy's, and asked, "And what was your conclusion--what do you think of the case? Is it aphasia or amnesia, or whatever the doctors call it, and do you think she is wandering about somewhere unable to recover her real personality?" "I should like to have all the facts at first hand before venturing an opinion," Craig replied with precisely that shade of hesitancy that might reassure the anxious father and mother, without raising a false hope. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert exchanged glances, the purport of which was that she desired him to tell the story. "It was day before yesterday," began Mr. Gilbert, gently touching his wife's trembling hand that sought his arm as he began rehearsing the tragedy that had cast its shadow across their lives, "Thursday, that Georgette--er--since we have heard of Georgette." His voice faltered a bit, but he proceeded: "As you know, she was last seen walking on Fifth Avenue. The police have traced her since she left home that morning. It is known that she went first to the public library, then that she stopped at a department store on the avenue, where she made a small purchase which she had charged to our family account, and finally that she went to a large book-store. Then--that is the last." Mrs. Gilbert sighed, and buried her face in a lace handkerchief as her shoulders shook convulsively. "Yes, I have read that," repeated Kennedy gently, though with manifest eagerness to get down to facts that might prove more illuminating. "I think I need hardly impress upon you the advantage of complete frankness, the fact that anything you may tell me is of a much more confidential nature than if it were told to the police. Er--r, had Miss Gilbert any--love affair, any trouble of such a nature that it might have preyed on her mind?" Kennedy's tactful manner seemed to reassure both the father and the mother, who exchanged another glance. "Although we have said no to the reporters," Mrs. Gilbert replied bravely in answer to the nod of approval from her husband, and much as if she herself were making a confession for them both, "I fear that Georgette had had a love affair. No doubt you have heard hints of Dudley Lawton's name in connection with the case? I can't imagine how they could have leaked out, for I should have said that that old affair had long since been forgotten even by the society gossips. The fact is that shortly after Georgette 'came out,' Dudley Lawton, who is quite on the road to becoming one of the rather notorious members of the younger set, began to pay her marked attentions. He is a fascinating, romantic sort of fellow, one that, I imagine, possesses much attraction for a girl who has been brought up as simply as Georgette was, and who has absorbed a surreptitious diet of modern literature such as we now know Georgette did. I suppose you have seen portraits of Georgette in the newspapers and know what a dreamy and artistic nature her face indicates?" Kennedy nodded. It is, of course, one of the cardinal tenets of journalism that all women are beautiful, but even the coarse screen of the ordinary newspaper half-tone had not been able to conceal the rather exceptional beauty of Miss Georgette Gilbert. If it had, all the shortcomings of the newspaper photographic art would have been quickly glossed over by the almost ardent descriptions by those ladies of the press who come along about the second day after an event of this kind with signed articles analysing the character and motives, the life and gowns of the latest actors in the front-page stories. "Naturally both my husband and myself opposed his attentions from the first. It was a hard struggle, for Georgette, of course, assumed the much-injured air of some of the heroines of her favourite novels. But I, at least, believed that we had won and that Georgette finally was brought to respect and, I hoped, understand our wishes in the matter. I believe so yet. Mr. Gilbert in a roundabout way came to an understanding with old Mr. Dudley Lawton, who possesses a great influence over his son, and--well, Dudley Lawton seemed to have passed out of Georgette's life. I believed so then, at least, and I see no reason for not believing so yet. I feel that you ought to know this, but really I don't think it is right to say that Georgette had a love affair. I should rather say that she had HAD a love affair, but that it had been forgotten, perhaps a year ago." Mrs. Gilbert paused again, and it was evident that though she was concealing nothing she was measuring her words carefully in order not to give a false impression. "What does Dudley Lawton say about the newspapers bringing his name into the case?" asked Kennedy, addressing Mr. Gilbert. "Nothing," replied he. "He denies that he has even spoken to her for nearly a year. Apparently he has no interest in the case. And yet I cannot quite believe that Lawton is as uninterested as he seems. I know that he has often spoken about her to members of the Cosmos Club where he lives, and that he reads practically everything that the newspapers print about the case." "But you have no reason to think that there has ever been any secret communication between them? Miss Georgette left no letters or anything that would indicate that her former infatuation survived?" "None whatever," repeated Mr. Gilbert emphatically. "We have gone over her personal effects very carefully, and I can't say they furnish a clue. In fact, there were very few letters. She rarely kept a letter. Whether it was merely from habit or for some purpose, I can't say." "Besides her liking for Dudley Lawton and her rather romantic nature, there are no other things in her life that would cause a desire for freedom?" asked Kennedy, much as a doctor might test the nerves of a patient. "She had no hobbies?" "Beyond the reading of some books which her mother and I did not altogether approve of, I should say no--no hobbies." "So far, I suppose, it is true that neither you nor the police have received even a hint as to where she went after leaving the book-store?" "Not a hint. She dropped out as completely as if the earth had swallowed her." "Mrs. Gilbert," said Kennedy, as our visitors rose to go, "you may rest assured that if it is humanly possible to find your daughter I shall leave no stone unturned until I have probed to the bottom of this mystery. I have seldom had a case that hung on more slender threads, yet if I can weave other threads to support it I feel that we shall soon find that the mystery is not so baffling as the Missing Persons Squad has found it so far." Scarcely had the Gilberts left when Kennedy put on his hat, remarking: "We'll at least get our walk, if not the show. Let's stroll around to the Cosmos Club. Perhaps we may catch Lawton in." Luckily we chanced to find him there in the reading-room. Lawton was, as Mrs. Gilbert had said, a type that is common enough in New York and is very fascinating to many girls. In fact, he was one of those fellows whose sins are readily forgiven because they are always interesting. Not a few men secretly admire though publicly execrate the Lawton type. I say we chanced to find him in. That was about all we found. Our interview was most unsatisfactory. For my part, I could not determine whether he was merely anxious to avoid any notoriety in connection with the case or whether he was concealing something that might compromise himself. "Really, gentlemen," he drawled, puffing languidly on a cigarette and turning slowly toward the window to watch the passing throng under the lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be of any assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaintance Miss Gilbert and I had drifted entirely apart--entirely apart--owing to circumstances over which I, at least, had no control." "I thought perhaps you might have heard from her or about her, through some mutual friend," remarked Kennedy, carefully concealing under his nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind--a belief that, after all, the old attachment had not been so dead as the Gilberts had fancied. "No, not a breath, either before this sad occurrence or, of course, after. Believe me, if I could add one fact that would simplify the search for Georgette--ah, Miss Gilbert--ah--I would do so in a moment," replied Lawton quickly, as if desirous of getting rid of us as soon as possible. Then perhaps as if regretting the brusqueness with which he had tried to end the interview, he added, "Don't misunderstand me. The moment you have discovered anything that points to her whereabouts, let me know immediately. You can count on me--provided you don't get me into the papers. Good-night, gentlemen. I wish you the best of success." "Do you think he could have kept up the acquaintance secretly?" I asked Craig as we walked up the avenue after this baffling interview. "Could he have cast her off when he found that in spite of her parents' protests she was still in his power?" "It's impossible to say what a man of Dudley Lawton's type could do," mused Kennedy, "for the simple reason that he himself doesn't know until he has to do it. Until we have more facts, anything is both possible and probable." There was nothing more that could be done that night, though after our walk we sat up for an hour or two discussing probabilities. It did not take me long to reach the end of my imagination and give up the case, but Kennedy continued to revolve the matter in his mind, looking at it from every angle and calling upon all the vast store of information that he had treasured up in that marvellous brain of his, ready to be called on almost as if his mind were card-indexed. "Murders, suicides, robberies, and burglaries are, after all, pretty easily explained," he remarked, after a long period of silence on my part, "but the sudden disappearance of people out of the crowded city into nowhere is something that is much harder to explain. And it isn't so difficult to disappear as some people imagine, either. You remember the case of the celebrated Arctic explorer whose picture had been published scores of times in every illustrated paper. He had no trouble in disappearing and then reappearing later, when he got ready. "Yet experience has taught me that there is always a reason for disappearances. It is our next duty to discover that reason. Still, it won't do to say that disappearances are not mysterious. Disappearances except for money troubles are all mysterious. The first thing in such a case is to discover whether the person has any hobbies or habits or fads. That is what I tried to find out from the Gilberts. I can't tell yet whether I succeeded." Kennedy took a pencil and hastily jotted down something on a piece of paper which he tossed over to me. It read: 1. Love, family trouble. 2. A romantic disposition. 3. Temporary insanity, self-destruction. 4. Criminal assault. 5. Aphasia. 6. Kidnapping. "Those are the reasons why people disappear, eliminating criminals and those who have financial difficulties. Dream on that and see if you can work out the answer in your subliminal consciousness. Good-night." Needless to say, I was no further advanced in the morning than at midnight, but Kennedy seemed to have evolved at least a tentative programme. It started with a visit to the public library, where he carefully went over the ground already gone over by the police. Finding nothing, he concluded that Miss Gilbert had not found what she wanted at the library and had continued the quest, even as he was continuing the quest of herself. His next step was to visit the department-store. The purchase had been an inconsequential affair of half a dozen handkerchiefs, to be sent home. This certainly did not look like a premeditated disappearance; but Craig was proceeding on the assumption that this purchase indicated nothing except that there had been a sale of handkerchiefs which had caught her eye. Having stopped at the library first and a book-shop afterward, he assumed that she had also visited the book-department of the store. But here again nobody seemed to recall her or that she had asked for anything in particular. Our last hope was the book-shop. We paused for a moment to look at the display in the window, but only for a moment, for Craig quickly pulled me along inside. In the window was a display of books bearing the sign: BOOKS ON NEW THOUGHT, OCCULTISM, CLAIRVOYANCE, MESMERISM Instead of attempting to go over the ground already traversed by the police, who had interrogated the numerous clerks without discovering which one, if any, had waited on Miss Gilbert, Kennedy asked at once to see the record of sales of the morning on which she had disappeared. Running his eye quickly down the record, he picked out a work on clairvoyance and asked to see the young woman who had made the sale. The clerk was, however, unable to recall to whom she had sold the book, though she finally admitted that she thought it might have been a young woman who had some difficulty in making up her mind just which one of the numerous volumes she wanted. She could not say whether the picture Kennedy showed her of Miss Gilbert was that of her customer, nor was she sure that the customer was not escorted by some one. Altogether it was nearly as hazy as our interview with Lawton. "Still," remarked Kennedy cheerfully, "it may furnish a clue, after all. The clerk at least was not positive that it was NOT Miss Gilbert to whom she sold the book. Since we are down in this neighbourhood, let us drop in and see Mr. Gilbert again. Perhaps something may have happened since last night." Mr. Gilbert was in the dry-goods business in a loft building in the new dry-goods section on Fourth Avenue. One could almost feel that a tragedy had invaded even his place of business. As we entered, we could see groups of clerks, evidently discussing the case. It was no wonder, I felt, for the head of the firm was almost frantic, and beside the loss of his only daughter the loss of his business would count as nothing, at least until the keen edge of his grief was worn off. "Mr. Gilbert is out," replied his secretary, in answer to our inquiry. "Haven't you heard? They have just discovered the body of his daughter in a lonely spot in the Croton Aqueduct. The report came in from the police just a few minutes ago. It is thought that she was murdered in the city and carried there in an automobile." The news came with a stinging shock. I felt that, after all, we were too late. In another hour the extras would be out, and the news would be spread broadcast. The affair would be in the hands of the amateur detectives, and there was no telling how many promising clues might be lost. "Dead!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he jammed his hat on his head and bolted for the door. "Hurry, Walter. We must get there before the coroner makes his examination." I don't know how we managed to do it, but by dint of subway, elevated, and taxicab we arrived on the scene of the tragedy not very long after the coroner. Mr. Gilbert was there, silent, and looking as if he had aged many years since the night before; his hand shook and he could merely nod recognition to us. Already the body had been carried to a rough shanty in the neighbourhood, and the coroner was questioning those who had made the discovery, a party of Italian labourers on the water improvement near by. They were a vicious looking crew, but they could tell nothing beyond the fact that one of them had discovered the body in a thicket where it could not possibly have lain longer than overnight. There was no reason, as yet, to suspect any of them, and indeed, as a much travelled automobile road ran within a few feet of the thicket, there was every reason to believe that the murder, if murder it was, had been committed elsewhere and that the perpetrator had taken this means of getting rid of his unfortunate victim. Drawn and contorted were the features of the poor girl, as if she had died in great physical agony or after a terrific struggle. Indeed, marks of violence on her delicate throat and neck showed only too plainly that she had been choked. As Kennedy bent over the form of the once lovely Georgette, he noted the clenched hands. Then he looked at them more closely. I was standing a little behind him, for though Craig and I had been through many thrilling adventures, the death of a human being, especially of a girl like Miss Gilbert, filled me with horror and revulsion. I could see, however, that he had noted something unusual. He pulled out a little pocket magnifying glass and made an even more minute examination of the hands. At last he rose and faced us, almost as if in triumph. I could not see what he had discovered--at least it did not seem to be anything tangible, like a weapon. Quickly he opened the pocketbook which she had carried. It seemed to be empty, and he was about to shut it when something white, sticking in one corner, caught his eye. Craig pulled out a clipping from a newspaper, and we crowded about him to look at it. It was a large clipping from the section of one of the metropolitan journals which carries a host of such advertisements as "spirit medium," "psychic palmist," "yogi mediator," "magnetic influences," "crystal gazer," "astrologer," "trance medium," and the like. At once I thought of the sallow, somewhat mystic countenance of Dudley, and the idea flashed, half-formed, in my mind that somehow this clue, together with the purchase of the book on clairvoyance, might prove the final link necessary. But the first problem in Kennedy's mind was to keep in touch with what the authorities were doing. That kept us busy for several hours, during which Craig was in close consultation with the coroner's physician. The physician was of the opinion that Miss Gilbert had been drugged as well as strangled, and for many hours, down in his laboratory, his chemists were engaged in trying to discover from tests of her blood whether the theory was true. One after another the ordinary poisons were eliminated, until it began to look hopeless. So far Kennedy had been only an interested spectator, but as the different tests failed, he had become more and more keenly alive. At last it seemed as if he could wait no longer. "Might I try one or two reactions with that sample?" he asked of the physician who handed him the test tube in silence. For a moment or two Craig thoughtfully regarded it, while with one hand he fingered the bottles of ether, alcohol, distilled water, and the many reagents standing before him. He picked up one and poured a little liquid into the test tube. Then, removing the precipitate that was formed, he tried to dissolve it in water. Not succeeding, he tried the ether and then the alcohol. Both were successful. "What is it?" we asked as he held the tube up critically to the light. "I can't be sure yet," he answered slowly. "I thought at first that it was some alkaloid. I'll have to make further tests before I can be positive just what it is. If I may retain this sample I think that with other clues that I have discovered I may be able to tell you something definite soon." The coroner's physician willingly assented, and Craig quickly dispatched the tube, carefully sealed, to his laboratory. "That part of our investigation will keep," he remarked as we left the coroner's office. "To-night I think we had better resume the search which was so unexpectedly interrupted this morning. I suppose you have concluded, Walter, that we can be reasonably sure that the trail leads back through the fortune-tellers and soothsayers of New York,--which one, it would be difficult to say. The obvious thing, therefore, is to consult them all. I think you will enjoy that part of it, with your newspaperman's liking for the bizarre." The fact was that it did appeal to me, though at the moment I was endeavouring to formulate a theory in which Dudley Lawton and an accomplice would account for the facts. It was early in the evening as we started out on our tour of the clairvoyants of New York. The first whom Kennedy selected from the advertisements in the clipping described himself as "Hata, the Veiled Prophet, born with a double veil, educated in occult mysteries and Hindu philosophy in Egypt and India." Like all of them his advertisement dwelt much on love and money: The great questions of life are quickly solved, failure turned to success, sorrow to joy, the separated are brought together, foes made friends. Truths are laid bare to his mysterious mind. He gives you power to attract and control those whom you may desire, tells you of living or dead, your secret troubles, the cause and remedy. Advice on all affairs of life, love, courtship, marriage, business, speculations, investments. Overcomes rivals, enemies, and all evil influences. Will tell you how to attract, control, and change the thought, intentions, actions, or character of any one you desire. Hata was a modest adept who professed to be able to explain the whole ten stages of Yoga. He had established himself on a street near Times Square, just off Broadway, and there we found several automobiles and taxicabs standing at the curb, a mute testimony to the wealth of at least some of his clientele. A solemn-faced coloured man ushered us into a front parlour and asked if we had come to see the professor. Kennedy answered that we had. "Will you please write your names and addresses on the outside sheet of this pad, then tear it off and keep it?" asked the attendant. "We ask all visitors to do that simply as a guarantee of good faith. Then if you will write under it what you wish to find out from the professor I think it will help you concentrate. But don't write while I am in the room, and don't let me see the writing." "A pretty cheap trick," exclaimed Craig when the attendant had gone. "That's how he tells the gullible their names before they tell him. I've a good notion to tear off two sheets. The second is chemically prepared, with paraffin, I think. By dusting it over with powdered charcoal you can bring out what was written on the first sheet over it. Oh, well, let's let him get something across, anyway. Here goes, our names and addresses, and underneath I'll write, 'What has become of Georgette Gilbert?'" Perhaps five minutes later the negro took the pad, the top sheet having been torn off and placed in Kennedy's pocket. He also took a small fee of two dollars. A few minutes later we were ushered into the awful presence of the "Veiled Prophet," a tall, ferret-eyed man in a robe that looked suspiciously like a brocaded dressing-gown much too large for him. Sure enough, he addressed us solemnly by name and proceeded directly to tell us why we had come. "Let us look into the crystal of the past, present, and future and read what it has to reveal," he added solemnly, darkening the room, which was already only dimly lighted. Then Hata, the crystal-gazer, solemnly seated himself in a chair. Before him, in his hands, reposing on a bag of satin, lay a huge oval piece of glass. He threw forward his head and riveted his eyes on the milky depths of the crystal. In a moment he began to talk, first ramblingly, then coherently. "I see a man, a dark man," he began. "He is talking earnestly to a young girl. She is trying to avoid him. Ah--he seizes her by both arms. They struggle. He has his hand at her throat. He is choking her." I was thinking of the newspaper descriptions of Lawton, which the fakir had undoubtedly read, but Kennedy was leaning forward over the crystal-gazer, not watching the crystal at all, nor with his eyes on the clairvoyant's face. "Her tongue is protruding from her mouth, her eyes are bulging---" "Yes, yes," urged Kennedy. "Go on." "She falls. He strikes her. He flees. He goes to---" Kennedy laid his hand ever so lightly on the arm of the clairvoyant, then quickly withdrew it. "I cannot see where he goes. It is dark, dark. You will have to come back to-morrow when the vision is stronger." The thing stung me by its crudity. Kennedy, however, seemed elated by our experience as we gained the street. "Craig," I remonstrated, "you don't mean to say you attach any importance to vapourings like that? Why, there wasn't a thing the fellow couldn't have imagined from the newspapers, even the clumsy description of Dudley Lawton." "We'll see," he replied cheerfully, as we stopped under a light to read the address of the next seer, who happened to be in the same block. It proved to be the psychic palmist who called himself "the Pandit." He also was "born with a strange and remarkable power--not meant to gratify the idle curious, but to direct, advise, and help men and women"--at the usual low fee. He said in print that he gave instant relief to those who had trouble in love, and also positively guaranteed to tell your name and the object of your visit. He added: Love, courtship, marriage. What is more beautiful than the true unblemished love of one person for another? What is sweeter, better, or more to be desired than perfect harmony and happiness? If you want to win the esteem, love, and everlasting affection of another, see the Pandit, the greatest living master of the occult science. Inasmuch as this seer fell into a passion at the other incompetent soothsayers in the next column (and almost next door) it seemed as if we must surely get something for our money from the Pandit. Like Hata, the Pandit lived in a large brownstone house. The man who admitted us led us into a parlour where several people were seated about as if waiting for some one. The pad and writing process was repeated with little variation. Since we were the latest comers we had to wait some time before we were ushered into the presence of the Pandit, who was clad in a green silk robe. The room was large and had very small windows of stained glass. At one end of the room was an altar on which burned several candles which gave out an incense. The atmosphere of the room was heavy with a fragrance that seemed to combine cologne with chloroform. The Pandit waved a wand, muttering strange sounds as he did so, for in addition to his palmistry, which he seemed not disposed to exhibit that night, he dealt in mysteries beyond human ken. A voice, quite evidently from a phonograph buried in the depths of the altar, answered in an unknown language which sounded much like "Al-ya wa-aa haal-ya waa-ha." Across the dim room flashed a pale blue light with a crackling noise, the visible rays from a Crookes tube, I verily believe. The Pandit, however, said it was the soul of a saint passing through. Then he produced two silken robes, one red, which he placed on Kennedy's shoulders, and one violet, which he threw over me. From the air proceeded strange sounds of weird music and words. The Pandit seemed to fall asleep, muttering. Apparently, however, Kennedy and I were bad subjects, for after some minutes of this he gave it up, saying that the spirits had no revelation to make to-night in the matter in which we had called. Inasmuch as we had not written on the pad just what that matter was, I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised when the Pandit laid off his robe and said unctuously, "But if you will call to-morrow and concentrate, I am sure that I can secure a message that will be helpful about your little matter." Kennedy promised to call, but still he lingered. The Pandit, anxious to get rid of us, moved toward the door. Kennedy sidled over toward the green robe which the Pandit had laid on a chair. "Might I have some of your writings to look over in the meantime?" asked Craig as if to gain time. "Yes, but they will cost you three dollars a copy--the price I charge all my students," answered the Pandit with just a trace of a gleam of satisfaction at having at last made an impression. He turned and entered a cabinet to secure the mystic literature. The moment he had disappeared Kennedy seized the opportunity he had been waiting for. He picked up the green robe and examined the collar and neck very carefully under the least dim of the lights in the room. He seemed to find what he wished, yet he continued to examine the robe until the sound of returning footsteps warned him to lay it down again. He had not been quite quick enough. The Pandit eyed us suspiciously, then he rang a bell. The attendant appeared instantly, noiselessly. "Show these men into the library," he commanded with just the faintest shade of trepidation. "My servant will give you the book," he said to Craig. "Pay him." It seemed that we had suddenly been looked upon with disfavour, and I half suspected he thought we were spies of the police, who had recently received numerous complaints of the financial activities of the fortune tellers, who worked in close harmony with certain bucket-shop operators in fleecing the credulous of their money by inspired investment advice. At any rate, the attendant quickly opened a door into the darkness. Treading cautiously I followed Craig. The door closed behind us. I clenched my fists, not knowing what to expect. "The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy. "He passed us out into an alley. There is the street not twenty feet away. The Pandit is a clever one, all right." It was now too late to see any of the other clairvoyants on our list, so that with this unceremonious dismissal we decided to conclude our investigations for the night. The next morning we wended our way up into the Bronx, where one of the mystics had ensconced himself rather out of the beaten track of police protection, or persecution, one could not say which. I was wondering what sort of vagary would come next. It proved to be "Swami, the greatest clairvoyant, psychic palmist, and Yogi mediator of them all." He also stood alone in his power, for he asserted: Names friends, enemies, rivals, tells whom and when you will marry, advises you upon love, courtship, marriage, business, speculation, transactions of every nature. If you are worried, perplexed, or in trouble come to this wonderful man. He reads your life like an open book; he overcomes evil influences, reunites the separated, causes speedy and happy marriage with the one of your choice, tells how to influence any one you desire, tells whether wife or sweetheart is true or false. Love, friendship, and influence of others obtained and a greater share of happiness in life secured. The key to success is that marvellous, subtle, unseen power that opens to your vision the greatest secrets of life. It gives you power which enables you to control the minds of men and women. The Swami engaged to explain the "wonderful Karmic law," and by his method one could develop a wonderful magnetic personality by which he could win anything the human heart desired. It was therefore with great anticipation that we sought out the wonderful Swami and, falling into the spirit of his advertisement, posed as "come-ons" and pleaded to obtain this wonderful magnetism and a knowledge of the Karmic law--at a ridiculously low figure, considering its inestimable advantages to one engaged in the pursuit of criminal science. Naturally the Swami was pleased at two such early callers, and his narrow, half-bald head, long slim nose, sharp grey eyes, and sallow, unwholesome complexion showed his pleasure in every line and feature. Rubbing his hands together as he motioned us into the next room, the Swami seated us on a circular divan with piles of cushions upon it. There were clusters of flowers in vases about the room, which gave it the odour of the renewed vitality of the year. A lackey entered with a silver tray of cups of coffee and a silver jar in the centre. Talking slowly and earnestly about the "great Karmic law," the Swami bade us drink the coffee, which was of a vile, muddy, Turkish variety. Then from the jar he took a box of rock crystal containing a sort of greenish compound which he kneaded into a little gum--gum tragacanth, I afterward learned,--and bade us taste. It was not at all unpleasant to the taste, and as nothing happened, except the suave droning of the mystic before us, we ate several of the gum pellets. I am at a loss to describe adequately just the sensations that I soon experienced. It was as if puffs of hot and cold air were alternately blown on my spine, and I felt a twitching of my neck, legs, and arms. Then came a subtle warmth. The whole thing seemed droll; the noise of the Swami's voice was most harmonious. His and Kennedy's faces seemed transformed. They were human faces, but each had a sort of animal likeness back of it, as Lavater has said. The Swami seemed to me to be the fox, Kennedy the owl. I looked in the glass, and I was the eagle. I laughed outright. It was sensuous in the extreme. The beautiful paintings on the walls at once became clothed in flesh and blood. A picture of a lady hanging near me caught my eye. The countenance really smiled and laughed and varied from moment to moment. Her figure became rounded and living and seemed to stir in the frame. The face was beautiful but ghastly. I seemed to be borne along on a sea of pleasure by currents of voluptuous happiness. The Swami was affected by a profound politeness. As he rose and walked about the room, still talking, he salaamed and bowed. When I spoke it sounded like a gun, with an echo long afterward rumbling in my brain. Thoughts came to me like fury, bewildering, sometimes as points of light in the most exquisite fireworks. Objects were clothed in most fantastic garbs. I looked at my two animal companions. I seemed to read their thoughts. I felt strange affinities with them, even with the Swami. Yet it was all by the psychological law of the association of ideas, though I was no longer master but the servant of those ideas. As for Kennedy, the stuff seemed to affect him much differently than it did myself. Indeed, it seemed to rouse in him something vicious. The more I smiled and the more the Swami salaamed, the more violent I could see Craig getting, whereas I was lost in a maze of dreams that I would not have stopped if I could. Seconds seemed to be years; minutes ages. Things at only a short distance looked much as they do when looked at through the inverted end of a telescope. Yet it all carried with it an agreeable exhilaration which I can only describe as the heightened sense one feels on the first spring day of the year. At last the continued plying of the drug seemed to be too much for Kennedy. The Swami had made a profound salaam. In an instant Kennedy had seized with both hands the long flowing hair at the back of the Swami's bald forehead, and he tugged until the mystic yelled with pain and the tears stood in his eyes. With a leap I roused myself from the train of dreams and flung myself between them. At the sound of my voice and the pressure of my grasp, Craig sullenly and slowly relaxed his grip. A vacant look seemed to steal into his face, and seizing his hat, which lay on a near-by stool, he stalked out in silence, and I followed. Neither of us spoke for a moment after we had reached the street, but out of the corner of my eye I could see that Kennedy's body was convulsed as if with suppressed emotion. "Do you feel better in the air?" I asked anxiously, yet somewhat vexed and feeling a sort of lassitude and half regret at the reality of life and not of the dreams. It seemed as if he could restrain himself no longer. He burst out into a hearty laugh. "I was just watching the look of disgust on your face," he said as he opened his hand and showed me three or four of the gum lozenges that he had palmed instead of swallowing. "Ha, ha! I wonder what the Swami thinks of his earnest effort to expound the Karmic law." It was beyond me. With the Swami's concoction still shooting thoughts like sky rockets through my brain I gave it up and allowed Kennedy to engineer our next excursion into the occult. One more seer remained to be visited. This one professed to "hold your life mirror" and by his "magnetic monochrome," whatever that might be, he would "impart to you an attractive personality, mastery of being, for creation and control of life conditions." He described himself as the "Guru," and, among other things, he professed to be a sun-worshipper. At any rate, the room into which we were admitted was decorated with the four-spoked wheel, or wheel and cross, the winged circle, and the winged orb. The Guru himself was a swarthy individual with a purple turban wound around his head. In his inner room were many statuettes, photographs of other Gurus of the faith, and on each of the four walls were mysterious symbols in plaster representing a snake curved in a circle, swallowing his tail, a five-pointed star, and in the centre another winged sphere. Craig asked the Guru to explain the symbols, to which he replied with a smile: "The snake represents eternity, the star involution and evolution of the soul, while the winged sphere--eh, well, that represents something else. Do you come to learn of the faith?" At this gentle hint Craig replied that he did, and the utmost amicability was restored by the purchase of the Green Book of the Guru, which seemed to deal with everything under the sun, and particularly the revival of ancient Asiatic fire-worship with many forms and ceremonies, together with posturing and breathing that rivalled the "turkey trot," the "bunny hug," and the "grizzly bear." The book, as we turned over its pages, gave directions for preparing everything from food to love-philtres and the elixir of life. One very interesting chapter was devoted to "electric marriage," which seemed to come to those only who, after searching patiently, at last found perfect mates. Another of the Guru's tenets seemed to be purification by eliminating all false modesty, bathing in the sun, and while bathing engaging in any occupation which kept the mind agreeably occupied. On the first page was the satisfying legend, "There is nothing in the world that a disciple can give to pay the debt to the Guru who has taught him one truth." As we talked, it seemed quite possible to me that the Guru might exert a very powerful hypnotic influence over his disciples or those who came to seek his advice. Besides this indefinable hypnotic influence, I also noted the more material lock on the door to the inner sanctuary. "Yes," the Guru was saying to Kennedy, "I can secure you one of the love-pills from India, but it will cost you--er--ten dollars." I think he hesitated, to see how much the traffic would bear, from one to one hundred, and compromised with only one zero after the unit. Kennedy appeared satisfied, and the Guru departed with alacrity to secure the specially imported pellet. In a corner was a sort of dressing-table on which lay a comb and brush. Kennedy seemed much interested in the table and was examining it when the Guru returned. Just as the door opened he managed to slip the brush into his pocket and appear interested in the mystic symbols on the wall opposite. "If that doesn't work," remarked the Guru in remarkably good English, "let me know, and you must try one of my charm bottles. But the love-pills are fine. Good-day." Outside Craig looked at me quizzically. "You wouldn't believe it, Walter, would you?" he said. "Here in this twentieth century in New York, and in fact in every large city of the world--love-philtres, love-pills, and all the rest of it. And it is not among the ignorant that these things are found, either. You remember we saw automobiles waiting before some of the places." "I suspect that all who visit the fakirs are not so gullible, after all," I replied sententiously. "Perhaps not. I think I shall have something interesting to say to-night as a result of our visits, at least." During the remainder of the day Kennedy was closely confined in his laboratory with his microscopes, slides, chemicals, test-tubes, and other apparatus. As for myself, I put in the time speculating which of the fakirs had been in some mysterious way connected with the case and in what manner. Many were the theories which I had formed and the situations I conjured up, and in nearly all I had one central figure, the young man whose escapades had been the talk of even the fast set of a fast society. That night Kennedy, with the assistance of First Deputy O'Connor, who was not averse to taking any action within the law toward the soothsayers, assembled a curiously cosmopolitan crowd in his laboratory. Besides the Gilberts were Dudley Lawton and his father, Hata, the Pandit, the Swami, and the Guru--the latter four persons in high dudgeon at being deprived of the lucrative profits of a Sunday night. Kennedy began slowly, leading gradually up to his point: "A new means of bringing criminals to justice has been lately studied by one of the greatest scientific detectives of crime in the world, the man to whom we are indebted for our most complete systems of identification and apprehension." Craig paused and fingered the microscope before him thoughtfully. "Human hair," he resumed, "has recently been the study of that untiring criminal scientist, M. Bertillon. He has drawn up a full, classified, and graduated table of all the known colours of the human hair, a complete palette, so to speak, of samples gathered in every quarter of the globe. Henceforth burglars, who already wear gloves or paint their fingers with a rubber composition for fear of leaving finger-prints, will have to wear close-fitting caps or keep their heads shaved. Thus he has hit upon a new method of identification of those sought by the police. For instance, from time to time the question arises whether hair is human or animal. In such cases the microscope tells the answer truthfully. "For a long time I have been studying hair, taking advantage of those excellent researches by M. Bertillon. Human hair is fairly uniform, tapering gradually. Under the microscope it is practically always possible to distinguish human hair from animal. I shall not go into the distinctions, but I may add that it is also possible to determine very quickly the difference between all hair, human or animal, and cotton with its corkscrew-like twists, linen with its jointed structure, and silk, which is long, smooth, and cylindrical." Again Kennedy paused as if to emphasise this preface. "I have here," he continued, "a sample of hair." He had picked up a microscope slide that was lying on the table. It certainly did not look very thrilling--a mere piece of glass, that was all. But on the glass was what appeared to be merely a faint line. "This slide," he said, holding it up, "has what must prove an unescapable clue to the identity of the man responsible for the disappearance of Miss Gilbert. I shall not tell you yet who he is, for the simple reason that, though I could make a shrewd guess, I do not yet know what the verdict of science is, and in science we do not guess where we can prove. "You will undoubtedly remember that when Miss Gilbert's body was discovered, it bore no evidence of suicide, but on the contrary the marks of violence. Her fists were clenched, as if she had struggled with all her power against a force that had been too much for her. I examined her hands, expecting to find some evidence of a weapon she had used to defend herself. Instead, I found what was more valuable. Here on this slide are several hairs that I found tightly grasped in her rigid hands." I could not help recalling Kennedy's remark earlier in the case--that it hung on slender threads. Yet how strong might not those threads prove! "There was also in her pocketbook a newspaper clipping bearing the advertisements of several clairvoyants," he went on. "Mr. Jameson and myself had already discovered what the police had failed to find, that on the morning of the day on which she disappeared Miss Gilbert had made three distinct efforts, probably, to secure books on clairvoyance. Accordingly, Mr. Jameson and myself have visited several of the fortune-tellers and practitioners of the occult sciences in which we had reason to believe Miss Gilbert was interested. They all, by the way, make a specialty of giving advice in money matters and solving the problems of lovers. I suspect that at times Mr. Jameson has thought that I was demented, but I had to resort to many and various expedients to collect the specimens of hair which I wanted. From the police, who used Mr. Lawton's valet, I received some hair from his head. Here is another specimen from each of the advertisers, Hata, the Swami, the Pandit, and the Guru. There is just one of these specimens which corresponds in every particular of colour, thickness, and texture with the hair found so tightly grasped in Miss Gilbert's hand." As Craig said this I could feel a sort of gasp of astonishment from our little audience. Still he was not quite ready to make his disclosure. "Lest I should be prejudiced," he pursued evenly, "by my own rather strong convictions, and in order that I might examine the samples without fear or favour, I had one of my students at the laboratory take the marked hairs, mount them, number them, and put in numbered envelopes the names of the persons who furnished them. But before I open the envelope numbered the same as the slide which contains the hair which corresponds precisely with that hair found in Miss Gilbert's hand--and it is slide No. 2---" said Kennedy, picking out the slide with his finger and moving it on the table with as much coolness as if he were moving a chessman on a board instead of playing in the terrible game of human life, "before I read the name I have still one more damning fact to disclose." Craig now had us on edge with excitement, a situation which I sometimes thought he enjoyed more keenly than any other in his relentless tracing down of a criminal. "What was it that caused Miss Gilbert's death?" asked Kennedy. "The coroner's physician did not seem to be thoroughly satisfied with the theory of physical violence alone. Nor did I. Some one, I believe, exerted a peculiar force in order to get her into his power. What was that force? At first I thought it might have been the hackneyed knockout drops, but tests by the coroner's physician eliminated that. Then I thought it might be one of the alkaloids, such as morphine, cocaine, and others. But it was not any of the usual things that was used to entice her away from her family and friends. From tests that I have made I have discovered the one fact necessary to complete my case, the drug used to lure her and against which she fought in deadly struggle." He placed a test tube in a rack before us. "This tube," he continued, "contains one of the most singular and, among us, least known of the five common narcotics of the world--tobacco, opium, coca, betel nut, and hemp. It can be smoked, chewed, used as a drink, or taken as a confection. In the form of a powder it is used by the narghile smoker. As a liquid it can be taken as an oily fluid or in alcohol. Taken in any of these forms, it literally makes the nerves walk, dance, and run. It heightens the feelings and sensibilities to distraction, producing what is really hysteria. If the weather is clear, this drug will make life gorgeous; if it rains, tragic. Slight vexation becomes deadly revenge; courage becomes rashness; fear, abject terror; and gentle affection or even a passing liking is transformed into passionate love. It is the drug derived from the Indian hemp, scientifically named Cannabis Indica, better known as hashish, or bhang, or a dozen other names in the East. Its chief characteristic is that it has a profound effect on the passions. Thus, under its influence, natives of the East become greatly exhilarated, then debased, and finally violent, rushing forth on the streets with the cry, 'Amok, amok,'--'Kill, kill'--as we say, 'running amuck.' An overdose of this drug often causes insanity, while in small quantities our doctors use it as a medicine. Any one who has read the brilliant Theophile Gautier's 'Club des Hachichens' or Bayard Taylor's experience at Damascus knows something of the effect of hashish, however. "In reconstructing the story of Georgette Gilbert, as best I can, I believe that she was lured to the den of one of the numerous cults practised in New York, lured by advertisements offering advice in hidden love affairs. Led on by her love for a man whom she could not and would not put out of her life, and by her affection for her parents, she was frantic. This place offered hope, and to it she went in all innocence, not knowing that it was only the open door to a life such as the most lurid disorderly resorts of the metropolis could scarcely match. There her credulity was preyed upon, and she was tricked into taking this drug, which itself has such marked and perverting effect. But, though she must have been given a great deal of the drug, she did not yield, as many of the sophisticated do. She struggled frantically, futilely. Will and reason were not conquered, though they sat unsteadily on their thrones. The wisp of hair so tightly clasped in her dead hand shows that she fought bitterly to the end." Kennedy was leaning forward earnestly, glaring at each of us in turn. Lawton was twisting uneasily in his chair, and I could see that his fists were doubled up and that he was holding himself in leash as if waiting for something, eyeing us all keenly. The Swami was seized with a violent fit of trembling, and the other fakirs were staring in amazement. Quickly I stepped between Dudley Lawton and Kennedy, but as I did so, he leaped behind me, and before I could turn he was grappling wildly with some one on the floor. "It's all right, Walter," cried Kennedy, tearing open the envelope on the table. "Lawton has guessed right. The hair was the Swami's. Georgette Gilbert was one victim who fought and rescued herself from a slavery worse than death. And there is one mystic who could not foresee arrest and the death house at Sing Sing in his horoscope." VIII THE FORGER We were lunching with Stevenson Williams, a friend of Kennedy's, at the Insurance Club, one of the many new downtown luncheon clubs, where the noon hour is so conveniently combined with business. "There isn't much that you can't insure against nowadays," remarked Williams when the luncheon had progressed far enough to warrant a tentative reference to the obvious fact that he had had a purpose in inviting us to the club. "Take my own company, for example, the Continental Surety. We have lately undertaken to write forgery insurance." "Forgery insurance?" repeated Kennedy. "Well, I should think you'd be doing a ripping business--putting up the premium rate about every day in this epidemic of forgery that seems to be sweeping over the country." Williams, who was one of the officers of the company, smiled somewhat wearily, I thought. "We are," he replied drily. "That was precisely what I wanted to see you about." "What? The premiums or the epidemic?" "Well--er--both, perhaps. I needn't say much about the epidemic, as you call it. To you I can admit it; to the newspapers, never. Still, I suppose you know that it is variously estimated that the forgers of the country are getting away with from ten to fifteen million dollars a year. It is just one case that I was thinking about--one on which the regular detective agencies we employ seem to have failed utterly so far. It involves pretty nearly one of those fifteen millions." "What? One case? A million dollars?" gasped Kennedy, gazing fixedly at Williams as if he found it difficult to believe. "Exactly," replied Williams imperturbably, "though it was not done all at one fell swoop, of course, but gradually, covering a period of some months. You have doubtless heard of the By-Products Company of Chicago?" Craig nodded. "Well, it is their case," pursued Williams, losing his quiet manner and now hurrying ahead almost breathlessly. "You know they own a bank out there also, called the By-Products Bank. That's how we come to figure in the case, by having insured their bank against forgery. Of course our liability runs up only to $50,000. But the loss to the company as well as to its bank through this affair will reach the figure I have named. They will have to stand the balance beyond our liability and, well, fifty thousand is not a small sum for us to lose, either. We can't afford to lose it without a fight." "Of course not. But you must have some suspicions, some clues. You must have taken some action in tracing the thing out, whatever is back of it." "Surely. For instance, only the other day we had the cashier of the bank, Bolton Brown, arrested, though he is out on bail now. We haven't anything directly against him, but he is suspected of complicity on the inside, and I may say that the thing is so gigantic that there must have been some one on the inside concerned with it. Among other things we have found that Bolton Brown has been leading a rather fast life, quite unknown to his fellow-officials. We know that he has been speculating secretly in the wheat corner that went to pieces, but the most significant thing is that he has been altogether too intimate with an adventuress, Adele De-Mott, who has had some success as a woman of high finance in various cities here and in Europe and even in South America. It looks bad for him from the commonsense standpoint, though of course I'm not competent to speak of the legal side of the matter. But, at any rate, we know that the insider must have been some one pretty close to the head of the By-Products Company or the By-Products Bank." "What was the character of the forgeries?" asked Kennedy. "They seem to have been of two kinds. As far as we are concerned it is the check forgeries only that interest the Surety Company. For some time, apparently, checks have been coming into the bank for sums all the way from a hundred dollars to five thousand. They have been so well executed that some of them have been certified by the bank, all of them have been accepted when they came back from other banks, and even the officers of the company don't seem to be able to pick any flaws in them except as to the payee and the amounts for which they were drawn. They have the correct safety tint on the paper and are stamped with rubber stamps that are almost precisely like those used by the By-Products Company. "You know that banking customs often make some kinds of fraud comparatively easy. For instance no bank will pay out a hundred dollars or often even a dollar without identification, but they will certify a check for almost any office boy who comes in with it. The common method of forgers lately has been to take such a certified forged check, deposit it in another bank, then gradually withdraw it in a few days before there is time to discover the forgery. In this case they must have had the additional advantage that the insider in the company or bank could give information and tip the forger off if the forgery happened to be discovered." "Who is the treasurer of the company?" asked Craig quickly. "John Carroll--merely a figurehead, I understand. He's in New York now, working with us, as I shall tell you presently. If there is any one else besides Brown in it, it might be Michael Dawson, the nominal assistant but really the active treasurer. There you have another man whom we suspect, and, strangely enough, can't find. Dawson was the assistant treasurer of the company, you understand, not of the bank." "You can't find him? Why?" asked Kennedy, considerably puzzled. "No, we can't find him. He was married a few days ago, married a pretty prominent society girl in the city, Miss Sibyl Sanderson. It seems they kept the itinerary of their honeymoon secret, more as a joke on their friends than anything else, they said, for Miss Sanderson was a well-known beauty and the newspapers bothered the couple a good deal with publicity that was distasteful. At least that was his story. No one knows where they are or whether they'll ever turn up again. "You see, this getting married had something to do with the exposure in the first place. For the major part of the forgeries consists not so much in the checks, which interest my company, but in fraudulently issued stock certificates of the By-Products Company. About a million of the common stock was held as treasury stock--was never issued. "Some one has issued a large amount of it, all properly signed and sealed. Whoever it was had a little office in Chicago from which the stock was sold quietly by a confederate, probably a woman, for women seem to rope in the suckers best in these get-rich-quick schemes. And, well, if it was Dawson the honeymoon has given him a splendid chance to make his get-away, though it also resulted in the exposure of the forgeries. Carroll had to take up more or less active duty, with the result that a new man unearthed the--but, say, are you really interested in this case?" Williams was leaning forward, looking anxiously at Kennedy and it would not have taken a clairvoyant to guess what answer he wanted to his abrupt question. "Indeed I am," replied Craig, "especially as there seems to be a doubt about the guilty person on the inside." "There is doubt enough, all right," rejoined Williams, "at least I think so, though our detectives in Chicago who have gone over the thing pretty thoroughly have been sure of fixing something on Bolton Brown, the cashier. You see the blank stock certificates were kept in the company's vault in the bank to which, of course, Brown had access. But then, as Carroll argues, Dawson had access to them, too, which is very true--more so for Dawson than for Brown, who was in the bank and not in the company. I'm all at sea. Perhaps if you're interested you'd better see Carroll. He's here in the city and I'm sure I could get you a good fee out of the case if you cared to take it up. Shall I see if I can get him on the wire?" We had finished luncheon and, as Craig nodded, Williams dived into a telephone booth outside the dining-room and in a few moments emerged, perspiring from the closeness. He announced that Carroll requested that we call on him at an office in Wall Street, a few blocks away, where he made his headquarters when he was in New York. The whole thing was done with such despatch that I could not help feeling that Carroll had been waiting to hear from his friend in the insurance company. The look of relief on Williams's face when Kennedy said he would go immediately showed plainly that the insurance man considered the cost of the luncheon, which had been no slight affair, in the light of a good investment in the interest of his company, which was "in bad" for the largest forgery insurance loss since they had begun to write that sort of business. As we hurried down to Wall Street, Kennedy took occasion to remark, "Science seems to have safeguarded banks and other institutions pretty well against outside robbery. But protection against employees who can manipulate books and records does not seem to have advanced as rapidly. Sometimes I think it may have lessened. Greater temptations assail the cashier or clerk with greater opportunity for speculation, and the banks, as many authorities will agree, have not made enough use of the machinery available to put a stop to embezzlement. This case is evidently one of the results. The careless fellows at the top, like this man Carroll whom we are going to see, generally put forward as excuse the statement that the science of banking and of business is so complex that a rascal with ingenuity enough to falsify the books is almost impossible of detection. Yet when the cat is out of the bag as in several recent cases the methods used are often of the baldest and most transparent sort, fictitious names, dummies, and all sorts of juggling and kiting of checks. But I hardly think this is going to prove one of those simple cases." John Carroll was a haggard and unkempt sort of man. He looked to me as if the defalcations had preyed on his mind until they had become a veritable obsession. It was literally true that they were all that he could talk about, all that he was thinking about. He was paying now a heavy penalty for having been a dummy and honorary officer. "This thing has become a matter of life and death with me," he began eagerly, scarcely waiting for us to introduce ourselves, as he fixed his unnaturally bright eyes on us anxiously. "I've simply got to find the man who has so nearly wrecked the By-Products Bank and Company. Find him or not, I suppose I am a ruined man, myself, but I hope I may still prove myself honest." He sighed and his eyes wandered vacantly out of the window as if he were seeking rest and could not find it. "I understand that the cashier, Bolton Brown, has been arrested," prompted Kennedy. "Yes, Bolton Brown, arrested," he repeated slowly, "and since he has been out on bail he, too, seems to have disappeared. Now let me tell you about what I think of that, Kennedy. I know it looks bad for Brown. Perhaps he's the man. The Surety Company says so, anyway. But we must look at this thing calmly." He was himself quite excited, as he went on, "You understand, I suppose, just how much Brown must have been reasonably responsible for passing the checks through the bank? He saw personally about as many of them as--as I did, which was none until the exposure came. They were deposited in other banks by people whom we can't identify but who must have opened accounts for the purpose of finally putting through a few bad checks. Then they came back to our bank in the regular channels and were accepted. By various kinds of juggling they were covered up. Why, some of them looked so good that they were even certified by our bank before they were deposited in the other banks. Now, as Brown claims, he never saw checks unless there was something special about them and there seemed at the time to be nothing wrong about these. "But in the public mind I know there is prejudice against any bank official who speculates or leads a fast life, and of course it is warranted. Still, if Brown should clear himself finally the thing will come back to Dawson and even if he is guilty, it will make me the--er--the ultimate goat. The upshot of it all will be that I shall have to stand the blame, if not the guilt, and the only way I can atone for my laxity in the past is by activity in catching the real offender and perhaps by restoring to the company and the bank whatever can yet be recovered." "But," asked Kennedy sympathetically, "what makes you think that you will find your man, whoever he proves to be, in New York?" "I admit that it is only a very slight clue that I have," he replied confidentially. "It is just a hint Dawson dropped once to one of the men with whom he was confidential in the company. This clerk told me that a long time ago Dawson said he had always wanted to go to South America and that perhaps on his honeymoon he might get a chance. This is the way I figured it out. You see, he is clever and some of these South American countries have no extradition treaties with us by which we could reach him, once he got there." "Perhaps he has already arrived in one of them with his wife. What makes you think he hasn't sailed yet?" "No, I don't think he has. You see, she wanted to spend a part of the honeymoon at Atlantic City. I learned that indirectly from her folks, who profess to know no better than we do where the couple are. That was an additional reason why I wanted to see if by coming to New York I might not pick up some trace of them, either here or in Atlantic City." "And have you?" "Yes, I think I have." He handed us a letter-gram which he had just received from Chicago. It read: "Two more checks have come in to-day from Atlantic City and New York. They seem to be in payment of bills, as they are for odd amounts. One is from the Lorraine at Atlantic City and the other from the Hotel Amsterdam of New York. They were dated the 19th and 20th." "You see," he resumed as we finished reading, "it is now the 23rd, so that there is a difference of three days. He was here on the 20th. Now the next ship that he could take after the 20th sails from Brooklyn on the 25th. If he's clever he won't board that ship except in a disguise, for he will know that by that time some one must be watching. Now I want you to help me penetrate that disguise. Of course we can't arrest the whole shipload of passengers, but if you, with your scientific knowledge, could pick him out, then we could hold him and have breathing space to find out whether he is guilty alone or has been working with Bolton Brown." Carroll was now pacing the office with excitement as he unfolded his scheme which meant so much for himself. "H--m," mused Kennedy. "I suppose Dawson was a man of exemplary habits? They almost always are. No speculating or fast living with him as with Brown?" Carroll paused in his nervous tread. "That's another thing I've discovered. On the contrary, I think Dawson was a secret drug fiend. I found that out after he left. In his desk at the By-Products office we discovered hypodermic needles and a whole outfit--morphine, I think it was. You know how cunningly a real morphine fiend can cover up his tracks." Kennedy was now all attention. As the case unrolled it was assuming one new and surprising aspect after another. "The lettergram would indicate that he had been stopping at the Lorraine in Atlantic City," remarked Kennedy. "So I would infer, and at the Amsterdam in New York. But you can depend on it that he has not been going under his own name nor, I believe as far as I can find out, even under his own face. I think the fellow has already assumed a disguise, for nowhere can I find any description that even I could recognise." "Strange," murmured Kennedy. "I'll have to look into it. And only two days in which to do it, too. You will pardon me if I excuse myself now? There are certain aspects of the case that I hope I shall be able to shed some light on by going at them at once." "You'll find Dawson clever, clever as he can be," said Carroll, not anxious to have Kennedy go as long as he would listen to the story which was bursting from his overwrought mind. "He was able to cover up the checks by juggling the accounts. But that didn't satisfy him. He was after something big. So he started in to issue the treasury stock, forging the signatures of the president and the treasurer, that is, my signature. Of course that sort of game couldn't last forever. Some one was going to demand dividends on his stock, or transfer it, or ask to have it recorded on the books, or something that would give the whole scheme away. From each person to whom he sold stock I believe he demanded some kind of promise not to sell it within a certain period, and in that way we figure that he gave himself plenty of time to realise several hundred thousand dollars quietly. It may be that some of the forged checks represented fake interest payments. Anyhow, he's at the end of his rope now. We've had an exciting chase. I had followed down several false clues before the real significance of the hint about South America dawned on me. Now I have gone as far as I dare with it without calling in outside assistance. I think now We are up with him at last--with your help." Kennedy was anxious to go, but he paused long enough to ask another question. "And the girl?" he broke in. "She must be in the game or her letters to some of her friends would have betrayed their whereabouts. What was she like?" "Miss Sanderson was very popular in a certain rather flashy set in Chicago. But her folks were bounders. They lived right up to the limit, just as Dawson did, in my opinion. Oh, you can be sure that if a proposition like this were put up to her she'd take a chance to get away with it. She runs no risks. She didn't do it anyhow, and as for her part, after the fact, why, a woman is always pretty safe--more sinned against than sinning, and all that. It's a queer sort of honeymoon, hey?" "Have you any copies of the forged certificates?" asked Craig. "Yes, plenty of them. Since the story has been told in print they have been pouring in. Here are several." He pulled several finely engraved certificates from his pocket and Kennedy scrutinised them minutely. "I may keep these to study at my leisure?" he asked. "Certainly," replied Carroll, "and if you want any more I can wire to Chicago for them." "No, these will be sufficient for the present, thank you," said Craig. "I shall keep in touch with you and let you know the moment anything develops." Our ride uptown to the laboratory was completed in silence which I did not interrupt, for I could see that Kennedy was thinking out a course of action. The quick pace at which he crossed the campus to the Chemistry Building told me that he had decided on something. In the laboratory Craig hastily wrote a note, opened a drawer of his desk, and selected one from a bunch of special envelopes which he seemed to be saving for some purpose. He sealed it with some care, and gave it to me to post immediately. It was addressed to Dawson at the Hotel Amsterdam. On my return I found him deeply engrossed in the examination of the forged shares of stock. Having talked with him more or less in the past about handwriting I did not have to be told that he was using a microscope to discover any erasures and that photography both direct and by transmitted light might show something. "I can't see anything wrong with these documents," he remarked at length. "They show no erasures or alterations. On their face they look as good as the real article. Even if they are tracings they are remarkably fine work. It certainly is a fact, however, that they superimpose. They might all have been made from the same pair of signatures of the president and treasurer. "I need hardly to say to you, Walter, that the microscope in its various forms and with its various attachments is of great assistance to the document examiner. Even a low magnification frequently reveals a drawing, hesitating method of production, or patched and reinforced strokes as well as erasures by chemicals or by abrasion. The stereoscopic microscope, which is of value in studying abrasions and alterations since it gives depth, in this case tells me that there has been nothing of that sort practised. My colour comparison microscope, which permits the comparison of the ink on two different documents or two places on one document at the same time, tells me something. This instrument with new and accurately coloured glasses enables me to measure the tints of the ink of these signatures with the greatest accuracy and I can do what was hitherto impossible--determine how long the writing has been on the paper. I should say it was all very recent, approximately within the last two months or six weeks, and I believe that whenever the stock may have been issued it at least was all forged at the same time. "There isn't time now to go into the thing more deeply, but if it becomes necessary I can go back to it with the aid of the camera lucida and the microscopic enlarger, as well as this specially constructed document camera with lenses certified by the government. If it comes to a show-down I suppose I shall have to prove my point with the micrometer measurements down to the fifty-thousandth part of an inch. "There is certainly something very curious about these signatures," he concluded. "I don't know what measurements would show, but they are really too good. You know a forged signature may be of two kinds--too bad or too good. These are, I believe, tracings. If they were your signature and mine, Walter, I shouldn't hesitate to pronounce them tracings. But there is always some slight room for doubt in these special cases where a man sits down and is in the habit of writing his signature over and over again on one stock or bond after another. He may get so used to it that he does it automatically and his signatures may come pretty close to superimposing. If I had time, though, I think I could demonstrate that there are altogether too many points of similarity for these to be genuine signatures. But we've got to act quickly in this case or not at all, and I see that if I am to get to Atlantic City to-night I can't waste much more time here. I wish you would keep an eye on the Hotel Amsterdam while I am gone, Walter, and meet me here, to-morrow. I'll wire when I'll be back. Good-bye." It was well along in the afternoon when Kennedy took a train for the famous seaside resort, leaving me in New York with a roving commission to do nothing. All that I was able to learn at the Hotel Amsterdam was that a man with a Van Dyke beard had stung the office with a bogus check, although he had seemed to come well recommended. The description of the woman with him who seemed to be his wife might have fitted either Mrs. Dawson or Adele DeMott. The only person who had called had been a man who said he represented the By-Products Company and was the treasurer. He had questioned the hotel people rather closely about the whereabouts of the couple who had paid their expenses with the worthless slip of paper. It was not difficult to infer that this man was Carroll who had been hot on the trail, especially as he said that he personally would see the check paid if the hotel people would keep a sharp watch for the return of the man who had swindled them. Kennedy wired as he promised and returned by an early train the next day. He seemed bursting with news. "I think I'm on the trail," he cried, throwing his grip into a corner and not waiting for me to ask him what success he had had. "I went directly to the Lorraine and began frankly by telling them that I represented the By-Products Company in New York and was authorised to investigate the bad check which they had received. They couldn't describe Dawson very well--at least their description would have fitted almost any one. One thing I think I did learn and that was that his disguise must include a Van Dyke beard. He would scarcely have had time to grow one of his own and I believe when he was last seen in Chicago he was clean-shaven." "But," I objected, "men with Van Dyke beards are common enough." Then I related my experience at the Amsterdam. "The same fellow," ejaculated Kennedy. "The beard seems to have covered a multitude of sins, for while every one could recall that, no one had a word to say about his features. However, Walter, there's just one chance of making his identification sure, and a peculiar coincidence it is, too. It seems that one night this man and a lady who may have been the former Miss Sanderson, though the description of her like most amateur descriptions wasn't very accurate, were dining at the Lorraine. The Lorraine is getting up a new booklet about its accommodations and a photographer had been engaged to take a flashlight of the dining-room for the booklet. "No sooner had the flash been lighted and the picture taken than a man with a Van Dyke beard--your friend of the Amsterdam, no doubt, Walter,--rushed up to the photographer and offered him fifty dollars for the plate. The photographer thought at first it was some sport who had reasons for not wishing to appear in print in Atlantic City, as many have. The man seemed to notice that the photographer was a little suspicious and he hastened to make some kind of excuse about 'wanting the home folks to see how swell he and his wife were dining in evening dress.' It was a rather lame excuse, but the fifty dollars looked good to the photographer and he agreed to develop the plate and turn it over with some prints all ready for mailing the next day. The man seemed satisfied and the photographer took another flashlight, this time with one of the tables vacant. "Sure enough, the next day the man with a beard turned up for the plate. The photographer tells me that he had it all wrapped up ready to mail, just to call the fellow's bluff. The man was equal to the occasion, paid the money, wrote an address on the package which the photographer did not see, and as there was a box for mailing packages right at the door on the boardwalk there was no excuse for not mailing it directly. Now if I could get hold of that plate or a print from it I could identify Dawson in his disguise in a moment. I've started the post-office trying to trace that package both at Atlantic City and in Chicago, where I think it must have been mailed. I may hear from them at any moment--at least, I hope." The rest of the afternoon we spent in canvassing the drug stores in the vicinity of the Amsterdam, Kennedy's idea being that if Dawson was a habitual morphine fiend he must have replenished his supply of the drug in New York, particularly if he was contemplating a long journey where it might be difficult to obtain. After many disappointments we finally succeeded in finding a shop where a man posing as a doctor had made a rather large purchase. The name he gave was of course of no importance. What did interest us was that again we crossed the trail of a man with a Van Dyke beard. He had been accompanied by a woman whom the druggist described as rather flashily dressed, though her face was hidden under a huge hat and a veil. "Looked very attractive," as the druggist put it, "but she might have been a negress for all I could tell you of her face." "Humph," grunted Kennedy, as we were leaving the store. "You wouldn't believe it, but it is the hardest thing in the world to get an accurate description of any one. The psychologists have said enough about it, but you don't realise it until you are up against it. Why, that might have been the DeMott woman just as well as the former Miss Sanderson, and the man might have been Bolton Brown as well as Dawson, for all we know. They've both disappeared now. I wish we could get some word about that photograph. That would settle it." In the last mail that night Kennedy received back the letter which he had addressed to Michael Dawson. On it was stamped "Returned to sender. Owner not found." Kennedy turned the letter over slowly and looked at the back of it carefully. "On the contrary," he remarked, half to himself, "the owner was found. Only he returned the letter back to the postman after he had opened it and found that it was just a note of no importance which I scribbled just to see if he was keeping in touch with things from his hiding-place, wherever it is." "How do you know he opened it?" I asked. "Do you see those blots on the back? I had several of these envelopes prepared ready for use when I needed them. I had some tannin placed on the flap and then covered thickly with gum. On the envelope itself was some iron sulphate under more gum. I carefully sealed the letter, using very little moisture. The gum then separated the two prepared parts. Now if that letter were steamed open the tannin and the sulphate would come together, run, and leave a smudge. You see the blots? The inference is obvious." Clearly, then, our chase was getting warmer. Dawson had been in Atlantic City at least within a few days. The fruit company steamer to South America on which Carroll believed he was booked to sail under an assumed name and with an assumed face was to sail the following noon. And still we had no word from Chicago as to the destination of the photograph, or the identity of the man in the Van Dyke beard who had been so particular to disarm suspicion in the purchase of the plate from the photographer a few days before. The mail also contained a message from Williams of the Surety Company with the interesting information that Bolton Brown's attorney had refused to say where his client had gone since he had been released on bail, but that he would be produced when wanted. Adele DeMott had not been seen for several days in Chicago and the police there were of the opinion that she had gone to New York, where it would be pretty easy for her to pass unnoticed. These facts further complicated the case and made the finding of the photograph even more imperative. If we were going to do anything it must be done quickly. There was no time to lose. The last of the fast trains for the day had left and the photograph, even though it were found, could not possibly reach us in time to be of use before the steamer sailed from Brooklyn. It was an emergency such as Kennedy had never yet faced, apparently physically insuperable. But, as usual, Craig was not without some resource, though it looked impossible to me to do anything but make a hit or miss arrest at the boat. It was late in the evening when he returned from a conference with an officer of the Telegraph and Telephone Company to whom Williams had given him a card of introduction. The upshot had been that he had called up Chicago and talked for a long time with Professor Clark, a former classmate of ours who was now in the technology school of the university out there. Kennedy and Clark had been in correspondence for some time, I knew, about some technical matters, though I had no idea what it was they concerned. "There's one thing we can always do," I remarked as we walked slowly over to the laboratory from our apartment. "What's that?" he asked absent-mindedly, more from politeness than anything else. "Arrest every one with a Van Dyke beard who goes on the boat to-morrow," I replied. Kennedy smiled. "I don't feel prepared to stand a suit for false arrest," he said simply, "especially as the victim would feel pretty hot if we caused him to miss his boat. Men with beards are not so uncommon, after all." We had reached the laboratory. Linemen were stringing wires under the electric lights of the campus from the street to the Chemistry Building and into Kennedy's sanctum. That night and far into the morning Kennedy was working in the laboratory on a peculiarly complicated piece of mechanism consisting of electromagnets, rolls, and a stylus and numerous other contrivances which did not suggest to my mind anything he had ever used before in our adventures. I killed time as best I could watching him adjust the thing with the most minute care and precision. Finally I came to the conclusion that as I was not likely to be of the least assistance, even if I had been initiated into what was afoot, I had as well retire. "There is one thing you can do for me in the morning, Walter," said Kennedy, continuing to work over a delicate piece of clockwork which formed a part of the apparatus. "In case I do not see you then, get in touch with Williams and Carroll and have them come here about ten o'clock with an automobile. If I am not ready for them then I'm afraid I never shall be, and we shall have to finish the job with the lack of finesse you suggested by arresting all the bearded men." Kennedy could not have slept much during the night, for though his bed had been slept in he was up and away before I could see him again. I made a hurried trip downtown to catch Carroll and Williams and then returned to the laboratory, where Craig had evidently just finished a satisfactory preliminary test of his machine. "Still no message," he began in reply to my unspoken question. He was plainly growing restless with the inaction, though frequent talks over long-distance with Chicago seemed to reassure him. Thanks to the influence of Williams he had at least a direct wire from his laboratory to the city which was now the scene of action. As nearly as I could gather from the one-sided conversations I heard and the remarks which Kennedy dropped, the Chicago post-office inspectors were still searching for a trace of the package from Atlantic City which was to reveal the identity of the man who had passed the bogus checks and sold the forged certificates of stock. Somewhere in that great city was a photograph of the promoter and of the woman who was aiding him to escape, taken in Atlantic City and sent by mail to Chicago. Who had received it? Would it be found in time to be of use? What would it reveal? It was like hunting for a needle in a haystack, and yet the latest reports seemed to encourage Kennedy with the hope that the authorities were at last on the trail of the secret office from which the stock had been sold. He was fuming and wishing that he could be at both ends of the line at once. "Any word from Chicago yet?" appealed an anxious voice from the doorway. We turned. There were Carroll and Williams who had come for us with an automobile to go over to watch at the wharf in Brooklyn for our man. It was Carroll who spoke. The strain of the suspense was telling on him and I could readily imagine that he, like so many others who had never seen Kennedy in action, had not the faith in Craig's ability which I had seen tested so many times. "Not yet," replied Kennedy, still busy about his apparatus on the table. "I suppose you have heard nothing?" "Nothing since my note of last night," returned Williams impatiently. "Our detectives still insist that Bolton Brown is the man to watch, and the disappearance of Adele DeMott at this time certainly looks bad for him." "It does, I admit," said Carroll reluctantly. "What's all this stuff on the table?" he asked, indicating the magnets, rolls, and clockwork. Kennedy did not have time to reply, for the telephone bell was tinkling insistently. "I've got Chicago on the wire," Craig informed us, placing his hand over the transmitter as he waited for long-distance to make the final connection. '"I'll try to repeat as much of the conversation as I can so that you can follow it. Hello--yes--this is Kennedy. Is that you, Clark? It's all arranged at this end. How's your end of the line? Have you a good connection? Yes? My synchroniser is working fine here, too. All right. Suppose we try it. Go ahead." As Kennedy gave a few final touches to the peculiar apparatus on the table, the cylindrical drum before us began slowly to revolve and the stylus or needle pressed down on the sensitised paper with which the drum was covered, apparently with varying intensity as it turned. Round and round the cylinder revolved like a graphophone. "This," exclaimed Kennedy proudly, "is the 'electric eye,' the telelectrograph invented by Thorne Baker in England. Clark and I have been intending to try it out for a long time. It at last makes possible the electric transmission of photographs, using the telephone wires because they are much better for such a purpose than the telegraph wires." Slowly the needle was tracing out a picture on the paper. It was only a thin band yet, but gradually it was widening, though we could not guess what it was about to reveal as the ceaseless revolutions widened the photographic print. "I may say," explained Kennedy as we waited breathlessly, "that another system known as the Korn system of telegraphing pictures has also been in use in London, Paris, Berlin, and other cities at various times for some years. Korn's apparatus depends on the ability of the element selenium to vary the strength of an electric current passing through it in proportion to the brightness with which the selenium is illuminated. A new field has been opened by these inventions which are now becoming more and more numerous, since the Korn system did the pioneering. "The various steps in sending a photograph by the Baker telelectrograph are not so difficult to understand, after all. First an ordinary photograph is taken and a negative made. Then a print is made and a wet plate negative is printed on a sheet of sensitised tinfoil which has been treated with a single-line screen. You know a halftone consists of a photograph through a screen composed of lines running perpendicular to each other--a coarse screen for newspaper work, and a fine screen for better work, such as in magazines. Well, in this case the screen is composed of lines running parallel in one direction only, not crossing at right angles. A halftone is composed of minute points, some light, some dark. This print is composed of long shaded lines, some parts light, others dark, giving the effect of a picture, you understand?" "Yes, yes," I exclaimed, thoroughly excited. "Go on." "Well," he resumed as the print widened visibly, "this tinfoil negative is wrapped around a cylinder at the other end of the line and a stylus with a very delicate, sensitive point begins passing over it, crossing the parallel lines at right angles, like the other lines of a regular halftone. Whenever the point of the stylus passes over one of the lighter spots on the photographic print it sends on a longer electrical vibration, over the darker spots a shorter vibration. The ever changing electrical current passes up through the stylus, vibrates with ever varying degrees of intensity over the thousand miles of telephone wire between Chicago and this instrument here at the other end of the line. "In this receiving apparatus the current causes another stylus to pass over a sheet of sensitised chemical paper such as we have here. The receiving stylus passes over the paper here synchronously with the transmitting stylus in Chicago. The impression which each stroke of the receiving stylus makes on the paper is black or light, according to the length of the very quickly changing vibrations of the electric current. White spots on the photographic print come out as black spots here on the sensitised paper over which this stylus is passing, and vice versa. In that way you can see the positive print growing here before your very eyes as the picture is transmitted from the negative which Clark has prepared and is sending from Chicago." As we bent over eagerly we could indeed now see what the thing was doing. It was reproducing faithfully in New York what could be seen by the mortal eye only in Chicago. "What is it?" asked Williams, still half incredulous in spite of the testimony of his eyes. "It is a photograph which I think may aid us in deciding whether it is Dawson or Brown who is responsible for the forgeries," answered Kennedy, "and it may help us to penetrate the man's disguise yet, before he escapes to South America or wherever he plans to go." "You'll have to hurry," interposed Carroll, nervously looking at his watch. "She sails in an hour and a half and it is a long ride over to the pier even with a fast car." "The print is almost ready," repeated Kennedy calmly. "By the way, it is a photograph which was taken at Atlantic City a few days ago for a booklet which the Lorraine was getting out. The By-Products forger happened to get in it and he bribed the photographer to give him the plate and take another picture for the booklet which would leave him out. The plate was sent to a little office in Chicago, discovered by the post-office inspectors, where the forged stock certificates were sold. I understood from what Clark told me over the telephone before he started to transmit the picture that the woman in it looked very much like Adele DeMott. Let us see." The machine had ceased to revolve. Craig stripped a still wet photograph off the telelectrograph instrument and stood regarding it with intense satisfaction. Outside, the car which had been engaged to hurry us over to Brooklyn waited. "Morphine fiends," said Kennedy as he fanned the print to dry it, "are the most unreliable sort of people. They cover their tracks with almost diabolical cunning. In fact they seem to enjoy it. For instance, the crimes committed by morphinists are usually against property and character and based upon selfishness, not brutal crimes such as alcohol and other drugs induce. Kleptomania, forgery, swindling, are among the most common. "Then, too, one of the most marked phases of morphinism is the pleasure its victims take in concealing their motives and conduct. They have a mania for leading a double life, and enjoy the deception and mask which they draw about themselves. Persons under the influence of the drug have less power to resist physical and mental impressions and they easily succumb to temptations and suggestions from others. Morphine stands unequalled as a perverter of the moral sense. It creates a person whom the father of lies must recognise as kindred to himself. I know of a case where a judge charged a jury that the prisoner, a morphine addict, was mentally irresponsible for that reason. The judge knew what he was talking about. It subsequently developed that he had been a secret morphine fiend himself for years." "Come, come," broke in Carroll impatiently, "we're wasting time. The ship sails in an hour and unless you want to go down the bay on a tug you've got to catch Dawson now or never. The morphine business explains, but it does not excuse. Come on, the car is waiting. How long do you think it will take us to get over to---" "Police headquarters?" interrupted Craig. "About fifteen minutes. This photograph shows, as I had hoped, the real forger. John Carroll, this is a peculiar case. You have forged the name of the president of your company, but you have also traced your own name very cleverly to look like a forgery. It is what is technically known as auto-forgery, forging one's own handwriting. At your convenience we'll ride down to Centre Street directly." Carroll was sputtering and almost frothing at the mouth with rage which he made no effort to suppress. Williams was hesitating, nonplussed, until Kennedy reached over unexpectedly and grasped Carroll by the arm. As he shoved up Carroll's sleeve he disclosed the forearm literally covered with little punctures made by the hypodermic needle. "It may interest you," remarked Kennedy, still holding Carroll in his vise-like grip, while the drug fiend's shattered nerves caused him to cower and tremble, "to know that a special detective working for me has located Mr. and Mrs. Dawson at Bar Harbor, where they are enjoying a quiet honeymoon. Brown is safely in the custody of his counsel, ready to appear and clear himself as soon as the public opinion which has been falsely inflamed against him subsides. Your plan to give us the slip at the last moment at the wharf and board the steamer for South America has miscarried. It is now too late to catch it, but I shall send a wireless that will cause the arrest of Miss DeMott the moment the ship touches an American port at Colon, even if she succeeds in eluding the British authorities at Kingston. The fact is, I don't much care about her, anyway. Thanks to the telelectrograph here we have the real criminal." Kennedy slapped down the now dry print that had come in over his "seeing over a wire" machine. Barring the false Van Dyke beard, it was the face of John Carroll, forger and morphine fiend. Next him in the picture in the brilliant and fashionable dining-room of the Lorraine was sitting Adele DeMott who had used her victim, Bolton Brown, to shield her employer, Carroll. IX THE UNOFFICIAL SPY "Craig, do you see that fellow over by the desk, talking to the night clerk?" I asked Kennedy as we lounged into the lobby of the new Hotel Vanderveer one evening after reclaiming our hats from the plutocrat who had acquired the checking privilege. We had dined on the roof garden of the Vanderveer apropos of nothing at all except our desire to become acquainted with a new hotel. "Yes," replied Kennedy, "what of him?" "He's the house detective, McBride. Would you like to meet him? He's full of good stories, an interesting chap. I met him at a dinner given to the President not long ago and he told me a great yarn about how the secret service, the police, and the hotel combined to guard the President during the dinner. You know, a big hotel is the stamping ground for all sorts of cranks and crooks." The house detective had turned and had caught my eye. Much to my surprise, he advanced to meet me. "Say,--er--er--Jameson," he began, at last recalling my name, though he had seen me only once and then for only a short time. "You're on the Star, I believe?" "Yes," I replied, wondering what he could want. "Well--er--do you suppose you could do the house a little--er--favour?" he asked, hesitating and dropping his voice. "What is it?" I queried, not feeling certain but that it was a veiled attempt to secure a little free advertising for the Vanderveer. "By the way, let me introduce you to my friend Kennedy, McBride." "Craig Kennedy?" he whispered aside, turning quickly to me. I nodded. "Mr. Kennedy," exclaimed the house man deferentially, "are you very busy just now?" "Not especially so," replied Craig. "My friend Jameson was telling me that you knew some interesting yarns about hotel detective life. I should like to hear you tell some of them, if you are not yourself too---" "Perhaps you'd rather see one instead?" interrupted the house detective, eagerly scanning Craig's face. "Indeed, nothing could please me more. What is it--a 'con' man or a hotel 'beat'?" McBride looked about to make sure that no one was listening. "Neither," he whispered. "It's either a suicide or a murder. Come upstairs with me. There isn't a man in the world I would rather have met at this very instant, Mr. Kennedy, than yourself." We followed McBride into an elevator which he stopped at the fifteenth floor. With a nod to the young woman who was the floor clerk, the house detective led the way down the thickly carpeted hall, stopping at a room which, we could see through the transom, was lighted. He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and inserted a pass key into the lock. The door swung open into a sumptuously fitted sitting-room. I looked in, half fearfully, but, although all the lights were turned on, the room was empty. McBride crossed the room quickly, opened a door to a bedroom, and jerked his head back with a quick motion, signifying his desire for us to follow. Stretched lifeless on the white linen of the immaculate bed lay the form of a woman, a beautiful woman she had been, too, though not with the freshness which makes American women so attractive. There was something artificial about her beauty, the artificiality which hinted at a hidden story of a woman with a past. She was a foreigner, apparently of one of the Latin races, although at the moment in the horror of the tragedy before us I could not guess her nationality. It was enough for me that here lay this cold, stony, rigid beauty, robed in the latest creations of Paris, alone in an elegantly furnished room of an exclusive hotel where hundreds of gay guests were dining and chatting and laughing without a suspicion of the terrible secret only a few feet distant from them. We stood awestruck for the moment. "The coroner ought to be here any moment," remarked McBride and even the callousness of the regular detective was not sufficient to hide the real feelings of the man. His practical sense soon returned, however, and he continued, "Now, Jameson, don't you think you could use a little influence with the newspaper men to keep this thing off the front pages? Of course something has to be printed about it. But we don't want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a suicide the other day who left an apologetic note that was played up by some of the papers. Now comes this affair. The management are just as anxious to have the crime cleared up as any one--if it is a crime. But can't it be done with the soft pedal? We will stop at nothing in the way of expense--just so long as the name of the Vanderveer is kept in the background. Only, I'm afraid the coroner will try to rub it in and make the thing sensational." "What was her name?" asked Kennedy. "At least, under what name was she registered?" "She was registered as Madame de Nevers. It is not quite a week now since she came here, came directly from the steamer Tripolitania. See, there are her trunks and things, all pasted over with foreign labels, not an American label among them. I haven't the slightest doubt that her name was fictitious, for as far as I can see all the ordinary marks of identification have been obliterated. It will take time to identify her at the best, and in the meantime, if a crime has been committed, the guilty person may escape. What I want now, right away, is action." "Has nothing in her actions about the hotel offered any clue, no matter how slight?" asked Kennedy. "Plenty of things," replied McBride quickly. "For one thing, she didn't speak very much English and her maid seemed to do all the talking for her, even to ordering her meals, which were always served here. I did notice Madame a few times about the hotel, though she spent most of her time in her rooms. She was attractive as the deuce, and the men all looked at her whenever she stirred out. She never even noticed them. But she was evidently expecting some one, for her maid had left word at the desk that if a Mr. Gonzales called, she was at home; if any one else, she was out. For the first day or two she kept herself closely confined, except that at the end of the second day she took a short spin through the park in a taxicab--closed, even in this hot weather. Where she went I cannot say, but when they returned the maid seemed rather agitated. At least she was a few minutes later when she came all the way downstairs to telephone from a booth, instead of using the room telephone. At various times the maid was sent out to execute certain errands, but always returned promptly. Madame de Nevers was a genuine woman of mystery, but as long as she was a quiet mystery, I thought it no business of ours to pry into the affairs of Madame." "Did she have any visitors? Did this Mr. Gonzales call?" asked Kennedy at length. "She had one visitor, a woman who called and asked if a Madame de Nevers was stopping at the hotel," answered McBride. "That was what the clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you. He says that, obedient to the orders from the maid, he told the visitor that Madame was not at home." "Who was this visitor, do you suppose?" asked Craig. "Did she leave any card or message? Is there any clue to her?" The detective looked at him earnestly for a time as if he hesitated to retail what might be merely pure gossip. "The clerk does not know this absolutely, but from his acquaintance with society news and the illustrated papers he is sure that he recognised her. He says that he feels positive that it was Miss Catharine Lovelace." "The Southern heiress," exclaimed Kennedy. "Why, the papers say that she is engaged---" "Exactly," cut in McBride, "the heiress who is rumoured to be engaged to the Duc de Chateaurouge." Kennedy and I exchanged glances. "Yes," I added, recollecting a remark I had heard a few days before from our society reporter on the Star, "I believe it has been said that Chateaurouge is in this country, incognito." "A pretty slender thread on which to hang an identification," McBride hastened to remark. "Newspaper photographs are not the best means of recognising anybody. Whatever there may be in it, the fact remains that Madame de Nevers, supposing that to be her real name, has been dead for at least a day or two. The first thing to be determined is whether this is a death from natural causes, a suicide, or a murder. After we have determined that we shall be in a position to run down this Lovelace clue." Kennedy said nothing and I could not gather whether he placed greater or less value on the suspicion of the hotel clerk. He had been making a casual examination of the body on the bed, and finding nothing he looked intently about the room as if seeking some evidence of how the crime had been committed. To me the thing seemed incomprehensible, that without an outcry being overheard by any of the guests a murder could have been done in a crowded hotel in which the rooms on every side had been occupied and people had been passing through the halls at all hours. Had it indeed been a suicide, in spite of McBride's evident conviction to the contrary? A low exclamation from Kennedy attracted our attention. Caught in the filmy lace folds of the woman's dress he had found a few small and thin pieces of glass. He was regarding them with an interest that was oblivious to everything else. As he turned them over and over and tried to fit them together they seemed to form at least a part of what had once been a hollow globe of very thin glass, perhaps a quarter of an inch or so in diameter. "How was the body discovered?" asked Craig at length, looking up at McBride quickly. "Day before yesterday Madame's maid went to the cashier," repeated the detective slowly as if rehearsing the case as much for his own information as ours, "and said that Madame had asked her to say to him that she was going away for a few days and that under no circumstances was her room to be disturbed in her absence. The maid was commissioned to pay the bill, not only for the time they had been here, but also for the remainder of the week, when Madame would most likely return, if not earlier. The bill was made out and paid. "Since then only the chambermaid has entered this suite. The key to that closet over in the corner was gone, and it might have hidden its secret until the end of the week or perhaps a day or two longer, if the chambermaid hadn't been a bit curious. She hunted till she found another key that fitted, and opened the closet door, apparently to see what Madame had been so particular to lock up in her absence. There lay the body of Madame, fully dressed, wedged into the narrow space and huddled up in a corner. The chambermaid screamed and the secret was out." "And Madame de Nevers's maid? What has become of her?" asked Kennedy eagerly. "She has disappeared," replied McBride. "From the moment when the bill was paid no one about the hotel has seen her." "But you have a pretty good description of her, one that you could send out in order to find her if necessary?" "Yes, I think I could give a pretty good description." Kennedy's eye encountered the curious gaze of McBride. "This may prove to be a most unusual case," he remarked in answer to the implied inquiry of the detective. "I suppose you have heard of the 'endormeurs' of Paris?" McBride shook his head in the negative. "It is a French word signifying a person who puts another to sleep, the sleep makers," explained Kennedy. "They are the latest scientific school of criminals who use the most potent, quickest-acting stupefying drugs. Some of their exploits surpass anything hitherto even imagined by the European police. The American police have been officially warned of the existence of the endormeurs and full descriptions of their methods and photographs of their paraphernalia have been sent over here. "There is nothing in their repertoire so crude as chloral or knock-out drops. All the derivatives of opium such as morphine, codeine, heroine, dionine, narceine, and narcotine, to say nothing of bromure d'etyle, bromoform, nitrite d'amyle, and amyline are known to be utilised by the endormeurs to put their victims to sleep, and the skill which they have acquired in the use of these powerful drugs establishes them as one of the most dangerous groups of criminals in existence. The men are all of superior intelligence and daring; the chief requisite of the women is extreme beauty as well as unscrupulousness. "They will take a little thin glass ball of one of these liquids, for instance, hold it in a pocket handkerchief, crush it, shove it under the nose of their victim, and--whiff!--the victim is unconscious. But ordinarily the endormeur does not kill. He is usually satisfied to stupefy, rob, and then leave his victim. There is something more to this case than a mere suicide or murder, McBride. Of course she may have committed suicide with the drugs of the endormeurs; then again she may merely have been rendered unconscious by those drugs and some other poison may have been administered. Depend on it, there is something more back of this affair than appears on the surface. Even as far as I have gone I do not hesitate to say that we have run across the work of one or perhaps a band of the most up-to-date and scientific criminals." Kennedy had scarcely finished when McBride brought his right fist down with a resounding smack into the palm of his left hand. "Say," he cried in great excitement, "here's another thing which may or may not have some connection with the case. The evening after Madame arrived, I happened to be walking through the cafe, where I saw a face that looked familiar to me. It was that of a dark-haired, olive-skinned man, a fascinating face, but a face to be afraid of. I remembered him, I thought, from my police experience, as a notorious crook who had not been seen in New York for years, a man who in the old days used to gamble with death in South American revolutions, a soldier of fortune. "Well, I gave the waiter, Charley, the wink and he met me in the rear of the cafe, around a corner. You know we have a regular system in the hotel by which I can turn all the help into amateur sleuths. I told him to be very careful about the dark-faced man and the younger man who was with him, to be particular to wait on them well, and to pick up any scraps of conversation he could. "Charley knows his business, and the barest perceptible sign from me makes him an obsequious waiter. Of course the dark man didn't notice it at the time, but if he had been more observant he would have seen that three times during his chat with his companion Charley had wiped off his table with lingering hand. Twice he had put fresh seltzer in his drink. Like a good waiter always working for a big tip he had hovered near, his face blank and his eyes unobservant. But that waiter was an important link in my chain of protection of the hotel against crooks. He was there to listen and to tip me off, which he did between orders. "There wasn't much that he overheard, but what there was of it was so suspicious that I did not hesitate to conclude that the fellow was an undesirable guest. It was something about the Panama Canal, and a coaling station of a steamship and fruit concern on the shore of one of the Latin American countries. It was, he said, in reality to be the coaling station of a certain European power which he did not name but which the younger man seemed to understand. They talked of wharves and tracts of land, of sovereignty and blue prints, the Monroe Doctrine, value in case of war, and a lot of other things. Then they talked of money, and though Charley was most assiduous at the time all he overheard was something about 'ten thousand francs' and 'buying her off,' and finally a whispered confidence of which he caught the words, 'just a blind to get her over here, away from Paris.' Finally the dark man in an apparent burst of confidence said something about 'the other plans being the real thing after all,' and that the whole affair would bring him in fifty thousand francs, with which he could afford to be liberal. Charley could get no inkling about what that other thing was. "But I felt sure that he had heard enough to warrant the belief that some kind of confidence game was being discussed. To tell the truth I didn't care much what it was, at the time. It might have been an attempt of the dark-visaged fellow to sell the Canal to a come-on. What I wanted was to have it known that the Vanderveer was not to be a resort of such gentry as this. But I'm afraid it was much more serious than I thought at the time. "Well, the dark man finally excused himself and sauntered into the lobby and up to the desk, with me after him around the opposite way. He was looking over the day's arrivals on the register when I concluded that it was about time to do something. I was standing directly beside him lighting a cigar. I turned quickly on him and deliberately trod on the man's patent leather shoe. He faced me furiously at not getting any apology. 'Sacre,' he exclaimed, 'what the--' But before he could finish I moved still closer and pinched his elbow. A dull red glow of suppressed anger spread over his face, but he cut his words short. He knew and I knew he knew. That is the sign in the continental hotels when they find a crook and quietly ask him to move on. The man turned on his heel and stalked out of the hotel. By and by the young man in the cafe, considerably annoyed at the sudden inattention of the waiter who acted as if he wasn't satisfied with his tip, strolled through the lobby and not seeing his dark-skinned friend, also disappeared. I wish to heaven I had had them shadowed. The young fellow wasn't a come-on at all. There was something afoot between these two, mark my words." "But why do you connect that incident with this case of Madame de Nevers?" asked Kennedy, a little puzzled. "Because the next day, and the day that Madame's maid disappeared, I happened to see a man bidding good-bye to a woman at the rear carriage entrance of the hotel. The woman was Madame's maid and the man was the dark man who had been seated in the cafe." "You said a moment ago that you had a good description of the maid or could write one. Do you think you could locate her?" The hotel detective thought a minute or two. "If she has gone to any of the other hotels in this city, I could," he answered slowly. "You know we have recently formed a sort of clearing house, we hotel detectives, and we are working together now very well, though secretly. It is barely possible that she has gone to another hotel. The very brazenness of that would be its safeguard, she might think." "Then I can leave that part of it to you, McBride?" asked Kennedy thoughtfully as if laying out a programme of action in his mind. "You will set the hotel detectives on the trail as well as the police of the city, and of other cities, will make the inquiries at the steamships and railroads, and all that sort of thing? Try to find some trace of the two men whom you saw in the cafe at the same time. But for the present I should say spare no effort to locate that girl." "Trust it to me," agreed McBride confidently. A heavy tap sounded at the door and McBride opened it. It was the coroner. I shall not go into the lengthy investigation which the coroner conducted, questioning one servant and employee after another without eliciting any more real information than we had already obtained so concisely from the house man. The coroner was, of course, angry at the removal of the body from the closet to the bed because he wanted to view it in the position in which it had been found, but as that had been done by the servants before McBride could stop them, there was nothing to do about it but accept the facts. "A very peculiar case," remarked the coroner at the conclusion of his examination, with the air of a man who could shed much light on it from his wide experience if he chose. "There is just one point that we shall have to clear up, however. What was the cause of the death of the deceased? There is no gas in the room. It couldn't have been illuminating gas, then. No, it must have been a poison of some kind. Then as to the motive," he added, trying to look confident but really shooting a tentative remark at Craig and the house detective, who said nothing. "It looks a good deal like that other suicide--at least a suicide which some one has endeavoured to conceal," he added, hastily recollecting the manner in which the body had been found and his criticisms of the removal from the closet. "Didn't I tell you?" rejoined McBride dolefully after we had left the coroner downstairs a few minutes later. "I knew he would think the hotel was hiding something from him." "We can't help what he thinks--yet," remarked Craig. "All we can do is to run down the clues which we have. I will leave the maid to be found by your organisation, McBride. Let me see, the theatres and roof gardens must be letting out by this time. I will see if I can get any information from Miss Lovelace. Find her address, Walter, and call a cab." The Southern heiress, who had attracted more attention by her beauty than by her fortune which was only moderate as American fortunes go nowadays, lived in an apartment facing the park, with her mother, a woman whose social ambitions it was commonly known had no bounds and were often sadly imposed upon. Fortunately we arrived at the apartment not very many minutes after the mother and daughter, and although it was late, Kennedy sent up his card with an urgent message to see them. They received us in a large drawing-room and were plainly annoyed by our visit, though that of course was susceptible of a natural interpretation. "What is it that you wished to see me about?" began Mrs. Lovelace in a tone which was intended to close the interview almost before it was begun. Kennedy had not wished to see her about anything, but of course he did not even hint as much in his reply which was made to her but directed at Miss Lovelace. "Could you tell me anything about a Madame de Nevers who was staying at the Vanderveer?" asked Craig, turning quickly to the daughter so as to catch the full effect of his question, and then waiting as if expecting the answer from her. The young lady's face blanched slightly and she seemed to catch her breath for an instant, but she kept her composure admirably in spite of the evident shock of Craig's purposely abrupt question. "I have heard of her," Miss Lovelace replied with forced calmness as he continued to look to her for an answer. "Why do you ask?" "Because a woman who is supposed to be Madame de Nevers has committed suicide at the Vanderveer and it was thought that perhaps you could identify her." By this time she had become perfect mistress of herself again, from which I argued that whatever knowledge she had of Madame was limited to the time before the tragedy. "I, identify her? Why, I never saw her. I simply know that such a creature exists." She said it defiantly and with an iciness which showed more plainly than in mere words that she scorned even an acquaintance with a demi-mondaine. "Do you suppose the Duc de Chateaurouge would be able to identify her?" asked Kennedy mercilessly. "One moment, please," he added, anticipating the blank look of amazement on her face. "I have reason to believe that the duke is in this country incognito--is he not?" Instead of speaking she merely raised her shoulders a fraction of an inch. "Either in New York or in Washington," pursued Kennedy. "Why do you ask me?" she said at length. "Isn't it enough that some of the newspapers have said so? If you see it in the newspapers, it's so--perhaps--isn't it?" We were getting nowhere in this interview, at least so I thought. Kennedy cut it short, especially as he noted the evident restlessness of Mrs. Lovelace. However, he had gained his point. Whether or not the duke was in New York or Washington or Spitzbergen, he now felt sure that Miss Lovelace knew of, and perhaps something about, Madame de Nevers. In some way the dead woman had communicated with her and Miss Lovelace had been the woman whom the hotel clerk had seen at the Vanderveer. We withdrew as gracefully as our awkward position permitted. As there was nothing else to be done at that late hour, Craig decided to sleep soundly over the case, his infallible method of taking a fresh start after he had run up a cul-de-sac. Imagine our surprise in the morning at being waited on by the coroner himself, who in a few words explained that he was far from satisfied with the progress his own office was making with the case. "You understand," he concluded after a lengthy statement of confession and avoidance, "we have no very good laboratory facilities of our own to carry out the necessary chemical, pathological, and bacteriological investigations in cases of homicide and suicide. We are often forced to resort to private laboratories, as you know in the past when I have had to appeal to you. Now, Professor Kennedy, if we might turn over that research part of the case to you, sir, I will engage to see that a reasonable bill for your professional services goes through the office of my friend the city comptroller promptly." Craig snapped at the opportunity, though he did not allow the coroner to gain that impression. "Very well," agreed that official, "I shall see that all the necessary organs for a thorough test as to the cause of the death of this woman are sent up to the Chemistry Building right away." The coroner was as good as his word, and we had scarcely breakfasted and arrived at Craig's scientific workshop before that official appeared, accompanied by a man who carried in uncanny jars the necessary materials for an investigation following an autopsy. Kennedy was now in his element. The case had taken an unexpected turn which made him a leading factor in its solution. Whatever suspicions he may have entertained unofficially the night before he could now openly and quickly verify. He took a little piece of lung tissue and with a sharp sterilised knife cut it up. Then he made it slightly alkaline with a little sodium carbonate, talking half to us and half to himself as he worked. The next step was to place the matter in a glass flask in a water bath where it was heated. From the flask a Bohemian glass tube led into a cool jar and on a part of the tube a flame was playing which heated it to redness for two or three inches. Several minutes we waited in silence. Finally when the process had gone far enough, Kennedy took a piece of paper which had been treated with iodised starch, as he later explained. He plunged the paper into the cool jar. Slowly it turned a strong blue tint. Craig said nothing, but it was evident that he was more than gratified by what had happened. He quickly reached for a bottle on the shelves before him, and I could see from the label on the brown glass that it was nitrate of silver. As he plunged a little in a test-tube into the jar a strong precipitate was gradually formed. "It is the decided reaction for chloroform," he exclaimed simply in reply to our unspoken questions. "Chloroform," repeated the coroner, rather doubtfully, and it was evident that he had expected a poison and had not anticipated any result whatever from an examination of the lungs instead of the stomach to which he had confined his own work so far. "Could chloroform be discovered in the lungs or viscera after so many days? There was one famous chloroform case for which a man is now serving a life term in Sing Sing which I have understood there was grave doubt in the minds of the experts. Mind, I am not trying to question the results of your work except as they might naturally be questioned in court. It seems to me that the volatility of chloroform might very possibly preclude its discovery after a short time. Then again, might not other substances be generated in a dead body which would give a reaction very much like chloroform? We must consider all these questions before we abandon the poison theory, sir. Remember, this is the summer time too, and chloroform would evaporate very much more rapidly now than in winter." Kennedy smiled, but his confidence remained unshaken. "I am in a position to meet all of your objections," he explained simply. "I think I could lay it down as a rule that by proper methods chloroform may be discovered in the viscera much longer after death than is commonly supposed--in summer from six days to three weeks, with a practical working range of say twelve days, while in winter it may be found even after several months--by the right method. Certainly this case comes within the average length of time. More than that, no substance is generated by the process of decomposition which will vitiate the test for chloroform which I have just made. Chloroform has an affinity for water and is also a preservative, and hence from all these facts I think it safe to conclude that sometimes traces of it may be found for two weeks after its administration, certainly for a few days." "And Madame de Nevers?" queried the coroner, as if the turn of events was necessitating a complete reconstruction of his theory of the case. "Was murdered," completed Kennedy in a tone that left nothing more to be said on the subject. "But," persisted the coroner, "if she was murdered by the use of chloroform, how do you account for the fact that it was done without a struggle? There were no marks of violence and I, for one, do not believe that under ordinary circumstances any one will passively submit to such an administration without a hard fight." From his pocket Kennedy drew a small pasteboard box filled with tiny globes, some bonbons and lozenges, a small hypodermic syringe, and a few cigars and cigarettes. He held it out in the palm of his hand so that we could see it. "This," he remarked, "is the standard equipment of the endormeur. Whoever obtained admittance to Madame's rooms, either as a matter of course or secretly, must have engaged her in conversation, disarmed suspicion, and then suddenly she must have found a pocket handkerchief under her nose. The criminal crushed a globe of liquid in the handkerchief, the victim lost consciousness, the chloroform was administered without a struggle, all marks of identification were obliterated, the body was placed in the closet, and the maid--either as principal or accessory--took the most likely means of postponing discovery by paying the bill in advance at the office, and then disappeared." Kennedy slipped the box back into his pocket. The coroner had, I think, been expecting Craig's verdict, although he was loath to abandon his own suicide theory and had held it to the last possible moment. At any rate, so far he had said little, apparently preferring to keep his own counsel as to his course of action and to set his own machinery in motion. He drew a note from his pocket, however. "I suppose," he began tentatively, shaking the note as he glanced doubtfully from it to us, "that you have heard that among the callers on this unfortunate woman was a lady of high social position in this city?" "I have heard a rumour to that effect," replied Kennedy as he busied himself cleaning up the apparatus he had just used. There was nothing in his manner even to hint at the fact that we had gone further and interviewed the young lady in question. "Well," resumed the coroner, "in view of what you have just discovered I don't mind telling you that I believe it was more than a rumour. I have had a man watching the woman and this is a report I received just before I came up here." We read the note which he now handed to us. It was just a hasty line: "Miss Lovelace left hurriedly for Washington this morning." What was the meaning of it? Clearly, as we probed deeper into the case, its ramifications grew wider than anything we had yet expected. Why had Miss Lovelace gone to Washington, of all places, at this torrid season of the year? The coroner had scarcely left us, more mystified than ever, when a telephone message came from McBride saying that he had some important news for us if we would meet him at the St. Cenis Hotel within an hour. He would say nothing about it over the wire. As Kennedy hung up the receiver he quietly took a pistol from a drawer of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at the cartridges in the cylinder. Then he snapped it shut and stuck it into his pocket. "There's no telling what we may run up against before we get back to the laboratory," he remarked and we rode down to meet McBride. The description which the house man had sent out to the other hotel detectives the night before had already produced a result. Within the past two days a man answering the description of the younger man whom McBride had seen in the cafe and a woman who might very possibly have been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and Mme. Duval. Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to impress upon the hotel that they were persons of some position and that it was going direct from the railroad to the steamer, after their tour of America. They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing to excite suspicion until the general request for information had been received. The house man of the St. Cenis welcomed us cordially upon McBride's introduction and agreed to take us up to the rooms of the strange couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour and they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not be too particular in his search of their effects, for he did not wish to arouse suspicion upon their return, at least not yet. "It seems to me, Craig," I suggested after we had nosed about for a few minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case in which to use the dictograph as you did in that Black Hand case." He shook his head doubtfully, although I could see that the idea appealed to him. "The dictograph has been getting too much publicity lately," he said. "I'm afraid they would discover it, that is, if they are at all the clever people I think them. Besides, I would have to send up to the laboratory to get one and by the time the messenger returned they might be back from lunch. No, we've got to do something else, and do it quickly." He was looking about the room in an apparently aimless manner. On the side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy seemed engrossed in it while the rest of us fidgeted at the delay. "Can you get me a couple of old telephone instruments?" he asked at length, turning to us and addressing the St. Cenis detective. The detective nodded and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them I do not know, but I suspect he simply lifted them from vacant rooms. "Now some Number 30 copper wire and a couple of dry cells," ordered Kennedy, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The detective despatched a bellboy down to the basement to get the wire from the house electrician. Kennedy removed the transmitters of the telephones, and taking the carbon capsules from them placed the capsules on the table carefully. Then he lifted down the etching from the wall and laid it flat on its face before us. Quickly he removed the back of the picture. Pressing the transmitter fronts with the carbon capsules against the paper and the glass on the picture he mounted them so that the paper and glass acted as a large diaphragm to collect all the sounds in the room. "The size of this glass diaphragm," he explained as we gathered around in intense interest at what he was doing, "will produce a strikingly sensitive microphone action and the merest whisper will be reproduced with startling distinctness." The boy brought the wire up and also the news that the couple in whose room we were had very nearly finished luncheon and might be expected back in a few minutes. Kennedy took the tiny wires, and after connecting them hung up the picture again and ran them up alongside the picture wires leading from the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the top of the moulding and out through the transom it was easy enough to run the wires and so down the hall to a vacant room, where Craig attached them quickly to one of the old telephone receivers. Then we sat down in this room to await developments from our hastily improvised picture frame microphone detective. At last we could hear the elevator door close on our floor. A moment later it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face that some one had entered the room which we had just left. He had finished not a moment too soon. "It's a good thing that I didn't wait to put a dictograph there," he remarked to us. "I thought I wasn't reckoning without reason. The couple, whoever they are, are talking in undertones and looking about the room to see if anything has been disturbed in their absence." Kennedy alone, of course, could follow over his end of the telephone what they said. The rest of us could do nothing but wait, but from notes which Craig jotted down as he listened to the conversation I shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some anxious moments until at last they had satisfied themselves that no one was listening and that no dictograph or other mechanical eavesdropper, such as they had heard of, was concealed in the furniture or back of it. "Why are you so particular, Henri?" a woman's voice was saying. "Louise, I've been thinking for a long time that we are surrounded by spies in these hotels. You remember I told you what happened at the Vanderveer the night you and Madame arrived? I'm sure that waiter overheard what Gonzales and I were talking about." "Well, we are safe now anyhow. What was it that you would not tell me just now at luncheon?" asked the woman, whom Kennedy recognised as Madame de Nevers's maid. "I have a cipher from Washington. Wait until I translate it." There was a pause. "What does it say?" asked the woman impatiently. "It says," repeated the man slowly, "that Miss Lovelace has gone to Washington. She insists on knowing whether the death of Marie was a suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind of some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I must go down there or the whole affair may be exposed and fall through. Things could hardly be worse, especially this sudden move on her part." "Who was that detective who forced his way to see her the night they discovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't the Secret Service also. Do you think they could have suspected anything?" "I hardly think so," the man replied. "Beyond the death of Madame they suspect nothing here in New York, I am convinced. You are sure that all her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her with the business in hand were destroyed, and particularly that the package she was to deliver is safe?" "The package? You mean the plans for the coaling station on the Pacific near the Canal? You see, Henri, I know." "Ha, ha,--yes," replied the man. "Louise, shall I tell you a secret? Can you keep it?" "You know I can, Henri." "Well, Louise, the scheme is deeper than even you think. We are playing one country against another, America against--you know the government our friend Schmidt works for in Paris. Now, listen. Those plans of the coaling station are a fake--a fake. It is just a commercial venture. No nation would be foolish enough to attempt such a thing, yet. We know that they are a fake. But we are going to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle is overcome a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By using those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which when we all return to Paris we can convert into thousands of francs. There, I can say no more. But I have told you so much to impress upon you the extreme need of caution." "And how much does Miss Lovelace know?" "Very little--I hope. That is why I must go to Washington myself. She must know nothing of this coup nor of the real de Nevers, or the whole scheme may fall through. It would have fallen through before, Louise, if you had failed us and had let any of de Nevers's letters slip through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate for that act of treachery. The affair would have been so simple, otherwise. Luck was with us until her insane jealousy led her to visit Miss Lovelace. It was fortunate the young lady was out when Madame called on her or all would have been lost. Ah, we owe you a great deal, Louise, and we shall not forget it, never. You will be very careful while I am gone?" "Absolutely. When will you return to me, Henri?" "To-morrow morning at the latest. This afternoon the false coaling station plans are to be turned over to our accomplice in the War Department and in exchange he is to give us something else--the secret of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high circles. It is very much more important than you suppose and discovery might lead to a dangerous international complication just now." "Then you are to meet your friend in Washington to-night? When do you start, Henri? Don't let the time slip by. There must be no mistake this time as there was when we were working for Japan and almost had the blue prints of Corregidor at Manila only to lose them on the streets of Calcutta." "Trust me. We are to meet about nine o'clock and therefore I leave on the limited at three-thirty, in about an hour. From the station I am going straight to the house on Z Street--let me see, the cipher says the number is 101--and ask for a man named Gonzales. I shall use the name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package--that thing I have told you about--then I am to return here by one of the midnight trains. At any cost we must allow nothing to happen which will reach the ears of Miss Lovelace. I'll see you early to-morrow morning, ma cherie, and remember, be ready, for the Aquitania sails at ten. The division of the money is to be made in Paris. Then we shall all go our separate ways." Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel service to find out how the trains ran for Washington. The only one that would get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next, leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in our friend down the hall missing the limited, but abandoned it. Any such scheme would simply result in a message to the gang in Washington putting them on their guard and defeating his purpose. "At all costs we must beat this fellow to it," exclaimed Craig, waiting to hear no more over his improvised dictograph. "Come, Walter, we must catch the limited for Washington immediately. McBride, I leave you and the regular house man to shadow this woman. Don't let her get out of your sight for a moment." As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig hastily informed me of what he had overheard. We took up our post so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes later Craig spotted our man from McBride's description, and succeeded in securing chairs in the same car in which he was to ride. Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey. For five mortal hours we sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car, never letting the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know that we were watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking myself what good it did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if the affair was so important as it appeared? How were we to get ahead of him in Washington better than in New York? I knew that some plan lurked behind the calm and inscrutable face of Kennedy as I tried to read and could not. The train had come to a stop in the Union Station. Our man was walking rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand. Suddenly Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking abreast of him. "I beg your pardon," began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow of the arc lights, "but have you a match?" The man halted and fumbled for his match-box. Instantly Kennedy's pocket handkerchief was at his nose. "Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs," ground out Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes under his handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect. The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him between us. Up the platform we led him in a daze. "Here," shouted Craig to a cabman, "my friend is ill. Drive us around a bit. It will sober him up. Come on, Walter, jump in, the air will do us all good." Those who were in Washington during that summer will remember the suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a certain very humid night. Nothing leaked out at the time as to the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the departments were all away, the President was at his summer home in the North, and even some of the under-secretaries were out of town. Hasty messages had been sizzling over the wires in cipher and code for hours. I recall that as we rode a little out of our way past the Army Building, merely to see if there was any excitement, we found it a blaze of lights. Something was plainly afoot even at this usually dull period of the year. There was treachery of some kind and some trusted employee was involved, I felt instinctively. As for Craig he merely glanced at the insensible figure between us and remarked sententiously that to his knowledge there was only one nation that made a practice of carrying out its diplomatic and other coups in the hot weather, a remark which I understood to mean that our mission was more than commonly important. The man had not recovered when we arrived within several blocks of our destination, nor did he show signs of recovery from his profound stupor. Kennedy stopped the cab in a side street, pressed a bill into the cabman's hand, and bade him wait until we returned. We had turned the corner of Z Street and were approaching the house when a man walking in the opposite direction eyed us suspiciously, turned, and followed us a step or two. "Kennedy!" he exclaimed. If a fourteen-inch gun had exploded behind us I could not have been more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy we were followed, watched, and beaten. Craig wheeled about suddenly. Then he took the man by the arm. "Come," he said quickly, and we three dove into the shadow of an alley. As we paused, Kennedy was the first to speak. "By Jove, Walter, it's Burke of the Secret Service," he exclaimed. "Good," repeated the man with some satisfaction. "I see that you still have that memory for faces." He was evidently referring to our experiences together some months before with the portrait parle and identification in the counterfeiting case which Craig cleared up for him. For a moment or two Burke and Kennedy spoke in whispers. Under the dim light from the street I could see Kennedy's face intent and working with excitement. "No wonder the War Department is a blaze of lights," he exclaimed as we moved out of the shadow again, leaving the Secret Service man. "Burke, I had no idea when I took up this case that I should be doing my country a service also. We must succeed at any hazard. The moment you hear a pistol shot, Burke, we shall need you. Force the door if it is not already open. You were right as to the street but not the number. It is that house over there. Come on, Walter." We mounted the low steps of the house and a negress answered the bell. "Is Mr. Gonzales in?" asked Kennedy. The hallway into which we were admitted was dark but it opened into a sitting-room, where a dim light was burning behind the thick portieres. Without a word the negress ushered us into this room, which was otherwise empty. "Tell him Mr. Montez is here," added Craig as we sat down. The negress disappeared upstairs, and in a few minutes returned with the message that he would be down directly. No sooner had the shuffle of her footsteps died away than Kennedy was on his feet, listening intently at the door. There was no sound. He took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it. Turning it upside down he placed it at the foot of the stairs with the four legs pointing obliquely up. Then he drew me into a corner with him. How long we waited I cannot say. The next I knew was a muffled step on the landing above, then the tread on the stairs. A crash and a deep volley of oaths in French followed as the man pitched headlong over the chair on the dark steps. Kennedy whipped out his revolver and fired pointblank at the prostrate figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing on a man when he is down, nor did I have time to stop to think. Craig grasped my arm and pulled me toward the door. A sickening odour seemed to pervade the air. Upstairs there was shouting and banging of doors. "Closer, Walter," he muttered, "closer to the door, and open it a little, or we shall both be suffocated. It was the Secret Service gun I shot off--the pistol that shoots stupefying gas from its vapour-filled cartridges and enables you to put a criminal out of commission without killing him. A pull of the trigger, the cap explodes, the gunpowder and the force of the explosion unite some capsicum and lycopodium, producing the blinding, suffocating vapour whose terrible effect you see. Here, you upstairs," he shouted, "advance an inch or so much as show your heads over the rail and I pump a shot at you, too. Walter, take the gun yourself. Fire at a move from them. I think the gases have cleared away enough now. I must get him before he recovers consciousness." A tap at the door came, and without taking my eyes off the stairs I opened it. Burke slid in and gulped at the nauseous atmosphere. "What's up?" he gasped. "I heard a shot. Where's Kennedy?" I motioned in the darkness. Kennedy's electric bull's-eye flashed up at that instant and we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of manacles on the wrists of the man on the floor, who was breathing heavily, while blood flowed from a few slight cuts due to his fall. Dexterously as a pickpocket Craig reached into the man's coat, pulled out a packet of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after another. From among them he unfolded one written in French to Madame Marie de Nevers some weeks before. I translate: DEAR MARIE: Herr Schmidt informs me that his agent in the War Department at Washington, U. S. A., has secured some important information which will interest the Government for which Herr Schmidt is the agent--of course you know who that is. It is necessary that you should carry the packet which will be handed to you (if you agree to my proposal) to New York by the steamer Tripolitania. Go to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few days, as soon as a certain exchange can be made, either our friend in Washington or myself will call on you, using the name Gonzales. In return for the package which you carry he will hand you another. Lose no time in bringing the second package back to Paris. I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and your expenses for your services in this matter. Under no conditions betray your connection with Herr Schmidt. I was to have carried the packet to America myself and make the exchange but knowing your need of money I have secured the work for you. You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel with distinction in this case. If, however, you accept this commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of whom you know. Please let me know immediately through our mutual friend Henri Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory. Henri will tell you that fifty thousand is my ultimatum, CHATEAUROUGE. "The scoundrel," ground out Kennedy. "He lured his wife from Paris to New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him, I suppose. Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an American fortune." "Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too clever for me. This blackmailing must stop. Miss Lovelace knows something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all--never--never. You--you--ugh!--Stop. Do you think you can hold me back now with those little white hands on my wrists? I wrench them loose--so--and--ugh!--What's this? Where am I?" The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in the Vanderveer. "Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake nobleman, real swindler of five continents. Marie de Nevers alive stood in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace. Dead, she prevents it absolutely." Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke. At last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk. As he broke the seal he glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, "There, Burke. Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn out their lights and stop their telegrams. This seems to be a copy of our government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal, heights of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations, everything from painstaking search of official and confidential records. That is what this fellow obtained in exchange for his false blue prints of the supposed coaling station on the Pacific. "I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department. What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations and betrayed one of them. To me this adventurer who calls himself Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers." X THE SMUGGLER It was a rather sultry afternoon in the late summer when people who had calculated by the calendar rather than by the weather were returning to the city from the seashore, the mountains, and abroad. Except for the week-ends, Kennedy and I had been pretty busy, though on this particular day there was a lull in the succession of cases which had demanded our urgent attention during the summer. We had met at the Public Library, where Craig was doing some special research at odd moments in criminology. Fifth Avenue was still half deserted, though the few pedestrians who had returned or remained in town like ourselves were, as usual, to be found mostly on the west side of the street. Nearly everybody, I have noticed, walks on the one side of Fifth Avenue, winter or summer. As we stood on the corner waiting for the traffic man's whistle to halt the crush of automobiles, a man on the top of a 'bus waved to Kennedy. I looked up and caught a glimpse of Jack Herndon, an old college mate, who had had some political aspirations and had recently been appointed to a position in the customs house of New York. Herndon, I may add, represented the younger and clean-cut generation which is entering official life with great advantage to both themselves and politics. The 'bus pulled up to the curb, and Jack tore down the breakneck steps hurriedly. "I was just thinking of you, Craig," he beamed as we all shook hands, "and wondering whether you and Walter were in town. I think I should have come up to see you to-night, anyhow." "Why, what's the matter--more sugar frauds?" laughed Kennedy. "Or perhaps you have caught another art dealer red-handed?" "No, not exactly," replied Herndon, growing graver for the moment. "We're having a big shake-up down at the office, none of your 'new broom' business, either. Real reform it is, this time." "And you--are you going or coming?" inquired Craig with an interested twinkle. "Coming, Craig, coming," answered Jack enthusiastically. "They've put me in charge of a sort of detective force as a special deputy surveyor to rout out some smuggling that we know is going on. If I make good it will go a long way for me--with all this talk of efficiency and economy down in Washington these days." "What's on your mind now?" asked Kennedy observantly. "Can I help you in any way?" Herndon had taken each of us by an arm and walked us over to a stone bench in the shade of the library building. "You have read the accounts in the afternoon papers of the peculiar death of Mademoiselle Violette, the little French modiste, up here on Forty-sixth Street?" he inquired. "Yes," answered Kennedy. "What has that to do with customs reform?" "A good deal, I fear," Herndon continued. "It's part of a case that has been bothering us all summer. It's the first really big thing I've been up against and it's as ticklish a bit of business as even a veteran treasury agent could wish." Herndon looked thoughtfully at the passing crowd on the other side of the balustrade and continued. "It started, like many of our cases, with the anonymous letter writer. Early in the summer the letters began to come in to the deputy surveyor's office, all unsigned, though quite evidently written in a woman's hand, disguised of course, and on rather dainty notepaper. They warned us of a big plot to smuggle gowns and jewellery from Paris. Smuggling jewellery is pretty common because jewels take up little space and are very valuable. Perhaps it doesn't sound to you like a big thing to smuggle dresses, but when you realise that one of those filmy lacy creations may often be worth several hundred, if not thousand, dollars, and that it needs only a few of them on each ship that comes in to run up into the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in a season, you will see how essential it is to break up that sort of thing. We've been getting after the individual private smugglers pretty sharply this summer and we've had lots of criticism. If we could land a big fellow and make an object-lesson of the extent of the thing I believe it would leave our critics of the press without a leg to stand on. "At least that was why I was interested in the letters. But it was not until a few days ago that we got a tip that gave us a real working clue, for the anonymous letters had been very vague as to names, dates, and places, though bold enough as to general charges, as if the writer were fearful of incriminating herself--or himself. Strange to say, this new clue came from the wife of one of the customs men. She happened to be in a Broadway manicure shop one day when she heard a woman talking with the manicurist about fall styles, and she was all attention when she heard the customer say, 'You remember Mademoiselle Violette's--that place that had the exquisite things straight from Paris, and so cheaply, too? Well, Violette says she'll have to raise her prices so that they will be nearly as high as the regular stores. She says the tariff has gone up, or something, but it hasn't, has it?' "The manicurist laughed knowingly, and the next remark caught the woman's attention. 'No, indeed. But then, I guess she meant that she had to pay the duty now. You know they are getting much stricter. To tell the truth, I imagine most of Violette's goods were--well--' "'Smuggled?' supplied the customer in an undertone. "The manicurist gave a slight shrug of the shoulders and a bright little yes of a laugh. "That was all. But it was enough. I set a special customs officer to watch Mademoiselle, a clever fellow. He didn't have time to find out much, but on the other hand I am sure he didn't do anything to alarm Mademoiselle. That would have been a bad game. His case was progressing favourably and he had become acquainted with one of the girls who worked in the shop. We might have got some evidence, but suddenly this morning he walked up to my desk and handed me an early edition of an afternoon paper. Mademoiselle Violette had been discovered dead in her shop by the girls when they came to work this morning. Apparently she had been there all night, but the report was quite indefinite and I am on my way up there now to meet the coroner, who has agreed to wait for me." "You think there is some connection between her death and the letters?" put in Craig. "Of course I can't say, yet," answered Herndon dubiously. "The papers seem to think it was a suicide. But then why should she commit suicide? My man found out that among the girls it was common gossip that she was to marry Jean Pierre, the Fifth Avenue jeweller, of the firm of Lang goods by Americans abroad. Well, the chief of our men in Paris cables me that Pierre is known to have made extraordinarily heavy purchases of made-up jewellery this season. For one thing, we believe he has acquired from a syndicate a rather famous diamond necklace which it has taken years to assemble and match up, worth about three hundred thousand. You know the duty on made-up jewellery is sixty per cent., and even if he brought the stones in loose it would be ten per cent., which on a valuation of, say, two hundred thousand, means twenty thousand dollars duty alone. Then he has a splendid 'dog collar' of pearls, and, oh, a lot of other stuff. I know because we get our tips from all sorts of sources and they are usually pretty straight. Some come from dealers who are sore about not making sales themselves. So you see there is a good deal at stake in this case and it may be that in following it out we shall kill more than one bird. I wish you'd come along with me up to Mademoiselle Violette's and give me an opinion." Craig had already risen from the bench and we were walking up the Avenue. The establishment of Mademoiselle Violette consisted of a three-story and basement brownstone house in which the basement and first floor had been remodelled for business purposes. Mademoiselle's place, which was on the first floor, was announced to the world by a neat little oval gilt sign on the handrailing of the steps. We ascended and rang the bell. As we waited I noticed that there were several other modistes on the same street, while almost directly across was a sign which proclaimed that on September 15 Mademoiselle Gabrielle would open with a high class exhibition of imported gowns from Paris. We entered. The coroner and an undertaker were already there, and the former was expecting Herndon. Kennedy and I had already met him and he shook hands cordially. Mademoiselle Violette, it seemed, had rented the entire house and then had sublet the basement to a milliner, using the first floor herself, the second as a workroom for the girls whom she employed, while she lived on the top floor, which had been fitted for light housekeeping with a kitchenette. It was in the back room of the shop itself on the first floor that her body had been discovered, lying on a davenport. "The newspaper reports were very indefinite," began Herndon, endeavouring to take in the situation. "I suppose they told nearly all the story, but what caused her death? Have you found that out yet? Was it poison or violence?" The coroner said nothing, but with a significant glance at Kennedy he drew a peculiar contrivance from his pocket. It had four round holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed his hand, and exhibited his clenched fist. It looked as if he wore a series of four metal rings on his fingers. "Brass knuckles?" suggested Herndon, looking hastily at the body, which showed not a sign of violence on the stony face. The coroner shook his head knowingly. Suddenly he raised his fist. I saw him press hard with his thumb on the upper end of the metal contrivance. From the other end, just concealed under his little finger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen little blade of the brightest and toughest steel. He was holding, instead of a meaningless contrivance of four rings, a most dangerous kind of stiletto or dagger upraised. He lifted his thumb and the blade sprang back into its sheath like an extinguished spark of light. "An Apache dagger, such as is used in the underworld of Paris," broke out Kennedy, his eyes gleaming with interest. The coroner nodded. "We found it," he said, "clasped loosely in her hand. But it is only by expert medical testimony that we can determine whether it was placed on her fingers before or after this happened. We have photographed it, and the prints are being developed." He had now uncovered the slight figure of the little French modiste. On the dress, instead of the profuse flow of blood which we had expected to see, there was a single round spot. And in the white marble skin of her breast was a little, nearly microscopic puncture, directly over the heart. "She must have died almost instantly," commented Kennedy, glancing from the Apache weapon to the dead woman and back again. "Internal hemorrhage. I suppose you have searched her effects. Have you found anything that gives a hint among them?" "No," replied the coroner doubtfully, "I can't say we have--unless it is the bundle of letters from Pierre, the jeweller. They seem to have been engaged, and yet the letters stopped abruptly, and, well, from the tone of the last one from him I should say there was a quarrel brewing." An exclamation from Herndon followed. "The same notepaper and the same handwriting as the anonymous letters," he cried. But that was all. Go over the ground as Kennedy might he could find nothing further than the coroner and Herndon had already revealed. "About these people, Lang & Pierre," asked Craig thoughtfully when we had left Mademoiselle's and were riding downtown to the customs house with Herndon. "What do you know about them? I presume that Lang is in America, if his partner is abroad." "Yes, he is here in New York. I believe the firm has a rather unsavoury reputation; they have to be watched, I am told. Then, too, one or the other of the partners makes frequent trips abroad, mostly Pierre. Pierre, as you see, was very intimate with Mademoiselle, and the letters simply confirm what the girls told my detective. He was believed to be engaged to her and I see no reason now to doubt that. The fact is, Kennedy, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that it was he who engineered the smuggling for her as well as himself." "What about the partner? What role does he play in your suspicions?" "That's another curious feature. Lang doesn't seem to bother much with the business. He is a sort of silent partner, although nominally the head of the firm. Still, they both seem always to be plentifully supplied with money and to have a good trade. Lang lives most of the time up on the west shore of the Hudson, and seems to be more interested in his position as commodore of the Riverledge Yacht Club than in his business down here. He is quite a sport, a great motor-boat enthusiast, and has lately taken to hydroplanes." "I meant," repeated Kennedy, "what about Lang and Mademoiselle Violette. Were they--ah--friendly?" "Oh," replied Herndon, seeming to catch the idea. "I see. Of course--Pierre abroad and Lang here. I see what you mean. Why, the girl told my man that Mademoiselle Violette used to go motor-boating with Lang, but only when her fiance, Pierre, was along. No, I don't think she ever had anything to do with Lang, if that's what you are driving at. He may have paid attentions to her, but Pierre was her lover, and I haven't a doubt but that if Lang made any advances she repelled them. She seems to have thought everything of Pierre." We had reached Herndon's office by this time. Leaving word with his stenographer to get the very latest reports from La Montaigne, he continued talking to us about his work. "Dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers are our worst offenders now," he remarked as we stood gazing out of the window at the panorama of the bay off the sea-wall of the Battery. "Why, time and again we unearth what looks for all the world like a 'dressmakers' syndicate,' though this case is the first I've had that involved a death. Really, I've come to look on smuggling as one of the fine arts among crimes. Once the smuggler, like the pirate and the highwayman, was a sort of gentleman-rogue. But now it has become a very ladylike art. The extent of it is almost beyond belief, too. It begins with the steerage and runs right up to the absolute unblushing cynicism of the first cabin. I suppose you know that women, particularly a certain brand of society women, are the worst and most persistent offenders. Why, they even boast of it. Smuggling isn't merely popular--it's aristocratic. But we're going to take some of the flavour out of it before we finish." He tore open a cable message which a boy had brought in. "Now, take this, for instance," he continued. "You remember the sign across the street from Mademoiselle Violette's, announcing that a Mademoiselle Gabrielle was going to open a salon or whatever they call it? Well, here's another cable from our Paris Secret Service with a belated tip. They tell us to look out for a Mademoiselle Gabrielle--on La Montaigne, too. That's another interesting thing. You know the various lines are all ranked, at least in our estimation, according to the likelihood of such offences being perpetrated by their passengers. We watch ships from London, Liverpool, and Paris most carefully. Scandinavian ships are the least likely to need watching. Well, Miss Roberts?" "We have just had a wireless about La Montaigne" reported his stenographer, who had entered while he was speaking, "and she is three hundred miles east of Sandy Hook. She won't dock until to-morrow." "Thank you. Well, fellows, it is getting late and that means nothing more doing to-night. Can you be here early in the morning? We'll go down the bay and 'bring in the ship,' as our men call it when the deputy surveyor and his acting deputies go down to meet it at Quarantine. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your kindness in helping me. If my men get anything connecting Lang with Mademoiselle Violette's case I'll let you know immediately." It was a bright clear snappy morning, in contrast with the heat of the day before, when we boarded the revenue tug at the Barge Office. The waters of the harbour never looked more blue as they danced in the early sunlight, flecked here and there by a foaming whitecap as the conflicting tides eddied about. The shores of Staten Island were almost as green as in the spring, and even the haze over the Brooklyn factories had lifted. It looked almost like a stage scene, clear and sharp, new and brightly coloured. Perhaps the least known and certainly one of the least recognised of the government services is that which includes the vigilant ships of the revenue service. It was not a revenue cutter, however, on which we were ploughing down the bay. The cutter lay, white and gleaming in the morning sun, at anchor off Stapleton, like a miniature warship, saluting as we passed. The revenue boats which steam down to Quarantine and make fast to the incoming ocean greyhounds are revenue tugs. Down the bay we puffed and buffeted for about forty minutes before we arrived at the little speck of an island that is Quarantine. Long before we were there we sighted the great La Montaigne near the group of buildings on the island, where she had been waiting since early morning for the tide and the customs officials. The tug steamed alongside, and quickly up the high ladders swarmed the boarding officer and the deputy collectors. We followed Herndon straight to the main saloon, where the collectors began to receive the declarations which had been made out on blanks furnished to the passengers on the voyage over. They had had several days to write them out--the less excuse for omissions. Glancing at each hastily the collector detached from it the slip with the number at the bottom and handed the number back, to be presented at the inspector's desk at the pier, where customs inspectors were assigned in turn. "Number 140 is the one we want to watch," I heard Herndon whisper to Kennedy. "That tall dark fellow over there." I followed his direction cautiously and saw a sparely built, striking looking man who had just filed his declaration and was chatting vivaciously with a lady who was just about to file hers. She was a clinging looking little thing with that sort of doll-like innocence that deceives nobody. "No, you don't have to swear to it," he said. "You used to do that, but now you simply sign your name--and take a chance," he added, smiling and showing a row of perfect teeth. "Number 156," Herndon noted as the collector detached the stub and handed it to her. "That was Mademoiselle Gabrielle." The couple passed out to the deck, still chatting gaily. "In the old days, before they got to be so beastly particular," I heard him say, "I always used to get the courtesy of the port, an official expedite. But that is over now." The ship was now under way, her flags snapping in the brisk coolish breeze that told of approaching autumn. We had passed up the lower bay and the Narrows, and the passengers were crowded forward to catch the first glimpse of the skyscrapers of New York. On up the bay we ploughed, throwing the spray proudly as we went Herndon employed the time in keeping a sharp watch on the tall, thin man. Incidentally he sought out the wireless operator and from him learned that a code wireless message had been received for Pierre, apparently from his partner, Lang. "There is no mention of anything dutiable in this declaration by 140 which corresponds with any of the goods mentioned in the first cable from Paris," a collector remarked unobtrusively to Herndon, "nor in 156 corresponding to the second cable." "I didn't suppose there would be," was his laconic reply. "That's our job--to find the stuff." At last La Montaigne was warped into the dock. The piles of first-class baggage on the ship were raucously deposited on the wharf and slowly the passengers filed down the plank to meet the line of white-capped uniformed inspectors and plain-clothes appraisers. The comedy and tragedy of the customs inspection had begun. We were among the first to land. Herndon took up a position from which he could see without being seen. In the semi-light of the little windows in the enclosed sides of the pier, under the steel girders of the arched roof like a vast hall, there was a panorama of a huge mass of open luggage. At last Number 140 came down, alone, to the roped-off dock. He walked nonchalantly over to the little deputy surveyor's desk, and an inspector was quickly assigned to him. It was all done neatly in the regular course of business apparently. He did not know that in the orderly rush the sharpest of Herndon's men had been picked out, much as a trick card player will force a card on his victim. Already the customs inspection was well along. One inspector had been assigned to about each five passengers, and big piles of finery were being remorselessly tumbled out in shapeless heaps and exposed to the gaze of that part of the public which was not too much concerned over the same thing as to its own goods and chattels. Reticules and purses were being inspected. Every trunk was presumed to have a false bottom, and things wrapped up in paper were viewed suspiciously and unrolled. Clothes were being shaken and pawed. There did not seem to be much opportunity for concealment. Herndon now had donned the regulation straw hat of the appraiser, and accompanied by us, posing as visitors, was sauntering about. At last we came within earshot of the spot where the inspector was going through the effects of 140. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see that a dispute was in progress over some trifling matter. The man was cool and calm. "Call the appraiser," he said at last, with the air of a man standing on his rights. "I object to this frisking of passengers. Uncle Sam is little better than a pickpocket. Besides, I can't wait here all day. My partner is waiting for me uptown." Herndon immediately took notice. But it was quite evidently, after all, only an altercation for the benefit of those who were watching. I am sure he knew he was being watched, but as the dispute proceeded he assumed the look of a man keenly amused. The matter, involving only a few dollars, was finally adjusted by his yielding gracefully and with an air of resignation. Still Herndon did not go and I am sure it annoyed him. Suddenly he turned and faced Herndon. I could not help thinking, in spite of all that he must be so expert, that, if he really were a smuggler, he had all the poise and skill at evasion that would entitle him to be called a cast master of the art. "You see that woman over there?" he whispered. "She says she is just coming home after studying music in Paris." We looked. It was the guileless ingenue, Mademoiselle Gabrielle. "She has dutiable goods, all right. I saw her declaration. She is trying to bring in as personal effects of a foreign resident gowns which, I believe, she intends to wear on the stage. She's an actress." There was nothing for Herndon to do but to act on the tip. The man had got rid of us temporarily, but we knew the inspector would be, if anything, more vigilant. I think he took even longer than usual. Mademoiselle Gabrielle and her maid pouted and fussed over the renewed examination which Herndon ordered. According to the inspector everything was new and expensive; according to her, old, shabby, and cheap. She denied everything, raged and threatened. But when, instead of ordering the stamp "Passed" to be placed on her half dozen trunks and bags which contained in reality only a few dutiable articles, Herndon threatened to order them to the appraiser's stores and herself to go to the Law Division if she did not admit the points in dispute, there was a real scene. "Generally, madame," he remonstrated, though I could see he was baffled at finding nothing of the goods he had really expected to find, "generally even for a first offence the goods are confiscated and the court or district attorney is content to let the person off with a fine. If this happens again we'll be more severe. So you had better pay the duty on these few little matters, without that." If he had been expecting to "throw a scare" into her, it did not succeed. "Well, I suppose if I must, I must," she said, and the only result of the diversion was that she paid a few dollars more than had been expected and went off in a high state of mind. Herndon had disappeared for a moment, after a whisper from Kennedy, to instruct two of his men to shadow Mademoiselle Gabrielle and, later, Pierre. He soon rejoined us and we casually returned to the vicinity of our tall friend, Number 140, for whom I felt even less respect than ever after his apparently ungallant action toward the lady he had been talking with. He seemed to notice my attitude and he remarked defensively for my benefit, "Only a patriotic act." His inspector by this time had finished a most minute examination. There was nothing that could be discovered, not a false book with a secret spring that might disclose instead of reading matter a heap of almost priceless jewels, not a suspicious bulging of any garment or of the lining of a trunk or grip. Some of the goods might have been on his person, but not much, and certainly there was no excuse for ordering a personal examination, for he could not have hidden a tenth part of what we knew he had, even under the proverbial porous plaster. He was impeccable. Accordingly there was nothing for the inspector to do but to declare a polite armistice. "So you didn't find 'Mona Lisa' in a false bottom, and my trunks were not lined with smuggled cigars after all," he rasped savagely as the stamp "Passed" was at last affixed and he paid in cash at the little window with its sign, "Pay Duty Here: U. S. Custom House," some hundred dollars instead of the thousands Herndon had been hoping to collect, if not to seize. All through the inspection, an extra close scrutiny had been kept on the other passengers as well, to prevent any of them from being in league with the smugglers, though there was no direct or indirect evidence to show that any of the others were. We were about to leave the wharf, also, when Craig's attention was called to a stack of trunks still remaining. "Whose are those?" he asked as he lifted one. It felt suspiciously light. "Some of them belong to a Mr. Pierre and the rest to a Miss Gabrielle," answered an inspector. "Bonded for Troy and waiting to be transferred by the express company." Here, perhaps, at last was an explanation, and Craig took advantage of it. Could it be that the real seat of trouble was not here but at some other place, that some exchange was to be made en route or perhaps an attempt at bribery? Herndon, too, was willing to run a risk. He ordered the trunks opened immediately. But to our disappointment they were almost empty. There was scarcely a thing of value in them. Most of the contents consisted of clothes that had plainly been made in America and were being brought back here. It was another false scent. We had been played with and baffled at every turn. Perhaps this had been the method originally agreed on. At any rate it had been changed. "Could they have left the goods in Paris, after all?" I queried. "With the fall and winter trade just coming on?" Kennedy replied, with an air of finality that set at rest any doubts about his opinion on that score. "I thought perhaps we had a case of--what do you call it, Herndon, when they leave trunks that are to be secretly removed by dishonest expressmen from the wharf at night?" "'Sleepers.' Oh, we've broken that up, too. No expressman would dare try it now. I must confess this thing is beyond me, Craig." Kennedy made no answer. Evidently there was nothing to do but to await developments and see what Herndon's men reported. We had been beaten at every turn in the game. Herndon seemed to feel that there was a bitter sting in the defeat, particularly because the smuggler or smugglers had actually been in our grasp so long to do with as we pleased, and had so cleverly slipped out again, leaving us holding the bag. Kennedy was especially thoughtful as he told over the facts of the case in his mind. "Of course," he remarked, "Mademoiselle Gabrielle wasn't an actress. But we can't deny that she had very little that would justify Herndon in holding her, unless he simply wants a newspaper row." "But I thought Pierre was quite intimate with her at first," I ventured. "That was a dirty trick of his." Craig laughed. "You mean an old one. That was simply a blind, to divert attention from himself. I suspect they talked that over between themselves for days before." It was plainly more perplexing than ever. What had happened? Had Pierre been a prestidigitator and had he merely said presto! when our backs were turned and whisked the goods invisibly into the country? I could find no explanation for the little drama on the pier. If Herndon's men had any genius in detecting smuggling, their professional opponent certainly had greater genius in perpetrating it. We did not see Herndon again until after a hasty luncheon. He was in his office and inclined to take a pessimistic view of the whole affair. He brightened up when a telephone message came in from one of his shadows. The men trailing Pierre and Mademoiselle Gabrielle had crossed trails and run together at a little French restaurant on the lower West Side, where Pierre, Lang, and Mademoiselle Gabrielle had met and were dining in a most friendly spirit. Kennedy was right. She had been merely a cog in the machinery of the plot. The man reported that even when a newsboy had been sent in by him with the afternoon papers displaying in big headlines the mystery of the death of Mademoiselle Violette, they had paid no attention. It seemed evident that whatever the fate of the modiste, Mademoiselle Gabrielle had quite replaced her in the affections of Pierre. There was nothing for us to do but to separate and await developments. It was late in the afternoon when Craig and I received a hurried message from Herndon. One of his men had just called him up over long distance from Riverledge. The party had left the restaurant hurriedly, and though they had taken the only taxicab in sight he had been able to follow them in time to find out that they were going up to Riverledge. They were now preparing to go out for a sail in one of Lang's motor-boats and he would be unable, of course, to follow them further. For the remainder of the afternoon Kennedy remained pondering the case. At last an idea seemed to dawn on him. He found Herndon still at his office and made an appointment to meet on the waterfront near La Montaigne's pier, after dinner. The change in Kennedy's spirits was obvious, though it did not in the least enlighten my curiosity. Even after a dinner which was lengthened out considerably, I thought, I did not get appreciably nearer a solution, for we strolled over to the laboratory, where Craig loaded me down with a huge package which was wrapped up in heavy paper. We arrived on the corner opposite the wharf just as it was growing dusk. The neighbourhood did not appeal to me at night, and even though there were two of us I was rather glad when we met Herndon, who was waiting in the shadow of a fruit stall. But instead of proceeding across to the pier by the side of which La Montaigne was moored, we cut across the wide street and turned down the next pier, where a couple of freighters were lying. The odour of salt water, sewage, rotting wood, and the night air was not inspiring. Nevertheless I was now carried away with the strangeness of our adventure. Halfway down the pier Kennedy paused before one of the gangways that was shrouded in darkness. The door was opened and we followed gingerly across the dirty deck of the freight ship. Below we could hear the water lapping the piles of the pier. Across a dark abyss lay the grim monster La Montaigne with here and there a light gleaming on one of her decks. The sounds of the city seemed miles away. "What a fine place for a murder," laughed Kennedy coolly. He was unwrapping the package which he had taken from me. It proved to be a huge reflector in front of which was placed a little arrangement which, under the light of a shaded lantern carried by Herndon, looked like a coil of wire of some kind. To the back of the reflector Craig attached two other flexible wires which led to a couple of dry cells and a cylinder with a broadened end, made of vulcanised rubber. It might have been a telephone receiver, for all I could tell in the darkness. While I was still speculating on the possible use of the enormous parabolic reflector, a slight commotion on the opposite side of the pier distracted my attention. A ship was coming in and was being carefully and quietly berthed alongside the other big iron freighter on that side. Herndon had left us. "The Mohican is here," he remarked as he rejoined us. To my look of inquiry he added, "The revenue cutter." Kennedy had now finished and had pointed the reflector full at La Montaigne. With a whispered hasty word of caution and advice to Herndon, he drew me along with him down the wharf again. At the little door which was cut in the barrier guarding the shore end of La Montaigne's wharf Kennedy stopped. The customs service night watchman--there is always a watchman of some kind aboard every ship, passenger or freighter, all the time she is in port--seemed to understand, for he admitted us after a word with Kennedy. Threading our way carefully among the boxes, and bales, and crates which were piled high, we proceeded down the wharf. Under the electric lights the longshoremen were working feverishly, for the unloading and loading of a giant trans-Atlantic vessel in the rush season is a long and tedious process at best, requiring night work and overtime, for every moment, like every cubic foot of space, counts. Once within the door, however, no one paid much attention to us. They seemed to take it for granted that we had some right there. We boarded the ship by one of the many entrances and then proceeded down to a deck where apparently no one was working. It was more like a great house than a ship, I felt, and I wondered whether Kennedy's search was not more of a hunt for a needle in a haystack than anything else. Yet he seemed to know what he was after. We had descended to what I imagined must be the quarters of the steward. About us were many large cases and chests, stacked up and marked as belonging to the ship. Kennedy's attention was attracted to them immediately. All at once it flashed on me what his purpose was. In some of those cases were the smuggled goods! Before I could say a word and before Kennedy had a chance even to try to verify his suspicions, a sudden approach of footsteps startled us. He drew me into a cabin or room full of shelves with ship's stores. "Why didn't you bring Herndon over and break into the boxes, if you think the stuff is hidden in one of them?" I whispered. "And let those higher up escape while their tools take all the blame?" he answered. "Sh-h." The men who had come into the compartment looked about as if expecting to see some one. "Two of them came down," a gruff voice said. "Where are they?" From the noise I inferred that there must be four or five men, and from the ease with which they shifted the cases about some of them must have been pretty husky stevedores. "I don't know," a more polished but unfamiliar voice answered. The door to our hiding-place was opened roughly and then banged shut before we realised it. With a taunting laugh, some one turned a key in the lock and before we could move a quick shift of packing cases against the door made escape impossible. Here we were marooned, shanghaied, as it were, within sight if not call of Herndon and our friends. We had run up against professional smugglers, of whom I had vaguely read, disguised as stewards, deckhands, stokers, and other workers. The only other opening to the cabin was a sort of porthole, more for ventilation than anything else. Kennedy stuck his head through it, but it was impossible for a man to squeeze out. There was one of the lower decks directly before us while a bright arc light gleamed tantalisingly over it, throwing a round circle of light into our prison. I reflected bitterly on our shipwreck within sight of port. Kennedy remained silent, and I did not know what was working in his mind. Together we made out the outline of the freighter at the next wharf and speculated as to the location where we had left Herndon with the huge reflector. There was no moon and it was as black as ink in that direction, but if we could have got out I would have trusted to luck to reach it by swimming. Below us, from the restless water lapping on the sides of the hulk of La Montaigne, we could now hear muffled sounds. It was a motor-boat which had come crawling up the river front, with lights extinguished, and had pushed a cautious nose into the slip where our ship lay at the quay. None of your romantic low-lying, rakish craft of the old smuggling yarns was this, ready for deeds of desperation in the dark hours of midnight. It was just a modern little motor-boat, up-to-date, and swift. "Perhaps we'll get out of this finally," I grumbled as I understood now what was afoot, "but not in time to be of any use." A smothered sound as of something going over the vessel's side followed. It was one of the boxes which we had seen outside in the storeroom. Another followed, and a third and a fourth. Then came a subdued parley. "We have two customs detectives locked in a cabin here. We can't stay now. You'll have to take us and our things off, too." "Can't do it," called up another muffled voice. "Make your things into a little bundle. We'll take that, but you'll have to get past the nightwatchman yourselves and meet us at Riverledge." A moment later something else went over the side, and from the sound we could infer that the engine of the motor-boat was being started. A voice sounded mockingly outside our door. "Bon soir, you fellows in there. We're going up the dock. Sorry to leave you here till morning, but they'll let you out then. Au revoir." Below I could hear just the faintest well-muffled chug-chug. Kennedy in the meantime had been coolly craning his neck out of our porthole under the rays of the arc light overhead. He was holding something in his hand. It seemed like a little silver-backed piece of thin glass with a flaring funnel-like thing back of it, which he held most particularly. Though he heard the parting taunt outside he paid no attention. "You go to the deuce, whoever you are," I cried, beating on the door, to which only a coarse laugh echoed back down the passageway. "Be quiet, Walter," ordered Kennedy. "We have located the smuggled goods in the storeroom of the steward, four wooden cases of them. I think the stuff must have been brought on the ship in the trunks and then transferred to the cases, perhaps after the code wireless message was received. But we have been overpowered and locked in a cabin with a port too small to crawl through. The cases have been lowered over the side of the ship to a motor-boat that was waiting below. The lights on the boat are out, but if you hurry you can get it. The accomplices who locked us in are going to disappear up the wharf. If you could only get the night watchman quickly enough you could catch them, too, before they reach the street." I had turned, half expecting to see Kennedy talking to a ship's officer who might have chanced on the deck outside. There was no one. The only thing of life was the still sputtering arc light. Had the man gone crazy? "What of it?" I growled. "Don't you suppose I know all that? What's the use of repeating it now? The thing to do is to get out of this hole. Come, help me at this door. Maybe we can batter it down." Kennedy paid no attention to me, however, but kept his eyes glued on the Cimmerian blackness outside the porthole. He had done nothing apparently, yet a long finger of light seemed to shoot out into the sky from the pier across from us and begin waving back and forth as it was lowered to the dark waters of the river. It was a searchlight. At once I thought of the huge reflector which I had seen set up. But that had been on our side of the next pier and this light came from the far side where the Mohican lay. "What is it?" I asked eagerly. "What has happened?" It was as if a prayer had been answered from our dungeon on La Montaigne. "I knew we should need some means to communicate with Herndon," he explained simply, "and the wireless telephone wasn't practicable. So I have used Dr. Alexander Graham Bell's photophone. Any of the lights on this side of La Montaigne, I knew, would serve. What I did, Walter, was merely to talk into the mouthpiece back of this little silvered mirror which reflects light. The vibrations of the voice caused a diaphragm in it to vibrate and thus the beam of reflected light was made to pulsate. In other words, this little thing is just a simple apparatus to transform the air vibrations of the voice into light vibrations. "The parabolic reflector over there catches these light vibrations and focuses them on the cell of selenium which you perhaps noticed in the centre of the reflector. You remember doubtless that the element selenium varies its electrical resistance under light? Thus there are reproduced similar variations in the cell to those vibrations here in this transmitter. The cell is connected with a telephone receiver and batteries over there--and there you are. It is very simple. In the ordinary carbon telephone transmitter a variable electrical resistance is produced by pressure, since carbon is not so good a conductor under pressure. Then these variations are transmitted along two wires. This photophone is wireless. Selenium even emits notes under a vibratory beam of light, the pitch depending on the frequency. Changes in the intensity of the light focused by the reflector on the cell alter its electrical resistance and vary the current from the dry batteries. Hence the telephone receiver over there is affected. Bell used the photophone or radiophone over several hundred feet, Ruhmer over several miles. When you thought I was talking to myself I was really telling Herndon what had happened and what to do--talking to him literally over a beam of light." I could scarcely believe it, but an exclamation from Kennedy as he drew his head in quickly recalled my attention. "Look out on the river, Walter," he cried. "The Mohican has her searchlight sweeping up and down. What do you see?" The long finger of light had now come to rest. In its pathway I saw a lightless motor-boat bobbing up and down, crowding on all speed, yet followed relentlessly by the accusing finger. The river front was now alive with shouting. Suddenly the Mohican shot out from behind the pier where she had been hidden. In spite of Lang's expertness it was an unequal race. Nor would it have made much difference if it had been otherwise, for a shot rang out from the Mohican which commanded instant respect. The powerful revenue cutter rapidly overhauled the little craft. A hurried tread down the passageway followed. Cases were being shoved aside and a key in the door of our compartment turned quickly. I waited with clenched fists, prepared for an attack. "You're all right?" Herndon's voice inquired anxiously. "We've got that steward and the other fellows all right." "Yes, come on," shouted Craig. "The cutter has made a capture." We had reached the stern of the ship, and far out in the river the Mohican was now headed toward us. She came alongside, and Herndon quickly seized a rope, fastened it to the rail, and let himself down to the deck of the cutter. Kennedy and I followed. "This is a high-handed proceeding," I heard a voice that must have been Lang's protesting. "By what right do you stop me? You shall suffer for this." "The Mohican," broke in Herndon, "has the right to appear anywhere from Southshoal Lightship off Nantucket to the capes of the Delaware, demand an inspection of any vessel's manifest and papers, board anything from La Montaigne to your little motor-boat, inspect it, seize it, if necessary put a crew on it." He slapped the little cannon. "That commands respect. Besides, you were violating the regulations--no lights." On the deck of the cutter now lay four cases. A man broke one of them open, then another. Inside he disclosed thousands of dollars' worth of finery, while from a tray he drew several large chamois bags of glittering diamonds and pearls. Pierre looked on, crushed, all his jauntiness gone. "So," exclaimed Kennedy, facing him, "you have your jilted fiancee, Mademoiselle Violette, to thank for this--her letters and her suicide. It wasn't as easy as you thought to throw her over for a new soul mate, this Mademoiselle Gabrielle whom you were going to set up as a rival in business to Violette. Violette has her revenge for making a plaything of her heart, and if the dead can take any satisfaction she--" With a quick movement Kennedy anticipated a motion of Pierre's. The ruined smuggler had contemplated either an attack on himself or his captor, but Craig had seized him by the wrist and ground his knuckles into the back of Pierre's clenched fist until he winced with pain. An Apache dagger similar to that which the little modiste had used to end her life tragedy clattered to the deck of the ship, a mute testimonial to the high class of society Pierre and his associates must have cultivated. "None of that, Pierre," Craig muttered, releasing him. "You can't cheat the government out of its just dues even in the matter of punishment." XI THE INVISIBLE RAY "I won't deny that I had some expectations from the old man myself." Kennedy's client was speaking in a low, full-chested, vibrating voice, with some emotion, so low that I had entered the room without being aware that any one was there until it was too late to retreat. "As his physician for over twelve years," the man pursued, "I certainly had been led to hope to be remembered in his will. But, Professor Kennedy, I can't put it too strongly when I say that there is no selfish motive in my coming to you about the case. There is something wrong--depend on that." Craig had glanced up at me and, as I hesitated, I could see in an instant that the speaker was a practitioner of a type that is rapidly passing away, the old-fashioned family doctor. "Dr. Burnham, I should like to have you know Mr. Jameson," introduced Craig. "You can talk as freely before him as you have to me alone. We always work together." I shook hands with the visitor. "The doctor has succeeded in interesting me greatly in a case which has some unique features," Kennedy explained. "It has to do with Stephen Haswell, the eccentric old millionaire of Brooklyn. Have you ever heard of him?" "Yes, indeed," I replied, recalling an occasional article which had appeared in the newspapers regarding a dusty and dirty old house in that part of the Heights in Brooklyn whence all that is fashionable had not yet taken flight, a house of mystery, yet not more mysterious than its owner in his secretive comings and goings in the affairs of men of a generation beyond his time. Further than the facts that he was reputed to be very wealthy and led, in the heart of a great city, what was as nearly like the life of a hermit as possible, I knew little or nothing. "What has he been doing now?" I asked. "About a week ago," repeated the doctor, in answer to a nod of encouragement from Kennedy, "I was summoned in the middle of the night to attend Mr. Haswell, who, as I have been telling Professor Kennedy, had been a patient of mine for over twelve years. He had been suddenly stricken with total blindness. Since then he appears to be failing fast, that is, he appeared so the last time I saw him, a few days ago, after I had been superseded by a younger man. It is a curious case and I have thought about it a great deal. But I didn't like to speak to the authorities; there wasn't enough to warrant that, and I should have been laughed out of court for my pains. The more I have thought about it, however, the more I have felt it my duty to say something to somebody, and so, having heard of Professor Kennedy, I decided to consult him. The fact of the matter is, I very much fear that there are circumstances which will bear sharp looking into, perhaps a scheme to get control of the old man's fortune." The doctor paused, and Craig inclined his head, as much as to signify his appreciation of the delicate position in which Burnham stood in the case. Before the doctor could proceed further, Kennedy handed me a letter which had been lying before him on the table. It had evidently been torn into small pieces and then carefully pasted together. The superscription gave a small town in Ohio and a date about a fortnight previous. Dear Father [it read]: I hope you will pardon me for writing, but I cannot let the occasion of your seventy-fifth birthday pass without a word of affection and congratulation. I am alive and well--Time has dealt leniently with me in that respect, if not in money matters. I do not say this in the hope of reconciling you to me. I know that is impossible after all these cruel years. But I do wish that I could see you again. Remember, I am your only child and even if you still think I have been a foolish one, please let me come to see you once before it is too late. We are constantly travelling from place to place, but shall be here for a few days. Your loving daughter, GRACE HASWELL MARTIN. "Some fourteen or fifteen years ago," explained the doctor as I looked up from reading the note, "Mr. Haswell's only daughter eloped with an artist named Martin. He had been engaged to paint a portrait of the late Mrs. Haswell from a photograph. It was the first time that Grace Haswell had ever been able to find expression for the artistic yearning which had always been repressed by the cold, practical sense of her father. She remembered her mother perfectly since the sad bereavement of her girlhood and naturally she watched and helped the artist eagerly. The result was a portrait which might well have been painted from the subject herself rather than from a cold photograph. "Haswell saw the growing intimacy of his daughter and the artist. His bent of mind was solely toward money and material things, and he at once conceived a bitter and unreasoning hatred for Martin, who, he believed, had 'schemed' to capture his daughter and an easy living. Art was as foreign to his nature as possible. Nevertheless they went ahead and married, and, well, it resulted in the old man disinheriting the girl. The young couple disappeared bravely to make their way by their chosen profession and, as far as I know, have never been heard from since until now. Haswell made a new will and I have always understood that practically all of his fortune is to be devoted to founding the technology department in a projected university of Brooklyn." "You have never seen this Mrs. Martin or her husband?" asked Kennedy. "No, never. But in some way she must have learned that I had some influence with her father, for she wrote to me not long ago, enclosing a note for him and asking me to intercede for her. I did so. I took the letter to him as diplomatically as I could. The old man flew into a towering rage, refused even to look at the letter, tore it up into bits, and ordered me never to mention the subject to him again. That is her note, which I saved. However, it is the sequel about which I wish your help." The physician folded up the patched letter carefully before he continued. "Mr. Haswell, as you perhaps know, has for many years been a prominent figure in various curious speculations, or rather in loaning money to many curious speculators. It is not necessary to go into the different schemes which he has helped to finance. Even though most of them have been unknown to the public they have certainly given him such a reputation that he is much sought after by inventors. "Not long ago Haswell became interested in the work of an obscure chemist over in Brooklyn, Morgan Prescott. Prescott claims, as I understand, to be able to transmute copper into gold. Whatever you think of it offhand, you should visit his laboratory yourselves, gentlemen. I am told it is wonderful, though I have never seen it and can't explain it. I have met Prescott several times while he was trying to persuade Mr. Haswell to back him in his scheme, but he was never disposed to talk to me, for I had no money to invest. So far as I know about it the thing sounds scientific and plausible enough. I leave you to judge of that. It is only an incident in my story and I will pass over it quickly. Prescott, then, believes that the elements are merely progressive variations of an original substance or base called 'protyle,' from which everything is derived. But this fellow Prescott goes much further than any of the former theorists. He does not stop with matter. He believes that he has the secret of life also, that he can make the transition from the inorganic to the organic, from inert matter to living protoplasm, and thence from living protoplasm to mind and what we call soul, whatever that may be." "And here is where the weird and uncanny part of it comes in," commented Craig, turning from the doctor to me to call my attention particularly to what was about to follow. "Having arrived at the point where he asserts that he can create and destroy matter, life, and mind," continued the doctor, as if himself fascinated by the idea, "Prescott very naturally does not have to go far before he also claims a control over telepathy and even a communication with the dead. He even calls the messages which he receives by a word which he has coined himself, 'telepagrams.' Thus he says he has unified the physical, the physiological, and the psychical--a system of absolute scientific monism." The doctor paused again, then resumed. "One afternoon, about a week ago, apparently, as far as I am able to piece together the story, Prescott was demonstrating his marvellous discovery of the unity of nature. Suddenly he faced Mr. Haswell. "'Shall I tell you a fact, sir, about yourself?' he asked quickly. 'The truth as I see it by means of my wonderful invention? If it is the truth, will you believe in me? Will you put money into my invention? Will you share in becoming fabulously rich?' "Haswell made some noncommittal answer. But Prescott seemed to look into the machine through a very thick plate-glass window, with Haswell placed directly before it. He gave a cry. 'Mr. Haswell,' he exclaimed, 'I regret to tell you what I see. You have disinherited your daughter; she has passed out of your life and at the present moment you do not know where she is.' "'That's true,' replied the old man bitterly, 'and more than that I don't care. Is that all you see? That's nothing new.' "'No, unfortunately, that is not all I see. Can you bear something further? I think you ought to know it. I have here a most mysterious telepagram.' "'Yes. What is it? Is she dead?' "'No, it is not about her. It is about yourself. To-night at midnight or perhaps a little later,' repeated Prescott solemnly, 'you will lose your sight as a punishment for your action.' "'Pouf!' exclaimed the old man in a dudgeon, 'if that is all your invention can tell me, good-bye. You told me you were able to make gold. Instead, you make foolish prophecies. I'll put no money into such tomfoolery. I'm a practical man,' and with that he stamped out of the laboratory. "Well, that night, about one o'clock, in the silence of the lonely old house, the aged caretaker, Jane, whom he had hired after he banished his daughter from his life, heard a wild shout of 'Help! Help!' Haswell, alone in his room on the second floor, was groping about in the dark. "'Jane,' he ordered, 'a light--a light.' "'I have lighted the gas, Mr. Haswell,' she cried. "A groan followed. He had himself found a match, had struck it, had even burnt his fingers with it, yet he saw nothing. "The blow had fallen. At almost the very hour which Prescott, by means of his weird telepagram had predicted, old Haswell was stricken. "'I'm blind,' he gasped. 'Send for Dr. Burnham.' "I went to him immediately when the maid roused me, but there was nothing I could do except prescribe perfect rest for his eyes and keeping in a dark room in the hope that his sight might be restored as suddenly and miraculously as it had been taken away. "The next morning, with his own hand, trembling and scrawling in his blindness, he wrote the following on a piece of paper: "'MRS. GRACE MARTIN.--Information wanted about the present whereabouts of Mrs. Grace Martin, formerly Grace Haswell of Brooklyn." STEPHEN HASWELL,----Pierrepont St., Brooklyn. "This advertisement he caused to be placed in all the New York papers and to be wired to the leading Western papers. Haswell himself was a changed man after his experience. He spoke bitterly of Prescott, yet his attitude toward his daughter was completely reversed. Whether he admitted to himself a belief in the prediction of the inventor, I do not know. Certainly he scouted such an idea in telling me about it. "A day or two after the advertisements appeared a telegram came to the old man from a little town in Indiana. It read simply: 'Dear Father: Am starting for Brooklyn to-day. Grace.' "The upshot was that Grace Haswell, or rather Grace Martin, appeared the next day, forgave and was forgiven with much weeping, although the old man still refused resolutely to be reconciled with and receive her husband. Mrs. Martin started in to clean up the old house. A vacuum cleaner sucked a ton or two of dust from it. Everything was changed. Jane grumbled a great deal, but there was no doubt a great improvement. Meals were served regularly. The old man was taken care of as never before. Nothing was too good for him. Everywhere the touch of a woman was evident in the house. The change was complete. It even extended to me. Some friend had told her of an eye and ear specialist, a Dr. Scott, who was engaged. Since then, I understand, a new will has been made, much to the chagrin of the trustees of the projected school. Of course I am cut out of the new will, and that with the knowledge at least of the woman who once appealed to me, but it does not influence me in coming to you." "But what has happened since to arouse suspicion?" asked Kennedy, watching the doctor furtively. "Why, the fact is that, in spite of all this added care, the old man is failing more rapidly than ever. He never goes out except attended and not much even then. The other day I happened to meet Jane on the street. The faithful old soul poured forth a long story about his growing dependence on others and ended by mentioning a curious red discoloration that seems to have broken out over his face and hands. More from the way she said it than from what she said I gained the impression that something was going on which should be looked into." "Then you perhaps think that Prescott and Mrs. Martin are in some way connected in this case?" I hazarded. I had scarcely framed the question before he replied in an emphatic negative. "On the contrary, it seems to me that if they know each other at all it is with hostility. With the exception of the first stroke of blindness"--here he lowered his voice earnestly--"practically every misfortune that has overtaken Mr. Haswell has been since the advent of this new Dr. Scott. Mind, I do not wish even to breathe that Mrs. Martin has done anything except what a daughter should do. I think she has shown herself a model of forgiveness and devotion. Nevertheless the turn of events under the new treatment has been so strange that almost it makes one believe that there might be something occult about it--or wrong with the new doctor." "Would it be possible, do you think, for us to see Mr. Haswell?" asked Kennedy, when Dr. Burnham had come to a full stop after pouring forth his suspicions. "I should like to see this Dr. Scott. But first I should like to get into the old house without exciting hostility." The doctor was thoughtful. "You'll have to arrange that yourself," he answered. "Can't you think up a scheme? For instance, go to him with a proposal like the old schemes he used to finance. He is very much interested in electrical inventions. He made his money by speculation in telegraphs and telephones in the early days when they were more or less dreams. I should think a wireless system of television might at least interest him and furnish an excuse for getting in, although I am told his daughter discourages all tangible investment in the schemes that used to interest his active mind." "An excellent idea," exclaimed Kennedy. "It is worth trying anyway. It is still early. Suppose we ride over to Brooklyn with you. You can direct us to the house and we'll try to see him." It was still light when we mounted the high steps of the house of mystery across the bridge. Mrs. Martin, who met us in the parlour, proved to be a stunning looking woman with brown hair and beautiful dark eyes. As far as we could see the old house plainly showed the change. The furniture and ornaments were of a period long past, but everything was scrupulously neat. Hanging over the old marble mantel was a painting which quite evidently was that of the long since deceased Mrs. Haswell, the mother of Grace. In spite of the hideous style of dress of the period after the war, she had evidently been a very beautiful woman with large masses of light chestnut hair and blue eyes which the painter had succeeded in catching with almost life-likeness for a portrait. It took only a few minutes for Kennedy, in his most engaging and plausible manner, to state the hypothetical reason of our call. Though it was perfectly self-evident from the start that Mrs. Martin would throw cold water on anything requiring an outlay of money Craig accomplished his full purpose of securing an interview with Mr. Haswell. The invalid lay propped up in bed, and as we entered he heard us and turned his sightless eyes in our direction almost as if he saw. Kennedy had hardly begun to repeat and elaborate the story which he had already told regarding his mythical friend who had at last a commercial wireless "televue," as he called it on the spur of the moment, when Jane, the aged caretaker, announced Dr. Scott. The new doctor was a youthfully dressed man, clean-shaven, but with an undefinable air of being much older than his smooth face led one to suppose. As he had a large practice, he said, he would beg our pardon for interrupting but would not take long. It needed no great powers of observation to see that the old man placed great reliance on his new doctor and that the visit partook of a social as well as a professional nature. Although they talked low we could catch now and then a word or phrase. Dr. Scott bent down and examined the eyes of his patient casually. It was difficult to believe that they saw nothing, so bright was the blue of the iris. "Perfect rest for the present," the doctor directed, talking more to Mrs. Martin than to the old man. "Perfect rest, and then when his health is good, we shall see what can be done with that cataract." He was about to leave, when the old man reached up and restrained him, taking hold of the doctor's wrist tightly, as if to pull him nearer in order to whisper to him without being overheard. Kennedy was sitting in a chair near the head of the bed, some feet away, as the doctor leaned down. Haswell, still holding his wrist, pulled him closer. I could not hear what was said, though somehow I had an impression that they were talking about Prescott, for it would not have been at all strange if the old man had been greatly impressed by the alchemist. Kennedy, I noticed, had pulled an old envelope from his pocket and was apparently engaged in jotting down some notes, glancing now and then from his writing to the doctor and then to Mr. Haswell. The doctor stood erect in a few moments and rubbed his wrist thoughtfully with the other hand, as if it hurt. At the same time he smiled on Mrs. Martin. "Your father has a good deal of strength yet, Mrs. Martin," he remarked. "He has a wonderful constitution. I feel sure that we can pull him out of this and that he has many, many years to live." Mr. Haswell, who caught the words eagerly, brightened visibly, and the doctor passed out. Kennedy resumed his description of the supposed wireless picture apparatus which was to revolutionise the newspaper, the theatre, and daily life in general. The old man did not seem enthusiastic and turned to his daughter with some remark. "Just at present," commented the daughter, with an air of finality, "the only thing my father is much interested in is a way in which to recover his sight without an operation. He has just had a rather unpleasant experience with one inventor. I think it will be some time before he cares to embark in any other such schemes." Kennedy and I excused ourselves with appropriate remarks of disappointment. From his preoccupied manner it was impossible for me to guess whether Craig had accomplished his purpose or not. "Let us drop in on Dr. Burnham since we are over here," he said when we had reached the street. "I have some questions to ask him." The former physician of Mr. Haswell lived not very far from the house we had just left. He appeared a little surprised to see us so soon, but very interested in what had taken place. "Who is this Dr. Scott?" asked Craig when we were seated in the comfortable leather chairs of the old-fashioned consulting-room. "Really, I know no more about him than you do," replied Burnham. I thought I detected a little of professional jealousy in his tone, though he went on frankly enough, "I have made inquiries and I can find out nothing except that he is supposed to be a graduate of some Western medical school and came to this city only a short time ago. He has hired a small office in a new building devoted entirely to doctors and they tell me that he is an eye and ear specialist, though I cannot see that he has any practice. Beyond that I know nothing about him." "Your friend Prescott interests me, too," remarked Kennedy, changing the subject quickly. "Oh, he is no friend of mine," returned the doctor, fumbling in a drawer of his desk. "But I think I have one of his cards here which he gave me when we were introduced some time ago at Mr. Haswell's. I should think it would be worth while to see him. Although he has no use for me because I have neither money nor influence, still you might take this card. Tell him you are from the university, that I have interested you in him, that you know a trustee with money to invest--anything you like that is plausible. When are you going to see him?" "The first thing in the morning," replied Kennedy. "After I have seen him I shall drop in for another chat with you. Will you be here?" The doctor promised, and we took our departure. Prescott's laboratory, which we found the next day from the address on the card, proved to be situated in one of the streets near the waterfront under the bridge approach, where the factories and warehouses clustered thickly. It was with a great deal of anticipation of seeing something happen that we threaded our way through the maze of streets with the cobweb structure of the bridge carrying its endless succession of cars arching high over our heads. We had nearly reached the place when Kennedy paused and pulled out two pairs of glasses, those huge round tortoiseshell affairs. "You needn't mind these, Walter," he explained. "They are only plain glass, that is, not ground. You can see through them as well as through air. We must be careful not to excite suspicion. Perhaps a disguise might have been better, but I think this will do. There--they add at least a decade to your age. If you could see yourself you wouldn't speak to your reflection. You look as scholarly as a Chinese mandarin. Remember, let me do the talking and do just as I do." We had now entered the shop, stumbled up the dark stairs, and presented Dr. Burnham's card with a word of explanation along the lines which he had suggested. Prescott, surrounded by his retorts, crucibles, burettes, and condensers, received us much more graciously than I had had any reason to anticipate. He was a man in the late forties, his face covered with a thick beard, and his eyes, which seemed a little weak, were helped out with glasses almost as scholarly as ours. I could not help thinking that we three bespectacled figures lacked only the flowing robes to be taken for a group of mediaeval alchemists set down a few centuries out of our time in the murky light of Prescott's sanctum. Yet, though he accepted us at our face value, and began to talk of his strange discoveries there was none of the old familiar prating about matrix and flux, elixir, magisterium, magnum opus, the mastery and the quintessence, those alternate names for the philosopher's stone which Paracelsus, Simon Forman, Jerome Cardan, and the other mediaeval worthies indulged in. This experience at least was as up-to-date as the Curies, Becquerel, Ramsay, and the rest. "Transmutation," remarked Prescott, "was, as you know, finally declared to be a scientific absurdity in the eighteenth century. But I may say that it is no longer so regarded. I do not ask you to believe anything until you have seen; all I ask is that you maintain the same open mind which the most progressive scientists of to-day exhibit in regard to the subject." Kennedy had seated himself some distance from a curious piece or rather collection of apparatus over which Prescott was working. It consisted of numerous coils and tubes. "It may seem strange to you, gentlemen," Prescott proceeded, "that a man who is able to produce gold from, say, copper should be seeking capital from other people. My best answer to that old objection is that I am not seeking capital, as such. The situation with me is simply this. Twice I have applied to the patent office for a patent on my invention. They not only refuse to grant it, but they refuse to consider the application or even to give me a chance to demonstrate my process to them. On the other hand, suppose I try this thing secretly. How can I prevent any one from learning my trade secret, leaving me, and making gold on his own account? Men will desert as fast as I educate them. Think of the economic result of that; it would turn the world topsy-turvy. I am looking for some one who can be trusted to the last limit to join with me, furnish the influence and standing while I furnish the brains and the invention. Either we must get the government interested and sell the invention to it, or we must get government protection and special legislation. I am not seeking capital; I am seeking protection. First let me show you something." He turned a switch, and a part of the collection of apparatus began to vibrate. "You are undoubtedly acquainted with the modern theories of matter," he began, plunging into the explanation of his process. "Starting with the atom, we believe no longer that it is indivisible. Atoms are composed of thousands of ions, as they are called,--really little electric charges. Again, you know that we have found that all the elements fall into groups. Each group has certain related atomic weights and properties which can be and have been predicted in advance of the discovery of missing elements in the group. I started with the reasonable assumption that the atom of one element in a group could be modified so as to become the atom of another element in the group, that one group could perhaps be transformed into another, and so on, if only I knew the force that would change the number or modify the vibrations of these ions composing the various atoms. "Now for years I have been seeking that force or combination of forces that would enable me to produce this change in the elements--raising or lowering them in the scale, so to speak. I have found it. I am not going to tell you or any other man whom you may interest the secret of how it is done until I find some one I can trust as I trust myself. But I am none the less willing that you should see the results. If they are not convincing, then nothing can be." He appeared to be debating whether to explain further, and finally resumed: "Matter thus being in reality a manifestation of force or ether in motion, it is necessary to change and control that force and motion. This assemblage of machines here is for that purpose. Now a few words as to my theory." He took a pencil and struck a sharp blow on the table. "There you have a single blow," he said, "just one isolated noise. Now if I strike this tuning fork you have a vibrating note. In other words, a succession of blows or wave vibrations of a certain kind affects the ear and we call it sound, just as a succession of other wave vibrations affects the retina and we have sight. If a moving picture moves slower than a certain number of pictures a minute you see the separate pictures; faster it is one moving picture. "Now as we increase the rapidity of wave vibration and decrease the wave length we pass from sound waves to heat waves or what are known as the infra-red waves, those which lie below the red in the spectrum of light. Next we come to light, which is composed of the seven colours as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. After that are what are known as the ultra-violet rays, which lie beyond the violet of white light. We also have electric waves, the waves of the alternating current, and shorter still we find the Hertzian waves, which are used in wireless. We have only begun to know of X-rays and the alpha, beta, and gamma rays from them, of radium, radioactivity, and finally of this new force which I have discovered and call 'protodyne,' the original force. "In short, we find in the universe Matter, Force, and Ether. Matter is simply ether in motion, is composed of corpuscles, electrically charged ions, or electrons, moving units of negative electricity about one one-thousandth part of the hydrogen atom. Matter is made up of electricity and nothing but electricity. Let us see what that leads to. You are acquainted with Mendeleeff's periodic table?" He drew forth a huge chart on which all the eighty or so elements were arranged in eight groups or octaves and twelve series. Selecting one, he placed his finger on the letters "Au," under which was written the number, 197.2. I wondered what the mystic letters and figures meant. "That," he explained, "is the scientific name for the element gold and the figure is its atomic weight. You will see," he added, pointing down the second vertical column on the chart, "that gold belongs to the hydrogen group--hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium, copper, rubidium, silver, caesium, then two blank spaces for elements yet to be discovered to science, then gold, and finally another unknown element." Running his finger along the eleventh, horizontal series, he, continued: "The gold series--not the group--reads gold, mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, and other elements known only to myself. For the known elements, however, these groups and series are now perfectly recognised by all scientists; they are determined by the fixed weight of the atom, and there is a close approximation to regularity. "This twelfth series is interesting. So far only radium, thorium, and uranium are generally known. We know that the radioactive elements are constantly breaking down, and one often hears uranium, for instance, called the 'parent' of radium. Radium also gives off an emanation, and among its products is helium, quite another element. Thus the transmutation of matter is well known within certain bounds to all scientists to-day like yourself, Professor Kennedy. It has even been rumoured but never proved that copper has been transformed into lithium--both members of the hydrogen-gold group, you will observe. Copper to lithium is going backward, so to speak. It has remained for me to devise this protodyne apparatus by which I can reverse that process of decay and go forward in the table, so to put it--can change lithium into copper and copper into gold. I can create and destroy matter by protodyne." He had been fingering a switch as he spoke. Now he turned it on triumphantly. A curious snapping and crackling noise followed, becoming more rapid, and as it mounted in intensity I could smell a pungent odour of ozone which told of an electric discharge. On went the machine until we could feel heat radiating from it. Then came a piercing burst of greenish-blue light from a long tube which looked like a curious mercury vapour lamp. After a few minutes of this Prescott took a small crucible of black lead. "Now we are ready to try it," he cried in great excitement. "Here I have a crucible containing some copper. Any substance in the group would do, even hydrogen if there was any way I could handle the gas. I place it in the machine--so. Now if you could watch inside you would see it change; it is now rubidium, now silver, now caesium. Now it is a hitherto unknown element which I have named after myself, presium, now a second unknown element, cottium--ah!--there we have gold." He drew forth the crucible, and there glowed in it a little bead or globule of molten gold. "I could have taken lead or mercury and by varying the process done the same thing with the gold series as well as the gold group," he said, regarding the globule with obvious pride. "And I can put this gold back and bring it out copper or hydrogen, or better yet, can advance it instead of cause it to decay, and can get a radioactive element which I have named morganium--after my first name, Morgan Prescott. Morganium is a radioactive element next in the series to radium and much more active. Come closer and examine the gold." Kennedy shook his head as if perfectly satisfied to accept the result. As for me I knew not what to think. It was all so plausible and there was the bead of gold, too, that I turned to Craig for enlightenment. Was he convinced? His face was inscrutable. But as I looked I could see that Kennedy had been holding concealed in the palm of his hand a bit of what might be a mineral. From my position I could see the bit of mineral glowing, but Prescott could not. "Might I ask," interrupted Kennedy, "what that curious greenish or bluish light from the tube is composed of?" Prescott eyed him keenly for an instant through his thick glasses. Craig had shifted his gaze from the bit of mineral in his own hand, but was not looking at the light. He seemed to be indifferently contemplating Prescott's hand as it rested on the switch. "That, sir," replied Prescott slowly, "is an emanation due to this new force, protodyne, which I use. It is a manifestation of energy, sir, that may run changes not only through the whole gamut of the elements, but is capable of transforming the ether itself into matter, matter into life, and life into mind. It is the outward sign of the unity of nature, the--" "The means by which you secure the curious telepagrams I have heard of?" inquired Kennedy eagerly. Prescott looked at him sharply, and for a moment I thought his face seemed to change from a livid white to an apoplectic red, although it may have been only the play of the weird light. When he spoke it was with no show of even suppressed surprise. "Yes," he answered calmly. "I see that you have heard something of them. I had a curious case a few days ago. I had hoped to interest a certain capitalist of high standing in this city. I had showed him just what I have showed you, and I think he was impressed by it. Then I thought to clinch the matter by a telepagram, but for some reason or other I failed to consult the forces I control as to the wisdom of doing so. Had I, I should have known better. But I went ahead in self-confidence and enthusiasm. I told him of a long banished daughter with whom, in his heart, he was really wishing to become reconciled but was too proud to say the word. He resented it. He started to stamp out of this room, but not before I had another telepagram which told of a misfortune that was soon to overtake the old man himself. If he had given me a chance I might have saved him, at least have flashed a telepagram to that daughter myself, but he gave me no chance. He was gone. "I do not know precisely what happened after that, but in some way this man found his daughter, and to-day she is living with him. As for my hopes of getting assistance from him, I lost them from the moment when I made my initial mistake of telling him something distasteful. The daughter hates me and I hate her. I have learned that she never ceases advising the old man against all schemes for investment except those bearing moderate interest and readily realised on. Dr. Burnham--I see you know him--has been superseded by another doctor, I believe. Well, well, I am through with that incident. I must get assistance from other sources. The old man, I think, would have tricked me out of the fruits of my discovery anyhow. Perhaps I am fortunate. Who knows?" A knock at the door cut him short. Prescott opened it, and a messenger boy stood there. "Is Professor Kennedy here?" he inquired. Craig motioned to the boy, signed for the message, and tore it open. "It is from Dr. Burnham," he exclaimed, handing the message to me. "Mr. Haswell is dead," I read. "Looks to me like asphyxiation by gas or some other poison. Come immediately to his house. Burnham." "You will pardon me," broke in Craig to Prescott, who was regarding us without the slightest trace of emotion, "but Mr. Haswell, the old man to whom I know you referred, is dead, and Dr. Burnham wishes to see me immediately. It was only yesterday that I saw Mr. Haswell and he seemed in pretty good health and spirits. Prescott, though there was no love lost between you and the old man, I would esteem it a great favour if you would accompany me to the house. You need not take any responsibility unless you desire." His words were courteous enough, but Craig spoke in a tone of quiet authority which Prescott found it impossible to deny. Kennedy had already started to telephone to his own laboratory, describing a certain suitcase to one of his students and giving his directions. It was only a moment later that we were panting up the sloping street that led from the river front. In the excitement I scarcely noticed where we were going until we hurried up the steps to the Haswell house. The aged caretaker met us at the door. She was in tears. Upstairs in the front room where we had first met the old man we found Dr. Burnham working frantically over him. It took only a minute to learn what had happened. The faithful Jane had noticed an odour of gas in the hall, had traced it to Mr. Haswell's room, had found him unconscious, and instinctively, forgetting the new Dr. Scott, had rushed forth for Dr. Burnham. Near the bed stood Grace Martin, pale but anxiously watching the efforts of the doctor to resuscitate the blue-faced man who was stretched cold and motionless on the bed. Dr. Burnham paused in his efforts as we entered. "He is dead, all right," he whispered, aside. "I have tried everything I know to bring him back, but he is beyond help." There was still a sickening odour of illuminating gas in the room, although the windows were now all open. Kennedy, with provoking calmness in the excitement, turned from and ignored Dr. Burnham. "Have you summoned Dr. Scott?" he asked Mrs. Martin. "No," she replied, surprised. "Should I have done so?" "Yes. Send Jame immediately. Mr. Prescott, will you kindly be seated for a few moments." Taking off his coat, Kennedy advanced to the bed where the emaciated figure lay, cold and motionless. Craig knelt down at Mr. Haswell's head and took the inert arms, raising them up until they were extended straight. Then he brought them down, folded upward at the elbow at the side. Again and again he tried this Sylvester method of inducing respiration, but with no more result than Dr. Burnham had secured. He turned the body over on its face and tried the new Schaefer method. There seemed to be not a spark of life left. "Dr. Scott is out," reported the maid breathlessly, "but they are trying to locate him from his office, and if they do they will send him around immediately." A ring at the doorbell caused us to think that he had been found, but it proved to be the student to whom Kennedy had telephoned at his own laboratory. He was carrying a heavy suitcase and a small tank. Kennedy opened the suitcase hastily and disclosed a little motor, some long tubes of rubber fitting into a small rubber cap, forceps, and other paraphernalia. The student quickly attached one tube to the little tank, while Kennedy grasped the tongue of the dead man with the forceps, pulled it up off the soft palate, and fitted the rubber cap snugly over his mouth and nose. "This is the Draeger pulmotor," he explained as he worked, "devised to resuscitate persons who have died of electric shock, but actually found to be of more value in cases of asphyxiation. Start the motor." The pulmotor began to pump. One could see the dead man's chest rise as it was inflated with oxygen forced by the accordion bellows from the tank through one of the tubes into the lungs. Then it fell as the oxygen and the poisonous gas were slowly sucked out through the other tube. Again and again the process was repeated, about ten times a minute. Dr. Burnham looked on in undisguised amazement. He had long since given up all hope. The man was dead, medically dead, as dead as ever was any gas victim at this stage on whom all the usual methods of resuscitation had been tried and had failed. Still, minute after minute, Kennedy worked faithfully on, trying to discover some spark of life and to fan it into flame. At last, after what seemed to be a half-hour of unremitting effort, when the oxygen had long since been exhausted and only fresh air was being pumped into the lungs and out of them, there was a first faint glimmer of life in the heart and a touch of colour in the cheeks. Haswell was coming to. Another half-hour found him muttering and rambling weakly. "The letter--the letter," he moaned, rolling his glazed eyes about. "Where is the letter? Send for Grace." The moan was so audible that it was startling. It was like a voice from the grave. What did it all mean? Mrs. Martin was at his side in a moment. "Father, father,--here I am--Grace. What do you want?" The old man moved restlessly, feverishly, and pressed his trembling hand to his forehead as if trying to collect his thoughts. He was weak, but it was evident that he had been saved. The pulmotor had been stopped. Craig threw the cap to his student to be packed up, and as he did so he remarked quietly, "I could wish that Dr. Scott had been found. There are some matters here that might interest him." He paused and looked slowly from the rescued man lying dazed on the bed toward Mrs. Martin. It was quite apparent even to me that she did not share the desire to see Dr. Scott, at least not just then. She was flushed and trembling with emotion. Crossing the room hurriedly she flung open the door into the hall. "I am sure," she cried, controlling herself with difficulty and catching at a straw, as it were, "that you gentlemen, even if you have saved my father, are no friends of either his or mine. You have merely come here in response to Dr. Burnham, and he came because Jane lost her head in the excitement and forgot that Dr. Scott is now our physician." "But Dr. Scott could not have been found in time, madame," interposed Dr. Burnham with evident triumph. She ignored the remark and continued to hold the door open. "Now leave us," she implored, "you, Dr. Burnham, you, Mr. Prescott, you, Professor Kennedy, and your friend Mr. Jameson, whoever you may be." She was now cold and calm. In the bewildering change of events we had forgotten the wan figure on the bed still gasping for the breath of life. I could not help wondering at the woman's apparent lack of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair come to a contest between various parties fighting by fair means or foul for the old man's money--Scott and Mrs. Martin perhaps against Prescott and Dr. Burnham? No one moved. We seemed to be waiting on Kennedy. Prescott and Mrs. Martin were now glaring at each other implacably. The old man moved restlessly on the bed, and over my shoulder I could hear him gasp faintly, "Where's Grace? Send for Grace." Mrs. Martin paid no attention, seemed not to hear, but stood facing us imperiously as if waiting for us to obey her orders and leave the house. Burnham moved toward the door, but Prescott stood his ground with a peculiar air of defiance. Then he took my arm and started rather precipitately, I thought, to leave. "Come, come," said somebody behind us, "enough of the dramatics." It was Kennedy, who had been bending down, listening to the muttering of the old man. "Look at those eyes of Mr. Haswell," he said. "What colour are they?" We looked. They were blue. "Down in the parlour," continued Kennedy leisurely, "you will find a portrait of the long deceased Mrs. Haswell. If you will examine that painting you will see that her eyes are also a peculiarly limpid blue. No couple with blue eyes ever had a black-eyed child. At least, if this is such a case, the Carnegie Institution investigators would be glad to hear of it, for it is contrary to all that they have discovered on the subject after years of study of eugenics. Dark-eyed couples may have light-eyed children, but the reverse, never. What do you say to that, madame?" "You lie," screamed the woman, rushing frantically past us. "I AM his daughter. No interlopers shall separate us. Father!" The old man moved feebly away from her. "Send for Dr. Scott again," she demanded. "See if he cannot be found. He must be found. You are all enemies, villains." She addressed Kennedy, but included the whole room in her denunciation. "Not all," broke in Kennedy remorselessly. "Yes, madame, send for Dr. Scott. Why is he not here?" Prescott, with one hand on my arm and the other on Dr. Burnham's, was moving toward the door. "One moment, Prescott," interrupted Kennedy, detaining him with a look. "There was something I was about to say when Dr. Burnham's urgent message prevented it. I did not take the trouble even to find out how you obtained that little globule of molten gold from the crucible of alleged copper. There are so many tricks by which the gold could have been 'salted' and brought forth at the right moment that it was hardly worth while. Besides, I had satisfied myself that my first suspicions were correct. See that?" He held out the little piece of mineral I had already seen in his hand in the alchemist's laboratory. "That is a piece of willemite. It has the property of glowing or fluorescing under a certain kind of rays which are themselves invisible to the human eye. Prescott, your story of the transmutation of elements is very clever, but not more clever than your real story. Let us piece it together. I had already heard from Dr. Burnham how Mr. Haswell was induced by his desire for gain to visit you and how you had most mysteriously predicted his blindness. Now, there is no such thing as telepathy, at least in this case. How then was I to explain it? What could cause such a catastrophe naturally? Why, only those rays invisible to the human eye, but which make this piece of willemite glow--the ultraviolet rays." Kennedy was speaking rapidly and was careful not to pause long enough to give Prescott an opportunity to interrupt him. "These ultra-violet rays," he continued, "are always present in an electric arc light though not to a great degree unless the carbons have metal cores. They extend for two octaves above the violet of the spectrum and are too short to affect the eye as light, although they affect photographic plates. They are the friend of man when he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them--particularly the shorter of the rays--enter the eye is to invite trouble. There is no warning sense of discomfort, but from six to eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure results in blindness, though a moderate exposure acts like a tonic. The rays may be compared in this double effect to drugs, such as strychnine. Too much of them may be destructive even to life itself." Prescott had now paused and was regarding Kennedy contemptuously. Kennedy paid no attention, but continued: "Perhaps these mysterious rays may shed some light on our minds, however. Now, for one thing, ultra-violet light passes readily through quartz, but is cut off by ordinary glass, especially if it is coated with chromium. Old Mr. Haswell did not wear glasses. Therefore he was subject to the rays--the more so as he is a blond, and I think it has been demonstrated by investigators that blonds are more affected by them than are brunettes. "You have, as a part of your machine, a peculiarly shaped quartz mercury vapour lamp, and the mercury vapour lamp of a design such as that I saw has been invented for the especial purpose of producing ultra-violet rays in large quantity. There are also in your machine induction coils for the purpose of making an impressive noise, and a small electric furnace to heat the salted gold. I don't know what other ingenious fakes you have added. The visible bluish light from the tube is designed, I suppose, to hoodwink the credulous, but the dangerous thing about it is the invisible ray that accompanies that light. Mr. Haswell sat under those invisible rays, Prescott, never knowing how deadly they might be to him, an old man. "You knew that they would not take effect for hours, and hence you ventured the prediction that he would be stricken at about midnight. Even if it was partial or temporary, still you would be safe in your prophecy. You succeeded better than you hoped in that part of your scheme. You had already prepared the way by means of a letter sent to Mr. Haswell through Dr. Burnham. But Mr. Haswell's credulity and fear worked the wrong way. Instead of appealing to you he hated you. In his predicament he thought only of his banished daughter and turned instinctively to her for help. That made necessary a quick change of plans." Prescott, far from losing his nerve, turned on us bitterly. "I knew you two were spies the moment I saw you," he shouted. "It seemed as if in some way I knew you for what you were, as if I knew you had seen Mr. Haswell before you came to me. You, too, would have robbed an inventor as I am sure he would. But have a care, both of you. You may be punished also by blindness for your duplicity. Who knows?" A shudder passed over me at the horrible thought contained in his mocking laugh. Were we doomed to blindness, too? I looked at the sightless man on the bed in alarm. "I knew that you would know us," retorted Kennedy calmly. "Therefore we came provided with spectacles of Euphos glass, precisely like those you wear. No, Prescott, we are safe, though perhaps we may have some burns like those red blotches on Mr. Haswell, light burns." Prescott had fallen back a step and Mrs. Martin was making an effort to appear stately and end the interview. "No," continued Craig, suddenly wheeling, and startling us by the abruptness of his next exposure, "it is you and your wife here--Mrs. Prescott, not Mrs. Martin--who must have a care. Stop glaring at each other. It is no use playing at enemies longer and trying to get rid of us. You overdo it. The game is up." Prescott made a rush at Kennedy, who seized him by the wrist and held him tightly in a grasp of steel that caused the veins on the back of his hands to stand out like whipcords. "This is a deep-laid plot," he went on calmly, still holding Prescott, while I backed up against the door and cut off his wife; "but it is not so difficult to see it after all. Your part was to destroy the eyesight of the old man, to make it necessary for him to call on his daughter. Your wife's part was to play the role of Mrs. Martin, whom he had not seen for years and could not see now. She was to persuade him, with her filial affection, to make her the beneficiary of his will, to see that his money was kept readily convertible into cash. "Then, when the old man was at last out of the way, you two could decamp with what you could realise before the real daughter, cut off somewhere across the continent, could hear of the death of her father. It was an excellent scheme. But Haswell's plain, material newspaper advertisement was not so effective for your purposes, Prescott, as the more artistic 'telepagram,' as you call it. Although you two got in first in answering the advertisement, it finally reached the right person after all. You didn't get away quickly enough. "You were not expecting that the real daughter would see it and turn up so soon. But she has. She lives in California. Mr. Haswell in his delirium has just told of receiving a telegram which I suppose you, Mrs. Prescott, read, destroyed, and acted upon. It hurried your plans, but you were equal to the emergency. Besides, possession is nine points in the law. You tried the gas, making it look like a suicide. Jane, in her excitement, spoiled that, and Dr. Burnham, knowing where I was, as it happened, was able to summon me immediately. Circumstances have been against you from the first, Prescott." Craig was slowly twisting up the hand of the inventor, which he still held. With his other hand he pulled a paper from his pocket. It was the old envelope on which he had written upon the occasion of our first visit to Mr. Haswell when we had been so unceremoniously interrupted by the visit of Dr. Scott. "I sat here yesterday by this bed," continued Craig, motioning toward the chair he had occupied, as I remembered. "Mr. Haswell was telling Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it. But the old man grasped the doctor by the wrist to pull him closer to whisper to him. The doctor's hand was toward me and I noticed the peculiar markings of the veins. "You perhaps are not acquainted with the fact, but the markings of the veins in the back of the hand are peculiar to each individual--as infallible, indestructible, and ineffaceable as finger prints or the shape of the ear. It is a system invented and developed by Professor Tamassia of the University of Padua, Italy. A superficial observer would say that all vein patterns were essentially similar, and many have said so, but Tamassia has found each to be characteristic and all subject to almost incredible diversities. There are six general classes--in this case before us, two large veins crossed by a few secondary veins forming a V with its base near the wrist. "Already my suspicions had been aroused. I sketched the arrangement of the veins standing out on that hand. I noted the same thing just now on the hand that manipulated the fake apparatus in the laboratory. Despite the difference in make-up Scott and Prescott are the same. "The invisible rays of the ultra-violet light may have blinded Mr. Haswell, even to the recognition of his own daughter, but you can rest assured, Prescott, that the very cleverness of your scheme will penetrate the eyes of the blindfolded goddess of justice. Burnham, if you will have the kindness to summon the police, I will take all the responsibility for the arrest of these people." XII THE CAMPAIGN GRAFTER "What a relief it will be when this election is over and the newspapers print news again," I growled as I turned the first page of the Star with a mere glance at the headlines. "Yes," observed Kennedy, who was puzzling over a note which he had received in the morning mail. "This is the bitterest campaign in years. Now, do you suppose that they are after me in a professional way or are they trying to round me up as an independent voter?" The letter which had called forth this remark was headed, "The Travis Campaign Committee of the Reform League," and, as Kennedy evidently intended me to pass an opinion on it, I picked it up. It was only a few lines, requesting him to call during the morning, if convenient, on Wesley Travis, the candidate for governor and the treasurer of his campaign committee, Dean Bennett. It had evidently been written in great haste in longhand the night before. "Professional," I hazarded. "There must be some scandal in the campaign for which they require your services." "I suppose so," agreed Craig. "Well, if it is business instead of politics it has at least this merit--it is current business. I suppose you have no objection to going with me?" Thus it came about that not very much later in the morning we found ourselves at the campaign headquarters, in the presence of two nervous and high-keyed gentlemen in frock coats and silk hats. It would have taken no great astuteness, even without seeing the surroundings, to deduce instantly that they were engaged in the annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for something or other, and were nearly worn out by the arduous nature of that process. Their headquarters were in a tower of a skyscraper, whence poured forth a torrent of appeal to the moral sense of the electorate, both in printed and oral form. Yet there was a different tone to the place from that which I had ordinarily associated with political headquarters in previous campaigns. There was an absence of the old-fashioned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with tobacco. Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency which was decidedly prepossessing. Maps of the state were hanging on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins denoting the condition of the canvass. A map of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the stronghold of the boss, Billy McLoughlin. Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting out a vast mass of campaign "literature" in a hurry, in short a perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have been proud of, were in evidence everywhere. Wesley Travis was a comparatively young man, a lawyer who had early made a mark in politics and had been astute enough to shake off the thraldom of the bosses before the popular uprising against them. Now he was the candidate of the Reform League for governor and a good stiff campaign he was putting up. His campaign manager, Dean Bennett, was a business man whose financial interests were opposed to those usually understood to be behind Billy McLoughlin, of the regular party to which both Travis and Bennett might naturally have been supposed to belong in the old days. Indeed the Reform League owed its existence to a fortunate conjunction of both moral and economic conditions demanding progress. "Things have been going our way up to the present," began Travis confidentially, when we were seated democratically with our campaign cigars lighted. "Of course we haven't such a big 'barrel' as our opponents, for we are not frying the fat out of the corporations. But the people have supported us nobly, and I think the opposition of the vested interests has been a great help. We seem to be winning, and I say 'seem' only because one can never be certain how anything is going in this political game nowadays. "You recall, Mr. Kennedy, reading in the papers that my country house out on Long Island was robbed the other day? Some of the reporters made much of it. To tell the truth, I think they had become so satiated with sensations that they were sure that the thing was put up by some muckrakers and that there would be an expose of some kind. For the thief, whoever he was, seems to have taken nothing from my library but a sort of scrap-book or album of photographs. It was a peculiar robbery, but as I had nothing to conceal it didn't worry me. Well, I had all but forgotten it when a fellow came into Bennett's office here yesterday and demanded--tell us what it was, Bennett. You saw him." Bennett cleared his throat. "You see, it was this way. He gave his name as Harris Hanford and described himself as a photographer. I think he has done work for Billy McLoughlin. At any rate, his offer was to sell us several photographs, and his story about them was very circumstantial. He hinted that they had been evidently among those stolen from Mr. Travis and that in a roundabout way they had come into the possession of a friend of his without his knowing who the thief was. He said that he had not made the photographs himself, but had an idea by whom they were made, that the original plates had been destroyed, but that the person who made them was ready to swear that the pictures were taken after the nominating convention this fall which had named Travis. At any rate the photographs were out and the price for them was $25,000." "What are they that he should set such a price on them?" asked Kennedy, keenly looking from Bennett quickly to Travis. Travis met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be photographs of myself," he replied slowly. "One purports to represent me in a group on McLoughlin's porch at his farm on the south shore of the island, about twenty miles from my place. As Hanford described it, I am standing between McLoughlin and J. Cadwalader Brown, the trust promoter who is backing McLoughlin to save his investments. Brown's hand is on my shoulder and we are talking familiarly. Another is a picture of Brown, McLoughlin, and myself riding in Brown's car, and in it Brown and I are evidently on the best of terms. Oh, there are several of them, all in the same vein. Now," he added, and his voice rose with emotion as if he were addressing a cart-tail meeting which must be convinced that there was nothing criminal in riding in a motor-car, "I don't hesitate to admit that a year or so ago I was not on terms of intimacy with these men, but at least acquainted with them. At various times, even as late as last spring, I was present at conferences over the presidential outlook in this state, and once I think I did ride back to the city with them. But I know that there were no pictures taken, and even if there had been I would not care if they told the truth about them. I have frankly admitted in my speeches that I knew these men, that my knowledge of them and breaking from them is my chief qualification for waging an effective war on them if I am elected. They hate me cordially. You know that. What I do care about is the sworn allegation that now accompanies these--these fakes. They were not, could not have been taken after the independent convention that nominated me. If the photographs were true I would be a fine traitor. But I haven't even seen McLoughlin or Brown since last spring. The whole thing is a--" "Lie from start to finish," put in Bennett emphatically. "Yes, Travis, we all know that. I'd quit right now if I didn't believe in you. But let us face the facts. Here is this story, sworn to as Hanford says and apparently acquiesced in by Billy McLoughlin and Cad. Brown. What do they care anyhow as long as it is against you? And there, too, are the pictures themselves--at least they will be in print or suppressed, according as we act. Now, you know that nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have an issue like this raised at this time. We were supposed at least to be on the level, with nothing to explain away. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for this suspicion to turn the tide against us. If it were earlier in the campaign I'd say accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn of events we should really have the best campaign material. But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick of theirs on the Friday before election. Frankly, I believe discretion is the better part of valour in this case and without abating a jot of my faith in you, Travis, well, I'd pay first and expose the fraud afterward, after the election, at leisure." "No, I won't," persisted Travis, shutting his square jaw doggedly. "I won't be held up." The door had opened and a young lady in a very stunning street dress, with a huge hat and a tantalising veil, stood in it for a moment, hesitated, and then was about to shut it with an apology for intruding on a conference. "I'll fight it if it takes my last dollar," declared Travis, "but I won't be blackmailed out of a cent. Good-morning, Miss Ashton. I'll be free in a moment. I'll see you in your office directly." The girl, with a portfolio of papers in her hand, smiled, and Travis quickly crossed the room and held the door deferentially open as he whispered a word or two. When she had disappeared he returned and remarked, "I suppose you have heard of Miss Margaret Ashton, the suffragette leader, Mr. Kennedy? She is the head of our press bureau." Then a heightened look of determination set his fine face in hard lines, and he brought his fist down on the desk. "No, not a cent," he thundered. Bennett shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and looked at Kennedy in mock resignation as if to say, "What can you do with such a fellow?" Travis was excitedly pacing the floor and waving his arms as if he were addressing a meeting in the enemy's country. "Hanford comes at us in this way," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down. "He says plainly that the pictures will of course be accepted as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, he is right. The public will swallow it. When Bennett told him I would prosecute he laughed and said, 'Go ahead. I didn't steal the pictures. That would be a great joke for Travis to seek redress from the courts he is criticising. I guess he'd want to recall the decision if it went against him--hey?' Hanford says that a hundred copies have been made of each of the photographs and that this person, whom we do not know, has them ready to drop into the mail to the one hundred leading papers of the state in time for them to appear in the Monday editions just before Election Day. He says no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect--or at least he went further and said 'shake their validity.' "But I repeat. They are false. For all I know, it is a plot of McLoughlin's, the last fight of a boss for his life, driven into a corner. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye and mind much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Billy McLoughlin knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election, and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial." "Just so," persisted Bennett coolly. "You admit that we are practically helpless. That's what I have been saying all along. Get control of the prints first, Travis, for God's sake. Then raise any kind of a howl you want--before election or after. As I say, if we had a week or two it might be all right to fight. But we can make no move without making fools of ourselves until they are published Monday as the last big thing of the campaign. The rest of Monday and the Tuesday morning papers do NOT give us time to reply. Even if they were published to-day we should hardly have time to expose the plot, hammer it in, and make the issue an asset instead of a liability. No, you must admit it yourself. There isn't time. We must carry out the work we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign, and if we are diverted by this it means a let-up in our final efforts, and that is as good as McLoughlin wants anyhow. Now, Kennedy, don't you agree with me? Squelch the pictures now at any cost, then follow the thing up and, if we can, prosecute after election?" Kennedy and I, who had been so far little more than interested spectators, had not presumed to interrupt. Finally Craig asked, "You have copies of the pictures?" "No," replied Bennett. "This Hanford is a brazen fellow, but he was too astute to leave them. I saw them for an instant. They look bad. And the affidavits with them look worse." "H'm," considered Kennedy, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Bennett,--nor that you want to fight, Travis." "Then you will take up the case?" urged the latter eagerly, forgetting both his campaign manager and his campaign manners, and leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury. "You will trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" "I haven't said I'll do that--yet," answered Craig measuredly. "I haven't even said I'd take up the case. Politics is a new game to me, Mr. Travis. If I go into this thing I want to go into it and stay in it--well, you know how you lawyers put it, with clean hands. On one condition I'll take the matter up, and on only one." "Name it," cried Travis anxiously, "Of course, having been retained by you," continued Craig with provoking slowness, "it is not reasonable to suppose that if I find--how shall I put it--bluntly, yes?--if I find that the story of Hanford has some--er--foundation, it is not reasonable to suppose that I should desert you and go over to the other side. Neither is it to be supposed that I will continue and carry such a thing through for you regardless of truth. What I ask is to have a free hand, to be able to drop the case the moment I cannot proceed further in justice to myself, drop it, and keep my mouth shut. You understand? These are my conditions and no less." "And you think you can make good?" questioned Bennett rather sceptically. "You are willing to risk it? You don't think it would be better to wait until after the election is won?" "You have heard my conditions," reiterated Craig. "Done," broke in Travis. "I'm going to fight it out, Bennett. If we get in wrong by dickering with them at the start it may be worse for us in the end. Paying amounts to confession." Bennett shook his head dubiously. "I'm afraid this will suit McLoughlin's purpose just as well. Photographs are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either in an election." "Say, Dean, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Travis. "You're not offended at my kicking over the traces, are you?" Bennett rose, placed a hand on Travis's shoulder, and grasped his other. "Wesley," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't desert you even if the pictures were true." "I knew it," responded Travis heartily. "Then let Mr. Kennedy have one day to see what he can do. Then if we make no progress we'll take your advice, Dean. We'll pay, I suppose, and ask Mr. Kennedy to continue the case after next Tuesday." "With the proviso," put in Craig. "With the proviso, Kennedy," repeated Travis. "Your hand on that. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this state since I was nominated, but this means more to me than any of them. Call on us, either Bennett or myself, the moment you need aid. Spare no reasonable expense, and--and get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up, even if it is Cadwalader Brown himself. Good-bye and a thousand thanks--oh, by the way, wait. Let me take you around and introduce you to Miss Ashton. She may be able to help you." The office of Bennett and Travis was in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cashier and clerical force as well as the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instruction, tours were being laid out, and reports received from meetings already held. On the other side was the press bureau with a large and active force in charge of Miss Ashton, who was supporting Travis because he had most emphatically declared for "Votes for Women" and had insisted that his party put this plank in its platform. Miss Ashton was a clever girl, a graduate of a famous woman's college, and had had several years of newspaper experience before she became a leader in the suffrage cause. I recalled having read and heard a great deal about her, though I had never met her. The Ashtons were well known in New York society, and it was a sore trial to some of her conservative friends that she should reject what they considered the proper "sphere" for women. Among those friends, I understood, was Cadwalader Brown himself. Travis had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I scented a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic conduct of a campaign press bureau. It is far from my intention to minimise the work or the ability of the head of the press bureau, but it struck me, both then and later, that the candidate had an extraordinary interest in the newspaper campaign, much more than in the speakers' bureau, and I am sure that it was not solely accounted for by the fact that publicity is playing a more and more important part in political campaigning. Nevertheless such innovations as her card index system by election districts all over the state, showing the attitude of the various newspaper editors, of local political leaders, and changes of sentiment, were very full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular pigeon-hole mind for facts, was visibly impressed by this huge mechanical memory built up by Miss Ashton. Though he said nothing to me I knew he had also observed the state of affairs between the reform candidate and the suffrage leader. It was at a moment when Travis had been called back to his office that Kennedy, who had been eyeing Miss Ashton with marked approval, leaned over and said in a low voice. "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. Do you want to do a great favour for Mr. Travis?" She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her face what the true state of her feelings was, although I fancied that the readiness of her assent had perhaps more meaning than she would have placed in a simple "Yes" otherwise. "I suppose you know that an attempt is being made to blackmail Mr. Travis?" added Kennedy quickly. "I know something about it," she replied in a tone which left it for granted that Travis had told her before even we were called in. I felt that not unlikely Travis's set determination to fight might be traceable to her advice or at least to her opinion of him. "I suppose in a large force like this it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out "literature." "I have sometimes thought that myself," she agreed. "But of course I don't know. Still, I have to be pretty careful. Some one is always over here by my desk or looking over here. There isn't much secrecy in a big room like this. I never leave important stuff lying about where any of them could see it." "Yes," mused Kennedy. "What time does the office close?" "We shall finish to-night about nine, I think. To-morrow it may be later." "Well, then, if I should call here to-night at, say, half-past nine, Could you be here? I need hardly say that your doing so may be of inestimable value to--to the campaign." "I shall be here," she promised, giving her hand with a peculiar straight arm shake and looking him frankly in the face with those eyes which even the old guard in the legislature admitted were vote-winners. Kennedy was not quite ready to leave yet, but sought out Travis and obtained permission to glance over the financial end of the campaign. There were few large contributors to Travis's fund, but a host of small sums ranging from ten and twenty-five dollars down to dimes and nickels. Truly it showed the depth of the popular uprising. Kennedy also glanced hastily over the items of expense--rent, salaries, stenographer and office force, advertising, printing and stationery, postage, telephone, telegraph, automobile and travelling expenses, and miscellaneous matters. As Kennedy expressed it afterwards, as against the small driblets of money coming in, large sums were going out for expenses in lumps. Campaigning in these days costs money even when done honestly. The miscellaneous account showed some large indefinite items, and after a hasty calculation Kennedy made out that if all the obligations had to be met immediately the committee would be in the hole for several thousand dollars. "In short," I argued as we were leaving, "this will either break Travis privately or put his fund in hopeless shape. Or does it mean that he foresees defeat and is taking this way to recoup himself under cover of being held up?" Kennedy said nothing in response to my suspicions, though I could see that in his mind he was leaving no possible clue unnoted. It was only a few blocks to the studio of Harris Hanford, whom Kennedy was now bent on seeing. We found him in an old building on one of the side streets in the thirties which business had captured. His was a little place on the top floor, up three flights of stairs, and I noticed as we climbed up that the room next to his was vacant. Our interview with Hanford was short and unsatisfactory. He either was or at least posed as representing a third party in the affair, and absolutely refused to permit us to have even a glance at the photographs. "My dealings," he asserted airily, "must all be with Mr. Bennett, or with Mr. Travis, direct, not with emissaries. I don't make any secret about it. The prints are not here. They are safe and ready to be produced at the right time, either to be handed over for the money or to be published in the newspapers. We have found out all about them; we are satisfied, although the negatives have been destroyed. As for their having been stolen from Travis, you can put two and two together. They are out and copies have been made of them, good copies. If Mr. Travis wishes to repudiate them, let him start proceedings. I told Bennett all about that. To-morrow is the last day, and I must have Bennett's answer then, without any interlopers coming into it. If it is yes, well and good; if not, then they know what to expect. Good-bye." It was still early in the forenoon, and Kennedy's next move was to go out on Long Island to examine the library at Travis's from which the pictures were said to have been stolen. At the laboratory Kennedy and I loaded ourselves with a large oblong black case containing a camera and a tripod. His examination of the looted library was minute, taking in the window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally Craig set up his camera with most particular care and took several photographs of the window, the cabinet, the doors, including the room from every angle. Outside he snapped the two sides of the corner of the house in which the library was situated. Partly by trolley and partly by carriage we crossed the island to the south shore, and finally found McLoughlin's farm where we had no trouble in getting half a dozen photographs of the porch and house. Altogether the proceedings seemed tame to me, yet I knew from previous experience that Kennedy had a deep laid purpose. We parted in the city, to meet just before it was time to visit Miss Ashton. Kennedy had evidently employed the interval in developing his plates, for he now had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size, mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on all four sides. He saw me puzzling over them. "Those are metric photographs such as Bertillon of Paris takes," he explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other methods that have been worked out we can determine from those pictures distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the spot itself. Bertillon has cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with the portrait parle, finger prints, and the rest. "For instance, in order to solve the riddle of a crime the detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each object is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera is called into requisition. The plundered room is photographed, as in this case. I might have done it by placing a foot rule on a table and taking that in the picture, but a more scientific and accurate method has been devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In the way he has worked it out the distance between any two points in the picture can be determined. With a topographical plan and a metric photograph one can study a crime as a general studies the map of a strange country. There were several peculiar things that I observed to-day, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime. Preserved in this way it cannot be questioned. "Now the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets, but none of them has been disturbed. Therefore the thief must have known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock were not those of a jimmy but of a screwdriver. No amazing command of the resources of science is needed so far. All that is necessary is a little scientific common sense, Walter. "Now, how did the robber get in? All the windows and doors were supposedly locked. It is alleged that a pane was cut from this window at the side. It was, and the pieces were there to show it. But take a glance at this outside photograph. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There are no marks of a ladder or of any person in the soft soil under the window. What is more, that window was cut from the inside. The marks of the diamond which cut it plainly show that. Scientific common sense again." "Then it must have been some one in the house or at least some one familiar with it?" I exclaimed. Kennedy nodded. "One thing we have which the police greatly neglect," he pursued, "a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon calls it. If we only had those Hanford pictures we should be all right." We were now on our way to see Miss Ashton at headquarters, and as we rode downtown I tried to reason out the case. Had it really been a put-up job? Was Travis himself faking, and was the robbery a "plant" by which he might forestall exposure of what had become public property in the hands of another, no longer disposed to conceal it? Or was it after all the last desperate blow of the Boss? The whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind. Although Kennedy seemed to have made little real progress, I felt that, far from aiding Travis, it made things darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not visited the Boss subsequent to the nominating convention. He admitted having done so before the Reform League came into existence. Besides it seemed tacitly understood that both the Boss and Cadwalader Brown acquiesced in the sworn statement of the man who said he had made the pictures. Added to that the mere existence of the actual pictures themselves was a graphic clincher to the story. Personally, if I had been in Kennedy's place I think I should have taken advantage of the proviso in the compact with Travis to back out gracefully. Kennedy, however, now started on the case, hung to it tenaciously. Miss Ashton was waiting for us at the press bureau. Her desk was at the middle of one end of the room in which, if she could keep an eye on her office force, the office force also could keep an eye on her. Kennedy had apparently taken in the arrangement during our morning visit, for he set to work immediately. The side of the room toward the office of Travis and Bennett presented an expanse of blank wall. With a mallet he quickly knocked a hole in the rough plaster, just above the baseboard about the room. The hole did not penetrate quite through to the other side. In it he placed a round disc of vulcanised rubber, with insulated wires leading down back of the baseboard, then out underneath it, and under the carpet. Some plaster quickly closed up the cavity in the wall, and he left it to dry. Next he led the wires under the carpet to Miss Ashton's desk. There they ended, under the carpet and a rug, eighteen or twenty huge coils several feet in diameter disposed in such a way as to attract no attention by a curious foot on the carpet which covered them. "That is all, Miss Ashton," he said as we watched for his next move. "I shall want to see you early to-morrow, and,--might I ask you to be sure to wear that hat which you have on?" It was a very becoming hat, but Kennedy's tone clearly indicated that it was not his taste in inverted basket millinery that prompted the request. She promised, smiling, for even a suffragette may like pretty hats. Craig had still to see Travis and report on his work. The candidate was waiting anxiously at his hotel after a big political mass meeting on the East Side, at which capitalism and the bosses had been hissed to the echo, if that is possible. "What success?" inquired Travis eagerly. "I'm afraid," replied Kennedy, and the candidate's face fell at the tone, "I'm afraid you will have to meet them, for the present. The time limit will expire to-morrow, and I understand Hanford is coming up for a final answer. We must have copies of those photographs, even if we have to pay for them. There seems to be no other way." Travis sank back in his chair and regarded Kennedy hopelessly. He was actually pale. "You--you don't mean to say that there is no other way, that I'll have to admit even before Bennett--and others that I'm in bad?" "I wouldn't put it that way," said Kennedy mercilessly, I thought. "It is that way," Travis asserted almost fiercely. "Why, we could have done that anyhow. No, no,--I don't mean that. Pardon me. I'm upset by this. Go ahead," he sighed. "You will direct Bennett to make the best terms he can with Hanford when he comes up to-morrow. Have him arrange the details of payment and then rush the best copies of the photographs to me." Travis seemed crushed. We met Miss Ashton the following morning entering her office. Kennedy handed her a package, and in a few words, which I did not hear, explained what he wanted, promising to call again later. When we called, the girls and other clerks had arrived, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrap-books, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal. The room was indeed crowded, and I felt that there was no doubt, as Kennedy had said, that nothing much could go on there unobserved by any one to whose interest it was to see it. Miss Ashton was sitting at her desk with her hat on directing the work. "It works," she remarked enigmatically to Kennedy. "Good," he replied. "I merely dropped in to be sure. Now if anything of interest happens, Miss Ashton, I wish you would let me know immediately. I must not be seen up here, but I shall be waiting downstairs in the corridor of the building. My next move depends entirely on what you have to report." Downstairs Craig waited with growing impatience. We stood in an angle in which we could see without being readily seen, and our impatience was not diminished by seeing Hanford enter the elevator. I think that Miss Ashton would have made an excellent woman detective, that is, on a case in which her personal feelings were not involved as they were here. She was pale and agitated as she appeared in the corridor, and Kennedy hurried toward her. "I can't believe it. I won't believe it," she managed to say. "Tell me, what happened?" urged Kennedy soothingly. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, why did you ask me to do this?" she reproached. "I would almost rather not have known it at all." "Believe me, Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend most. We saw Hanford go up. What occurred?" She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Mr. Bennett came in about quarter to ten. He stopped to talk to me and looked about the room curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a time. Then he locked the door leading from the press bureau to his office, and left word that he was not to be disturbed. A few minutes later a man called." "Yes, yes," prompted Kennedy. "Hanford, no doubt." She was racing on breathlessly, scarcely giving one a chance to inquire how she had learned so much. "Why," she cried with a sort of defiant ring in her tone, "Mr. Travis is going to buy those pictures after all. And the worst of it is that I met him in the hall coming in as I was coming down here, and he tried to act toward me in the same old way--and that after all I know now about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting for Mr. Travis, and this Mr. Hanford. They are even going to ask me to carry the money in a sealed envelope to the studio of this fellow Hanford, to be given to a third person who will be there at two o'clock this afternoon." "You, Miss Ashton?" inquired Kennedy, a light breaking on his face as if at last he saw something. "Yes, I," she repeated. "Hanford insisted that it was part of the compact. They--they haven't asked me openly yet to be the means of carrying out their dirty deals, but when they do, I--I won't----" "Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy, "I beg you to be calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Walter, you will excuse us if we take a turn down the corridor and out in the air. This is most extraordinary." For five or ten minutes Kennedy and Miss Ashton appeared to be discussing the new turn of events earnestly, while I waited impatiently. As they approached again she seemed calmer, but I heard her say, "I hope you're right. I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't expose Wesley Travis for his sake. It cuts me to have to admit it, but Cadwalader used always to say that every man has his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which cast its lot with this party. I--I can hardly believe----" Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics is loyalty. Wait until----" "Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Wesley Travis for giving in--more than I hate Cadwalader Brown for his cynical disregard of honesty in others." She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had heard had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay. Nevertheless it was evident that she was coming to look on it more as she would if she were an outsider. "Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "They won't ask you right away. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it." Craig's next problem seemed to be to transfer the scene of his operations to Hanford's studio. He was apparently doing some rapid thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did not venture to question him on what had occurred when it was so evident that everything depended on being prepared for what was still to occur. Hanford was out. That seemed to please Kennedy, for with a brightening face, which told more surely than words that he saw his way more and more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire the vacant office next to the studio while he went uptown to complete his arrangements for the final step. I had completed my part and was waiting in the empty room when he returned. He lost no time in getting to work, and it seemed to me as I watched him curiously in silence that he was repeating what he had already done at the Travis headquarters. He was boring into the wall, only this time he did it much more carefully, and it was evident that if he intended putting anything into this cavity it must be pretty large. The hole was square, and as I bent over I could see that he had cut through the plaster and laths all the way to the wallpaper on the other side, though he was careful to leave that intact. Then he set up a square black box in the cavity, carefully poising it and making measurements that told of the exact location of its centre with reference to the partitions and walls. A skeleton key took us into Hanford's well-lighted but now empty studio. For Miss Ashton's sake I wished that the photographs had been there. I am sure Kennedy would have found slight compunction in a larceny of them, if they had been. It was something entirely different that he had in mind now, however, and he was working quickly for fear of discovery. By his measurements I guessed that he was calculating as nearly as possible the centre of the box which he had placed in the hole in the wall on the other side of the dark wallpaper. When he had quite satisfied himself he took a fine pencil from his pocket and made a light cross on the paper to indicate it. The dot fell to the left of a large calendar hanging on the wall. Kennedy's appeal to Margaret Ashton had evidently had its effect, for when we saw her a few moments after these mysterious preparations she had overcome her emotion. "They have asked me to carry a note to Mr. Hanford's studio," she said quietly, "and without letting them know that I know anything about it I have agreed to do so." "Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, greatly relieved, "you're a trump." "No," she replied, smiling faintly, "I'm just feminine enough to be curious." Craig shook his head, but did not dispute the point. "After you have handed the envelope to the person, whoever it may be, in Hanford's studio, wait until he does something--er,--suspicious. Meanwhile look at the wall on the side toward the next vacant office. To the left of the big calendar you will see a light pencil mark, a cross. Somehow you must contrive to get near it, but don't stand in front of it. Then if anything happens stick this little number 10 needle in the wall right at the intersection of the cross. Withdraw it quickly, count fifteen, then put this little sticker over the cross, and get out as best you can, though we shan't be far away if you should need us. That's all." We did not accompany her to the studio for fear of being observed, but waited impatiently in the next office. We could hear nothing of what was said, but when a door shut and it was evident that she had gone, Kennedy quickly removed something from the box in the wall covered with a black cloth. As soon as it was safe Kennedy had sent me posting after her to secure copies of the incriminating photographs which were to be carried by her from the studio, while he remained to see who came out. I thought a change had come over her as she handed me the package with the request that I carry it to Mr. Bennett and get them from him. The first inkling I had that Kennedy had at last been able to trace back something in the mysterious doings of the past two days came the following evening, when Craig remarked casually that he would like to have me call on Billy McLoughlin if I had no engagement. I replied that I had none--and managed to squirm out of the one I really had. The Boss's office was full of politicians, for it was the eve of "dough day," when the purse strings were loosed and a flood of potent argument poured forth to turn the tide of election. Hanford was there with the other ward heelers. "Mr. McLoughlin," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone with Hanford in the little sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me if I seem a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here to-night. First of all, I may say, and you, Hanford, being a photographer will appreciate it, that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an important case may rest should be subjected to critical examination for it is an established fact that a photograph may be made as untruthful as it may be reliable. Combination photographs change entirely the character of the initial negative and have been made for the past fifty years. The earliest, simplest, and most harmless photographic deception is the printing of clouds into a bare sky. But the retoucher with his pencil and etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of ordinary skill can introduce a person taken in a studio into an open-air scene well blended and in complete harmony without a visible trace of falsity. "I need say nothing of how one head can be put on another body in a picture, nor need I say what a double exposure will do. There is almost no limit to the changes that may be wrought in form and feature. It is possible to represent a person crossing Broadway or walking on Riverside Drive, places he may never have visited. Thus a person charged with an offence may be able to prove an alibi by the aid of a skilfully prepared combination photograph. "Where, then, can photography be considered as irrefutable evidence? The realism may convince all, will convince all, except the expert and the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will insist that in every case the negative be submitted and examined for possible alterations by a clever manipulator." Kennedy bent his gaze on McLoughlin. "Now, I do not accuse you, sir, of anything. But a photograph has come into the possession of Mr. Travis in which he is represented as standing on the steps of your house with yourself and Mr. Cadwalader Brown. He and Mr. Brown are in poses that show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate to say that that was originally a photograph of yourself, Mr. Brown, and your own candidate. It is a pretty raw deal, a fake in which Travis has been substituted by very excellent photographic forgery." McLoughlin motioned to Hanford to reply. "A fake?" repeated the latter contemptuously. "How about the affidavits? There's no negative. You've got to prove that the original print stolen from Travis, we'll say, is a fake. You can't do it." "September 19th was the date alleged, I believe?" asked Kennedy quietly, laying down the bundle of metric photographs and the alleged photographs of Travis. He was pointing to a shadow of a gable on the house as it showed in the metric photographs and the others. "You see that shadow of the gable? Perhaps you never heard of it, Hanford, but it is possible to tell the exact time at which a photograph was taken from a study of the shadows. It is possible in principle and practice and can be trusted. Almost any scientist may be called on to bear testimony in court nowadays, but you would say the astronomer is one of the least likely. Well, the shadow in this picture will prove an alibi for some one. "Notice. It is seen very prominently to the right, and its exact location on the house is an easy matter. You could almost use the metric photograph for that. The identification of the gable casting the shadow is easy. To be exact it is 19.62 feet high. The shadow is 14.23 feet down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see I am exact. I have to be. In one minute it moved 0.080 feet upward, 0.053 feet to the right and 0.096 feet in its apparent path. It passes the width of a weatherboard, 0.37 foot, in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds." Kennedy was talking rapidly of data which he had derived from his metric photograph, from plumb line, level, compass, and tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole and sun, declination, azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a dozen bewildering terms. "In spherical trigonometry," he concluded, "to solve the problem three elements must be known. I knew four. Therefore I could take each of the known, treat it as unknown, and have four ways to check my result. I find that the time might have been either three o'clock, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds, in the afternoon, or 3:21:31, or 3:21:29, or 3:21:33. The average is 3:21:26, and there can therefore be no appreciable error except for a few seconds. For that date must have been one of two days, either May 22 or July 22. Between these two dates we must decide on evidence other than the shadow. It must have been in May, as the immature condition of the foliage shows. But even if it had been in July, that is far from being September. The matter of the year I have also settled. Weather conditions, I find, were favourable on all these dates except that in September. I can really answer, with an assurance and accuracy superior to that of the photographer himself--even if he were honest--as to the real date. The real picture, aside from being doctored, was actually taken last May. Science is not fallible, but exact in this matter." Kennedy had scored a palpable hit. McLoughlin and Hanford were speechless. Still Craig hurried on. "But, you may ask, how about the automobile picture? That also is an unblushing fake. Of course I must prove that. In the first place, you know that the general public has come to recognise the distortion of a photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a car in a race that doesn't lean is rejected--people demand to see speed, speed, more speed even in pictures. Distortion does indeed show speed, but that, too, can be faked. "Hanford knows that the image is projected upside down by the lens on the plate, and that the bottom of the picture is taken before the top. The camera mechanism admits light, which makes the picture, in the manner of a roller blind curtain. The slit travels from the top to the bottom and the image on the plate being projected upside down, the bottom of the object appears on the top of the plate. For instance, the wheels are taken before the head of the driver. If the car is moving quickly the image moves on the plate and each successive part is taken a little in advance of the last. The whole leans forward. By widening the slit and slowing the speed of the shutter, there is more distortion. "Now, this is what happened. A picture was taken of Cadwalader Brown's automobile, probably at rest, with Brown in it. The matter of faking Travis or any one else by his side is simple. If with an enlarging lantern the image of this faked picture is thrown on the paper like a lantern slide, and if the right hand side is a little further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom, you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture. True, everything else in, the picture, even if motionless, is distorted, and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will pass. In this case, however, the faker was so sure of that that he was careless. Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right he did so on the left. It was further away on the bottom than on the top. He got distortion all right, enough still to satisfy the uninitiated. But it was distortion in the wrong way! The top of the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is, in the fake, as sharp as any other part. It is a small mistake, but fatal. That picture is really at high speed--backwards! It is too raw, too raw." "You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do you?" asked Hanford coolly, in spite of the exposures. Kennedy paid no attention. He was looking at McLoughlin. The Boss was regarding him surlily. "Well," he said at length, "what of all this? I had nothing to do with it. Why do you come to me? Take it to the proper parties." "Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly. He had uncovered another picture carefully. We could not see it, but as he looked at it McLoughlin fairly staggered. "Wh--where did you get that?" he gasped. "I got it where I got it, and it is no fake," replied Kennedy enigmatically. Then he appeared to think better of it. "This," he explained, "is what is known as a pinhole photograph. Three hundred years ago della Porta knew the camera obscura, and but for the lack of a sensitive plate would have made photographs. A box, thoroughly light-tight, slotted inside to receive plates, covered with black, and glued tight, a needle hole made by a number 10 needle in a thin sheet of paper--and you have the apparatus for lensless photography. It has a correctness such as no image-forming means by lenses can have. It is literally rectigraphic, rectilinear, it needs no focussing, and it takes a wide angle with equal effect. Even pinhole snapshots are possible where the light is abundant, with a ten to fifteen second exposure. "That picture, McLoughlin, was taken yesterday at Hanford's. After Miss Ashton left I saw who came out, but this picture shows what happened before. At a critical moment Miss Ashton stuck a needle in the wall of the studio, counted fifteen, closed the needle-hole, and there is the record. Walter, Hanford,--leave us alone an instant." When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom. Not a word could I extract from him either that night or on the following day, which was the last before the election. I must say that I was keenly disappointed by the lack of developments, however. The whole thing seemed to me to be a mess. Everybody was involved. What had Miss Ashton overheard and what had Kennedy said to McLoughlin? Above all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings by allowing the election to go on without a scandal for Travis? At last election night arrived. We were all at the Travis headquarters, Kennedy, Travis, Bennett, and myself. Miss Ashton was not present, but the first returns had scarcely begun to trickle in when Craig whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her home or club. I found her at home. She had apparently lost interest in the election, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded her to accompany me. The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance before this. Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans, hisses, and catcalls, or all together with cheers as the returns swung in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a crowd as this. Lights blazed everywhere. Automobiles honked and ground their gears. The lobster palaces were thronged. Police were everywhere. People with horns and bells and all manner of noise-making devices pushed up one side of the thoroughfares and down the other. Hungrily, ravenously they were feeding on the meagre bulletins of news. Yet back of all the noise and human energy I could only think of the silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news. High up in the League headquarters, when we returned, a corps of clerks was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports. As first the state swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and fell. Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease, while Travis looked more worried and paid less attention to the returns than would have seemed natural. She avoided him and he seemed to hesitate to seek her out. Would the up-state returns, I had wondered at first, be large enough to overcome the hostile city vote? I was amazed now to see how strongly the city was turning to Travis. "McLoughlin has kept his word," ejaculated Kennedy as district after district showed that the Boss's pluralities were being seriously cut into. "His word? What do you mean?" we asked almost together. "I mean that he has kept his word given to me at a conference which Mr. Jameson saw but did not hear. I told him I would publish the whole thing, not caring whom or where or when it hit if he did not let up on Travis. I advised him to read his Revised Statutes again about money in elections, and I ended up with the threat, 'There will be no dough day, McLoughlin, or this will be prosecuted to the limit.' There was no dough day. You see the effect in the returns." "But how did you do it?" I asked, not comprehending. "The faked photographs did not move him, that I could see." The words, "faked photographs," caused Miss Ashton to glance up quickly. I saw that Kennedy had not told her or any one yet, until the Boss had made good. He had simply arranged one of his little dramas. "Shall I tell, Miss Ashton?" he asked, adding, "Before I complete my part of the compact and blot out the whole affair?" "I have no right to say no," she answered tremulously, but with a look of happiness that I had not seen since our first introduction. Kennedy laid down a print on a table. It was the pinhole photograph, a little blurry, but quite convincing. On a desk in the picture was a pile of bills. McLoughlin was shoving them away from him toward Bennett. A man who was facing forward in the picture was talking earnestly to some one who did not appear. I felt intuitively, even before Kennedy said so, that the person was Miss Ashton herself as she stuck the needle into the wall. The man was Cadwalader Brown. "Travis," demanded Kennedy, "bring the account books of your campaign. I want the miscellaneous account particularly." The books were brought, and he continued, turning the leaves, "It seemed to me to show a shortage of nearly twenty thousand dollars the other day. Why, it has been made up. How was that, Bennett?" Bennett was speechless. "I will tell you," Craig proceeded inexorably. "Bennett, you embezzled that money for your business. Rather than be found out, you went to Billy McLoughlin and offered to sell out the Reform campaign for money to replace it. With the aid of the crook, Hanford, McLoughlin's tool, you worked out the scheme to extort money from Travis by forged photographs. You knew enough about Travis's house and library to frame up a robbery one night when you were staying there with him. It was inside work, I found, at a glance. Travis, I am sorry to have to tell you that your confidence was misplaced. It was Bennett who robbed you--and worse. "But Cadwalader Brown, always close to his creature, Billy McLoughlin, heard of it. To him it presented another idea. To him it offered a chance to overthrow a political enemy and a hated rival for Miss Ashton's hand. Perhaps into the bargain it would disgust her with politics, disillusion her, and shake her faith in what he believed to be some of her 'radical' notions. All could be gained at one blow. They say that a check-book knows no politics, but Bennett has learned some, I venture to say, and to save his reputation he will pay back what he has tried to graft." Travis could scarcely believe it yet. "How did you get your first hint?" he gasped. Kennedy was digging into the wall with a bill file at the place where he had buried the little vulcanised disc. I had already guessed that it was a dictograph, though I could not tell how it was used or who used it. There it was, set squarely in the plaster. There also were the wires running under the carpet. As he lifted the rug under Miss Ashton's desk there also lay the huge circles of wire. That was all. At this moment Miss Ashton stepped forward. "Last Friday," she said in a low tone, "I wore a belt which concealed a coil of wire about my waist. From it a wire ran under my coat, connecting with a small dry battery in a pocket. Over my head I had an arrangement such as the telephone girls wear with a receiver at one ear connected with the battery. No one saw it, for I wore a large hat which completely hid it. If any one had known, and there were plenty of eyes watching, the whole thing would have fallen through. I could walk around; no one could suspect anything; but when I stood or sat at my desk I could hear everything that was said in Mr. Bennett's office." "By induction," explained Kennedy. "The impulses set up in the concealed dictograph set up currents in these coils of wire concealed under the carpet. They were wirelessly duplicated by induction in the coil about Miss Ashton's waist and so affected the receiver under her very becoming hat. Tell the rest, Miss Ashton." "I heard the deal arranged with this Hanford," she added, almost as if she were confessing something, "but not understanding it as Mr. Kennedy did, I very hastily condemned Mr. Travis. I heard talk of putting back twenty thousand into the campaign accounts, of five thousand given to Hanford for his photographic work, and of the way Mr. Travis was to be defeated whether he paid or not. I heard them say that one condition was that I should carry the purchase money. I heard much that must have confirmed Mr. Kennedy's suspicion in one way, and my own in an opposite way, which I know now was wrong. And then Cadwalader Brown in the studio taunted me cynically and-and it cut me, for he seemed right. I hope that Mr. Travis will forgive me for thinking that Mr. Bennett's treachery was his----" A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office. A boy rushed in with a still unblotted report. Kennedy seized it and read: "McLoughlin concedes the city by a small majority to Travis, fifteen election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform League victory in the state." I turned to Travis. He was paying no attention except to the pretty apology of Margaret Ashton. Kennedy drew me to the door. "We might as well concede Miss Ashton to Travis," he said, adding gaily, "by induction of an arm about the waist. Let's go out and watch the crowd." 
5073	----	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!" 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 
5270	----	THE FILM MYSTERY BY ARTHUR B. REEVE AUTHOR OF "The Soul Scar" "The Adventuress" and Other Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective Stories CONTENTS CHAPTER I. A CAMERA CRIME II. THE TINY SCRATCH III. TANGLED MOTIVES IV. THE FATAL SCRIPT V. AN EMOTIONAL MAZE VI. THE FIRST CLUB VII. ENID FAYE VIII. LAWRENCE MILLARD IX. WHITE-LIGHT SHADOWS X. CHEMICAL RESEARCH XI. FORESTALLED XII. EMERY PHELPS XIII. MARILYN LORING XIV. ANOTHER CLUE XV. I BECOME A DETECTIVE XVI. ENID ASSISTS XVII. AN APPEAL XVIII. THE ANTIVENIN XIX. AROUND THE CIRCLE XX. THE BANQUET SCENE XXI. MERLE SHIRLEY OVERACTS XXII. THE STEM XXIII. BOTULIN TOXIN XXIV. THE INVISIBLE MENACE XXV. ITCHING SALVE XXVI. A CIGARETTE CASE XXVII. THE FILM FIRE XXVIII. THE PHOSPHORUS BOMB XXIX. MICROSCOPIC EVIDENCE XXX. THE BALLROOM SCENE XXXI. PHYSOSTIGMIN XXXII. CAMERA EVIDENCE THE FILM MYSTERY I A CAMERA CRIME "Camera!" Kennedy and I had been hastily summoned from his laboratory in the city by District-Attorney Mackay, and now stood in the luxurious, ornate library in the country home of Emery Phelps, the banker, at Tarrytown. "Camera!--you know the call when the director is ready to shoot a scene of a picture?--well--at the moment it was given and the first and second camera men began to grind--she crumpled--sank to the floor--unconscious!" Hot and excited, Mackay endeavored to reenact his case for us with all the histrionic ability of a popular prosecutor before a jury. "There's where she dropped--they carried her over here to this davenport--sent for Doctor Blake--but he couldn't do a thing for her. She died--just as you see her. Blake thought the matter so serious, so alarming, that he advised an immediate investigation. That's why I called you so urgently." Before us lay the body of the girl, remarkably beautiful even as she lay motionless in death. Her masses of golden hair, disheveled, added to the soft contours of her features. Her wonderfully large blue-gray eyes with their rare gift for delicate shades of expression were closed, but long curling lashes swept her cheeks still and it was hard to believe that this was anything more than sleep. It was inconceivable that Stella Lamar, idol of the screen, beloved of millions, could have been taken from the world which worshiped her. I felt keenly for the district attorney. He was a portly little man of the sort prone to emphasize his own importance and so, true to type, he had been upset completely by a case of genuine magnitude. It was as though visiting royalty had dropped dead within his jurisdiction. I doubt whether the assassination of a McKinley or a Lincoln could have unsettled him as much, because in such an event he would have had the whole weight of the Federal government behind him. There was no question but that Stella Lamar enjoyed a country-wide popularity known by few of our Presidents. Her sudden death was a national tragedy. Apparently Mackay had appealed to Kennedy the moment he learned the identity of Stella, the moment he realized there was any question about the circumstances surrounding the affair. Over the telephone the little man had been almost incoherent. He had heard of Kennedy's work and was feverishly anxious to enlist his aid, at any price. All we knew as we took the train on the New York Central was that Stella was playing a part in a picture to be called "The Black Terror," that the producer was Manton Pictures, Incorporated, and that she had dropped dead suddenly and without warning in the middle of a scene being photographed in the library at the home of Emery Phelps. I was singularly elated at the thought of accompanying Kennedy on this particular case. It was not that the tragic end of a film star whose work I had learned to love was not horrible to me, but rather because, for once, I thought Kennedy actually confronted a situation where his knowledge of a given angle of life was hardly sufficient for his usual analysis of the facts involved. "Walter," he had exclaimed, as I burst into the laboratory in response to a hurried message, "here's where I need your help. You know all about moving pictures, so--if you'll phone your city editor and ask him to let you cover a case for the Star we'll just about catch a train at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street." Because the film world had fascinated me always I had made a point of being posted on its people and their activities. I remembered the very first appearance of Stella Lamar back in the days of General Film, when pictures were either Licensed or Independent, when only two companies manufactured worth-while screen dramas, when any subject longer than a reel had to be of rare excellence, such as the art films imported from France for the Licensed program. In those days, Stella rose rapidly to prominence. Her large wistful eyes had set the hearts of many of us to beating at staccato rate. Then came Lloyd Manton, her present manager, and the first of a new type of business man to enter the picture field. Manton was essentially a promoter. His predecessors had been men carried to success by the growth of the new art. Old Pop Belman, for instance, had been a fifth-rate oculist who rented and sold stereopticons as a side line. With blind luck he had grasped the possibilities of Edison's new invention. Just before the break-up of General Film he had become many times a millionaire and it was then that he had sent a wave of laughter over the entire country by an actual cable to William Shakespeare, address London, asking for all screen rights to the plays written by that gentleman. Manton represented a secondary phase in film finance. Continent Films, his first corporation, was a stockjobbing concern. Grasping the immense popularity of Stella Lamar, he had coaxed her away from the old studio out in Flatbush where all her early successes had been photographed. With the magic of her name he sold thousands of shares of stock to a public already fed up on the stories of the fortunes to be made in moving pictures. When much of the money so raised had been dissipated, when Continent's quotation on the curb sank to an infinitesimal fraction, then it developed that Stella's contract was with Manton personally. Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was formed to exploit her. The stock of this company was not offered to outside investors. Stella's popularity had in no way suffered from the business methods of her manager. Manton, at the least, had displayed rare foresight in his estimation of public taste. Except for a few attempts with established stage favorites, photographed generally in screen versions of theatrical classics and backed by affiliations with the producers of the legitimate stage, Continent Films was the first concern to make the five-reel feature. Stella, as a Continent player, was the very first feature star. Under the banner of Manton Pictures, she had never surrendered her position of pre-eminence. Also, scandal somehow had failed to touch her. Those initiated to the inner gossip of the film world, like myself, were under no illusions. The relations between Stella and Manton were an open secret. Yet the picture fans, in their blind worship, believed her to be as they saw her upon the screen. To them the wide and wistful innocence of her remarkably large eyes could not be anything but genuine. The artlessness of the soft curves of her mouth was proof to them of the reality of an ingenuous and very girlish personality. Even her divorce had helped rather than harmed her. It seemed irony to me that she should have obtained the decree instead of her husband, and in New York, too, where the only grounds are unfaithfulness. The testimony in the case had been sealed so that no one knew whom she had named as corespondent. At the time, I wondered what pressure had been exerted upon Millard to prevent the filing of a cross suit. Surely he should have been able to substantiate the rumors of her association with Lloyd Manton. Lawrence Millard, author and playwright and finally scenario writer, had been as much responsible for the success of his wife as Manton, and in a much less spectacular way. It was Millard who had written her first great Continent success, who had developed the peculiar type of story best suited for her, back in the early days of the one reel and General Film. It is commonly known in picture circles that an actress who screens well, even if she is only a moderately good artist, can be made a star with one or two or three good stories and that, conversely, a star may be ruined by a succession of badly written or badly produced vehicles. Those of us not blinded by an idolatrous worship for the girl condemned her severely for throwing her husband aside at the height of her success. The public displayed their sympathy for her by a burst of renewed interest. The receipts at the box office whenever her films were shown probably delighted both Manton and Stella herself. I had wondered, as Kennedy and I occupied a seat in the train, and as he left me to my thoughts, whether there could be any connection between the tragedy and the divorce. The decree, I knew, was not yet final. Could it be possible that Millard was unwilling, after all, to surrender her? Could he prefer deliberate murder to granting her her freedom? I was compelled to drop that line of thought, since it offered no explanation of his previous failure to contest her suit or to start counter action. Then my reflections had strayed away from Kennedy's sphere, the solving of the mystery, to my own, the news value of her death and the events following. The Star, as always, had been only too glad to assign me to any case where Craig Kennedy was concerned; my phone message to the city editor, the first intimation to any New York paper of Stella's death, already had resulted without doubt in scare heads and an extra edition. The thought of the prominence given the personal affairs of picture players and theatrical folk had disgusted me. There are stars against whom there is not the slightest breath of gossip, even among the studio scandal-mongers. Any number of girls and men go about their work sanely and seriously, concerned in nothing but their success and the pursuit of normal pleasures. As a matter of fact it had struck me on the train that this was about the first time Craig Kennedy had ever been called in upon a case even remotely connected with the picture field. I knew he would be confronted with a tangled skein of idle talk, from everybody, about everybody, and mostly without justification. I hoped he would not fall into the popular error of assuming all film players bad, all studios schools of immorality. I was glad I was able to accompany him on that account. The arrival at Tarrytown had ended my reflections, and Kennedy's--whatever they may have been. Mackay himself had met us at the station and with a few words, to cover his nervousness, had whisked us out to the house. As we approached, Kennedy had taken quick note of the surroundings, the location of the home itself, the arrangement of the grounds. There was a spreading lawn on all four sides, unbroken by plant or bush or tree--sheer prodigality of space, the better to display a rambling but most artistic pile of gray granite. Masking the road and the adjoining grounds was thick, impenetrable shrubbery, a ring of miniature forest land about the estate. There was a garage, set back, and tennis courts, and a practice golf green. In the center of a garden in a far corner a summerhouse was placed so as to reflect itself in the surface of a glistening swimming pool. As we pulled up under the porte-cochere Emery Phelps, the banker, greeted us. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that there was a repressed animosity in his manner, as though he resented the intrusion of Kennedy and myself, yet felt powerless to prevent it. In contrast to his manner was the cordiality of Lloyd Manton, just inside the door. Manton was childishly eager in his welcome, so much so that I was able to detect a shade of suspicion in Kennedy's face. The others of the company were clustered in the living room, through which we passed to reach the library. I found small opportunity to study them in the rather dim light. Mackay beckoned to a man standing in a window, presenting him to Kennedy as Doctor Blake. Then we entered the long paneled chamber which had been the scene of the tragedy. Now I stood, rather awed, with the motionless figure of Stella Lamar before me in her last pitiable close-up. For I have never lost the sense of solemnity on entering the room of a tragedy, in spite of the long association I have had with Kennedy in the scientific detection of crime. Particularly did I have the feeling in this case. The death of a man is tragic, but I know nothing more affecting than the sudden and violent death of a beautiful woman--unless it be that of a child. I recalled a glimpse of Stella as I had seen her in her most recent release, as the diaphragm opened on her receiving a box of chocolates, sent by her lover, and playfully feeding one of them to her beautiful collie, "Laddie," as he romped about upon a divan and almost smothered her with affection. The vivacity and charm of the scene were in sad contrast with what lay before me. As I looked more carefully I saw now that her full, well-rounded face was contorted with either pain or fear--perhaps both. Even through the make-up one could see that her face was blotched and swollen. Also, the muscles were contorted; the eyes looked as if they might be bulging under the lids; and there was a bluish tinge to her skin. Evidently death had come quickly, but it had not been painless. "Even the coroner has not disturbed the body," Mackay hastened to explain to Kennedy. "The players, the camera men, all were sent out of the room the moment Doctor Blake was certain something more than a natural cause lay behind her death. Mr. Phelps telephoned to me, and upon my arrival I ordered the doors and windows closed, posted my deputies to prevent any interference with anything in the room, left my instructions that everyone was to be detained, then got in touch with you as quickly as I could." Kennedy turned to him. Something in the tone of his voice showed that he meant his compliment. "I'm glad, Mackay, to be called in by some one who knows enough not to destroy evidence; who realizes that perhaps the slightest disarrangement of a rug, for instance, may be the only clue to a murder. It's--it's rare!" The little district attorney beamed. If he had found it necessary to walk across the floor just then he would have strutted. I smiled because I wanted Kennedy to show again his marvelous skill in tracing a crime to its perpetrator. I was anxious that nothing should be done to hamper him. II THE TINY SCRATCH Kennedy, before his own examination of the body, turned to Doctor Blake. "Tell me just what you found when you arrived," he directed. The physician, whose practice embraced most of the wealthy families in and around Tarrytown, was an unusually tall, iron-gray-haired man of evident competency. It was very plain that he resented his unavoidable connection with the case. "She was still alive," he responded, thoughtfully, "although breathing with difficulty. Nearly everyone had clustered about her, so that she was getting little air, and the room was stuffy from the lights they had been using in taking the scene. They told me she dropped unconscious and that they couldn't revive her, but at first it did not occur to me that it might be serious. I thought perhaps the heat--" "You saw nothing suspicious," interrupted Kennedy, "nothing in the actions or manner of anyone in the room?" "No, when I first entered I didn't suspect anything out of the way. I had them send everyone into the next room, except Manton and Phelps, and had the doors and windows thrown open to give her air. Then when I examined her I detected what seemed to me to be both a muscular and nervous paralysis, which by that time had proceeded pretty far. As I touched her she opened her eyes, but she was unable to speak. She was breathing with difficulty; her heart action was weakening so rapidly that I had little opportunity to apply restorative measures." "What do you think caused the death?" "So far, I can make no satisfactory explanation." The doctor shrugged his shoulders very slightly. "That is why I advised an immediate investigation. I did not care to write a death certificate." "You have no hypothesis?" "If she died from any natural organic disorder, the signs were lacking by which I could trace it. Everything indicates the opposite, however. It would be hard for me to say whether the paralysis of respiration or of the heart actually caused her death. If it was due to poison--Well, to me the whole affair is shrouded in mystery. The symptoms indicated nothing I could recognize with any degree of certainty." Kennedy stooped over, making a superficial examination of the girl. I saw that some faint odor caught his nostrils, for he remained poised a moment, inhaling reflectively, his eyes clouded in thought. Then he went to the windows, raising the shades an additional few inches each, but that did not seem to give him the light he wished. In the room were the portable arcs used in the making of scenes in an actual interior setting. The connections ran to heavy insulated junction boxes at the ends of two lines of stiff black stage cable. Near the door the circuits were joined and a single lead of the big duplex cord ran out along the polished hardwood floor, carried presumably to the house circuit at a fuse box where sufficient amperage was available. Kennedy's eyes followed out the wires quickly. Then, motioning to me to help, he wheeled one of the heavy stands around and adjusted the hood so that the full strength of the light would be cast upon Stella. The arc in place, he threw the switch, and in the sputtering flood of illumination dropped to his knees, taking a powerful pocket lens from his waistcoat and beginning an inch by inch examination of her skin. I gained a fresh realization of the beauty of the star as she lay under the dazzling electric glow, and in particular I noticed the small amount of make-up she had used and the natural firmness of her flesh. She was dressed in a modish, informal dinner dress, of embroidered satin, cut fairly low at front and back and with sleeves of some gauzelike material reaching not halfway to her elbow, hardly sleeves at all, in fact. Kennedy with his glass went over her features with extreme care. I saw that he drew her hair back, and that then he parted it, to examine her scalp, and I wondered what infinitesimal clue might be the object of his search. I had learned, however, never to question him while he was at work. With his eye glued to his lens he made his way about and around her neck, and down and over her throat and chest so far as it remained unprotected by the silk of her gown. With the aid of Mackay he turned her over to examine her back. Next he returned the body to its former position and began to inspect the arms. Very suddenly something caught his eye on the inside of her right forearm. He grunted with satisfaction, straightened, pulled the switch of the arc, wiped his eyes, which were watering. "Find anything, Mr. Kennedy?" Doctor Blake seemed to understand, to some extent, the purpose of the examination. Kennedy did not answer, probably preoccupied with theories which I could see were forming in his mind. The library was a huge room of greater length than breadth. At one end were wide French windows looking out upon the garden and summer house. The door to the hallway and living room was very broad, with heavy sliding panels and rich portieres of a velours almost the tint of the wood-work. Between the door, situated in the side wall near the opposite end, and the windows, was a magnificent stone fireplace with charred logs testifying to its frequent use. The couch where Stella lay had been drawn back from its normal position before the fire, together with a huge table of carved walnut. The other two walls were an unbroken succession of shelves, reaching to the ceiling and literally packed with books. Facing the windows and the door, so as to include the fireplace and the wide sweep of the room within range, were two cameras still set up, the legs of their tripods nested, probably left exactly as they were at the moment of Stella's collapse. I touched the handle of one, a Bell & Howell, and saw that it was threaded, that the film had not been disturbed. The lights, staggered and falling away from the camera lines, were arranged to focus their illumination on the action of the scenes. There were four arcs and two small portable banks of Cooper-Hewitts, the latter used to cut the sharp shadows and give a greater evenness to the photography. Also there were diffusers constructed of sheets of white cloth stretched taut on frames. These reflected light upward upon the faces of the actors, softening the lower features, and so valuable in adding to the attractiveness of the women in particular. All this I had learned from visits to a studio with the Star's photoplay editor. I was anxious to impress my knowledge upon Kennedy. He gave me no opportunity, however, but wheeled upon Mackay suddenly. "Send in the electrician," he ordered. "Keep everyone else out until I'm ready to examine them." While the district attorney hurried to the sliding doors, guarded on their farther side by one of the amateur deputies he had impressed into service, Kennedy swung the stand of the arc he had used back into the place unaided. I noticed that Doctor Blake was nervously interested in spite of his professional poise. I certainly was bursting with curiosity to know what Kennedy had found. The electrician, a wizened veteran of the studios, with a bald head which glistened rather ridiculously, entered as though he expected to be held for the death of the star on the spot. "I don't know nothin'," he began, before anyone could start to question him. "I was outside when they yelled, honest! I was seeing whether m'lead was getting hot, and I heard 'em call to douse the glim, an'--" "Put on all your lights"--Kennedy was unusually sharp, although it was plain he held no suspicion of this man, as he added--"just as you had them." As the electrician went from stand to stand sulkily, there was a sputter from the arcs, almost deafening in the confines of the room, and quite a bit of fine white smoke. But in a moment the corner of the library constituting the set was brilliantly, dazzlingly lighted. To me it was quite like being transported into one of the big studios in the city. "Is this the largest portion of the room they used?" Kennedy asked. "Did you have your stands any farther back?" "This was the biggest lay-out, sir!" replied the man. "Were all the scenes in which Miss Lamar appeared before her death in this corner of the room?" "Yes, sir!" "And this was the way you had the scene lighted when she dropped unconscious?" "Yes, sir! I pulled m'lights an'--an' they lifted her up and put her right there where she is, sir!" Kennedy paid no attention to the last; in fact, I doubt whether he heard it. Dropping to hands and knees immediately, he began a search of the floor and carpet as minutely painstaking as the inspection he had given Stella's own person. Instinctively I drew back, to be out of his way, as did Doctor Blake and Mackay. The electrician, I noticed, seemed to grasp now the reason for the summons which undoubtedly had frightened him badly. He gave his attention to his lights, stroking a refractory Cooper-Hewitt tube for all the world as if some minor scene in the story were being photographed. It was hard to realize that it was not another picture scene, but that Craig Kennedy, in my opinion the founder of the scientific school of modern detectives, was searching out in this strange environment the clue to a real murder so mysterious that the very cause of death was as yet undetermined. I was hoping for a display of the remarkable brilliance Craig had shown in so many of the cases brought to his attention. I half expected to see him rise from the floor with some tiny something in his hand, some object overlooked by everyone else, some tangible evidence which would lead to the immediate apprehension of the perpetrator of the crime. That Stella Lamar had met her death by foul means I did not doubt for an instant, and so I waited feverishly for the conclusion of Kennedy's search. As it happened, this was not destined to be one of his cases cleared up in a brief few hours of intensive effort. He covered every inch of the floor within the illuminated area; then he turned his attention to the walls and furniture and the rest of the room in somewhat more perfunctory, but no less skillful manner. Fully fifteen minutes elapsed, but I knew from his expression that he had discovered nothing. In a wringing perspiration from the heat of the arcs, but nevertheless glad to have had the intense light at his disposal, he motioned to the electrician to turn them off and to leave the room. "Find anything, Mr. Kennedy?" queried the physician once more. Kennedy beckoned all of us to the side of the ill-fated actress. Lifting the right arm, finding the spot which had caused his exclamation before, he handed his pocket lens to Doctor Blake. After a moment a low whistle escaped the lips of the physician. Next it was my turn. As I stooped over I caught, above the faint scent of imported perfume which she affected, a peculiar putrescent odor. This it was which had caught Kennedy's nostrils. Then through the glass I could detect upon her forearm the tiniest possible scratch ending in an almost invisible puncture, such as might have been made by a very sharp needle or the point of an incredibly fine hypodermic syringe. Drawing back, I glanced again at her face, which I had already noted was blotched and somewhat swollen beneath the make-up. Again I thought that the muscles were contorted, that the eyes were bulging slightly, that there was a bluish tinge to her skin such as in cyanosis or asphyxiation. It may have been imagination, but I was now sure that her expression revealed pain or fear or both. When I looked at her first I had been unable to forget my impression of years. Before me there had been the once living form of Stella Lamar, whom I had dreamed of meeting and whom I had never viewed in actual life. I had lacked the penetration to see beneath the glamour. But to Kennedy there had been signs of the poisoning at once. Doctor Blake had searched merely for the evidences of the commoner drugs, or the usual diseases such as cause sudden death. I recalled the cyanides. I thought of curare, or woorali, the South American arrow poison with which Kennedy once had dealt. Had Stella received an injection of some new and curious substance? Mackay glanced up from his inspection of the mark on the arm. "It's an awfully tiny scratch!" he exclaimed. Kennedy smiled. "Yet, Mackay, it probably was the cause of her death." "How?" "That--that is the problem before us. When we learn just exactly how she scratched herself, or was scratched--" Kennedy paced up and down in front of the fireplace. Then he confronted each of us in turn, suddenly serious. "Not a word of what I have discovered," he warned. III TANGLED MOTIVES "Do you wish to examine the people now?" Mackay asked. Kennedy hesitated. "First I want to make sure of the evidence concerning her actual death. Can you arrange to have the clothes she has on, and those she brought with her, all of them bundled up and sent in to my laboratory, together with samples of her body fluids as soon as the coroner can supply you?" Mackay nodded. This pleased him. This seemed to be tangible action, promising tangible results. Again Kennedy glanced about in thought. I knew that the scratch was worrying him. "Did she change her clothes out here?" he inquired. The district attorney brightened. "She dressed in a small den just off the living room. I have a man posted and the door closed. Nothing has been disturbed." He started to lead the way without further word from Kennedy, proud to have been able once more to demonstrate his foresight. As we left the library, entering the living room, there was an appreciable hush. Here were grouped the others of the party brought out by the picture company, a constrained gathering of folk who had little in common beyond the highly specialized needs of the new art of the screen, an assembly of souls who had been forced to wait during all the time required for the trip of Kennedy and myself out from New York, who were compelled to wait now until he should be ready to examine them. I picked out the electrician in the semi-gloom and with him his fellow members of the technical staff needed in the taking of the scenes in the library. The camera men I guessed, and a property boy, and an assistant director. The last, at any event, of all those in the huge room, had summoned up sufficient nonchalance to bend his mind to details of his work. I saw that he was thumbing a copy of the scenario, or detailed working manuscript of the story, making notations in some kind of little book, and it was that which enabled me to establish his identity at a glance. In a different corner were the principals, two men and a girl still in make-up, and with them the director, and Manton and Phelps. Apart from everyone else, in a sort of social ostracism common to the studios, the two five-dollar-a-day extras waited, a butler and a maid, also in make-up. Oddly enough the total number of these material witnesses to the tragedy was just thirteen, and I wondered if they had noticed the fact. Doctor Blake turned to Kennedy the moment we left the library. "Do you feel it is necessary for me to remain any longer?" he asked. He was apologetic, yet distinctly impatient. "I have neglected several very important calls as it is." Kennedy and Mackay both hastened to assure the physician that they appreciated his co-operation and that they would spare him as much notoriety and inconvenience as possible. Then the three of us hurried across and to the little den which had been converted into a dressing room for Stella's use. Here were all the evidences of femininity, the little touches which a woman can impart to the smallest corner in a few brief moments of occupancy. It was a tiny alcove shut off from the rest of the living room by heavy silk hangings, drawn now and pinned together so as to assure her the privacy she wished. The one window was high and fitted with leaded glass, but it was raised and afforded the maximum of light. Stella's traveling bag sprawled wide open, with many of her effects strewn about in attractive disarray. Her suit, in which she had made the trip to Tarrytown, was thrown carelessly over the back of a chair. Her mirror was fastened up ruthlessly, upon a handsome woven Oriental hanging, with a long hatpin. Powder was spilled upon the couch cover, another Oriental fabric, and her little box of rouge lay face downward on the floor. As we pulled the curtains aside I caught the perfume which still clung to her clothes in the library beyond. As Mackay sniffed also, Kennedy smiled. "Coty's Jacqueminot rose," he remarked. With his usual swift and practiced certainty Kennedy then inspected the extemporized dressing room. He seemed to satisfy himself that no subtle attack had been made upon the girl here, although I doubt that he had held any such supposition seriously in the first place. In my association of several years with Kennedy, following our first intimacy of college days, I had learned that his success as a scientific detective was the result wholly of his thoroughness of method. To watch him had become a never-ending delight, even in the dull preliminary work of a case as baffling as this one. Mackay also seemed content just to enact the role of spectator. Kennedy thumbed through the delicate intimacies of her traveling bag with the keen, impersonal manner which always distinguished him; then he found her beaded handbag and proceeded to rummage through that. Suddenly he paused as he unfolded a piece of note paper, and we gathered around to read: MY DEAR STELLA: Have something very important to tell you. Will you lunch Tuesday at the P. G. tearoom? LARRY. "Tuesday--" murmured Kennedy. "And this is Monday. Who--who is Larry, I wonder?" I hastened to answer the question for him. It was my first opportunity to display my knowledge of the picture players. "Larry--that's Lawrence, Lawrence Millard!" I exclaimed. Then I went on to tell him of the divorce and the circumstances surrounding Stella's life as I knew it. "It--it looks," I concluded, "as if they might have been on the point of composing their differences, after all." Kennedy nodded. I could see, however, that he made a mental note of his intention to question the girl's former husband. All at once another thought struck me and I became eager. It was a possible explanation of the mystery. "Listen, Craig," I began. "Suppose Millard wanted to make up and she didn't. Suppose that she refused to see him or to meet him. Suppose that in a jealous fit he--" "No, Walter!" Kennedy headed me off with a smile. "This wasn't an ordinary murder of passion. This was well thought out and well executed. Not one medical examiner in a thousand would have found that tiny scratch. It may be very difficult yet to determine the exact cause of death. This, my dear Jameson"--it was playful irony--"is a scientific crime." "But Millard--" "Of course! Anyone may be the culprit. Yet you tell me Millard did not contest her divorce and that it would have been very easy for him to file a counter-suit because everyone knew of her relationship with Manton. That, offhand, shows no ill-will on his part. And now we find this note from him, which at least is friendly in tone--" I shrugged my shoulders. It was the same blind alley in which my thoughts had strayed upon the train on our way out. "It's too early to begin to try to fasten the guilt upon anyone," Kennedy added, as we returned to the library through the living room. Then he turned to Mackay. "Have you succeeded in gleaning any facts about the life of Miss Lamar?" he asked. "Anything which might point to a motive, so that I can approach the case from both directions?" "If you ask me," the little district attorney rejoined, "it's a matter of tangled motives throughout. I--I had no sword to cut the Gordian knot and so"--graciously--"I sent for you." "What do you mean by tangled motives?" Kennedy ignored the other's compliment. "Well!" Mackay indicated me. "Mr. Jameson explained about her divorce. No one heard whom she named as corespondent. That's an unknown woman in the case, although it may not mean anything at all. Then there's Lloyd Manton and all the talk about his affair with Miss Lamar. Some one told one of my men that Manton's wife has left him on that account." "Did you question Manton?" "No, I thought I ought to leave all that to you. I was afraid I might put them on their guard." "Good!" Kennedy was pleased. "Did you learn anything else?" "This deputy of mine obtained all these things by gossiping with the girl who plays the maid, and so they may not be reliable. But among the players it is reported that Werner, the director, was having an affair with Stella also, and that Merle Shirley, the 'heavy' man, was seen with her a great deal recently, and that Jack Gordon, the leading man, who was engaged to marry her as soon as her decree was final, was jealous as a consequence, and that Miss Loring, playing the vampire In the story and engaged to Shirley, was even more bitter against the deceased than Gordon, Miss Lamar's fiance. "That made eight people with possible motives for the crime. When I got that far I gave it up. In fact"--Mackay lowered his voice, suddenly--"I don't like the attitude of Emery Phelps. This is his house, you know, and he is the financial backer of Manton Pictures, yet there seems to be an undercurrent of friction between Manton and himself. I--I wanted him to show me some detail of the arrangement of things in the library, but he wouldn't come into the room. He said he didn't want to look at Miss Lamar. There--there was something--and, I don't know. If he is concerned in any way--that would make nine." "You think Miss Lamar and Phelps--" Mackay shook his head. "I don't know." Kennedy turned to me, expression really serious. "Is this the way they carry on in the picture world, Walter?" he asked. "Is this the usual thing or--or an exception?" I flushed. "It's very much an exception," I insisted. "The film people are just like other people, some good and some bad. Probably three-quarters of all this is gossip." "I hope so." He straightened. "The only thing to do is to go after them one at a time and disentangle all the conflicting threads. It looks as though there will be any number of possible false leads and so we must be careful and deliberate. I think I'll question each in turn--here." He walked over to the fireplace, stopping for just a moment to glance at the body of Stella. Then he pulled the blinds down halfway, so that the room seemed somber and gruesome. He drew a chair so that the different individuals as he examined them, would be unable to lose sight of the dead woman. His arrangements completed, he faced the district attorney. "Manton first," he directed. In an instant I caught the psychology of it--the now darkened library, the beautiful body still lying on the davenport, the quiet and quick arrival of ourselves. If anything could be extracted from these people, surely it would be betrayed under these surroundings. IV THE FATAL SCRIPT I had no real opportunity to study Manton when he greeted us upon our arrival, and at that time neither Kennedy nor I possessed even a passing realization of the problem before us. Now I felt that I was ready to grasp at any possible motive for the crime. I was prepared to suspect any or all of the nine people enumerated by Mackay, so far as I could speak for myself, and at the very least I was certain that this was one of the most baffling cases ever brought to Craig's attention. Yet I was sure he would solve it. I waited most impatiently for the outcome of his examination of Lloyd Manton. The producer-promoter was a well-set-up man just approaching middle age. About him was a certain impression of great physical strength, of bulk without flabbiness, and in particular I noticed the formation of his head, the square broad development which indicated his intellectual power, and I found, too, a fascinating quality about his eyes, deeply placed and of a warm dark gray-brown, which seemed to hold a fundamental sincerity which, I imagined, made the man almost irresistible in a business deal. His weakness, so far as I could ascertain it, was revealed by his mouth and chin, and by a certain nervousness of his hands, hands where a square, practical palm was belied by the slight tapering of his fingers, the mark of the dreamer. His mouth was unquestionably sensuous, with the lips full and now and then revealing out of the studied practiced calm of his face an almost imperceptible twitching, as though to betray a flash of emotion, or fear. His chin was feminine, softening his expression and showing that his feelings would overbalance the cool calculation denoted by his eyes and the rather heavy level brows above. As he entered the room, taking the chair indicated by Kennedy, he seemed perfectly cool and his glance, as it strayed to the lifeless form of Stella, revealed his iron self-control. The little signs which I have mentioned, which betrayed the real man beneath, were only disclosed to me little by little as Kennedy's questioning progressed. "Tell me just what happened?" Kennedy began. "Well--" Manton responded quickly enough, but then he stopped and proceeded as though he chose each word with care, as if he framed each sentence so that there would be no misunderstanding, no chance of wrong impression; all of which pleased Kennedy. "In the scene we were taking," he went on, "Stella was crouched down on the floor, bending over her father, who had just been murdered. She was sobbing. All at once the lights were to spring up. The young hero was to dash through the set and she was to see him and scream out in terror. The first part went all right. But when the lights flashed on, instead of looking up and screaming, Stella sort of crumpled and collapsed on top of Werner, who was playing the father. I yelled to stop the cameras and rushed in. We picked her up and put her on the couch. Some one sent for the doctor, but she died without saying a word. I--I haven't the slightest idea what happened. At first I thought it was heart trouble." "Did she have heart trouble?" "No, that is--not that I ever heard." Kennedy hesitated. "Why were you taking these scenes out here?" It was on the tip of my tongue to answer for Manton. I knew that at one time many fine interiors were actually taken in houses, to save expense. I was sorry that Kennedy should draw any conclusion from a fact which I thought was too well known to require explanation. Manton's answer, however, proved a distinct surprise to me. "Mr. Phelps asked us to use his library in this picture." "Wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper in the long run to reproduce it in the studio?" Manton glanced up at Kennedy, echoing my thought. Had Kennedy, after all, some knowledge of motion pictures stored away with his vast fund of general and unusual information? "Yes," replied the producer. "It would save the trip out here, the loss of time, the inconvenience--why, in an actual dollars and cents comparison, with overhead and everything taken into account, the building of a set like this is nothing nowadays." "Do you know Mr. Phelps's reason?" Manton shrugged his shoulders. "Just a whim, and we had to humor it." "Mr. Phelps is interested in the company?" "Yes. He recently bought up all the stock except my own. He is in absolute control, financially." "What is the story you are making? I mean, I want to understand just exactly what happened in the scenes you were photographing today. It is essential that I learn how everyone was supposed to act and how they did act. I must find out every trivial little detail. Do you follow me?" Manton's mouth set suddenly, showing that it possessed a latent quality of firmness. He glanced about the room, then rose, went to the farther end of the long table, and returned with a thick sheaf of manuscript bound at the side in stiff board covers. "This is the scenario, the script of the detailed action," he explained. As Kennedy took the binder, Manton opened it and turned past several sheets of tabulation and lists, the index to the sets and exterior locations, the characters and extras, the changes of clothes, and other technical detail. "The scenes we are taking here," he went on, "are the opening scenes of the story. We left them until now because it meant the long trip out to Tarrytown and because it would take us away from the studio while they were putting up the largest two sets, a banquet and a ballroom which need the entire floor space of the studio." He turned over two or three pages, pointing. "We had taken up to scene thirteen; from scenes one to thirteen just as you have them in order there. It--it was in the unlucky thirteenth that she"--was it my imagination or did he tremble, for just an instant, violently?--"that she died." Kennedy started to read the script. I hurried to his side, glancing over his shoulder. THE BLACK TERROR FEATURING STELLA LAMAH SCENE 1 LOCATION.--Remsen library. This is a modern, luxurious library set with a long table in the center of the room, books around the walls, French windows leading from the rear, and an entrance through a hallway to the right through a pair of portieres. Note: E. P. wishes us to use his library at Tarrytown. ACTION.--Open diaphragm slowly on darkened set as a spot of light is being played on the walls and French windows in the rear. As the diaphragm opens slowly the light vanishes, leaving the scene dark at times and then brightened until, as the diaphragm opens full, we discover that the light is that of a burglar's flash light, traveling over the walls of the library. When the diaphragm is fully opened we discover also a faint line of light streaming through the almost closed portieres leading to the hallway outside. This ray of light, striking along the floor, pauses by the library table, just disclosing the edge of it but not revealing anything else in the room. The spotlight in the hands of a shadowy figure roves across the wall and to the portieres. As it pauses there the portieres move and the fingers of a girl are seen on the edge of the silk. A bare and beautiful arm is thrust through the portieres almost to the shoulder, and it begins to move the portieres aside, reaching upward to pull the curtains apart at the rings. SCENE 2 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Close foreground of portieres. ACTION.--Our heroine parts the portieres and stands revealed in the spotlight's glare. She is in dinner gown and about her throat is a peculiar locket of flashing jewels. She cries out and backs away, closing the portieres. The spotlight retreats from the curtains, leaving them dark. SCENE 3 LOCATION.--Hallway, Remsen house. Close foreground of portieres leading to library. This hallway is lighted. ACTION.--The girl holding the portieres shut screams for help. SCENE 4 LOCATION.--Foot of stairway, Remsen house. ACTION.--The butler and maid are discovered talking. They hear the girl's scream and start running. SCENE 5 LOCATION.--Hallway, Remsen house. Close foreground of portieres. ACTION.--The girl hears help coming and glances off to indicate that she sees the butler and the maid. She continues to cling to the closed curtains. SCENE 6 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Full shot. ACTION.--The unknown drops the spotlight to the floor and we first see his legs crossing the rays of light on the floor. Then the spotlight rolls, revealing the body of an elderly man of the American millionaire type, lying crumpled against the table. Finally it rolls a little farther and stops, directing its rays into the fireplace. SCENE 7 LOCATION.--Remsen hallway, outside library. ACTION.--The girl indicates determined resolve. She throws apart the portieres with a quick motion of her arms and dashes inside. The portieres close after her. The butler and maid come on running and looking about. SCENE 8 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Full shot. ACTION.--The spotlight is showing into the fireplace when the girl crosses quickly into its rays. She stoops into the light, revealing her face and picking up the spotlight. She flashes it about the room, pausing as it strikes the French windows and reveals the murderer making his escape out on a balcony which is revealed in the background. When the rays of light reach the murderer he deliberately turns. SCENE 9 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Close foreground of French windows. ACTION.--The intruder, now in the close foreground, pauses as he is about to shut the window and blinks deliberately into the rays of light, then laughs and closes the French windows. SCENE 10 LOCATION.--Hallway, Remsen home. Close foreground of portieres to library. ACTION.--The butler and maid look around hopelessly. A young man, the exact counterpart of the man who in the previous scene looked into the spotlight at the French windows, comes up to the butler and demands to know what has happened. The butler explains hurriedly that he heard his mistress cry out for help. The young man steps to the portieres and pauses. SCENE 11 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Full shot. ACTION.--The girl, using the spotlight, flashes it about the room and down on the floor, seeing for the first time the body of the American millionaire. SCENE 12 LOCATION.--Exterior Remsen house. Night tint. ACTION.--The murderer scrambles down a column from the upper porch and leaps to the ground, darting across the lawn out of the picture. SCENE 13 LOCATION.--Remsen library. Full shot. ACTION.--The spotlight on the floor reveals the girl sobbing over the body of the millionaire and trying to revive him. She screams and cries out. The portieres are parted and from the lighted hallway we see the young man, the butler, and the maid, who enter. The young man switches on the lights and the room is revealed. The three cry out in horror. The young man, glancing about, leaps toward the partly opened French windows, drawing a revolver. As the girl sees him she screams again and denotes terror. Finishing the thirteenth scene, Kennedy closed the covers and handed the script to me. Then he confronted Manton once more. "What became of the locket about the girl's neck? In the manuscript Miss Lamar is supposed to have a peculiar pendant at her throat. There was none." "Oh yes!" The promoter remained a moment in thought. "The doctor took it off and gave it to Bernie, the prop. boy, who's helping the electrician." "Is he outside?" "Yes." "Now try to remember, Mr. Manton." Kennedy leaned over very seriously. "Just who approached closely to Miss Lamar in the making of that thirteenth scene? Who was near enough to have inflicted a wound, or to have subjected her, suppose we say, to the fumes of some subtle poison?" "You think that--" Manton started to question Kennedy, but was given no encouragement. "Gordon, the leading man, passed through the scene," he replied, after a pause, "but did not go very near her. Werner was playing the dead millionaire at her feet." "Who is Werner?" "He's my director. Because it was such a small part, he played it himself. He's only in the two or three scenes in the beginning and I was here to be at the camera." While Kennedy was questioning Manton I had been glancing through the script of the picture. My own connection with the movies had consisted largely of three attempts to sell stories of my own to the producers. Needless to remark I had not succeeded, in that regard falling in the class with some hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens. For everybody thinks he has at least one motion picture in him. And so, though I had managed to visit studios and meet a few of the players, this was my very first shot at a manuscript actually in production. I took advantage of Kennedy's momentary preoccupation to turn to Manton. "Who wrote this script, Mr. Manton?" I asked. "Millard! Lawrence Millard." "Millard?" Kennedy and I exclaimed, simultaneously. "Why, yes! Millard is still under contract and he's the only man who ever could write scripts for Stella. We--we tried others and they all flivved." "Is Millard here?" Manton burst into laughter, somehow out of place in the room where we still were in the company of death. "An author on the lot at the filming of his picture, to bother the director and to change everything? Out! When the scenario's done he's through. He's lucky to get his name on the screen. It's not the story but the direction which counts, except that you've got to have a good idea to start with, and a halfway decent script to make your lay-outs from. Anyhow--" He sobered a bit, perhaps realizing that he was going counter to the tendency to have the author on the lot. "Millard and Stella weren't on speaking terms. She divorced him, you know." "Do you know much about the personal affairs of Miss Lamar?" "Well"--Manton's eyes sought the floor for a moment--"Like everyone else in pictures, Stella was the victim of a great deal of gossip. That's the experience of any girl who rises to a position of prominence and--" "How were the relations between Miss Lamar and yourself?" interrupted Kennedy. "What do you mean by that?" Manton flushed quickly. "You have had no trouble, no disagreements recently?" "No, indeed. Everything has been very friendly between us--in a strictly business way, of course--and I don't believe I've had an unpleasant word with her since I first formed Manton Pictures to make her a star." "You know nothing of her difficulties with her husband?" "Naturally not. I seldom saw her except at the studio, unless it was some necessary affair such as a screen ball here, or perhaps in Boston or Philadelphia or some near-by city where I would take her for effect--" Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Will you arrange to keep the people I have yet to question separate from the ones I have examined already?" As the district attorney nodded, Kennedy dismissed Manton rather shortly; then turned again to Mackay as the promoter drew out of earshot. "Bring in Bernie, the property-boy, before anyone can tell him to hide or destroy that locket." V AN EMOTIONAL MAZE Bernie proved to be as stupid a youth as any I had ever seen. He possessed frightened semi-liquid eyes and overshot ears and hair which might have been red beneath its accumulation of dust. Without doubt the boy had been coached by the electrician, because he began to affirm his innocence in similar fashion the moment he entered the door. "I don't know nothin', honest I don't," he pleaded. "I was out in the hall, I was, and I didn't come in at all until the doc. came." "I suppose you were anxious to see if the cable was becoming hot," Kennedy suggested, gravely. "That's it, sir! We was lookin' at it because it was on the varnish and the butler he says--" "Where's the locket?" interrupted Kennedy. "The one Miss Lamar wore in the scenes." "Oh!" in disdain, "that thing!" With some effort Bernie fished it from the capacious depths of a pocket, disentangling the sharp corners from the torn and ragged lining of his coat. I glanced at it as Kennedy turned it over and over in his hands, and saw that it was a palpable stage prop, with glass jewels of the cheapest sort. Concealing his disappointment, Kennedy dropped it into his own pocket, confronting the frightened Bernie once more. "Do you know anything about Miss Lamar's death?" "No! I don't know nothing, honest!" "All right!" Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Werner, the director." Of Stanley Werner I had heard a great deal, through interviews, character studies, and other press stuff in the photoplay journals and the Sunday newspaper film sections. Now I found him to be a high-strung individual, so extremely nervous that it seemed impossible for him to remain in one position in his chair or for him to keep his hands motionless for a single instant. Although he was of moderate build, with a fair suggestion of flesh, there were yet the marks of the artist and of the creative temperament in the fine sloping contours of his head and in his remarkably long fingers, which tapered to nails manicured immaculately. Kennedy seemed to pay particular attention to his eyes, which were dark, soft, and amazingly restless. "Who was in the cast, Mr. Werner? What were they playing and just exactly what was each doing at the time of Miss Lamar's collapse?" "Well"--Werner's eyes shifted to mine, then to Mackay's, and there was a subtle lack of ease in his manner which I was hardly prepared to classify as yet--"Stella Lamar was playing the part of Stella Remsen, the heroine, and--uh, I see your associate has the script--" He paused, glancing at me again. When Kennedy said nothing, Werner went on, growing more and more nervous. "Jack Gordon plays Jack Daring, the hero--the handsome young chap who runs down the steps and encounters the butler and the maid in the hall just outside the library--" "Wasn't it his face in the French windows of the library at the same time?" Kennedy asked. "Wasn't he the murderer of the father, also?" "No!" Werner smiled slightly, and there was an instant's flash of the man's personality, winning and, it seemed to me, calculated to inspire confidence. "That is the mystery; it is a mystery plot. While the parts are played by Jack in both cases now, we explain in a subtitle a little later that the criminal himself, the 'Black Terror,' is a master of scientific impersonation, and that he changes the faces of his emissaries by means of plastic surgery and such scientific things, so that they look like the characters against whom he wishes to throw suspicion. So while Jack plays the part it is really an accomplice of the 'Black Terror' who kills old Remsen." Kennedy turned to me. "A new idea in the application of science to crime!" he remarked, dryly. "Just suppose it were practicable!" "The 'Black Terror'" Werner continued, "is played by Merle Shirley. You've heard of him, the greatest villain ever known to the films? Then there's Marilyn Loring, the vampire, another good trouper, too. She plays Zelda, old Remsen's ward, and it's a question whether Zelda or Stella will be the Remsen heir. Marilyn herself is an awfully nice girl, but, oh, how the fans hate her!" The director chuckled. "No Millard story is ever complete without a vamp and Marilyn's been eating them up. She's been with Manton Pictures for nearly a year." "You played the millionaire yourself?" "Yes, I did old Remsen." I realized suddenly, for the first time, that Werner was still in the evening clothes he had donned for the part. On his face were streaks in the little make-up that remained after his frequent mopping of his features with his handkerchief. Too, his collar was melted. I could imagine his discomfort. "Did you have any business with Stella?" Kennedy asked, using the stage term for the minor bits of action in the playing of a scene. "Did you move at all while she was going through her part?" "No, Mr. Kennedy, I was 'dead man' in all the scenes." "Show me how you lay, if you will." Obligingly, Werner stretched out on the carpet, duplicating his positions even to the exact manner in which he had placed his hands and arms. Rather to my own distaste, Kennedy impressed me to represent, I am sure in clumsy fashion, the various positions of Stella Lamar. Most painstakingly Kennedy worked back from the thirteenth scene to the first, referring to the script and coaxing details of memory from the mind of Werner. I grasped Kennedy's purpose almost at once. He was endeavoring to reproduce the action which had been photographed, so as to determine just how the poison had been administered. Of course he made no reference to the tiny scratch and Mackay and I were careful to give no hint of it to Werner. The director, however, seemed most willing to assist us. I certainly felt no suspicion of him now. As for Kennedy, his face was unrevealing. "When the film in the camera is developed--" I suggested to Kennedy, suddenly. He silenced me with a gesture. "I haven't overlooked that, but the scenes will be from one angle only and in a darkened set. I can determine more this way." Somewhat crestfallen, I continued my impersonation of the slain star not altogether willingly. Soon Kennedy had completed his reconstruction of the action. "Who else entered the scene besides Gordon?" he asked. "The butler and the maid, after the lights were flashed on." "I'll question the camera men," he announced. "Who are they?" "Harry Watkins is the head photographer," Werner explained. "He's a crackerjack, too! One of the best lighting experts in the country. Al Penny's grinding the other box." "Let's have Watkins first." Kennedy nodded to Mackay to escort the director from the room. Neither Watkins nor Penny were able to add anything to the facts which Kennedy had gleaned from Manton and Werner. When he had finished his patient examination of the junior camera man he recalled Watkins and had both, under his eyes, close and seal the film cartridges which contained the photographic record of the thirteen scenes. Dismissing the men, he handed the two black boxes to Mackay. "Can you arrange to have these developed and printed, quickly, but in some way so neither negative nor positive will be out of your sight at any time?" Mackay nodded. "I know the owner of a laboratory in Yonkers." "Good! Now let's have the leading man." Jack Gordon immediately impressed me very unfavorably. There was something about him for which I could find no word but "sleek." Learning much from my long association with Kennedy I observed at once that he had removed the make-up from his face and that he had on a clean white collar. Since the linen worn before the camera is dyed a faint tint to prevent the halation caused by pure white, it was a sure sign to me that he had spruced up a bit. I knew that he was engaged to Stella. Here in this room she lay dead, under the most mysterious circumstances. There was little question, in fact, that she had been murdered. How could he, really loving her, think of such things as the make-up left on his face, or his clothes? I had to admit that he was a handsome individual. Perhaps slightly less than average in height, and very slender, he had the close-knit build of an athlete. The contour of his head and the perfect regularity of rather large features made him an ideal type for the screen at any angle; in close-ups and foregrounds as well as full shots. In actual life there were little things covered by make-up in his work, such as the cold gray tint of his eyes and the lines of dissipation about his mouth. Kennedy questioned him first about his movements in the different scenes, then asked him if he had seen or noticed anything suspicious during the taking of any of them or in the intervals between. "I had several changes, Mr. Kennedy," he replied. "Part of the time I was Jack Daring, my regular role, but I was also the emissary who looked like Daring. I went out each time because I make up the emissary to look hard. Werner wanted to fool the people a little bit, but he didn't want them to be positive the emissary was Daring, as would happen if both make-ups were the same." "Did you have any opportunity to talk to Miss Lamar?" "None at all. Werner was pushing us to the limit." "Did she seem her usual self at the start of the scene?" "No, she seemed a little out of sorts. But"--Gordon hesitated--"something had been troubling her all day. She hardly would talk to me in the car on the way out at all. It didn't strike me that she acted any different when she went in to take the scene." "You were engaged to her?" "Yes." Gordon's eyes caught the body on the davenport before him. He glanced away hastily, taking his lower lip between his teeth. "Had you been having any trouble?" "No--that is, nothing to amount to anything." "But you had a quarrel or a misunderstanding." His face flushed slowly. "She was to obtain her final decree early next week. I wanted her to marry me then at once. She refused. When I reproached her for not considering my wishes she pretended to be cool and began an elaborate flirtation with Merle Shirley." "You say she only pretended to be cool?" For a few moments Gordon hesitated. Then apparently his vanity loosened his tongue. He wished it to be understood that he had held the love of Stella to the last. "Last night," he volunteered, "we made everything up and she was as affectionate as she ever had been. This morning she was cool, but I could tell it was pretense and so I let her alone." "There has been no real trouble between you?" The leading man met Kennedy's gaze squarely. "Not a bit!" Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Mr. Shirley," he ordered. By a miscalculation on the part of the little district attorney the heavy man entered the room a moment before Gordon left. They came face to face just within the portieres. There was no mistaking the hostility, the open hate, between the two men. Both Kennedy and I caught the glances. Then Merle Shirley approached the fireplace, taking the chair indicated by Kennedy. "I wasn't in any of the opening scenes," he explained. "I remained out in the car until I got wind of the excitement. By that time Stella was dead." "Do you know anything of a quarrel between Miss Lamar and Gordon?" Shirley rose, clenching his fists. For several moments he stood gazing down at the star with an expression on his face which I could not analyze. The pause gave me an opportunity to study him, however, and I noticed that while he had heavier features than Gordon, and was a larger man in every way, ideally endowed for heavy parts, there was yet a certain boyish freshness clinging to him in subtle fashion. He wore his clothes in a loose sort of way which suggested the West and the open, in contrast to Gordon's metropolitan sophistication and immaculate tailoring. He was every inch the man, and a splendid actor--I knew. Yet there was the touch of youth about him. He seemed incapable of a crime such as this, unless it was in anger, or as the result of some deep-running hidden passion. Now, whether he was angry or in the clutch of a broad disgust, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Very suddenly he wheeled upon Kennedy. His voice became low and vibrant with feeling. Here was none of the steeled self-control of Manton, the deceptive outer mask which Werner used to cover his thoughts, the nonchalant, cold frankness of Gordon. "Mr. Kennedy," the actor exclaimed, "I've been a fool, a fool!" "How do you mean?" "I mean that I allowed Stella to flatter my vanity and lead me into a flirtation which meant nothing at all to her. God!" "You are responsible for the trouble between Miss Lamar and Gordon, then?" "Never!" Shirley indicated the body of the star with a quick, passionate sweep of his hand. Now I could not tell whether he was acting or in earnest. "She's responsible!" he exclaimed. "She's responsible for everything!" "Her death--" "No!" Shirley sobered suddenly, as if he had forgotten the mystery altogether. "I don't know anything at all about that, nor have I any idea unless--" But he checked himself rather than voice an empty suspicion. "Just what do you mean, then?" Kennedy was sharp, impatient. "She made a fool of me, and--and I was engaged to Marilyn Loring--" "Were engaged? The engagement--" "Marilyn broke it off last night and wouldn't listen to me, even though I came to my senses and saw what a fool I had been." "Was"--Kennedy framed his question carefully--"was your infatuation for Miss Lamar of long duration?" "Just a few weeks. I--I took her out to dinner and to the theater and--and that was all." "I see!" Kennedy walked away, nodding to Mackay. "Will you have Miss Loring next?" asked the district attorney. Kennedy nodded. Marilyn Loring was a surprise to me. Stella Lamar both on the screen and in real life was a beauty. In the films Marilyn was a beauty also, apparently of a cold, unfeeling type, but in the flesh she was disclosed as a person utterly different from all my preconceived notions. In the first place, she was not particularly attractive except when she smiled. Her coloring, hair frankly and naturally red, skin slightly mottled and pale, produced in photography the black hair and marble, white skin which distinguished her. But as I studied her, as she was now, before she had put on any make-up and while she was still dressed in a simple summer gown of organdie, she looked as though she might have stepped into the room from the main street of some mid-Western town. In repose she was shy, diffident in appearance. When she smiled, naturally, without holding the hard lines of her vampire roles, there was the slight suggestion of a dimple, and she was essentially girlish. When a trace of emotion or feeling came into her face the woman was evident. She might have been seventeen or thirty-seven. To my surprise, Kennedy made no effort to elicit further information concerning the personal animosities of these people. Perhaps he felt it too much of an emotional maze to be straightened out in this preliminary investigation. When he found Marilyn had watched the taking of the scenes he compared her account with those which he had already obtained. Then he dismissed her. In rapid succession, for he was impatient now to follow up other methods of investigation, he called in and examined the remaining possible witnesses of the tragedy. These were the two extra players--the butler and the maid, the assistant director, Phelps's house servants, and Emery Phelps himself. For some unknown reason he left the owner of the house to the very last. "Why did you wish these scenes photographed out here?" he asked. "Because I wanted to see my library in pictures." "Were you watching the taking of the scenes?" "Yes!" "Will you describe just what happened?" Phelps flushed. He was irritated and in no mood to humor us any more than necessary. A man of perhaps forty, with the portly flabbiness which often accompanies success in the financial markets, he was accustomed to obtaining rather than yielding obedience. A bachelor, he had built this house as a show place merely, according to the gossip among newspaper men, seldom living in it. "Haven't about a dozen people described it for you already?" he asked, distinctly petulant. Kennedy smiled. "Did you notice anything particularly out of the way, anything which might be a clue to the manner in which Miss Lamar met her death?" Phelps's attitude became frankly malicious. "If I had, or if any of us had, we wouldn't have found it necessary to send for Prof. Craig Kennedy, or"--turning to me--"the representative of the New York Star." Kennedy, undisturbed, walked to the side of Mackay. "I'll leave Mr. Phelps and his house in your care," he remarked, in a low voice. Mackay grinned. I saw that the district attorney had little love for the owner of this particular estate in Tarrytown. Kennedy led the way into the living room. Immediately the various people he had questioned clustered up with varying degrees of anxiety. Had the mystery been solved? He gave them no satisfaction, but singled out Manton, who seemed eager to get away. "Where is Millard? I would like to talk to him." "I'll try to get him for you. Suppose--" Manton looked at his watch. "I should be in at the studio," he explained. "Everything is at a standstill, probably, and--and so, suppose you and Mr. Jameson ride in with me in my car. Millard might be there." Kennedy brightened. "Good!" Then he looked back to catch the eye of Mackay. "Let everyone go now," he directed. "Don't forget to send me the samples of the body fluids and"--as an afterthought--"you'd better keep a watch on the house." VI THE FIRST CLUE Manton's car was a high-powered, expensive limousine, fitted inside with every luxury of which the mind of even a prima donna could conceive, painted a vivid yellow that must have made it an object of attention even on its familiar routes. It was quite characteristic of its owner, for Manton, as we learned, missed no chance to advertise himself. In the back with us was Werner, while the rest of the company were left to return to the city in the two studio cars which had brought them out in the morning. The director, however, seemed buried with his reflections. He took no part in the conversation; paid no attention to us upon the entire trip. Manton's mind seemed to dwell rather upon the problems brought up by the death of Stella than upon the tragedy itself. The Star's photoplay editor once had remarked to me that the promoter was 90 per cent "bull," and 10 per cent efficiency. I found that it was an unfair estimation. With all his self-advertisement and almost obnoxious personality, Manton was a more than capable executive in a business where efficiency and method are rare. "This has been a hoodoo picture from the start," he exclaimed, suddenly. "We have been jinxed with a vengeance. Some one has held the Indian sign on us for sure." Kennedy, I noticed, listened, studying the man cautiously from the corners of his eyes, but making no effort to draw him out. "First there were changes to be made in the script, and for those Millard took his own sweet time. Then we were handed a lot of negative which had been fogged in the perforator, a thing that doesn't happen once in a thousand years. But it caught us just as we sent the company down to Delaware Water Gap. A whole ten days' work went into the developer at once. Neither of the camera men caught the fog in their tests because it came in the middle of the rolls. Everything had to be done over again. "And accidents! We carefully registered the principal accomplice of the 'Black Terror,' a little hunchback with a face to send chills down your back. After we had him in about half the scenes of a sequence of action he was taken sick and died of influenza. First we waited a few days; then we had to take all that stuff over again. "Our payroll on this picture is staggering. Stella's three thousand a week is cheap for her, the old contract, but it's a lot of money to throw away. Two weeks when she was under the weather cost us six thousand dollars salary and there was half a week we couldn't do any work without her. Gordon and Shirley and Marilyn Loring draw down seventeen hundred a week between them. The director's salary is only two hundred short of that. All told 'The Black Terror' is costing us a hundred thousand dollars over our original estimate. "And now"--it seemed to me that Manton literally groaned--"with Stella Lamar dead--excuse me looking at it this way, but, after all, it is business and I'm the executive at the head of the company--now we must find a new star, Lord knows where, and we must retake every scene in which Stella appeared. It--it's enough to bankrupt Manton Pictures for once and all." "Can't you change the story about some way, so you won't lose the value of her work?" asked Kennedy. "Impossible! We've announced the release and we've got to go ahead. Fortunately, some of the biggest sets are not taken yet." The car pulled up with a flourish before the Manton studio, which was an immense affair of reinforced concrete in the upper Bronx. Then, in response to our horn, a great wide double door swung open admitting us through the building to a large courtyard around which the various departments were built. Here, there was little indication that the principal star of the company had just met her death under mysterious and suspicious circumstances. Perhaps, had I been familiar with the ordinary bustle of the establishment, I might have detected a difference. Indeed, it did strike me that there were little knots of people here and there discussing the tragedy, but everything was overshadowed by the aquatic scene being filmed in the courtyard for some other Manton picture. The cramped space about the concrete tank was alive with people, a mob of extras and stage hands and various employees, a sight which held Kennedy and me for some little time. I was glad when Manton led the way through a long hall to the comparative quiet of the office building. In the reception room there was a decided hush. "Is Millard here?" he asked of the boy seated at the information desk. "No, sir," was the respectful reply. "He was here this morning and for a while yesterday." "You see!" Manton confronted Kennedy grimly. "This is only one of the things with which we have to contend in this business. I give Millard an office but he's a law unto himself. It's the artistic temperament. If I interfere, then he says he cannot write and he doesn't produce any manuscript. Ordinarily he cannot be bothered to work at the studio. But"--philosophically--"I know where to get him as a general thing. He does most of his writing in his rooms downtown; says there's more inspiration in the confusion of Broadway than in the wilds of the Bronx. I'll phone him." We followed the promoter up the stairs to the second and top floor. Here a corridor gave access to the various executive offices. Its windows at frequent intervals looked down upon the courtyard and the present confusion. Werner, who had preceded us into the building, now came up. As Manton bustled into his own office to use the telephone the director turned to Kennedy, indicating the next doorway. "This is my place," he explained. "It connects with Manton, on one side, through his reception room. You see, in addition to directing Stella Lamar I have been in general charge of production and most of the casting is up to me." Kennedy entered after Werner, interested, and I followed. The door through to the reception room stood open and beyond was the one to Manton's quarters. I could see the promoter at his desk, receiver at his ear, an impatient expression upon his face. In the reception room a rather pretty girl, young and of a shallow-pated type I thought, was busy at a clattering typewriter. She rose and closed the door upon Manton, so as not to disturb him. "The next office on this side is Millard's," volunteered Werner. "He's the only scenario writer dignified with quarters in this building." "Manton has other writers, hasn't he?" Kennedy asked. "Yes, the scenario department is on the third floor across the court, above the laboratory and cutting rooms." "Who else is in the building here?" "There are six rooms on this floor," Werner replied. "Manton, the waiting room, myself, Millard, and the two other directors. Below is the general reception room, the cashier, the bookkeepers and stenographers." As Manton probably was having trouble obtaining his connection, and as Kennedy continued to question Werner concerning the general arrangement of the different floors in the different buildings about the quadrangle, all uninteresting to me, I determined to look about a bit on my own hook. I was still anxious to be of genuine assistance to Kennedy, for once, through my greater knowledge of the film world. Strolling out into the corridor, I went to the door of Millard's room. To my disappointment, it was locked. Continuing down the hall, I stole a glance into each of the two directors' quarters but saw nothing to awaken my suspicion or justify my intrusion. Beyond, I discovered a washroom, and, aware suddenly of the immense amount of dust I had acquired in the ride in from Tarrytown, I entered to freshen my hands and face at the least. It was a stroke of luck, a fortunate impulse. The amount of money to be made in the movies had resulted, in the case of Manton, in luxurious equipment for all the various departments of his establishment. I had noticed the offices, furnished with a richness worthy of a bank or some great downtown institution. Now, in the lavatory, immaculate with its white tile and modern appointments, I saw a shelf literally stacked, in this day of paper, with linen towels of the finest quality. As I drew the water, hot instantly, my eye caught, half in and half out of the wire basket beneath the stand, one of the towels covered with peculiar yellow spots. Immediately my suspicions were awakened. I picked it up gingerly. At close range I saw that the spots were only chrome yellow make-up, but there were also spots of a different nature. I did not stop to think of the unlikeliness of the discovery of a real clue under these circumstances, analyzed afterward by Kennedy. I folded the towel hastily and hurried to rejoin him, to show it to him. I found him with Werner, waiting for the results of Manton's efforts to locate Millard. Almost at the moment I rejoined the two a boy came to summon Werner to one of the sets out on the stage itself. Kennedy and I were alone. I showed him the towel. At first he laughed, "You'll never make a detective, Walter," he remarked. "This is only simple coloring matter-Chinese yellow, to be exact. And will you tell me, too"--he became ironical--"how do you expect to find clues of this sort here for a murder committed in Tarrytown when all the people present were held out there and examined, when we are the first to arrive back here? "Yellow, you know, photographs white. Chinese yellow is used largely in studios in place of white in make-up because it does not cause halation, which, to the picture people, is the bane of their existence. White is too glaring, reflects rays that blur the photography sometimes. "If you will notice, the next time you see them shooting a scene, you will find the actors' faces tinged with yellow. Even tablecloths and napkins and 'white' dresses are frequently colored a pale yellow, although pale blue has the actinic qualities of white for this purpose, and is now perhaps more frequently used than yellow." I was properly chastened. In fact, though I did not say much, I almost determined to let him conduct his case himself. Kennedy saw my crestfallen expression and understood. He was about to say something encouraging, as he handed back the towel, when his eye fell on the other end of it, which, indeed, I myself had noticed. He sobered instantly and studied the other spots. Indeed, I had not examined them closely myself. They were the very faint stains of some other yellow substance, a liquid which had dried and did not rub off as the make-up, and there were also some small round drops of dark red, almost hidden in the fancy red scrollwork of the lettering on the towel, "Manton Pictures, Inc." The latter had escaped me altogether. "Blood!" Kennedy exclaimed. Then, "Look here!" The marks of the pale yellow liquid trailed into a slender trace of blood. "It looks as if some one had cleaned a needle on it," he muttered, "and in a hurry." I remembered his previous remark. The murder had been in Tarrytown. We had just arrived here. "Would anyone have time to do it?" I asked. "Whoever used the towel did so in a hurry," he reiterated, seriously. "It may have been some one afraid to leave any sort of clue out there at Phelps's house. There were too many watchers about. It might have seemed better to have run the risk of a search. With no sign of a wound on Miss Lamar's person, it was pretty certain that neither Mackay nor I would attempt to frisk everyone. It was not as though we were looking for a revolver, if she were shot, or a knife, if she had been stabbed. And"--he could not resist another dig at me--"and that we should look in a washroom here for a towel was, well, an idea that wouldn't occur to anyone but the most amateur and blundering sort of sleuth. It's beginner's luck, Walter, beginner's luck." I ignored the uncomplimentary part of his remarks. "Who could have been in the washroom just before me?" I asked. Suddenly he hurried through the waiting room to the door to Manton's office, opening it without ceremony. Manton was gone. We exchanged glances. I remembered that Werner had preceded us upstairs. "It means Werner or Manton himself," I whispered, so the girl just behind us would not hear. Kennedy strode out to the hall, and to a window overlooking the court. After a moment he pointed. I recognized both the cars used to transport the company to the home of Emery Phelps. There was no sign that either had just arrived, for even the chauffeurs were out of sight, perhaps melted into the crowd about the tank in the corner. "They must have arrived immediately behind us," Kennedy remarked. "We wasted several valuable minutes looking at that water stuff ourselves." At that moment Werner's voice rose from the reception room below. It was probable that he would be up to rejoin us again. I remembered that he had not been at all at ease while Kennedy questioned him in Tarrytown; that here at the studio he had been palpably anxious to remain close at our heels. I felt a surge of suspicion within me. "Listen, Craig," I muttered, in low tones. "Manton had no opportunity to steal down the hall after the girl closed the door, and--" "Why not!" he interrupted, contradicting me. "We had our backs to the door while we were talking with Werner." "Well, anyhow, it narrows down to Manton and Werner because that is the washroom for these offices--" "'Sh!" Kennedy stopped me as Werner mounted the stairs. He turned to the director with assumed nonchalance. "How long have the other cars been here?" he asked. "I thought we came pretty fast." Werner smiled. "I guess those boys had enough of Tarrytown. They rolled into the yard, both of them, while you and Mr. Jameson and Manton were stopping to watch the people in the water." "I see!" Kennedy gave me a side glance. "Where are the dressing rooms?" he inquired. It was a random shot. Werner pointed to the end of the hall, toward the washroom. "In the next building, on this floor--that is, the principals'. It's a rotten arrangement," he added. "They come through sometimes and use our lavatory, because it's a little more fancy and because it saves a trip down a flight of stairs. Believe me, it gets old Manton on his ear." VII ENID FAYE Behind Werner was the assistant director, to whom I had given little attention at the time of the examination of the various people in the Phelps library. Even now he impressed me as one of those rare, unobtrusive types of individuals who seem, in spite of the possession of genuine ability and often a great deal of efficiency, to lack, nevertheless, any outstanding personal characteristics. As a class they are human machines, to be neither liked nor disliked, never intruding and yet always on hand when needed. "This is Carey Drexel, my assistant," Werner stated, forgetting that Kennedy had questioned him at Tarrytown, and so knew him. "There are a few people I simply must see and I'm tied up, therefore, for perhaps half an hour; and Manton's downstairs still trying to locate Millard for you. But Carey's at your disposal, Mr. Kennedy, to show you the arrangement of the studio and to cooperate with you in any way if you think there's any possible chance of finding anything to bear upon Stella's death here." If Werner was the man who had used the towel, I could see that he was an actor and a cool villain. Of course no one could know, yet, that we had discovered it, but the very nonchalance with which it had been thrown into the basket was a mark of the nerve of the guilty man. It was more than carelessness. Nothing about the crime had been haphazard. Kennedy thanked Werner and asked to be shown the studio floor used in the making of "The Black Terror." Carey led the way, explaining that there were actually two studios, one at each end of the quadrangle, connected on both sides by the other buildings; offices and dressing rooms and the costume and property departments at the side facing the street; technical laboratories and all the detail of film manufacture in a four-story structure to the rear. Most of Werner's own picture was being made in the so-called big studio, reached through the dressing rooms from the end of the corridor where we stood. I had been in film plants before, but when we entered the huge glass-roofed inclosure beyond the long hallway of dressing rooms I was impressed by the fact that here was a place of genuine magnitude, with more life and bustle than anything I had ever imagined. The glass had, however, been painted over, because of late years dark stages, with the even quality of artificial light, had come into vogue in the Manton studios in place of stages lighted by the uneven and undependable sunlight. The two big sets mentioned by Manton, a banquet hall and a ballroom, were being erected simultaneously. Carpenters were at work sawing and hammering. Werner's technical director was shouting at a group of stage hands putting a massive mirror in position at the end of the banquet hall, a clever device to give the room the appearance of at least double its actual length. In one corner several electricians and a camera man were experimenting with a strange-looking bank of lights. In the ballroom set, where the flats or walls were all in place, an unexcited paperhanger was busy with the paraphernalia of his craft, somehow looking out of his element in this reign of pandemonium. It seemed hard indeed to believe that any sort of order or system lay behind this heterogeneous activity, and the incident which took Carey Drexel away from us only added to the wonder in my mind, a wonder that anything tangible and definite could be accomplished. "Oh, Carey!" Another assistant director, or perhaps he was only a property boy, rushed up frantically the moment he saw Drexel. "Miss Miller's on a rampage because the grand piano you promised to get for her isn't at her apartment yet, and Bessie Terry's in tears because she left her parrot here overnight, as you suggested, and some one taught the bird to swear." The intruder, a youth of perhaps eighteen, was in deadly earnest. "For the love of Mike, Carey," he went on, "tell me how to unteach that screeching thing of Bessie's, or we won't get a scene today." Carey Drexel looked at Kennedy helplessly. With all these troubles, how could he pilot us about? Later we learned that this was nothing new, once one gets on the inside of picture making. Props., or properties, particularly the living ones, cause almost as much disturbance as the temperamental notions of the actors and actresses. Sometimes it is a question which may become the most ridiculous. Kennedy seemed to be satisfied with his preliminary visit to this studio floor. "We can get back to Manton's office alone," he told Drexel. "We will just keep on circling the quadrangle." Relieved, the assistant director pointed to the door of the manufacturing building, as the four-story structure in the rear was called. Then he bustled off with the other youth, quite unruffled himself. When we passed through the heavy steel fire door we found ourselves in another long hallway of fire-brick and reinforced-concrete construction. Unquestionably there was no danger of a serious conflagration in any part of Manton's plant, despite the high inflammability of the film itself, of the flimsy stage sets, of practically everything used in picture manufacture. Immediately we entered this building I detected a peculiar odor, at which I sniffed eagerly. I was reminded of the burnt-almond odor of the cyanides. Was this another clue? I turned to Kennedy but he smiled, anticipating me. "Banana oil, Walter," he explained, with rather a superior manner. "I imagine it's used a great deal in this industry. Anyway"--a chuckle--"don't expect chance to deliver clues to you in wholesale quantities. You have done very well for today." A sudden whirring noise, from an open door down the hall, attracted us, and we paused. This, I guessed, was a cutting room. There were a number of steel tables, with high steel chairs. At the walls were cabinets of the same material. Each table had two winding arrangements, a handle at the operator's right hand and one at his left, so that he could wind or unwind film from one reel to another, passing it forward or backward in front of his eyes. There were girls at the tables except nearest the hall. Here a man stopped now and then to glance at the ribbon of film, or to cut out a section, dropping the discarded piece into a fireproof can and splicing the two ends of the main strip together again with liquid film cement from a small bottle. He looked up as he sensed our presence. "Isn't it hell?" he remarked, in friendly fashion. "I've got to cut all of Stella Lamar out of 'The Black Terror,' so they can duplicate her scenes with another star, and meanwhile we had half the negative matched and marked for colors and spliced in rolls, all ready for the printer." Without waiting for an answer from us, or expecting one, he gave one of his reels a vicious spin, producing the whirring noise; then grasping both reels between his fingers and bringing them to an abrupt stop, so that I wondered he did not burn himself from the friction, he located the next piece to be eliminated. We followed the hall into the smaller studio and there found a comedy company at work. Without stopping to watch the players, ghastly under the light from the Cooper-Hewitts and Kliegel arcs, we found a precarious way back of the set around and under stage braces, to the covered bridge leading once more to the corridor outside Manton's office. Now the girl was absent from her place in the little waiting room. Manton's door stood open. Without ceremony Kennedy led the way in and dropped down at the side of the promoter's huge mahogany desk. "I'm tired, Walter," he said. "Furthermore, I think this picture world of yours is a bedlam. We face a hard task." "How do you propose to go about things?" I asked. "I'm afraid this is a case which will have to be approached entirely through psychological reactions. You and I will have to become familiar with the studio and home life of all the long list of possible suspects. I shall analyze the body fluids of the deceased and learn the cause of death, and I will find out what it is on the towel, but"--sighing--"there are so many different ramifications, so many--" Suddenly his eye caught the corner of a piece of paper slid under the glass of Manton's desk. He pulled it out; then handed it to me. MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MANTON Have learned Enid Faye is out of Pentangle and can be engaged for about twelve hundred if you act quickly. Why not cancel Lamar contract after "Black Terror," if she continues up-stage? WERNER. "I caught the name Lamar," Kennedy explained. Then an expression of gratification crept into his face. "Miss Lamar was 'up-stage'?" he mused. "That's a theatrical word for cussedness, isn't it?" I paid little attention. The name of Enid Faye had attracted my own interest. This was the little dare-devil who had breezed into the Pacific Coast film colony and had swept everything before her. Not only had she displayed amazing nerve for her sex and size, but she had been pretty and beautifully formed, had been as much at home in a ballroom as in an Annette Kellermann bathing suit. In less than six months she had learned to act and had been brought to the Eastern studios of Pentangle. Now it was possible that she would be captured by Manton, would be blazoned all over the country by that gentleman, would become another star of his making. "Let's go, Walter!" Kennedy, impatient, rose. I noticed that he folded the little note, slipping it into his pocket. Out in the hall voices came to us from Werner's office. After some little hesitation Kennedy opened the door unceremoniously. At the table, littered with blue prints and drawings and colored plates of famous home interiors, was the director. With him was Manton. Seated facing them, in rare good humor, was a fascinating little lady. The promoter rose. "Professor Kennedy, I want you to meet Miss Enid Faye, one of our real comers. And Mr. Jameson, Enid, of the New York Star." She acknowledged the introduction to Kennedy gracefully. Then she turned, rising, and rushed to me most effusively, leading me to a leather-covered couch and pulling me to a seat beside her. "Mr. Jameson," she purred. "I just love newspaper men; I think they're perfectly wonderful always. Tell me, do you like little Enid?" I nodded, confused and unhappy, and as red as a schoolboy. "That's fine," she went on, in the best modulated and most wonderful voice I thought I had ever heard. "I like you and I know we're going to be the best of friends. Tell me, what's your first name?" "Now, Enid," reproved Manton, in fatherly tones, "you'll have plenty of time to vamp your publicity later. For the present, please listen to me. We're talking business." "Shoot every hair of this old gray head!" she directed, pertly. She did not move away, however, I could feel the warmth of her, could catch the delicacy of the perfume she used. I noted the play of her slender fingers, the trimness of her ankle, the piquancy of a nose revealed to me in profile--and nothing else. "This is your chance, Enid," Manton continued, earnestly and rather eagerly. "You know the film will be the most talked about one this year. We've got the Merritt papers lined up and that's the best advertising in the world. Everyone will know you took Stella's place, and--well, you'll step right in." She studied the tips of her boots, stretching boyish limbs straight in front of her, then smoothing the soft folds of her skirt. "Talk money to me, Mr. Man!" she exclaimed. "Talk the shekels, the golden shekels." "We're broke," he protested. "A thousand--" She shook her head. Werner broke in, suddenly anxious. "Don't pass up the chance, Enid," he pleaded. "What can Pentangle do for you? And I've always wanted to direct you again--" "I'll make it twelve hundred," Manton interrupted, "if you'll make the contract personally with me. Then if Manton Pictures--" "All right!" She jumped to her feet, extending a hand straight forward to each, the right to Manton, the left to Werner. "You're on!" I thought that I was forgotten. A wave of jealousy swept over me. After all, she simply wanted me to write her up. In a daze I heard Manton. "You're a wise little girl, Enid," he told her. "Play the game right with me and you'll climb high. The sky's the limit, now. I'll make you--make you big!" With a full, warm smile she swung around to me and I knew I was not being slighted, after all. "That's what Longfellow said, isn't it, Mr. Jameson?" "What?" My heart began to beat like a trip hammer. "Excelsior! Excelsior! It packs them in!" She laughed so infectiously that we all joined in. Then Manton turned to Kennedy. "I've located Millard for you. He's to meet us at my apartment at seven. It's six-thirty now. And you, Enid"--facing her--"if you'll come, too, there's another man I want you to meet, and Larry, of course, will be there--" Enid studied Kennedy. He was hesitating as though not sure whether to accompany Manton or not. I never did learn what other course of action had occurred to him. But I did notice that the little star, with her pert, upturned face, seemed more anxious to have Kennedy go along than she was to meet the mysterious individual mentioned without name by Manton. For an instant she was on the point of addressing him, flippantly, no doubt. Then, I think she was rather awed at Craig's reputation. All at once she shrugged her shoulders and turned to me, plucking my sleeve, her expression brightening irresistibly. "You'll come, too"--dimpling--"Jamie!" VIII LAWRENCE MILLARD It struck me on the trip to Manton's apartment that the film people were wholly unfeeling, were even uninterested in the death of Stella Lamar except where it interfered with their business arrangements. Werner excused himself and did not accompany us, on the score of the complete realignment of production necessary to place Enid in Stella's part. It seemed to me that he felt a certain relish in the problem, that he was almost glad of the circumstances which brought Enid to him. His last words to Manton were, to be sure to have Millard recast the action of the scenes wherever possible, so as to give Enid the better chance to display her own personality. I marveled as I realized that the remains of Stella Lamar were scarcely cold before these people were figuring on the star to take her place. As Manton talked, the thought crossed my mind that such a man needed no publicity manager. I dismissed the idea that he might be capable even of murder for publicity. But at least it was an insight into some methods of the game. As our car mounted to the Concourse and turned Manhattanward I was distinctly unhappy. Manton monopolized Enid completely, insisting upon talking over everything under the sun, from the wardrobe she would need in Stella's part and the best sort of personal advertising campaign for her, to the first available evening when she could go to dinner with him. She sat in the rear seat, between Kennedy and the promoter, which did not add to my sense of comfort. The only consoling feature from my viewpoint was that I was admirably placed to study her, and that Manton held her so engrossed that I had every opportunity to do so unnoticed. Because she had overwhelmed me so completely I did nothing of the kind. I knew we were riding with the most beautiful woman in New York, but I did not know the color of her hair or eyes, or even the sort of hat or dress she wore. In short I was movie-struck. We stopped at last at a huge, ornate apartment house on Riverside Drive and Manton led the way through the wide Renaissance entrance and the luxurious marble hall to the elevator. His quarters, on the top floor, facing the river, were almost exotic in the lavishness and barbaric splendor of their furnishings. My first impression as we entered the place was that Manton had purposely planned the dim lights of rich amber and the clinging Oriental fragrance hovering about everything so as to produce an alluring and enticing atmosphere. The chairs and wide upholstered window seats, the soft, yielding divans in at least two corners, with their miniature mountains of tiny pillows, all were comfortable with the comfort one associates with lotus eating and that homeward journey soon to be forgotten. There was the smoke of incense, unmistakably. On a taboret were cigarettes and cigars and through heavy curtains I caught a glimpse of a sideboard and decanters, filled and set out very frankly. A Japanese butler, whom Manton called Huroki, took our hats and retreated with a certain emanating effluvium of subtlety such as I had known only once before, when the Oriental attendant left me on the occasion of my only visit to an opium den in Chinatown. A moment later Millard, who had been waiting, rose to greet us. I would have guessed him to be an author, I believe, had I met him at random anywhere in the city. He affected all the professional marks and mannerisms, and yet he did so gracefully. I noticed, in the little hall where Huroki placed our headgear, a single-jointed Malacca stick, a dark-colored and soft-brimmed felt hat, and a battered brief-case. That was Millard, unquestionably. The man himself was tall and loose-limbed, heavy with an appearance of slenderness. His face was handsome, rather intellectual in spite of rather than because of large horn-rimmed glasses. His mouth and chin showed strength and determination, which was a surprise to me. In fact, in no way did he seem to reveal the artist. Lawrence Millard was a commercial writer, a dreamer never. First he greeted Enid, taking both of her hands in his. In this one brief moment all my own little romance went glimmering, for I could not blind myself to the softening of his expression, the welcoming light in hers, the long interval in which their fingers remained interlaced. And then another thought came to me, hastened, fed and fattened upon my jealousy. The sealed testimony in the case of Millard vs. Millard! Could Enid, by any chance, be concerned in that? The next moment I dismissed the thought, or at least I thought I did so. I tried to picture Enid's work on the Coast, to remember the short time she had been in the East. It was possible Millard had known her before she went to Los Angeles, but unlikely. Millard next turned to Kennedy. "I just learned of the tragedy a short while ago, Professor," he exclaimed. "It is terrible, and so amazingly sudden, too! It--it has upset me completely. Tell me, have you found anything? Have you discovered any possible clue? Is there anything at all I can do to help?" "I would like to ask a few questions," Kennedy explained. "By all means!" He extended a hand to me and I found it damp and flabby, as though he were more concerned than his manner betrayed. He faced Kennedy again, however, immediately. "Stella and I didn't make a go of our married life at all," he went on, frankly enough. "I was very sorry, too, because I was genuinely fond of her." "How recently have you seen her?" "Stella? Not for over a month--perhaps longer than that." Manton took Enid by the arm. It was evidently her first visit to the apartment and he was anxious to show her his various treasures. Millard, Kennedy, and I found a corner affording a view out over the Hudson. After Kennedy had described, briefly, the circumstances of Stella's death, at Millard's insistence, he produced the note he had found in her handbag. The author recognized it at once, without reading it. "Yes, I wrote that!" Then just a trace of emotion crept into his voice. "I was too late," he murmured. "What was it you wanted to say?" Kennedy inquired. Millard's glance traveled to Manton and Enid, a troubled something in his expression. I could see that the promoter was making the most of his tete-a-tete with the girl, but she seemed perfectly at ease and quite capable of handling the man, and I, certainly, was more disturbed at the interest of Millard. "I thought there was something about the business I ought to tell Stella," he answered, finally. "Manton Pictures is pretty shaky." "Oh! Then Manton wasn't talking for effect when he told Miss Faye that the company was broke?" "No, indeed! In fact, didn't Enid make her agreement with Manton personally? That's what I advised her to do." Kennedy nodded. "But is Manton himself financially sound?" Millard laughed. "Lloyd Manton always has a dozen things up his sleeve. He may have a million or he may owe a million." In the author's voice was no respect for his employer. A touch of malice crept into his tone. "Manton will make money for anyone who can make money for him," he added, "that is, provided he has to do it." Kennedy and I exchanged glances. This was close to an assertion of downright dishonesty. At that moment Huroki stole in on padded feet, as noiseless as a wraith. "Yes, Huroki?" His master turned, inquiringly. "Mr. Leigh," was the butler's announcement. "Show him in," said Manton; then he hurried over to us. "Courtlandt Leigh, the banker, you know." I imagine I showed my surprise, for Kennedy smiled as he caught my face. Leigh was a bigger man than Phelps, of the highest standing in downtown financial circles. If Manton had interested Courtlandt Leigh in moving pictures he was a wizard indeed. It seemed to me that the banker was hardly in the apartment before he saw Enid, and from that moment the girl engrossed him to the exclusion of everything else. For Enid, I will say that she was a wonder. She seemed to grasp the man's instant infatuation and immediately she set about to complete the conquest, all without permitting him so much as to touch her. "You'll excuse us?" remarked Manton, easily, as he drew Phelps and Enid away. "See!" exclaimed Millard, in a low voice, frowning now as he watched the girl. "Manton's clever! I've never known him unable to raise money, and that's why I wanted Enid to have her contract with him personally. If Manton Pictures blows up he'd put her in some other company." "He has more than one?" This seemed to puzzle Kennedy. "He's been interested in any number on the side," Millard explained. "Now he's formed another, but it's a secret so far. You've heard of Fortune Features, perhaps?" Kennedy looked at me, but I shook my head. "What is 'Fortune Features'?" Kennedy asked the question of Millard. "Just another company in which Manton has an interest," he replied, casually. "That was why I said I advised that Enid make her contract personally with Manton. If Manton Pictures goes up, then he will have to swing her into Fortune Features--the other Manton enterprise, don't you see?" He paused, then added: "By the way, don't say anything outside about that. It isn't generally known--and as soon as anyone does hear it, everybody in the film game will hear it. You don't know how gossip travels in this business." Kennedy asked a few personal questions about Stella, but Millard's answers indicated that he had not contemplated or even hoped for a reconciliation, that his interest in his former wife had become thoroughly platonic. Just now, however, he seemed unable to keep Manton out of his mind. "Oh, Manton's clever!" he said, confidentially to Kennedy, as he watched the promoter deftly maneuvering Leigh and Enid into a position side by side. And indeed, as Millard talked, I began to get some inkling of how really clever was the game which Manton played. "Why," continued Millard, warming up to his story--for, to him, above all, a good story was something that had to be told, whatever might result from it--"I have known him to pay a visit some afternoon to Wall Street--go down there to beard the old lions in their den. He always used to show up about the closing time of the market. "I've known him to get into the office of some one like Leigh or Phelps. Then he'll begin to talk about his brilliant prospects in the company he happens to be promoting at the time. If you listen to Manton you're lost. I know it--I've listened," he added, whimsically. "Well," he continued, "the banker will begin to get restless after a bit--not at Manton, but at not getting away. 'My car is outside,' Manton will say. 'Let me drive you uptown.' Of course, there's nothing else for the banker to do but to accept, and when he gets into Manton's car he's glad he did. I don't know anyone who picks out such luxurious things as he does. Why, that man could walk right out along Automobile Row, broke, and some one would GIVE him a car." "How does he do it?" I put the question to him. "How does a fish swim?" said Millard, smiling. "He's clever, I tell you. Once he has the banker in the car, perhaps they stop for a few moments at a club. At any rate, Manton usually contrives it so that, as they approach his apartment, he has his talk all worked up to the point where the banker is genuinely interested. You know there's almost nothing people will talk to you longer about than moving pictures. "Well, on one pretext or another, Manton usually persuades the banker to step up here for a moment. Poor simp! It's all over with him then. I'll never forget how impressed Phelps was with this place the first time. There, now, watch this fellow, Leigh. He thinks this looks like a million dollars. We're all here, playing Manton's game. We're his menagerie--he's Barnum. I tell you, Leigh's lost, lost!" I did not know quite what to make of Millard's cynicism. Was he trying to be witty at Manton's expense? I noticed that he did not smile himself. Although he was talking to us, his attention was not really on us. He was still watching Enid. "Then, along would happen Stella, as if by chance." Millard paused bitterly, as though he did not quite relish the telling it, but felt that Kennedy would pry it out of him or some one else finally, and he might as well have it over with frankly. "Yes," he said, thoughtfully, "but it all wasn't really Manton's fault, after all. Stella liked the Bohemian sort of life too much--and Manton does the Bohemian up here wonderfully. It was too much for Stella. Then, when Phelps came along and was roped in, she fell for him. It was good-by, poor Millard! I wasn't rapid enough for that crowd." I almost began to sympathize with Millard in the association into which, for his living's sake, his art had forced him. I realized, too, that really the banker, the wise one from Wall Street, was the sucker. Indeed, as Millard told it, I could easily account for the temptation of Stella. To a degree, I suppose, it was really her fault, for she ought to have known the game, shown more sense than to be taken in by the thing. I wondered at the continued relations of Millard with Manton, under the circumstances. However, I reflected, if Stella had chosen to play the little fool, why should Millard have allowed that to ruin his own chances? What interested me now was that Millard did not seem to relish the attentions which the banker was paying to Enid. Was Manton framing up the same sort of game again on Leigh? However, when Enid shot a quick glance at Millard in an aside of the conversation, accompanied by a merry wink, I saw that Millard, though still doubtful, was much more at ease. Evidently there was a tacit understanding between the two. Kennedy glanced over at me. Bit by bit the checkered history of Stella Lamar's life was coming to light. I began to see more clearly. Deserting Millard and fascinated by Manton and his game, she had been used to interest Phelps in the company. In turn she had been dazzled by the glitter of the Phelps gold. She had not proved loyal even to the producer and promoter. Perhaps, I reflected, that was why Millard was so apparently complacent. One could not, under the circumstances, have expected him to display wild emotion. His attitude had been that of one who thought, "She almost broke me; let her break some one else." That, however, was not his attitude toward Enid now. Indeed, he seemed genuinely concerned that she should not follow in the same steps. Later, I learned that was not all of the history of Stella. Fifteen hundred dollars a week of her own money, besides lavish presents, had been too much for her. Even Phelps's money had had no over-burdening attraction for her. The world--at least that part of it which spends money on Broadway, had been open to her. Jack Daring had charmed her for a while--hence the engagement. Of Shirley, I did not even know. Perhaps the masterful crime roles he played might have promised some new thrill, with the possibility that they expressed something latent in his life. At any rate, she had dilettanted about him, to the amazement and dismay of Marilyn. That we knew. The dinner hour was approaching, and, in spite of the urgent invitation of Manton, Leigh was forced to excuse himself to keep a previous appointment. I felt, though, that he would have broken it if only Enid had added her urging. But she did not, much to the relief of Millard. Manton took it in good part. Perhaps he was wise enough to reflect that many other afternoons were in the lap of the future. "What is Manton up to?" Kennedy spoke to Millard. "Is it off with the old and on with the new? Is Phelps to be cast aside like a squeezed-out lemon, and Leigh taken on for a new citrus fruit?" Millard smiled. He said nothing, but the knowing glance was confirmation enough that in his opinion Kennedy had expressed the state of affairs correctly. Millard hastened to the side of Enid at once and we learned then that they had a theater engagement together and that Millard had the tickets in his pocket. Once more I realized it was no new or recent acquaintanceship between these two. Again I wondered what woman had been named in Stella Lamar's divorce suit, and again dismissed the thought that it could be Enid. Kennedy took his hat and handed me mine. "We must eat, Walter, as well as the rest of them," he remarked, when Manton led the way to the door. I was loath to leave and I suppose I showed it. The truth was that little Enid Faye had captivated me. It was hard to tear myself away. In the entrance I hesitated, wondering whether I should say good-by to her. She seemed engrossed with Millard. A second time she took me clean off my feet. While I stood there, foolishly, she left Millard and rushed up, extending her little hand and allowing it to rest for a moment clasped in mine. "We didn't have a single opportunity to get acquainted, Mr. Jameson," she complained, real regret in the soft cadences of her voice. "Won't you phone me sometime? My name's in the book, or I'll be at the studio--" I was tongue-tied. My glance, shifting from hers because I was suddenly afraid of myself, encountered the gaze of Millard from behind. Now I detected the unmistakable fire of jealousy in the eyes of the author. I presume I was never built to be a heavy lover. Up and down my spine went a shiver of fear. I dropped Enid's hand and turned away abruptly. IX WHITE-LIGHT SHADOWS "What do you think of it?" I asked Kennedy, when we were half through our meal at a tiny restaurant on upper Broadway. "We're still fumbling in the dark," he replied. "There's the towel--" "Yes, and almost any one on Mackay's list of nine suspects could have placed it in that washroom." "Well--" I was determined to draw him out. My own impressions, I must confess, were gloriously muddled. "Manton heads the list," I suggested. "Everyone says she was mixed up with him." "Manton may have philandered with her; undoubtedly he takes a personal interest in all his stars." Kennedy, I saw, remembered the promoter's close attentions to Enid Faye. "Nevertheless, Walter, he is first and foremost and all the time the man of business. His heart is in his dollars and Millard even suggests that he is none too scrupulous." "If he had an affair with Stella," I rejoined, "and she became up-stage--the note you found suggested trouble, you know--then Manton in a burst of passion--" "No!" Kennedy stopped me. "Don't forget that this was a cold-blooded, calculated crime. I'm not eliminating Manton yet, but until we find some tangible evidence of trouble between Stella and himself we can hardly assume he would kill the girl who's made him perhaps a million dollars. Every motive in Manton's case is a motive against the crime." "That eliminates Phelps, then, too. He nearly owned the company." "Yes, unless something happened to outweigh financial considerations in his mind also." "But, good heavens! Kennedy," I protested. "If you go on that way you'll not eliminate anyone." "I can't yet," he explained, patiently. "It's just as I said. We're fishing in the dark, absolutely. So far we haven't a single basic fact on which to build any structure of hypothesis. We must go on fishing. I expect you to dig up all the facts about these people; every odd bit of gossip or rumor or anything else. I'll bring my science to play, but there's nothing I can do except analyze Stella's stomach contents and the spots on the towel; that is, until we've got a much more tangible lead than any which have developed so far." "Is there anything I can do to-night?" "Yes!" He looked at his watch. "There are two men who were very close to Miss Lamar. Jack Gordon was engaged to her, Merle Shirley seemed to have been mixed up with her seriously. All the picture people have night haunts. See what you can find about these two men." "But I don't know where to find them offhand, and--" "Both belong to the Goats Club, probably. Try that as a start." I nodded and began to hurry my dessert. But I could not resist questioning him. "You think they are the most likely suspects?" "No, but they were intimately associated with Miss Lamar in her daily life and they are the two we have learned the least about." "Oh!" I was disappointed. Then I rallied to the attack for a final time. "Who is the most likely one. Just satisfy my curiosity, Craig." He took a folded note from his pocket, opening it. It was the memorandum from Manton's desk which I had mentioned. In a flash I understood. "Werner!" I exclaimed. "They said he was mixed up with her, too. He was the first back and out of the car and he had time to clean a needle on the towel, had a better opportunity than anyone else. More"--I began to get excited--"he was lying on the floor close to her in the scene and could have jabbed her with a needle very easily, and--and he was extremely nervous when you questioned him, the most nervous of all, and--and, finally, he had a motive, he wanted to get Enid Faye with Manton Pictures, as this note shows." "Very good, Walter." Kennedy's eyes were dancing in amusement. "It is true that Werner had the best motive, so far as we know now, but it's a fantastic one. Men don't commit cold-blooded murder just to create a vacancy for a movie star. If Werner was going to kill Miss Lamar he never would have written this note about Miss Faye." "Unless to divert suspicion," I suggested. He shook his head. "The whole thing's too bizarre." "Werner was close to her in the dark. All the other things point to him, don't they?" "It's too bad everyone wasn't searched, at that," Kennedy admitted. "Nevertheless, at the time I realized that Werner had had the best opportunity for the actual performance of the crime and I watched him very closely and made him go through every movement just so I could study him. I believe he's innocent--at least as far as I've gone in the case." I determined to stick to my opinion. "I believe it's Werner," I insisted. "By the time you've dug up all the gossip about Gordon and Shirley you won't be so sure, Walter." I was, however. Kennedy was not as familiar with the picture world as I. I had heard of too many actual happenings more strange and bizarre and wildly fantastic than anything conceivable in other walks of life. People in the film game, as they call it, live highly seasoned lives in which everything is exaggerated. The mere desire to make a place for Enid might not have actuated Werner, granting he was the guilty man. Nevertheless it could easily have contributed. And it struck me suddenly, an additional argument, that Werner, of all of them, was the most familiar with the script. He had been able to cast himself for the part of old Remsen. There was not a detail which he could not have arranged very skillfully. At the Goats Club I was lucky to discover a member whom I knew well enough to take into my confidence by stating my errand. He was one of the Star's former special writers and an older classman of the college which had graduated Kennedy and myself. "Merle Shirley is not a member here," he said. "As a matter of fact, I've only just heard the name. But Jack Gordon's a Goat, worse luck. That fellow's a bad actor--in real life--and a disgrace to us." "Tell me all you know about him?" I asked. "Well, to give you an example, he was in here just about a week ago. I was sitting in the grill, eating an after-theater supper, when I heard the most terrible racket. He and Emery Phelps, the banker, you know, were having an honest-to-goodness fight right out in the lobby. It took three of the men to separate them." "What was it all about." "Well, Gordon owes money right and left, not a few hundred or some little personal debts like that, but thousands and thousands of dollars. I got it from some of the other men here that he has been speculating on the curb downtown, losing consistently. More than that, he's engaged to Stella Lamar--you knew that?--and he's been blowing money on her. Then they tell me his professional work is suffering, that his recent screen appearances are terrible; the result of late hours and worry, I suppose." "The fight with Phelps was over money?" "Of course! I figure that he kept drawing against his salary at the studio until the film company shut down on him. Then probably he began to borrow from Phelps, who's Manton's backer now, until the banker shut down on him also. At any rate, Phelps had begun to dun him and it led to the fight." "That's all you know about Gordon?" "Lord! Isn't it enough?" I walked out of the club and toward Broadway, reflecting upon this information. Could Gordon's debts have any bearing upon the case? All at once one possibility struck me. He had been borrowing from Phelps. Perhaps he had borrowed from Stella also. Perhaps that was the cause of their quarrel. Perhaps she had threatened to make trouble--it was a slender motive, but worth bringing to the attention of Kennedy. My immediate problem, however, was to obtain some information about Merle Shirley. At first I thought I would make the rounds of some of the better-known cafes, but that seemed a hopeless task. Suddenly I remembered Belle Balcom, formerly with the Star. I recollected a previous case of Kennedy's where she and I had been great rivals in the quest of news. I recalled a trip we had made to Greenwich Village together. Belle knew more people about town than any other newspaper woman. Now, for some months, she had been connected with Screenings, a leading cinema "fan" magazine, and would unquestionably be posted upon the photoplayers. Luckily, I caught her at home. "Bless your soul," she told me over the phone, in delight, "I've just been aching for some one to take me out to-night. We'll go to the Midnight Fads and if Shirley isn't there the head waiter will tell you all I don't remember. It was a glorious fight." She wouldn't say any more over the phone, but I was hugely curious. Had there been another encounter with fists? And who had been involved? When she met me finally, at the Subway station, and when we obtained an out-of-the-way table at the Fads, she explained. It seemed that Shirley had met Stella there a number of times and that Gordon, at last, had got wind of it. Gordon first had come up himself, quietly, pleading with Stella. She had been in a high humor and had refused even to listen to him. Then he had become insulting. At that Shirley knocked him down. The head waiter, a witness of the affair, ordered Gordon put out, but did not request Shirley or Stella to leave, because the other man had been the aggressor without any question. After more than an hour Gordon returned, quietly and unobtrusively, with another girl. From Belle's description I knew it was Marilyn Loring. Taking another table, Marilyn had stared at Shirley reproachfully while Gordon had glared at Stella. Shirley put up with this for just about so long. As Belle described it, his face gradually became more and more red and he controlled himself with increasing difficulty. Stella, seeing the coming of the storm, tried to get him to go. He refused. She threatened to leave him. He paid no attention. All at once he boiled over and with great strides walked over to Gordon and mauled him all over the place. The leading man had no chance whatever in the hands of the irate Westerner. Several waiters, attempting to intervene, were flung aside. Only when Shirley began to cool off were they able to eject the two men. Both Stella and Marilyn had left, separately, before that. Neither of the men or women had been at the Fads since, or at least the head waiter, called over by Belle, so informed us. Unable to obtain any other facts of interest, I returned finally to the apartment shared by Kennedy and myself. First he listened to my account, plainly interested. Then, when I had concluded, he rose and faced me rather gravely. "It's getting more and more complicated, Walter," he exclaimed. "After you left I remembered that there was one point of investigation I had failed to cover--Miss Lamar's home here in the city. I got our old friend, First-Deputy O'Connor, on the wire and learned that at the request of Mackay, from Tarrytown, they had sent a man up to the place and that just an hour or less before I called they had located and were holding her colored maid. I hurried down to headquarters and questioned the girl." "Yes?" To me it sounded promising. "The negress didn't know a thing so far as the crime is concerned," Kennedy went on, "but I gained quite an insight into the private life of the star." "You mean--" "I mean I know the men who went to Miss Lamar's apartment, although beyond the fact of her receiving them I can tell nothing, for she sent the maid home at night; there were no maid's quarters." "Their visits may have been perfectly innocent?" "Of course! We can only draw conclusions." "Who were the various callers?" "Jack Gordon--" "Her fiance!" "Merle Shirley--" "Shirley admitted it when you questioned him." "Manton--" "Everyone knows that!" "Werner--" A side glance at me. I said nothing. My expression spoke for me. "And Emery Phelps!" At that I did show surprise. Although Mackay had hinted at something of the kind, I, for one, had not considered the banker seriously. "Good heavens! Kennedy," I exploded. "She was mixed up with just about every man connected with the company." "Exactly!" As usual, he seemed calm and unconcerned. I could regard the case only with increasing amazement--the bitter, conflicting emotions of Manton and Phelps, of Daring, Shirley, and Millard. With them all Stella had been the pretty trouble maker. "How do you suppose they could all remain in the same company?" I showed my surprise at the situation. Kennedy pondered a moment, then replied: "A moment's reflection ought to give you one answer. I think, Walter, they were either under contract or they had their money in the company. They couldn't break." "I suppose so. What I wonder is, was Marilyn as jealous of Stella as her screen character would make her in a story? She's the only one we don't hear much about." Kennedy did not seem, at least at present, to give this phase of it anything like the weight he credited to the frenzied financial relations the case was uncovering. It was true, as I learned later, that Manton was at that very moment doing perhaps as much as anyone else ever did to discredit the picture game in Wall Street. X CHEMICAL RESEARCH The following morning I found Kennedy up ahead of me, and I felt certain that he had gone to the laboratory. Sure enough, I found him at work in the midst of the innumerable scientific devices which he had gathered during years of crime detection of every sort. As usual, he was surrounded by a perfect litter of test tubes, beakers, reagents, microscopes, slides, and culture tubes. He had cut out the curious spots from the towel I had discovered and was studying them to determine their nature. From the mass of paraphernalia I knew he was neglecting no possibility which might lead to the hidden truth or produce a clue to the crime. "Have you learned anything yet?" I asked. "Those brownish spots were blood, of course," was his reply as he stopped a moment in his work. "In the blood I discovered some other substance, though I can't seem to identify it yet. It will take time. I thought it might be a drug or poison, but it doesn't seem to be--at least nothing one might ordinarily expect." "How about the other spots, not the Chinese yellow?" "Another problem I haven't solved. I dissolved enough of them so that I have plenty of material to study if I don't waste it. But so far I haven't been able to identify the substance with anything I know. There's a lot more work of elimination, Walter, before we're on the road to the solution of this case. Whatever stained the towel was very unusual. As near as I can make out the spots are of some protein composition. But it's not exactly a poison, although many proteins may be extremely poisonous and extremely difficult to identify because they are of organic nature." I was disappointed. It seemed to me that he had made comparatively little progress so far. "There's one thing," he added. "Samples of the body fluids of the victim have been sent down by the coroner at Tarrytown and I have analyzed them. While I haven't decided what it was that killed Stella Lamar, I am at least convinced that it has something to do with these towel spots. They are not exactly the same--in fact, I should say they were complementary, or, perhaps better, antithetical." "The mark wasn't made by the needle which scratched her, then?" "That's what I thought at first, that the point used had been wiped off on the towel. Then I decided that the spots had nothing to do with the case at all. Now I believe there is some connection, after all." "I--I don't understand it," I protested. "It's very baffling," he agreed, absent-mindedly. "If the towel wasn't used to clean the fatal needle," I went on, "then it may have been used before they went out instead of afterward." "Exactly. As a matter of fact, if I had not been so confused yesterday by all the details of the case, by the many people involved, I would have noticed at a glance that the blood spots on the towel could not come from some one using it to wipe the needle. And any hypothesis that it had been used out in Tarrytown was ridiculous, because Miss Lamar was only scratched faintly and lost no blood. If I had been a little more clever I might have been altogether too clever. I might possibly have thrown the towel away, because there certainly was no logical reason for connecting it with the crime." "Just when do you suppose Stella was pricked?" I asked. "That's a vital consideration. Just now I do not know the poison and so cannot tell how quickly it acted." He began to put aside his various paraphernalia. "Suppose we go at this thing by a process of deduction rather than from the end of scientific analysis." He sat on a corner of the bench. "What do we find?" he began. "While I've been working here with the test tubes and the microscope I've been trying to reconstruct what must have happened, trying to trace out every action of Stella Lamar as nearly as it is possible for us to do so. I don't think we need to go back of their arrival at the house, for the present. They seem to have been there a long while before the taking of the particular scene, since there were twelve other scenes preceding and since it requires time to put up the electric lights and make the connections, as well as to set the cameras, take tests, rearrange the furniture, and all the rest of it. "They arrived at the house in two automobiles; with the exception of Phelps, who was there already, and Manton, who came in his own limousine. That means that Miss Lamar had company on the trip out, the principals probably riding with each other in one car. At the house they were all more or less together. There were people about constantly and it would seem as if there was small opportunity for anyone to inflict the scratch which caused her death. I don't mean that it would have been impossible to prick her. I mean that she would have felt the jab of the point. In all likelihood she would have cried out and glanced around. Take a needle yourself, sometime, Walter, and try to duplicate the scratch on your own arm in such a way that you would not be aware of it. "So you see I'm counting upon some sort of exclamation from Miss Lamar. If she were inoculated with the poison with other folks about, it is sure some one would have remembered a cry, a questioning glance, a quick grasp of the forearm--for the nerves are very sensitive in the skin there--" "No one did recall anything of the kind," I interrupted. "It is from that fact that I hope to deduce something. Now let's follow her, figuratively, to her little dressing room. This was a part of the living room where the rest waited. It is not a certainty, but yet rather a sure guess, that if she had received a scratch behind those thin silk curtains her cry would have been heard. What is even more plausible is that she would have hurried out, or at least put her head out, to see who had pricked her. "I made a very careful examination of that little alcove with the idea that some artifice might have been used. It occurred to me that a poisoned point could have been inserted in her belongings in some way so that she would have brought about her own death, directly. To have caught herself on a needle point in her bag, for instance, would not have impressed her to the point of making a disturbance. She might have checked her exclamation, in that case, because she would be blaming herself. "But I found nothing in her things, nor did I discover anything in the library. It seems to me, therefore, that we must look for a direct human agency." A thought struck me and I hastened to suggest it. "Could some device have been arranged in her clothes, Craig; something like the poison rings of the Middle Ages, a tiny metal thing to spring open and expose its point when pressed against her in the action of the scenes?" "That occurred to me at the time. That's why I asked Mackay to send all her clothes down here, every stitch and rag of them. I've gone over everything already this morning. Not only have I examined the various materials for stains, but I've tested each hook and eye and button and pin. I've been very careful to cover that possibility." "You think, then, she was scratched deliberately by some one during the taking of the scenes?" "If you've followed my line of reasoning you will see that we are driven to that assumption. Perhaps later I will make tests on a given number of girls of Stella's general age and type and temperament to show that they will cry out at the unexpected prick of a fine needle. It's illogical to expect that a cry from Miss Lamar, even an exclamation, would have passed unnoticed except during the excitement of actual picture taking." Another inspiration came to me, but I was almost afraid to voice it. It seemed a daring theory. "Could death have resulted from poison administered in some other fashion, by something she had eaten, for instance?" I ventured. "Couldn't the scratch be coincidental?" Kennedy shook his head. "There's the value of our chemical analysis and scientific tests. Her stomach contents showed nothing except as they might have been affected by her weakened condition. From Doctor Blake's report--and he found no ordinary symptoms, remember--and from my own observation, too, I can easily prove in court that she was killed by the mark which was so small that it escaped the physician altogether." I turned away. Once more Kennedy's reasoning seemed to be leading into a maze of considerations beyond me. How could the deductive method produce results in a case as mysterious as this? "Having determined that Miss Lamar received the inoculation during the making of one of the scenes, as nearly as we can do so," Kennedy went on, "suppose we take the scenes in order, one at a time, from the last photographed to the first, analyzing each in turn. Remember that we seek a situation where there is not only an opportunity to jab her with a needle, but one in which an outcry would be muffled or inaudible." I now saw that Kennedy had brought in the bound script of the story, "The Black Terror," and I wondered again, as I had often before, at his marvelous capacity for attention to detail. "'The spotlight on the floor reveals the girl sobbing over the body of the millionaire,'" he read, aloud, musingly. "H'mm! 'She screams and cries out.' Then the others rush in." For several moments Kennedy paced the floor of the laboratory, the manuscript open in his hands. "We rehearsed that, with Werner; and we questioned everyone, too. And remember! Miss Lamar, instead of crying out as she was supposed to do, just crumpled up silently. So"--thumbing over a page--"we work back to scene twelve. She--she was not in that at all. Scene eleven--" Slowly, carefully, Kennedy went through each scene to the beginning. "Certainly a dramatic opening for a mystery picture," he remarked, suddenly, as though his mind had wandered from his problem to other things. "We must admit that Millard can handle a moving-picture scenario most beautifully." Whether it was professional jealousy or the thought of Enid, rather than the memory of my own poor attempts at screen writing, I certainly was in no mood to agree with Kennedy, for all that I knew he was correct. "Here!" He thrust the binder in my hands. "Read that first scene," he directed. "Meanwhile I am going to phone Mackay to make sure he has had the house guarded and to make double sure no one goes near the library. We're going out to Tarrytown again, Walter, and in the biggest kind of hurry." "What's the idea, Craig?" Kennedy's occasional bursts of mysteriousness, characteristic of him and often necessary when his theories were only half formed and too chaotic for explanations, always piqued me. He did not seem to hear. Already he was at the telephone, manipulating the receiver hook impatiently. "What a dummy I am!" he exclaimed, with genuine feeling. "What--what an awful dummy!" Knowing I would get nothing out of him just yet, I turned to the scene, reading as he told me. At first I could not see where the detail concerned Stella Lamar in any way. Then I came to the description of her introductory entrance, the initial view of her in the film. The lines of typewriting suddenly stood out before me in all their suggestive clearness. The spotlight in the hands of a shadowy figure roves across the wall and to the portieres. As it pauses there the portieres move and the fingers of a girl are seen on the edge of the silk. A bare and beautiful arm is thrust through almost to the shoulder and it begins to move the portieres aside, reaching upward to pull the curtains apart at the rings. "You think there's something about the portieres--" I began. Then I saw that Kennedy had his connection, that something disturbed him, that some intelligence from the other end had caught him by surprise. "You say you were just trying to get me, Mackay? You've something to tell me and you want me to come right out--you have summoned Phelps and he's on his way from the city also--?" "What happened?" I asked, as Kennedy hung up. "I don't know, Walter. Mackay said he didn't want to talk over the phone and that we had just time to catch the express." "But--" "Hurry!" He glanced about as if wondering whether any of his scientific instruments would help him. XI FORESTALLED On the train Kennedy left me, to look through the other cars, having the idea that Phelps might be aboard also. But there were no signs of the banker. We would reach Tarrytown first unless he had chosen to motor out. Mackay was waiting at the station to meet us and to take us to the house. The little district attorney was obviously excited. "Was the place guarded well last night?" asked Kennedy, almost before we had shaken hands. "Yes--that is, I thought it was. That's what I want to tell you. After you left with Manton and Werner the rest of the company packed up and pulled out in the two studio cars. I was a little in doubt what to do about Phelps, but he settled it himself by announcing that he was going to town. The coroner came and issued the permit to remove the body and that was taken away. I think the house and the presence of the dead girl and all the rest of it got on Phelps's nerves, because he was irritable and impatient, unwilling to wait for his own car, until finally I drove him to the station myself." "Was anyone, any of those on our list of possible suspects at least, alone in the room--or in the house?" "Not while I was there," Mackay replied. "I took good care of that. Then, when everyone was gone and while Phelps was waiting for me, I detailed two of my deputies to stay on guard--one inside and one outside--for the night. I thought it sufficient precaution, since you had made your preliminary examination." "And--" Kennedy nodded, seeking to hurry the explanation. "And yet," added Mackay, "some one entered the house last night in spite of us." Kennedy fairly swore under his breath. He seemed to blame himself for some omission in his investigation the previous afternoon. "How did it happen?" I asked, rather excitedly. "It was about three o'clock, the guards tell me. The man inside was dozing in a chair before the living-room fireplace. He was placed so he could command a view of the doorway to the library as well as the stairs and reception hall. All at once he was awakened by a shot and a cry from outside. He jumped up and ran toward the library. As he did so the portieres bellied in toward him, as if in stiff sudden draught, or as if some one had darted into their folds quickly, then out. With no hesitation he drew his own weapon, rushing the curtains. There was no one secreted about them. Then, with the revolver in one hand, he switched on the lights. The room was empty. But one pair of French windows at the farther end were wide open and it was that which had caused the current of air. He ran over and found the lock had been forced. It was not even an artistic job of jimmying." "What about the deputy posted outside?" prompted Kennedy. "That's the strange part of it. He was alert enough, but it's a big house to watch. He swears that the first thing he knew of any trouble was the sharp metallic click which he realized later was the sound made by the intruder in forcing the catch of the French window. It was pretty loud out in the quiet of a Tarrytown night. "He started around from the rear and then the next thing he caught was the outline of a shadowy slinking figure as a man dropped out of the library. He called. The intruder broke into a run, darting across the open space of lawn and crashing through the shrubbery without any further effort at concealment. My man called again and began to chase the stranger, finally firing and missing. In the shrubbery a sharp branch whipped him under the chin just as he obtained a clear view of the outlined figure of his quarry and as he raised his weapon to shoot again. The revolver was knocked from his hand and he was thrown back, falling to the ground and momentarily stunned. Whoever broke into the library got away, of course." "What did the intruder look like?" There was an eagerness in Kennedy's manner. I grasped that the case was beginning to clarify itself in his mind. Mackay shook his head. "There was no moon, you know, and everything happened swiftly. "But was he tall or short or slender or stout--the deputy must have got some vague idea of him at least." "It was one of my amateur deputies," Mackay admitted, reluctantly. "He thought the man was hatless, but couldn't even be sure of that." "Were there footprints, or fingerprints--" "No, Mr. Kennedy, we're out of luck again. When he jumped out he fell to his hands and knees in a garden bed. The foot marks were ruined because his feet slid and simply made two irregular gashes. The marks of his hands indicated to me, anyhow, that he wore heavy gloves, rubber probably." "Any disturbance in the library?" "Not that I could notice. That's why I phoned you at once. I'm hoping you'll discover something." "Well--" Kennedy sighed. "It was a wonderful opportunity to get to the bottom of this." "I haven't told you all yet, Mr. Kennedy," Mackay went on. "There was a second man, and--" "A second man?" Kennedy straightened, distinctly surprised. "I would swear this whole thing was a one-man job." "They weren't together," the district attorney explained. "That's why I didn't mention them both at once. But my deputy says that when he was thrown by the lash of the branch he was unable to move for a few seconds, on account of the nerve shock I suppose, and that while he was motionless, squatted in a sort of sitting position with hands braced behind him, just as he fell, he was aware of a second stranger concealed in the shrubbery. "The second fellow was watching the first, without the question of a doubt. While the deputy slowly rose to his feet this other chap started to follow the man who had broken into the house. But at that moment there was the sudden sound of a self-starter in a car, then the purr of a motor and the clatter of gears. Number one spun off in the darkness of the road as pretty as you please. Number two grunted, in plain disgust. "By this time my deputy had his wind. His revolver was gone, but he jumped the second stranger with little enough hesitation and they battled royally for several minutes in the dark. Unfortunately, it was an unequal match. The intruder apparently was a stocky man, built with the strength of a battleship. He got away also, without leaving anything behind him to serve for identification." "You have no more description than of the first man?" "Unfortunately not. Medium height, a little inclined to be stocky, strong as a longshoreman--that's all." "Are you sure your deputy isn't romancing?" "Positively! He's the son of one of our best families here, a sportsman and an athlete. I knew he loved a lark, or a chance for adventure, and so I impressed him and a companion as deputies when I met them on the street on my way up to Phelps's house just after the tragedy." Kennedy lapsed into thought. Who could the self-constituted watcher have been? Who was interested in this case other than the proper authorities? Apparently some one knew more than Mackay, more than Kennedy. Whoever it was had made no effort to communicate with any of us. This was a new angle to the mystery, a mystery which became deeper as we progressed. At the house Kennedy first made a careful tour of the exterior, but found nothing. Mackay had doubled his guards and had sent Phelps's servants away so that there could be no interference. Once inside, I noticed that Kennedy seemed indisposed to make another minute search of the library. He went over the frame of the French window with his lens carefully, for fingerprints. Finding nothing, he went back directly to the portieres. For several moments he stood regarding them in thought. Then he began a most painstaking inspection of the cloth with the pocket glass, beginning at the library side. I remembered that first scene in the manuscript which Kennedy had insisted I read. I recalled the suspicion which had flashed to me before the message from Mackay had disturbed both Kennedy's thoughts and mine. Stella Lamar had thrust her bare arm through this curtain. A needle, cleverly concealed in the folds, might easily have inflicted the fatal scratch. It was for a trace of the poison point that Kennedy searched. Of that I was sure, knowing his methods. I glanced up and down the heavy hanging silk, looking for the glint of fine sharp steel as Kennedy had done before starting his inspection with the glass. The color of the silk, a beautiful heavy velour, was a strange dark tint very close to the grained black-brown of the woodwork. Both the thickness of the material and its dull shade made the portieres serve ideally for the purpose assumed now both by Kennedy and myself. A tiny needle might remain secreted within their folds for days. Nothing, certainly, caught my naked eye. At last a little exclamation from Kennedy showed us that he had discovered something. I moved closer, as did Mackay. "It's lucky none of us toyed with these curtains yesterday," he remarked, with a slight smile of gratification. "There might have been more than one lying where Stella Lamar lies at the present moment." With wholesome respect neither Mackay nor myself touched the silk as Kennedy pointed. There were two small holes, almost microscopic, in the close-woven material. About the one there was the slightest discoloration. Not a fraction of an inch away I saw two infinitesimal spots of a dark brownish-red tinge. "What does it mean?" I asked, although I could guess. "The dark spots are blood, the discoloration the poison from the needle." "And the needle?" He shrugged his shoulders. "That's where our very scientific culprit has forestalled me, Walter! The needle was in these curtains all day yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not study the manuscript, did not attach any importance to Miss Lamar's scene at the portieres." "The man who broke in last night--" "Removed the needle, but"--almost amused--"not the traces of it. You see, Walter, after all, the scientific detective cannot be forestalled even by the most scientific criminal. There is nothing in the world which does not leave its unmistakable mark behind, provided you can read it. The hole in the cloth serves me quite as well as the needle itself." Very suddenly a voice from behind us interrupted. "Find something?" I turned, startled, to see Emery Phelps. There was a distinct eagerness in the banker's expression. "Yes!" Kennedy faced him, undisturbed, apparently not surprised. His scrutiny of Phelps's face was frank and searching. "Yes," he repeated, "bit by bit the guilty man is revealing himself to us." XII EMERY PHELPS "There--there is something the matter with the curtains?" Phelps suggested. Kennedy pointed to the two holes and the spots. "Miss Lamar met her death from poison introduced into her system through a tiny scratch from a prepared needle." "Yes?" Phelps was calm now, and cool. I wondered if it were pretense on his part. "What have these little marks to do with that?" "Don't you see?" rejoined Kennedy. "If some one had come here before the scene in the picture was played; had thrust a small needle, perhaps a hollow needle from a hypodermic syringe, through the heavy thickness of this silk--thrust it in here, the point sticking out here--well, there would be two holes left where the threads were forced apart, like this!" Kennedy took his stickpin, demonstrating. "How could that cause Stella's death?" Phelps, at first quite upset apparently by Kennedy's discovery, now was lapsing again into his hostile mood. His question was cynical. "Try to recall Miss Lamar's actions," Kennedy went on, patiently. "What was she supposed to do in the very first scene? 'The portieres move and the fingers of a girl are seen on the edge of the silk. A bare and beautiful arm is thrust through almost to the shoulder and it begins to move the portieres aside, reaching upward to pull the curtains apart at the rings.'" "Do you mean to tell me--" Phelps's eyes were very wide as he paused, grasping the scheme and yet disbelieving--unless it all were a bit of fine acting--"do you mean to tell me it is possible to calculate a thing like that? How would anyone know where her arm would be?" "It is simpler than it sounds, Mr. Phelps." Kennedy was suddenly harsh. "There is only one natural movement of an arm in that case. The culprit was undoubtedly familiar with Miss Lamar's height and with her manner of working. It is a bit of action which has to be repeated in both the long shot and close-up scenes. Jameson here can tell you how many times a scene is rehearsed. There probably were a dozen sure chances of the needle striking the girl's bare flesh. You will see from the position of the holes that it was arranged point downward and slightly turned in, and on a particular fold of the curtain, too; showing that some one placed it there only after a nice bit of calculation. Furthermore, it was high enough so that there was little chance of anyone being pricked except the star, whose death was intended." Phelps either seemed convinced, or else he felt it inadvisable to irritate Kennedy by a further pretense of skepticism. A point occurred to me, however. "Listen, Craig!" I spoke in a low voice. "Remember all the emphasis you placed upon the fact that she would cry out. She was not supposed to cry out in that first scene." "No, Walter, but if you'll read the second, the close-up, you'll see that the script actually calls for a cry. Now suppose she makes an exclamation in the first instead. Nobody would think anything of it. They would assume that she had played her action a little in advance, perhaps. "And then consider this, too! Miss Lamar, receiving the scratch, would cry out unquestionably. But she has been before the camera for years and she is trained in the idea that film must not be wasted uselessly. She would not interrupt her action for a little scratch because in these circumstances any little startled movement would fit in with the action. By the time the scene was over she would have forgotten the incident. It would mean very little to her in the preoccupation of bringing the mythical Stella Remsen into flesh-and-blood existence. The poison, however, would be putting in its deadly work." "Wouldn't it act before the thirteenth scene--" I began. "Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, an actress, in the excitement of her work, might resist the effects for a much longer period than some one who realizes he is sick. Some day I'm going to write a book on that. I'm going to collect hundreds of examples of people who keep plugging along because they refuse to admit anything's the matter with them. It's like Napoleon's courier who didn't drop until he'd delivered his message and made his last precise military salute." One other thought struck me. "The blood spots on the curtain cannot be Miss Lamar's if, as you say, the scratch brought no blood." "How about the nocturnal visitor who removed the needle in the dark? Can't you imagine him pricking himself beautifully in his hurry." "Good heavens!" I felt the chills travel up and down my spine. "There may be another fatality, then!" I exclaimed. Kennedy was noncommittal. "It would be too bad for justice to be cheated in that fashion," he remarked. Phelps meanwhile had been listening to us impatiently. Finally he turned to Mackay. "Was that all you called me out here for? Did you just want to show me the pinholes in those portieres?" "Not exactly," Mackay replied, eyeing him sharply. "Some one forced his way into this library last night. My guard saw him, and also saw a second man who remained out in the shrubbery and seemed to be watching the first. One shot was fired, but both men got away. An automobile was waiting, perhaps two of them." "How does this concern me?" Phelps's voice rose in anger. He strode into the library and over to the French windows, inspecting the damage to the fine woodwork with steadily rising color. Then he hurried back to the side of Mackay. "It's up to you, District-Attorney Mackay," he said, with a great show of his ill feeling. "You practically forced me out of my own house. You sent my servants away. You put your own guards in charge, young, inexperienced deputies who don't know enough to come in when it's wet. Now you have me make this trip out here in business hours just to show me where a needle has been stuck in a curtain and where a pair of imported window sashes have been ruined." Mackay was unruffled. "It is necessary, Mr. Phelps, that you look over this room and see that nothing else has been disturbed; that there is no further damage. Moreover, I thought you might be interested, might wish to help us determine the identity of the intruder." "If there's any way I can really help you to do that"--sarcastically--"I'll be delighted." "Were you here the night before the murder?" Mackay asked. "You know I seldom spend the night in Tarrytown. I have quarters in New York, at the club, and recently I have been spending all my time in New York, on account of the situation in the picture business." "You were not here the night before the murder, then?" "No!" "But you were out here yesterday before the actors arrived, before Manton or any of his technical staff and crew came?" "I was out very early, to make sure the servants had the house ready." Phelps was red now. "Are you insinuating anything, Mackay?" The little district attorney was demonstrating a certain quality of dogged perseverance. "Some one put the needle in the curtain before the company arrived. You probably were in the house at the time; or at the least your servants were. Whoever did was the one who murdered Stella Lamar." "And also," rejoined Phelps, tartly, "was the intruder who broke in here last night and ruined my window sash. If you had had better guards you might have caught him, too!" "Are you sure of your servants? Are they reliable--" "I never anticipated a murder and so I didn't question them as to their poisoning proclivities when I engaged them. But you know where they are and you can examine them. If I were you, Mackay--" "Gentlemen!" Kennedy hastened to stop the colloquy before it became an out-and-out quarrel. Then he faced the banker. "Mr. Phelps," Kennedy's voice was soft, coaxing, "I don't think Mr. Mackay quite understands. It would be a great service to me if you would give the house a quick general inspection. You are familiar with the things here, enough to state whether they have been disturbed to any appreciable degree. You see, we do not know the interior arrangements as they were before this unfortunate happening." With rather ill grace Phelps stalked up the steps, acceding to Kennedy's request, but disdaining to answer. Kennedy turned to Mackay as the banker disappeared out of earshot. "That's just to cool him off a bit. I have everything I came to get right here." Producing a pair of pocket scissors, he cut the pierced and spotted bit of silk from the portieres, ruthlessly. It was necessary vandalism. "What was the poison, Mr. Kennedy?" Mackay asked, in a low voice. "I think that it was closely allied to the cyanide groups in its rapacious activity." "But you haven't identified it yet?" "No. So far I haven't the slightest idea of its true nature. It seems to have a powerful affinity for important nerve centers of respiration and muscular co-ordination, as well as possessing a tendency to disorganize 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. But that is not what it is or I would have been able to prove it before this." Mackay nodded, listening in silence. "You'll say nothing of this?" Kennedy added. "I'll be silent, of course." Heavy footsteps from the rear marked the return of Phelps, who had covered the upper floors, descending by the back stairs so as to have a look at the kitchen. "Everything seems to be all right," he remarked, half graciously. Kennedy led the way to the front porch. There he seemed more interested in the weather than in the case, for he studied the sky intently. Glancing up, I saw that the morning was still gray and cloudy, with no promise that the sun would be able to struggle through the overhanging moisture. "I don't think we'll go back to the city--that is, all the way in," he remarked, speaking for both of us. "I want to go to the Manton studio first. This is no day for exteriors and so they'll probably be working there." He smiled at Phelps. "I want to see if any of our possible suspects look as though they had been engaging in nocturnal journeys." Phelps had been rubbing his eyes. He dropped his hand so quickly that I wanted to smile; then to cover his confusion he promptly offered to drive us in. Mackay at the same time volunteered his car. Kennedy accepted the latter offer. As he thanked the banker I wondered if any suspicion of that individual lurked in the back of his mind. Phelps certainly had made a very bad impression upon me with his antagonistic attitude, with his readiness to transform every question into a personal affront. "Just one other thing, Mr. Phelps," exclaimed Kennedy, as we were about to descend to Mackay's car. "Why did you wish the scenes in 'The Black Terror' actually taken in your library?" Kennedy had asked the question before. Had he forgotten? I glanced at the banker and read the same thought in his expression. "I--I'm proud of my library and I wanted to see it in pictures," he replied, after some hesitation and with a little rancor. "Not to save money?" "It would be no appreciable saving." "I see." Kennedy was tantalizingly deliberate. "How long have you held the controlling interest in Manton Pictures, Mr. Phelps?" "Uh"--in surprise--"nearly a year." "You could have had your library photographed at any time, then, simply by stating your request as you did in this case. In that year there have been pictures which would have served the purpose as well as this; better, in fact, because in this picture the library seems to be dark almost altogether. In other stories there probably were infinitely better chances for the exhibition of the room. Why did you wait for 'The Black Terror'?" As a clear understanding of Kennedy's question and all it entailed filtered into the mind of Phelps he became so red and flushed with anger that I felt sure he was going to explode on the spot. "Because I didn't think of it before," he sputtered. "You said the situation in the picture business made it necessary for you to stay in town. Is there any trouble between Manton and yourself?" "Not a bit!" "Was Stella Lamar making any trouble, of a business nature, such as threatening to quit Manton Pictures?" "No!" Phelps' eyes now were narrowed to slits. "Are you sure?" With a great effort Phelps achieved a degree of self-control. He forced a smile. His remark, presumed to be a pleasantry, I knew masked the true state of his feelings. "As sure, Mr. Kennedy," he rejoined, awed by Kennedy's reputation even in the full flood of his anger, "as sure as I am that I'd like to throw you down these steps!" XIII MARILYN LORING The magic of Manton's name admitted us to the studio courtyard, and at once I was struck by the change since the day before. Now the tank was a dry, empty, shallow depression of concrete. The scenery, all the paraphernalia assembled for the taking of water stuff, was gone. Except for the parked automobiles in one corner and a few loitering figures here and there the big quadrangle seemed absolutely deserted. In the general reception room Kennedy asked for Millard, but was told he had not been out since the previous day. That was to be expected. But Manton, it developed, was away also. He had telephoned in that he would be detained until late afternoon on important business. I know that I, for one, wondered if it were connected with Fortune Features. "It's just as well," Kennedy remarked, after convincing the boy at the desk it was Manton's wish that we have the run of the place. "My real object in coming was to watch the cast at work." We found our way to the small studio, called so in comparison with the larger one where the huge ballroom and banquet sets were being built. In reality it possessed a tremendous floor space. Now all the other companies had been forced to make room for "The Black Terror" on account of the emergency created by the death of Stella Lamar, and there were any number of sets put up hastily for the retakes of the scenes in which Stella had appeared. The effect of the whole upon a strange beholder was weird. It was as though a cyclone had swept through a town and had gathered up and deposited slices and corners and sections of rooms and hallways and upper chambers, each complete with furniture and ornaments, curtains, rugs, and hangings. Except for the artistic harmony of things within the narrow lines of the camera's view, nothing in this great armory-like place had any apparent relation to anything else. Some of the sets were lighted, with actors and technical crews at work. Others were dark, standing ready for use. Still others were in varying states of construction or demolition. Rising above every other impression was the noise. It was pandemonium. We saw Werner at work in a distant corner and strolled over. The director was bustling about feverishly. I do not doubt that the grim necessity of preparing the picture for a release date which was already announced had resulted in this haste, without even a day of idleness in respect for the memory of the dead star, yet it seemed cold-blooded and mercenary to me. I thought that success was not deserved by an enterprise so callous of human life, so unappreciative of human effort. Most of the cast were standing about, waiting. The scenes were being taken in a small room, fitted as an office or private den, but furnished luxuriously. Later I learned it was in the home of the millionaire, Remsen, close off the library for which the actual room in Phelps's home was photographed. Shirley and Gordon, I noticed, kept as far apart as possible. It was quite intentional and I again caught belligerent glances between them. On the other hand, both Enid and Marilyn Loring were calm and self-possessed. Yet between these two I caught a coolness, a sort of armed truce, in which each felt it would be a sign of weakness to admit consciously even the near presence of the other. Werner was irascible, swearing roundly at the slightest provocation, raging up and down at every little error. "Come now," he shouted, as we approached, "let's get this scene now--number one twenty-six. Loring--Gordon! Shake a leg--here, I'll read it again. 'Daring enters. He is scarcely seated at the desk, examining papers, when Zelda enters in a filmy negligee. Daring looks up amazed and Zelda pretends great agitation. Daring is not unkind to her. He tells her he has not discovered the will as yet. Spoken title: "I am sure that I can find a will and that you are provided for." Continuing scene, Daring speaks the above. Zelda thanks him and undulates toward the door with the well-known swaying walk of the vampire. Daring turns to his papers and does not watch her further. She looks over her shoulder, then exits, registering that she will get him yet.'" Werner dropped his copy of the script. "Understand?" he barked. "Make it fast now. We shouldn't do this over, but you were lousy before, both of you!" Gordon extinguished a cigarette and entered the set with a scowl. Marilyn rose and slipped out of a dressing gown spotted with make-up and dark from its long service in the studios. Underneath the wrapper the finest of silken draperies clung to her, infinitely more intimate here in actuality and in the bright studio lights than it would be upon the screen. I noticed the slim trimness of her figure--could not help myself, in fact. And I saw also that she shrank back just the least little bit before stepping to her place at the door. It was modesty, a genuine girlish diffidence. In a moment I revised my conception of her. Before, I had not been able to decide whether Marilyn Loring was a woman with a gift for looking young, or a flapper with the baffling sophistication affected these days by so many of them. Now I knew somehow that she was just all girl, probably in her early twenties. The brief instant of shyness had betrayed her. In the scene she changed. Marilyn Loring was an actress. The moment she caught the click of the camera's turn there was a hardness about her mouth, a faint dishonest touch to the play of her eye, a shameless boldness to her movements concealed without concealment. In the flash of a second she was Marilyn no longer, but Zelda, the ward of old Remsen, an unscrupulous and willing ally of the "Black Terror." Werner damned the amount of footage used in the scene, then turned to the next, with Enid and Gordon, in the same set, one of the necessary retakes for which the room had been put up again. Enid had not noticed me and I somehow failed to shake off the feeling of fear that the glance of Millard had given me. Faint heart I was, and the answer was that I had yet to win the fair lady. To excuse myself I pretended she was different under the lights. It was really true that, as Zelda Remsen, Enid was not the fascinating creature I had met in Werner's office. There was too much Mascaro on her lashes, too great an amount of red and blue and even bright yellow in her make-up. In striking contrast was the little coloring used by Stella Lamar, or even Marilyn Loring. Enid's scene was a close-up in which the beginning of the love interest in the story was shown. I noticed that as the cameras turned upon the action the girl inch by inch shifted her position, almost imperceptibly, until she was practically facing the lens. The consequence was that Gordon, playing the lover, was forced to move also in order to follow her face, and so was brought with his back toward the camera. It was the pleasant little film trick known as "taking the picture away" from a fellow actor. Enid was a "lens hog." The moment the scene was over Gordon rushed to Werner to protest. The director, irritated and in a hurry, gave him small satisfaction. Both players were called back under the lights for the next "take." As Werner's back was turned Enid favored Gordon with a mischievous, malicious glance. The leading man possessed very few friends, from what I had heard. The new star evidently did not propose to become one of them. "Let's pay our respects, socially," suggested Kennedy, at my elbow. I followed his glance and saw that Marilyn was seated alone, away from the others, apparently forlorn. As we approached she drew her dressing robe about her, smiling. With the smile her face lighted. It was in the rare moments, just as her smile broke and spread, that she was pretty, strikingly so. "Professor Kennedy," she exclaimed. "And Mr. Jameson, too! Sit down and watch our new star." "What do you think of her?" Kennedy asked. "Enid?" Marilyn's expression became quizzical. "I think she's a clever girl." "You mean something by that, don't you?" prompted Kennedy. She sobered. "No! Honestly!" For an instant she studied him with a directness of gaze which I would have found disconcerting. "Don't tell me"--she teased, again allowing the flash of a smile to illuminate her features--"don't tell me the renowned and celebrated Professor Kennedy suspects Enid Faye of murdering poor Stella to get her position." Kennedy laughed, turning to me. "There's the woman," he remarked. "We may deduce and analyze and catalogue all the facts of science, but"--he spread his palms wide, expressly--"it is as nothing against a woman's intuition." Facing Marilyn again, he became frank. "You caught my thought exactly, although it was not as bad as all that. I simply wondered if Miss Faye might not have had something to do with the case." "Why?" I realized now that this Miss Loring, in addition to considerable skill as an actress, in addition to rare beauty on the screen, possessed a brain and the power to use it. She followed Kennedy with greater ease than I, who knew him. "Why?" she repeated. "Perhaps it's the intuition of the male," he began, hesitatingly. She shook her head. "A man's intuition is not dependable. You see, a woman gets her intuition first and fits her facts to it, while a man takes a fact and then has an intuitive burst of inspiration as a result. The woman puts her facts last and so is not thrown out when they're wrong, as they usually are. But the man--I think, Professor Kennedy, that you have some facts about Enid stored away and that that's why you put a double meaning in my remark. Am I right?" He smiled. "I surrender, Miss Loring. You are right." "What is the little fact? Perhaps I can help you." "Miss Faye and Lawrence Millard seem to be old friends." "Oh! Maybe you wonder at the contents of the sealed testimony in the case of Millard VS. Millard?" Kennedy nodded. "Do you want to know what I think?" she asked. "Please." "Well, I've worked with Stella nearly a year. It's my opinion she divorced Millard because he asked her to do so." "No, no!" I balked at that, interrupting. "He could have obtained the divorce himself if he had wanted it. Stella Lamar and Manton--" "That's talk!" she rejoined, with a show of feeling. "That's the thing I hate about pictures. It's always talk, talk, talk! I'm not saying Stella and old Papa Lloyd, as we used to call him, never were mixed up with each other, but it's one thing to repeat a bit of gossip and quite another thing to prove it. I'm not one to help give currency to any rumor of immoral relationship until I'm pretty dog-gone sure it's true." "You think Miss Lamar wasn't as bad as painted?" asked Kennedy. "I'm sure of it, Mr. Kennedy. I've known Stella and I've known others of her type. Fundamentally they're the kindest, truest, biggest-hearted people on earth. When Stella and I shared a dressing room I often caught her giving away this or that--frequently things she needed herself. I've known her to draw against her salary to lend money to some actor or actress whom she well knew would never repay her. Stella's biggest fault was an overbalancing quality of sympathy. If she ever did get mixed up with anyone you may bet it was because that person played upon her feelings." "Have you any theory as to who killed her?" It was a direct question. "No!" The answer was quick, but then an amazing thing happened. Marilyn suddenly colored, a flush which gathered up around her eyes above the make-up and made me think of a country girl. She started to say something else and then bit her tongue. Her confusion was surprising, due, probably, to the unexpectedness of Kennedy's query. Kennedy seemed to wish to spare her. Undoubtedly her prompt negative had been the truth. Some afterthought had robbed her of her self-control. "Tell me why you said Miss Faye was a clever girl," he directed. "Just because she puts her ambition above everything else and works hard and honestly and sincerely, and will get there. That's what people call being clever." "I see." Werner's voice, roaring through a megaphone, announced an interval for lunch. Marilyn rose, laughing now, but still in a high color, conscious perhaps that she had revealed some strong undercurrent of feeling. "If you'll escort me to my dressing room," she said, coaxingly, "and wait until I slip into a skirt and waist, I'll initiate both of you to McCann's across the street. We all eat there, players, stage hands, chauffeurs--all but the stars, who have machines to take them elsewhere." Kennedy glanced at me. "Delighted!" said I. "We haven't much time," she went on, leading the way. "Werner's on a rampage to-day." "He isn't usually that way?" "It's Stella's death, I guess." She opened one of the steel fire doors. "He's always that way, though, when he's been out the night before." I flashed a look at Kennedy. Could Werner have been at Tarrytown? In the long hallway of dressing rooms Marilyn stopped, grasping the knob of her door. "It'll only take me--" she began. Then her face went white as the concrete of the floor, and that was immaculate. An expression which might have been fear, or horror, or hate--or all three, spread over her features, transforming her. Following the direction of her stare, I saw Shirley down the hall, just as he stopped at his own door. He caught her glance suddenly, and his own face went red. I thought that his hands trembled. Marilyn wheeled about, lips pressed tightly together. Throwing open the door, she dashed into her room, slamming it with a bang which echoed and re-echoed up and down the little hall. She had forgotten our presence altogether. XIV ANOTHER CLUE Kennedy looked at me quizzically. "I guess we'd better not wait for Miss Loring to initiate us to McCann's," he remarked. We found our way to the courtyard, and were headed for the gate when a young man in chauffeur's cap and uniform intercepted us. I had noticed him start forward from one of the cars parked in the inclosure, but did not recognize him. "May I speak to you a moment, Professor Kennedy--alone?" "Mr. Jameson here is associated with me, is assisting me in this case, if it is something concerning the death of Miss Lamar." "It is, sir. I saw you out at Tarrytown yesterday. McGroarty is my name and I drove one of the cars the company went in. They were pointing you out to me, and I'd read about you, and just now I says to myself there's something I ought to tell you." "That's right." Kennedy lighted a cigar, offering one to the chauffeur. "I'm not supernatural and often I'm able to solve a mystery only with the help of all those who, like myself, want justice done." "Yes, sir! That's my way of looking at it. Well"--McGroarty blew a cloud of smoke, appreciatively--"I do a good bit of driving for these people, and this morning it was cloudy and dull, no good for exteriors, but yet sort of so it might clear at any moment, and so I was ordered. I brought my car and left it standing here in the yard while I went over to McCann's--the lunch room, you know--for a cup of coffee. When I came back"--again the cigar--"there still was nothing doing, and so I thought--you know how it is--I thought I'd clean up the back of the old boat, to kill time, not saying it wasn't needed. So I took out the cocoa mat to beat it and what do I find on the floor--between the mat and the rear seat it was, I guess--but this." He handed Kennedy some small object which glinted in the light. Looking closely, I saw that it was a peculiarly shaped little glass tube. "An ampulla," Kennedy explained. "It's the technical name the doctors have for such a container." "It must have been between the mat and the rear seat," the chauffeur repeated. Then he discovered that his cigar was out. He struck a match. Kennedy turned the bit of glass over and over in his hand, examining it carefully. I felt rather fearful, wondering if it might not contain some trace of the deadly poison which had so quickly killed Stella Lamar. I even half expected to see Kennedy find some infinitesimal jagged edge or point which could have inflicted the fatal scratch. Then I realized that McGroarty had handled the thing with impunity, perhaps had carried it about half a day. Kennedy took his scarf pin. On the outside of the little tube there was no trace of a label or marking of any sort. All about, on the inside, however, the glass was spotted with dried light-yellow incrustations, resembling crystals and at first apt to escape even the sharpest scrutiny. With the pin Kennedy scaled off one of these and put it under his pocket lens. But he came to no conclusion. Rather puzzled and nettled, he dropped the tiny bit of substance back into the tube, then replaced his pin in his scarf, and stowed this latest bit of possible evidence in his pocket carefully. "How do you suppose it got in the car?" he asked. "Some one must have dropped it and it must have rolled in that space by the edge of the mat," replied the chauffeur. "There was just room for it, too! I never would have noticed it without taking up the mat." "It couldn't be broken, by being trampled on?" "Nope! Not a chance!" "How long could it have been there?" "Two or three or four days--since I cleaned up last." I remembered the cleverness shown by the guilty person in placing the needle in the curtain. It seemed unlikely that this could be an accident. "Isn't it possible," I suggested, "that this is a plant; that the tube was put there deliberately, to throw us off the track?" "It's quite likely," he admitted. "On the other hand, Walter, the very smartest criminal will do some foolish little thing, enough to ruin the most careful plans and preparations." He turned to McGroarty. "Who rode in your car yesterday?" "Mine's the principals' car," boasted McGroarty. "Going out I had Miss Lamar, Miss Loring, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Shirley, and Mr. Werner. Coming back Mr. Werner was with you, and Miss Lamar--well, there was only Miss Loring and Mr. Gordon and Mr. Shirley." "Did you notice how they acted?" "They never says a word to each other on all the trip back, but I didn't think it strange after what happened, although usually they're always joking and laughing." "You brought the three to the studio here?" "Yes. They had to get out of make-up." "Did you leave the car then?" "No, I hit it right for the garage." "Were you away from the car at Tarrytown?" "Sure! That was a long wait. Peters, Manton's chauffeur, and I found a couple of horseshoes and we were throwing them most of the time." "How long was the machine alone here in the yard this morning?" "A couple of hours, maybe. I knew the old boiler was safe enough, and that if they wanted me they'd look over in McCann's." "Well," Kennedy extended his hand, "I thank you, and I won't forget you, McGroarty." As soon as the chauffeur was out of earshot I faced Kennedy rather eagerly, to forestall him if he had arrived at the same conclusion as myself. "See! It's just as I thought yesterday!" "How's that, Walter?" "Werner! He rode out in that machine, but not back. In Manton's car he was worried all the time. He probably knew he had dropped the tube. Then he hurried up ahead of us and wiped the needle--" I stopped, lamely. Kennedy smiled. "See, you're jumping at conclusions too fast. You remember now that we decided that the towel has nothing directly to do with the poison. In a way you cannot assume that this ampulla has, either, although I myself feel sure on that point. But in any case no one is eliminated. It is true Werner did not return in the same automobile. It is also true that he had little opportunity to drop it while others were in the car with him. When McGroarty was away from the car anyone could have lost it, or--as you suggested a moment ago--planted it there deliberately to divert suspicion." I felt the beginnings of a headache from all these confused threads of the mystery. "Can't--Isn't there anyone we can say is innocent, at least, even if we cannot begin to fasten the guilt upon somebody?" I pleaded. Kennedy shook his head. "At this stage the one is as hard as the other. I consider myself lucky to have collected as much material as I have for the analysis of the poison." He tapped his pocket significantly. "Yoo-hoo!" A frankly shrill call in a feminine voice interrupted. We both turned, to see Marilyn Loring hastening toward us. "Did you think I was going to forget you?" she asked, almost reproachfully and much out of breath. "Let's hurry," she added. "This is roast beef day." We started toward the gate once more, Marilyn between us, vivacious and rather charming. I noticed that she made no reference to the incident in the hallway, the precipitate manner in which she left us and the very evident confusion of Merle Shirley. Kennedy, too, seemed disposed to drop the matter, although it was obviously significant. For some reason his mind was elsewhere, so that the girl was thrown upon my hands. It struck me that, after all, she was attractive. At this moment I found her distinctly good-looking. "Why do you 'vamp'?" I asked, innocently. "You don't seem to me, if you'll pardon the personal remark, at all that type." She laughed. "It's all the fault of the public. They insist that I vamp. I want to play girly-girly parts, but the public won't stand for it; they won't come to see the picture. They tell the exhibitor, and he tells the producer, and back I am at the vamping again. Isn't it funny?" She paused a moment. "Take Gordon. Doesn't it make you laugh, what the public think he is--clean-cut, hero, and all that sort of thing? Little do they know!" All at once Kennedy stopped abruptly. We were close to the entrance, just where a smart little speedster of light blue lined with white was parked at the edge of the narrow sidewalk. The sun, after a morning of uncertainty, had just struck through the haze, and it illuminated Marilyn's face and hair most delightfully as we both turned, somewhat in surprise. "I know you'll never forgive me, Miss Loring," Kennedy began, "but the fact is that just before you came out we stumbled into a new bit of evidence in the case and I believe that Jameson and I will have to hurry in to the laboratory. Much as I would like to lunch with you, and perhaps chat some more during scene-taking this afternoon--" It seemed to me that her eyes widened a bit. Certainly there was a perceptible change in her face. It was interest, but it was also certainly more than that. I felt that she would have liked to penetrate the mask of Kennedy's expression, perhaps learn just what facts and theories rested in his mind. "Is it--" Suddenly she smiled, realizing that Kennedy would reveal only the little which suited his purpose. "Is it something you can tell me?" she finished. He shook his head. His answer was tantalizing, his glance searching and without concealment. "Only another detail concerning the chemical analysis of the poison." "I see!" If she knew of the ampulla the answer would have been intelligible to her. As it was, her face betrayed nothing. "I guess I'll hurry on over alone, then," she added. She extended a hand to each of us. Her grasp was warm and friendly and frank. "So long, and--and good luck, for Stella's sake!" "Hello, folks!" The dancing bantering voice from behind us, with silvery cadence to its laughter, could belong to no one but Enid Faye. I grasped that it was her car which Kennedy leaned upon. I gasped a bit as I saw her directly at my side, her dainty chamois motoring coat brushing my sleeve, the sun which grew in strength every moment casting mottled shadows upon her face through the transparent brim of her bobbing hat, in mocking answer to the mirth in her eyes. For an instant she gazed after the retreating Marilyn. "Good-by, Marilyn! DEAR," she called, mega-phoning her hands. The other girl made no response. Laughing, Enid slipped a hand under my arm, the firm pressure of her fingers thrilling me. She addressed Kennedy, however. "Do you want a ride in to the city, both of you?" Kennedy brightened. "That would be fine! How far are you going?" "The Burrage. I have a luncheon engagement. That's Forty-fourth." "Can you drop us off at the university?" "Surely! Climb in. It's a tight fit, three in the seat, but fun. And"--facing me--"I want Jamie between us, next to me!" As we rolled out of the studio inclosure she leaned forward on the wheel to question Kennedy. "What did Marilyn Loring want? You seemed in deep confab!" "She volunteered to initiate us to McCann's, across the street." "Oh!" She skidded about a corner skillfully. "And--" "Well, we bumped into an additional piece of evidence and I thought Jameson and I ought to hurry in to my laboratory instead." "I bet"--Enid giggled, readjusting her hat in the breeze--"I bet she wanted to know what you'd found, right away. Didn't she?" "Yes!" Kennedy's face was noncommittal, "Why do you say that?" "Because she came into my room, just as we were getting ready for work this morning. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from the way she kept asking me questions about everyone from Manton down I got the idea she was quizzing me, to see how much I knew. Of course this is only my first day, but it seems to me that Marilyn is talking a great deal, without saying very much. I've come to the conclusion she knows a good deal more than she is telling anyone, and that she'd like to find out just how much everyone else knows." Kennedy nodded almost absent-mindedly, without responding further. "Well"--Enid speeded up a bit--"not to change connections on the switchboard, I think I'm going to like it with Manton Pictures." "Will they do justice to your work," Kennedy inquired, "putting you in a partially finished picture in this way?" "That's where I'm in luck, real bang-up luck. Werner has directed me before and knows just exactly how to handle me." "What about the story? That was built for Stella, wasn't it?" "Yes, but they're changing it here and there to fit me. Larry knows my work, too! That's luck again for little Enid." "How long have you known Millard?" In a flash I realized Kennedy's cleverness. This was the fact he had wished to unearth. The question was as natural as could be. He had led up to it deliberately. I was sure of that. "Four, nearly five years," she replied, unsuspiciously. Then suddenly she bit her lip, although her expression was well masked. "That is," she added, somewhat lamely--"that is, in a casual way, like nearly everyone knows nearly everyone else in the film game." "Oh!" murmured Kennedy, lapsing into silence. XV I BECOME A DETECTIVE Important as it was to watch Enid and Marilyn, Werner and the rest, Kennedy decided that it was now much more important to hold to his expressed purpose of returning to the laboratory with our trophies of the day's crime hunt. "For people to whom emotion ought to be an old story in their everyday stage life, I must say they feel and show plenty of it in real life," I remarked, as Enid set us down and drove off. "It does not seem to pall." "I don't know why the movie people buy stories," remarked Craig, quaintly. "They don't need to do it--they live them." When we were settled in the laboratory once more Kennedy plunged with renewed vigor into the investigation he had dropped in the morning in order to make the hurried trip to the Phelps home in Tarrytown. I had hoped he would talk further of the probabilities of the connection of the various people with the crime, but he had no comment even upon the admission of Enid that she had known Millard for a period long antedating the trouble with Stella Lamar. It seemed that, after all, he was quite excited at the discovery of the ampulla and was anxious to begin the analysis of its scale-like contents. I was not sure, but it struck me that this might be the same substance which had spotted the towel or the portieres. If that were so, the finding of it in this form had given him a new and tangible clue to its nature, accounting for his eagerness. I watched his elaborate and thorough preparations, wishing I could be of assistance, but knowing the limitations of my own chemical and bacteriological knowledge. I grasped, however, that he was concentrating his study upon the spots he had cut from the portieres, in particular the stain where the point of the needle had been, and upon the incrustations on the inner surface of the tube. He made solutions of both of these and for some little time experimented with chemical reactions. Then he had recourse to several weighty technical books. Though bursting with curiosity, I dared not question him, nor distract him in any way. Finally he turned to a cage where he kept on hand, always, a few of those useful martyrs to science, guinea pigs. Taking one of the little animals and segregating him from the others, he prepared to inoculate him with a tiny bit of the solution made from the stain on the piece cut from the portiere. At that I knew it would be a long and tiresome analysis. It seemed a waste of time to wait idly for Kennedy to reach his conclusions, so I cast about in my mind for some sort of inquiry of my own which I could conduct meanwhile, perhaps collecting additional facts about those we were watching at the studio. Somehow I could not wholly lose my suspicions of the director, Werner; especially now as I marshaled the evidence against him. First of all he was the only person absolutely in control of the movements of Stella Lamar. If she did not bring up her arm against the curtains in a manner calculated to press the needle against her flesh it certainly would not seem out of the way for him to ask her to do it over again, or even for him to direct changes in her position. This he could do either in rehearsal or in retakes after the scene had actually been photographed. It was not proof, I knew. Practically all of them were familiar with the action of the scene, could guess how Werner would handle it. The point was that the director, next to Millard, was the most thoroughly conversant with the scenes in the script, had to figure out everything down to the very location and angles of the camera. Another matter, of course, was the placing of the needle in the silk. For that purpose some one had to go to Tarrytown ahead of the others, or at least had to precede the others into the living room. Offhand I was compelled to admit that this was easiest for Phelps--Phelps, the man who had insisted that the scene be taken in his library. At the same time, I knew it was quite possible for the director to have entered ahead of anyone else, possible for him to have issued orders to his people which would keep them out of the way for the brief moment he needed. A third consideration was the finding of the ampulla in McGroarty's car. Stella, Marilyn, Jack Gordon, Merle Shirley, and Werner had ridden out together. Werner had not returned. While this fact did not indicate definitely that he might have dropped it, coupled with the other considerations it pointed the suspicion of guilt at the director. Then there was the finding of the towel in the washroom of the office building at the studio. While Kennedy now said it was not used to wipe the needle, while we now knew that the needle remained in the portieres from the morning of Stella's death until late that night, yet Kennedy affirmed the connection of the towel with the crime in some subtle way. It was true that members of the cast sometimes used the washroom, yet it was evident that Manton, Millard, and Werner, who had rooms on the floor, were the more apt to be concerned in the attempt to dispose of it. Against Manton I could see no real grounds for suspicion. In a general way we had been compelled to eliminate Millard early in our investigation. Again I was brought, in this analysis of the mystery, to Werner. One other point remained--the identity of the nocturnal visitor to Tarrytown. In connection with that I remembered the remark of Marilyn. Werner was acting as he always acted when he was out late the night before, she had said. While my theories offered no explanation of the second man, the watcher, I saw--with an inner feeling of triumph--that everything again pointed to the director. I determined not to tell my conclusion to Kennedy, yet. I did not want to distract him. Besides, I felt he would disagree. "What do you think of this, Craig?" I suggested. "Suppose I start out while you're busy and try to dig up some more facts about these people?" "Excellent!" was his reply. "I can't say how much longer my analysis will keep me. By all means do so, Walter. I shall be here, or, if not, I'll leave a note so you can find me." Accordingly, I took up my search, determined to go slowly and carefully, not to be misled by any promising but fallacious clues. I knew that Werner would be working at the studio, from all we had heard in the morning. I determined upon a visit to his apartment in his absence. From the telephone book I discovered that he lived at the Whistler Studios, not far from Central Park on the middle West Side--a new building, I remembered, inhabited almost entirely by artists and writers. As I hurried down on the Subway, then turned and walked east toward the Park, I racked my brain for an excuse to get in. Entering the lower reception hall, I learned from the boy that the director had a suite on the top floor, high enough to look over the roofs of the adjoining buildings directly into the wide expanse of green and road, of pond and trees beyond. "Mr. Werner isn't in, though," the boy added, doubtfully, without ringing the apartment. "I know it," I rejoined, hastily. "I told him I'd meet him here this afternoon, however." On a chance I went on, with a knowing smile, "I guess it was pretty late when he came in last night?" "I'll say so," grinned the youth, friendly all of a sudden. He had interpreted the remark as I intended he should. He believed that Werner and I had been out together. "I remember," he volunteered, "because I had to do an extra shift of duty last night, worse luck. It must have been after four o'clock. I was almost asleep when I heard the taxi at the door." "I wonder what company he got the taxi from?" I remarked, casually. "I tried to get one uptown--" I paused. I didn't want to get into a maze of falsehood from which I would be unable to extricate myself. "I don't know," he replied. "It looked like one of the Maroon taxis, from up at the Central Park Hotel on the next block, but I'm not sure." "I think I won't go upstairs yet," I said, finally. "There's another call I ought to make. If Mr. Werner comes in, tell him I'll be back." I knew very well that Werner would not return, but I thought that the bluff might pave the way for getting upstairs and into the apartment a little later. Meanwhile I had another errand. The boy nodded a good-by as I passed out through the grilled iron doors to the street. Less than five minutes afterward I was at the booth of the Maroon Taxi Company, at the side of the main entrance of the Central Park Hotel. Here the starter proved to be a loquacious individual, and I caught him, fortunately, in the slowest part of the afternoon. Removing a pipe and pushing a battered cap to the back of a bald head, he pulled out the sheets of the previous day. Before me were recorded all the calls for taxicab service, with the names of drivers, addresses of calls, and destinations. Although the quarters in the booth were cramped and close and made villainous by the reek of the man's pipe, I began to scan the lists eagerly. It had been a busy night even down to the small hours of the morning and I had quite a job. As I came nearer and nearer to the end my hopes ebbed, however. When I was through I had failed to identify a single call that might have been Werner's. Several fares had been driven to and from the Grand Central Station, probably the means by which he made the trip to Tarrytown. In each case the record had shown the Central Park Hotel in the other column, not the Whistler Studios. I was forced to give up this clue, and it hurt. I was not built for a detective, I guess, for I almost quit then and there, prepared to return to the laboratory and Kennedy. But I remembered my first intention and made my way back to the Whistler Studios. Anyhow, I reflected, Werner would hardly have summoned a car from a place so near his home had he wished to keep his trip a secret. It was more important for me to gain access to his quarters. There it was quite possible I might find something valuable. I wondered if I would be justified in breaking in, or if I would succeed if I attempted it. Things proved easier than I expected. My first visit unquestionably had prepared the way. The hallboy took me up in the elevator himself without telephoning, took me to Werner's door, rang the bell, and spoke to the colored valet who opened it. As I grasped the presence of the servant in the little suite I was glad I had not tried my hand at forcing an entrance. I had quite anticipated an empty apartment. The darky, pleasant voiced, polite, and well trained, bowed me into a little den and proceeded to lay out a large box of cigarettes on the table beside me, as well as a humidor well filled with cigars of good quality. I took one of the latter, accepting a light and glancing about. Certainly this was in contrast with Manton's apartment. There was nothing garish, ornate, or spectacular here. Richly, lavishly furnished, everything was in perfect taste, revealing the hand of an artist. It might have been a bit bizarre, reflecting the nervous temperament of its owner. Even the servant showed the touch of his master, hovering about to make sure I was comfortable, even to bringing a stack of the latest magazines. I hope he didn't sense my thoughts, for I cursed him inwardly. I wanted to be alone. Ordinarily I would have enjoyed this, but now I had become a detective, and it was necessary to rummage about, and quickly. The sudden ringing of the telephone took the valet out into the tiny hall of the suite and gave me the opportunity I wished. Phelps apparently was calling up to leave some message for Werner, which I could not get, as the valet took it. What, I wondered, was Phelps telephoning here for? Why not at the studio? It looked strange. I lost no time in speculation over that, however. The moment I was left to myself I jumped up and rushed to a writing desk, a carved antique which had caught my eye upon my entrance, which I had studied from my place in the easy chair. It was unlocked, and I opened it without compunction. With an alert ear, to warn me the moment the colored boy hung up, I first gazed rather helplessly at a huge pile of literary litter. Clearly there was no time to go through all of that. I gave the papers a cursory inspection, without disturbing them, hoping to catch some name or something which might prove to be a random clue, but I was less lucky than Kennedy had been in his casual look at Manton's desk the afternoon before. Still able to hear the valet at the telephone, I reached down and opened the top drawer of the desk. Here perhaps I might be more fortunate. One glance and my heart gave a startled leap. There in a compartment of the drawer I saw a hypodermic needle--in fact, two of them--and a bottle. On the desk was a fountain pen ink dropper, a new one which had never been used. I reached over, pressed its little bulb, uncorked the bottle, inserted the glass point, sucked up some of the contents, placed the bulb right side up in my waistcoat pocket, and recorked the bottle. Next I took and pocketed one of the two needles, both of which were alike as far as I could see. Then I heard a good-by in the hall. I closed drawer and desk hastily. As I caught the click of the receiver of the telephone on its hook I was halfway across the floor. Before the colored boy could enter again I was back in my chair, my head literally in a whirl. What a stroke of good fortune! I had no expectation of proving Werner to be the guilty man by so simple a method as this, however. If he were the slayer of the star he would be too clever to leave anything so incriminating about. I have always quarreled with Poe's theory in The Purloined Letter, believing that the obvious is no place to hide anything outside of fiction. What I conceived, rather, was that Werner really was a dope fiend. The nature of the drug Kennedy would tell me very easily, from the sample. Establishing Werner's possession of the needles was another point in my chain of presumptions, showing that he was familiar with their use; and added to that was the psychological effect upon him of the habit, a habit responsible in many other cases for murders as skillfully carried out as that of Stella Lamar, often, too, without the slightest shred of real motive. I recalled Werner's habitually nervous manner and was sure now that the needles actually were used by him. Was it due to the high pressure of his profession? Had that constant high tension forced him to find relief in the most violent relaxation? Elated, I was tempted at first to crowd my luck. I wondered if I could not discover another ampulla such as the chauffeur, McGroarty, had picked up in his car. When Werner's servant, almost apologetically, explained that the telephone message was from a near-by shop and that he would have to leave me for a matter of ten or fifteen minutes, I assured him that it was all right and that I would occupy myself with a magazine. The moment he was out the door I sprang to action and began a minute search of every nook and cranny of the rooms. But gradually a sense of growing fear and trepidation took hold of me. Suppose, after all, Werner should return home unexpectedly? The colored boy did not seem surprised that I should wait, a slight indication that it was possible. Further, I could never tell when the darky might not return himself, breaking in upon me without warning and discovering me. At the best I was not a skillful investigator. I did not know just where to look for hidden evidences of poison, nor was I able to work fast, for fear of leaving too tangible marks of my actions behind me. A great perspiration stood out on my forehead. Gradually a trembling took hold of my limbs and communicated itself to my fingers. After all, it was essential that Werner be kept in ignorance of my suspicions, granting they were correct. It would be fatal if I should frighten him inadvertently, so that he would take to flight. Realizing my foolhardiness, I returned to my chair at last, picking up a magazine at random. I did so not a moment too soon. A slight sound caught my ear and I looked up to see the valet already halfway into the room. His tread was so soft I never would have heard him. "I don't think I'll wait any longer," I remarked, rising and stretching slightly, as though I had been seated all the time. "I'll ring up a little later; perhaps come back after I get in touch with Mr. Werner." "Who shall I say was here, sah?" the boy asked, with just a trace of darky dialect. Above all I didn't want to alarm Werner. I could not repeat the explanation I had allowed the attendant downstairs to assume from my remark, that I was a friend who had been out with the director the night before. I should have to take a chance that Werner's servant and the hallboy would not compare notes, and that the latter would say nothing to the director upon his arrival. "I'm an old friend from the Coast," I explained, with a show of taking the negro into my confidence. "I wanted to surprise him and so"--I slipped a half dollar into a willing palm--"if you'll say nothing until I've seen him--" He beamed. "Yes, sah! You jus' count on George, sah!" Downstairs I wondered if I could seal the tongue of the youth who had accommodated me before. Then I discovered that he had gone off duty. It would be extremely unlikely that he would be about until the following day. I smiled and hastened out to the street. Once in the open air again, I realized the full extent of the risk I had taken. All at once it struck me that no amount of explanation from either Kennedy or myself would serve to mollify Werner if he were innocent and learned of my visit. I doubted, in this moment of afterthought, that I would escape censure from Kennedy, who surely would not want his case jeopardized by precipitate actions upon my part. I began to run, to get away from the Whistler Studios as fast as possible. Then I saw I had grown panicky and I checked myself. But I hurried to the Subway and up to the university again, and to the laboratory, eager to compare notes with Kennedy. "If I were Alphonse Dupin," he remarked, calmly, grasping my excitement, "I would deduce that you have discovered something. I would also deduce that you believe it important and that you have no intention of withholding the information from me, whatever it is." "Correct," I answered, grinning in spite of myself. Then I handed him the needle, telling him in a few brief words of my visit to Werner's apartment, of the hallboy's confirmation of a nocturnal trip of some sort, of my search of the desk and some other parts of the suite. "I fixed it so that he won't hear of my visit, at least for some time. He won't suspect who it was, in any case." Kennedy examined the hypodermic. "Not like the one used," he murmured. "I thought that," I explained. "It simply indicates he is a dope fiend and is familiar with the use of a needle. Here!" I produced the ink filler which I had used to bring a sample of the contents of the bottle. "This seems to be what he uses. What is it?" Kennedy sniffed, then looked closely at the liquid through the glass of the tube. "It's a coca preparation," he explained. "If Werner uses this, he's unquestionably a regular drug addict." "Well," I paused, triumphantly, "the case against the chief director of Manton Pictures grows stronger all the time." "Not necessarily," contradicted Kennedy, perhaps to draw me out. "He's familiar with hypodermic syringes," I repeated. "Which doesn't prove that no one else would use one." "Anyhow, he was out until four A.M. last night and some one broke into Phelps's house to--" "You can't establish the fact that he went out there. There are plenty of other places he could have been until four in the morning." "But I can assume--" "If you are going to assume anything, Walter, why not assume he was the second man, the man who watched the actual intruder?" I turned away, despairing of my ability to convince Kennedy. As a matter of fact I had forgotten the other prowler at Tarrytown. Then I noticed that the one guinea pig in the separate cage was dead. In an instant I was all curiosity to know the results of Kennedy's investigations. "Did you make any progress?" I asked. "Yes!" Now I noticed for the first time that he was in fine humor. "I had quite finished the first stage of my analysis when you came in." "Then what was it? What was the poison that killed Stella Lamar?" I glanced at the stiff, prone figure of the little animal. Kennedy cleared his throat. "Well," he replied, "I began the study with the discovery I made, which I told you, that strange proteins were present." He picked up the ampulla and regarded it thoughtfully. Then he fingered the bit of silk cut from the portieres. "It is a poison more deadly, more subtle, than any ever concocted by man, Walter." "Yes?" I was painfully eager. "It is snake venom!" XVI ENID ASSISTS "A poison more subtle than any concocted by man!" repeated Kennedy. It was a startling declaration and left me quite speechless for the moment. "We know next to nothing of the composition of the protein bodies in the snake venoms which have such terrific and quick physiological effects on man," Kennedy went on. "They have been studied, it is true, and studied a great deal, but we cannot say that there are any adequate tests by which the presence of these proteins can be recognized. "However, everything points to the conclusion now that it was snake venom, and my physiological tests on the guinea pig seem to confirm it. I see no reason now to doubt that it was snake venom. The fact of the matter is that the snake venoms are about the safest of poisons for the criminal to use, for the reason of the difficulty they give in any chemical analysis. That is only another proof of the diabolical cleverness of our guilty person, whoever it may be. "Later I'll identify the particular kind of venom used. Just now I feel it is more important to discover the actual motive for the crime. In the morning I have a plan which may save me further work here in the laboratory, but for to-night I feel I have earned a rest and"--a smile--"I shall rest by searching out the motives of these temperamental movie folk a little more." As he spoke he slipped out of his acid-stained smock. "What do you mean?" As often, he rather baffled me. "It's nearly dinner time and we're going out together, Walter, down to Jacques'." "Why Jacques'?" "Because I phoned your friend Belle Balcom and she informed me that that was the place where we would be apt to find the elite of the film world dining." I acquiesced, of course. We hurried to the apartment first for a few necessary changes and preparations, then we started for the Times Square section in a taxi. "I never heard of the use of snake venom before," I remarked, settling back in the cushions--"that is, deliberately, by a criminal, to poison anyone." "There are cases," replied Craig, absently. "Just how does the venom act?" "I believe it is generally accepted that there are two agents present in the secretion. One is a peptone and the other a globulin. One is neurotoxic, the other hemolytic. Not only is the general nervous system attacked instantly, but the coagulability of the blood is destroyed. One agent in the venom attacks the nerve cells; the other destroys the red corpuscles." "You suspected something of this kind, then, when you first examined Stella Lamar?" "Exactly! You see, the victim of a snake bite often is unable to move or speak. Doctor Blake observed that in the case of the stricken star. Her nerves were affected, resulting in paralysis of the muscles of the heart and lungs and giving us some symptoms of suffocation. Then the blood, as a result of the attack of the venom, is always left dark and liquid. That, too, I observed in the sample sent me from Tarrytown. "The snake," Kennedy continued, "administers the poison by fangs more delicate than any hypodermic. Nature's apparatus is more precise than the finest appliances devised for the use of a surgeon by our instrument makers. The fangs are like needles with obliquely cut points and slit-like outlets. The poison glands correspond to the bulb of a syringe. They are, in reality, highly modified salivary glands. From them, when the serpent strikes, is ejected a pale straw-colored half-oleaginous fluid. You might swallow it with impunity. But once in the blood, through a cut or wound, it is deadly." "There could be no snake in this case," I remarked. "The fangs of a serpent make two punctures, don't they; while here there was just the one scratch--" "Of course there were no fangs when the deed was actually done," he rejoined, impatiently. "We've traced everything to the needle in the portieres and it is my belief that it was part of an all-glass hypodermic with a platinum-iridium point. It could hardly have been anything like the coarser syringe used by Werner, nor do I think it possible that the point of an ordinary needle would hold sufficient venom, since it would dry and form a coating like the incrustation on the inside of the ampulla McGroarty found." "That was the venom?" I asked. "Yes, I found it in the ampulla and in the stain on the portiere where the needle had pierced through." "The towel, though--" "Is something else. First thing in the morning we'll follow that up, as I promised you. Meanwhile let's concentrate on motives." A long line of private cars and taxicabs outside Jacques' testified to the popularity of the restaurant. At the door stood a huge, bulking negro resplendent in the glaring finery of his uniform. It seemed to me that people literally were thronging into the place, for it was cleverly advertised as a center of night life. Inside, the famous darky jazz band was in full swing. There was lilt and rhythm to the melody produced by the grinning blacks, and not a free arm or foot or shoulder or head of any of them but did not sway in time to their syncopated music. We were shown to a table on a sort of gallery or mezzanine floor which extended around three sides of the interior. Below, in the center, was the space for dancing, surrounded by groups and pairs of diners. Stairs led to the balcony on both sides, as though the management expected none of their guests to resist the lure of the dance between courses. The band, I noticed, was at the farther end, on an elevated dais, so that the contortions of the various players could be seen above the heads of those on the floor. We were at the rail so that we commanded a view of the entire place, a location I guessed had been maneuvered by Kennedy with a word to the head waiter. The only tables invisible to us were those directly beneath, but it would be a simple matter to cross around during any dance number to view them. As we took our seats the lights were dimmed suddenly. I realized that we had arrived in the midst of the cabaret and that it was the turn of one of the performers. Kennedy, however, seemed to enjoy the entertainment, an example of his ability to gain recreation whenever and however he wished, to find relaxation under the oddest or most casual circumstances, out of anything from people passing on the street to an impromptu concert of a street band. In scanty garments, in the glare of a multi-colored spotlight, the girl danced a hybrid of every dance from the earliest Grecian bacchanal to the latest alleged Apache importation from Paris. I have often wondered at Jacques' and places of the sort. The intermingling of eating and drinking and dancing was curious. What possible bearing this terpsichorean monstrosity might have upon the gastronomic inclinations of the audience it would have been difficult to fathom. The lights flashed bright again and Kennedy gave our order. Meanwhile I glanced about at the people below us. There was no one in sight I knew until I leaned well over the rail, but upon doing that I felt little chills of excitement run from the top to the bottom of my spine, for I discovered in a very prominent situation at the very edge of the dance floor a party of four, of whom three very much concerned us. Lloyd Manton, back to the polished space behind him, was unmistakable in evening clothes. These bunched at his neck and revealed his habitual stoop as impartially as his business suits. Across from him, lounging upon the table likewise, but more immaculately and skillfully tailored, was Lawrence Millard. The writer, I noticed, flourished his cigarette holder, fully a foot in length, and emphasized his remarks to the girl on his right with a rather characteristic gesture made with the second finger of his left hand. The girl was Enid, quite mistress of herself in a gown little more than no gown; and the remarks were obviously confidential. The other girl, engrossed in Manton, seemed a dangerously youthful and self-conscious young lady. Her hair flamed Titian red and her neck, of which she displayed not half as much as Enid, gave her much concern. "Kennedy! Look!" I reached over to attract his attention. "Who's the second girl, I wonder?" He became as interested as I was. With a blatant flourish of saxophone and cornet and traps the band began a jazzy fox-trot. Instantly there was a rush from the tables for the floor. Enid jumped to her feet, moving her bare shoulders in the rhythm of the music. Then Millard took firm hold of her and they wove their way into the crush. It seemed to me that the little star was the very incarnation of the dance. I envied her partner more than I dared admit to myself. Manton and his companion rose also, but more leisurely. On her feet the girl did not seem so young, although the second impression may have been the result of the length of her skirt and the long slim, lines of her gown. We watched both couples through the number, then gave our attention to the food we had ordered. Another dance, a modified waltz, revealed Enid in the arms of Manton. I tried to determine from her actions if she felt any preference for the producer, or for Millard when again she took the floor with him. It was an idle effort, of course. The people surged out perhaps three or four times while we were at our meal. Each time the party below jumped up in response to the music. At our cigars, finally, I took to observing the other diners, wondering what we had gained by coming here. Suddenly I realized that Kennedy was rising to greet some one approaching our table. Turning, rising also, I went through all the miseries of the bashful lover. It was Enid herself. "I caught sight of you looking over the rail while I was dancing," she told Kennedy, accepting a chair pulled around by the waiter. "I knew you saw me. Also I glanced up and found that you were perfectly well aware of the location of our table. So"--engagingly--"unsociable creature! Why didn't you come down and say 'Hello!' or ask me for a dance?" "Perhaps I intended to a little later." "Yes!" she exclaimed, in mockery. "You see, since Mecca won't go to the pilgrim, the pilgrim has to come to Mecca." "Did you ever hear of Mohammed and the mountain, Miss Faye?" Kennedy asked. "Of course! That's the regular expression. But I agree with Barnum. As he said, some people can be original some of the time and some people can be original all of the time, and I propose to be original always, like a baby with molasses." Kennedy laughed, for indeed she was irresistible. Then she turned to me, placing one of her warm little hands upon mine. "And Jamie!" she purred. "Have you forgotten little Enid altogether? Won't--won't YOU come down and dance?" "I--I can't!" I exploded, in agony. "I don't know how!" And I thought that I would never dare trust myself with her glistening shoulders clasped close to me, with her slim bare arm placed around my neck as I had watched it slip about the collar of Millard. "Now that the pilgrim is at Mecca--" Kennedy suggested, interrupting cruelly, as I thought. "Oh!" In an instant I sensed that I was forgotten, and I was hurt. "There's something which came out this afternoon at the studio," she began, "and I wonder if you know. Larry--that's Mr. Millard--assures me it is true, and--and I think you ought to hear about it. I--I want to assist all I can in solving the mystery of Stella Lamar's death, even though Stella's unfortunate end has meant my opportunity." "What is it, Miss Faye?" Kennedy was studying her. "It's about Jack Gordon. He's been trying to hold up the company for fifteen hundred a week, which would double his salary--perhaps you've heard that?" Kennedy nodded, although it was news to him. "I've been thinking about Gordon," he murmured. "Anyway," she went on, "it's gone around that he's desperately in need of money and that that is why he's so insistent upon the increase. It seems he owes everyone. In particular he owes Phelps some huge sums and old Phelps is on his tail, hollering and raising Ned. Phelps, you know, has uses for money himself just now. You had heard?" Again Kennedy evaded a direct answer. "Money is fearfully tight, of course," he remarked, encouraging her to continue. "Yes," she repeated, "Phelps is terribly hard up and after Gordon. And that's not all about our handsome leading man, Mr. Kennedy." She leaned forward. A certain intensity crept into her voice. She began to toy with his sleeve with the slender fingers of one hand, as though in that manner to compel his greater attention. "You know Stella Lamar really was in love with Jack Gordon. In fact she was daffy over him. And now I've found out that he was borrowing money from her, was taking nearly every cent she earned to sink in his speculations. Do you get that?" Enid's eyes snapped. Most certainly I understood. I knew well the type of Stella. She had made many men give up to her motor cars, expensive furs, jewelry, all manner of presents. But in the end she had found one man to whom she in turn was willing to yield all. But what of him? "In the last few weeks, they tell me, poor Stella disposed of many of her handsome presents from men like Manton and Phelps and others, all to get money to give to him. At the end she even raised money on her jewelry. I--I think you'll find it all in pawn now, if you'll investigate. I don't doubt but that poor Stella died without a penny to her name." I was so surprised at this information that I failed to study Kennedy's face. I was completely jolted from my own rapt contemplation of the very soft curves of Enid's back. For here was a motive at last! Gordon was a possible suspect I had failed to take even halfway seriously. Yet the leading man was desperately pressed for money, had had a disgraceful fight with Phelps as we already knew; and not only owed huge sums to his fiancee as Enid now explained, but had quarreled with her just prior to her death, according to his own admission in the investigation at Tarrytown. Suddenly the music struck up once more. Enid rose, adjusting the straps of her gown. "There!" she exclaimed, smiling abruptly. "I thought you ought to know that, though I hate to peddle gossip. Now I must hurry back. I've been away long enough. But come down later and dance." She swept off without further formality. An instant afterward we saw her in the clasp of Millard once again. We watched during the number and encore; then Kennedy called for the check. "Let's go up to the apartment," he suggested. "I'd like to talk some of these things out with you. It will help me clarify my own impressions." Underneath the balcony I noticed Kennedy turn for a last glance at Manton's party. I paused to look, also. Enid was leaning forward, talking to Millard earnestly, emphasizing what she had to say with characteristic movements of her head. "She's pumping Millard for more information about Stella Lamar," I remarked. Kennedy had no comment. XVII AN APPEAL We strolled up Broadway, resisting the attraction of a garish new motion-picture palace at which Manton's previous release with Stella Lamar was now showing to capacity--much to the delight of the exhibitor who greatly complimented himself on his good fortune in being able to take advantage of the newspaper sensation over the affair. On we walked, Kennedy mostly in silent deduction, I knew, until we came to the upper regions of the great thoroughfare, turned off, and headed toward our apartment on the Heights, not far from the university. We had scarcely settled ourselves for a quiet hour in our quarters when the telephone rang. I answered. To my amazement I found that it was Marilyn Loring. "Is Professor Kennedy in?" she asked. "Yes, Miss Loring. Just a--" "Never mind calling him to the phone, Mr. Jameson. I've been trying to find him all evening. He was not at the laboratory, although I waited over an hour. Just tell him that there's something I am very anxious to consult him about. Ask him if it will be all right for me to run up to see him just a few minutes." I explained to Kennedy. "Let her come along," he said, as surprised as I was. Then he added, humorously, "I seem to be father confessor to-night." After sinking back in my seat in comfort once more I observed a quiet elation in Kennedy's manner. All at once it struck me what he was doing. The multitude of considerations in this case, the many cross leads to be followed, had confused me. But now I realized that, after all, this was only the approved Kennedy method, the mode of procedure which had never failed to produce results for him. Without allowing himself to be disturbed by the great number of people concerned, he had calmly started to pit them one against the other, encouraging each to talk about the rest, making a show of his apparent inaction and lack of haste so that they, in turn, would shake off the excitement immediately following the death of the girl and thereby reveal their normal selves to his keen observation. Not five minutes passed before Marilyn was announced. Evidently she had been seeking us eagerly, for she had probably telephoned from a near-by pay station. "Mr. Kennedy," she began, "I am going to find this very hard to say." "Really," he assured her, "there is no reason why you should not repose your confidence in me. My only interest is to solve the mystery and to see that justice is satisfied. Beyond that nothing would give me greater happiness than to be of service to you." "It's--it's about Merle Shirley--" she started, bravely. Then all at once she broke down. The strain of two days had been too much for her. Kennedy lighted a fresh cigar, realizing that he could best aid her to recover her composure by making no effort to do so. For several moments she sobbed silently, a handkerchief at her eyes. Then she straightened, with a half smile, dabbing at the drops of moisture remaining. With her wet eyes and flushed cheeks she was revealed to me again as a very genuine girl, wholly unspoiled by her outward mask of sophistication. Furthermore, at this instant she was gloriously pretty. "Again--why do you play vampire roles, Miss Loring?" I asked, as quickly as the thought flashed to me. "I think you'd be an ideal ingenue!" "About a thousand people have told me that," she rejoined. As she replied her smile took full possession of her features. My idiotic repetition, entirely out of place, had served to restore her self-control to her. "No, the public won't stand for it. They've been trained to know me as a vamp, and a vamp I remain." Facing Kennedy, she sobered. "Merle Shirley and I were engaged," she went on. "That you know. Then poor Stella made a fool of him. She didn't mean any harm, any real harm, but I don't think she knew how deep he feels or just what a fiery temper he has. Finally he found out that she was only playing with him. He was perfectly terrible. At first I thought he had killed her in a burst of passion. I really thought that." "Yes?" Kennedy was interested. He needed no pretense. "When I asked him point blank he said he didn't." A very wonderful light came into Marilyn Loring's eyes at this instant. "Whatever else he would do, Professor Kennedy, he wouldn't lie to me; that I know. He would tell me the truth because he knows I would shield him, no matter what the cost." "You simply want to assure me of his innocence?" suggested Kennedy. "No!" There was a touch of scorn to the little negative. "You don't believe him guilty; you didn't even when I did." "Then--" "But he knows something--something about the murder of Stella--and he won't tell me what it is. I--I'm afraid for him. He isn't sleeping at night, and I believe he's watching somebody at the studio, and I know--it's the WOMAN'S intuition, Professor"--she emphasized the word, and paused--"he's in danger. He's in some great threatening danger!" "What do you wish me to do, Miss Loring?" "I want you to protect him and"--slowly she colored, up and around and about her eyes as she always did, until she wasn't unlike an Indian maid--"and no one must know I've been up to see you." Gravely Kennedy bowed her to the door, assuring her he would do all that lay in his power. When he returned I was ready for him. "Now!" I exclaimed. "Now say it isn't Werner! Here is Merle Shirley watching some one at the studio. Isn't that likely to be the director? And if Shirley is watching Werner you have the explanation for the second intruder at Tarrytown last night. Shirley is big enough and strong enough to have given the deputy a nice swift tussle." "A little tall, I'm afraid," Kennedy remarked. "You can't go by the deputy's impressions. He didn't really remember much of anything. Certainly he was unobserving." "Perhaps you're right, Walter." Kennedy smiled. "But how about Gordon?" he added. "There's genuine motive--money!" "Or Shirley himself!" I attempted to be sarcastic. "There's genuine motive. Stella made a fool out of him." "It wasn't a murder of passion," Kennedy reminded me. "No one in a white heat of rage would study up on snake venoms." "If it were a slow-smoldering--" "Shirley's anger wasn't that kind." "But good heavens!" As usual I arrived nowhere in an argument with Kennedy. "Circumstantial evidence points to Werner almost altogether--" "You've forgotten one point in your chain, Walter." "What's that?" "Whoever took the needle from the curtain last night scratched himself on it and left blood spots on the portieres, tiny ones, but real blood spots, nevertheless. That means the intruder inoculated himself with venom. I doubt that the poison was so dry as to be ineffectual. If it was Werner, how do you account for the fact that he is still alive?" "Do you"--I guess my eyes went wide--"do you expect to dig up a dead man somewhere? Is there some one we suspect and haven't seen since yesterday?" He didn't answer, preferring to tantalize me. "How do you account for it yourself?" I demanded, somewhat hotly. "Let's call it a day, Walter," he rejoined. "Let's go to bed!" XVIII THE ANTIVENIN I slept late in the morning, so that Kennedy had to wake me. When we had finished breakfast he led the way to the laboratory, all without making any effort to satisfy my curiosity. There he started packing up the tubes and materials he had been studying in the case, rather than resuming his investigations. "What's the idea?" I asked, finally, unable to contain myself any longer. "You carry this package," he directed. "I'll take the other." I obeyed, somewhat sulkily I'm afraid. "You see," he added, as we left the building and hurried to the taxi stand near the campus, "the next problem is to identify the particular kind of venom that was used. Besides, I want to know the nature of the spots on the towel you found. They certainly were not of venom. I have my suspicions what they really are." He paused while we selected a vehicle and made ourselves comfortable. "To save time," he went on, "I thought I'd just go over to the Castleton Institute. You know in their laboratories the famous Japanese investigator, Doctor Nagoya, has made some marvelous discoveries concerning the venom of snakes. It is his specialty, a matter to which he has practically devoted his life. Therefore I expect that he will be able to confirm certain suspicions of mine very quickly, or"--a shrug--"explode a theory which has slowly been taking form in the back of my head." When we dismissed the taxi in front of the institute I realized that this would be my first visit to this institution so lavishly endowed by the multi-millionaire, Castleton, for the advancement of experimental science. Kennedy's card, sent in to Doctor Nagoya, brought that eminent investigator out personally to see us. He was the very finest type of Oriental savant, a member of the intellectual nobility of the strange Eastern land only recently made receptive to the civilization of the West. When he and Kennedy chatted together in low tones for a few moments it was hard for me to grasp that each belonged to a basic race strain fundamentally different from the other. East and West had met, upon the plane of modern science. The two were simply men of specialized knowledge, the Japanese pre-eminent in one field, Kennedy in another. Carefully and thoroughly Kennedy and Nagoya went over the results which Kennedy had already obtained. After a moment Doctor Nagoya conducted us to his research room. "Now let me show you," said the Oriental. In a moment they were deep in the mysteries of an even more minute analysis than Kennedy had made before. I took a turn about the room, finding nothing more understandable than the study holding Kennedy's interest. Though I could not grasp it, curiosity kept me hovering close. "You see"--Nagoya spoke as he finished the test he was making at the moment--"without a doubt it is crotalin, the venom of the rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus." "There was no snake actually present," I hastened to explain, breaking in. Then at a glance from Kennedy I stopped, abashed, for all this had been made clear to the scientist. "It is not necessary," Nagoya replied, turning to me with the politeness characteristic of the East. "Crotalin can be obtained now with fair ease. It is a drug used in a new treatment of epilepsy which is being tried out at many hospitals." I nodded my thanks, not wanting to interrupt again. Kennedy pressed on to the next point he wished established. "That was the spot on the portieres. Now the ampulla." "Also crotalin." Doctor Nagoya spoke positively. "How about this solution?" Kennedy took from my package the tube with the liquid made from the faint spots on the towel which I had found and which had been our first clue. "It is not crotalin." The Japanese turned to his laboratory table. Kennedy muttered some vague suggestions which were too technical for me but which seemed to enable Nagoya to eliminate a great deal of work. The test progressed rapidly. Finally the savant stepped back, regarding the solution with a very satisfied smile. "It is," he explained, carefully, "some of the very anticrotalus venin which we have perfected right here in the institute." Kennedy nodded. "I suspected as much." There was great elation in his manner. "You see, I had heard all about your wonderful work." "Yes!" Nagoya waved his hand around at the wonderfully equipped room, only one detail in the many arrangements for medical research made possible by the generosity of Castleton. "Yes," he repeated, proud of his laboratory, as he well might be, "we have made a great deal of progress in the development of protective sera--antivenins, we call them." "Are they distributed widely?" Kennedy asked, thoughtfully. "All over the world. We are practically the only source of supply." "How do you obtain the serum in quantity?" "From horses treated with increasing doses of the snake venom." A question struck me as I remembered the peculiar double action of the poison. "Can you tell me just how the antivenin counteracts the effects of the venom?" I inquired of the savant. "Surely," he replied. "It neutralizes one of the two elements in the venom, the nervous poison, thus enabling the individual to devote all his vitality to overcoming the irritant poison. It is the nervous poison that is the chief death-dealing agent, producing paralysis of the heart and respiration. We advise all travelers to carry the protective serum if they are likely to be exposed to snake bites." Kennedy picked up the tube containing the solution made from the towel spots. "This antivenin was your product, doctor?" "Probably so," was the precise answer. "Then the purchasers can be identified," I suggested. "We have no record of ordinary purchasers," Nagoya explained, slowly. Kennedy was keenly disappointed at that, and showed it. However, he thanked the scientist cordially, and we departed. Outside, he turned to me. "Do you understand now why the night intruder at Tarrytown did not die--if he is one of our suspects--from the scratch of the needle?" "You mean he had taken an injection of antivenin before--" "Exactly! We are dealing with a criminal of diabolical cleverness. Not only did he make all his plans to kill Miss Lamar with the greatest possible care, but he prepared against accident to himself. He was taking no chances. He inoculated himself with a protective serum. The needle of the syringe he used for that purpose he wiped upon the towel you discovered in the washroom." XIX AROUND THE CIRCLE "I'd like to have another talk with Millard about that Fortune Features affair," remarked Kennedy. It was the third morning after the death of Stella Lamar, and I found him half through breakfast when I rose. About him were piled moving picture and theatrical publications, daily, weekly, and monthly. At the moment I caught him he had spread wide open the inner page of the Daily Metropolitan, a sheet devoted almost exclusively to sports and the amusement fields. I went around to glance over his shoulder. He pointed to a small item under a heading of recent plans and changes. FORTUNE FEATURES It is hinted to the Metropolitan Man-about-Broadway, by those in a position to know but who cannot yet be quoted, that Fortune Features is about to absorb a number of the largest competing companies. Rumors of great changes in the picture world have been current for some weeks, and this is the first reliable information to be given out. It is premature to give details of the new combination, or to mention names, but Fortune's strong backing in Wall Street will, we are assured, have a stabilizing influence at a critical time in the industry. "Seems to be a lot of hot air," I said. "There isn't a name mentioned. Everything is 'by those in a position to know' and 'rumors of and 'it is premature to give details... or mention names'--Bah!" Kennedy turned to places he had marked in several of the other periodicals and papers and I read them. Each was substantially to the effect of the note in the Metropolitan, although worded differently and generally printed as a news item. "It's a feeler," Kennedy stated. "There's something back of it. When I caught the reference to Fortune Features in the Metropolitan, which I've been reading the past two days, I sent the boy out for every movie publication he could find. Result: half a dozen repetitions of the hint that Fortune is expanding. That means that it is deliberate publicity." "You think this has something to do with the case?" "I don't see the name of Manton mentioned once. Manton is a man who seeks the front page on every opportunity. You remember, of course, what Millard told us. Somehow I smell a rat. If nothing else develops for this morning, I want to find Millard and talk to him again. I believe Manton is up to something." The sharp sound of our buzzer interrupted us. Because I was on my feet I went to the door. To my amazement I found it was Phelps who was our very early visitor. "I hope you'll excuse this intrusion," he apologized to Kennedy, pushing by me with the rudeness which seemed inherent in the man. Then he recognized the sheet still spread out on the table. "I see you, too, have been reading the Metropolitan." "Yes," Kennedy admitted, languidly. "There is nothing about Manton Pictures, though." "Manton Pictures, hell!" In an instant Phelps exploded and the thin veneer of politeness was gone. With a shaking finger he pointed to the item which we had just been reading and discussing. "Did you read that! Did you see the reference to stabilizing the industry? STABILIZING! It ought to be spelled stable-izing, for they lead all the donkeys into stalls and tie them up and let them kick." He stopped momentarily for sheer inability to continue. "I suppose you don't know Manton is behind this Fortune Features?" "We were aware of the fact," Kennedy told him, quietly. Phelps looked from one to the other of us keenly, as if he had thought to surprise us and had been disappointed. Nervously he began to pace the floor. "Perhaps you know also that things haven't been going just right with Manton Pictures?" Kennedy straightened. "When I asked you at Tarrytown, just two mornings ago, whether there was any trouble between Manton and yourself, you answered that there was not." Phelps flushed. "I didn't want to air my financial difficulties with Manton. My--my answer was truthful, the way you meant your question. Manton and I have had no words, no quarrel, no disagreement of a personal nature." "What is the trouble with Manton Pictures?" "They are wasting money--throwing it right and left. That pay roll of theirs is preposterous. The waste itself is beyond belief--sometimes four and five cameras on a scene, retakes upon the slightest provocation, even sets rebuilt because some minor detail fails to suit the artistic eye of the director. Werner, supposed to watch all the companies, doesn't half know his business. In the making of a five-reel film they will overtake sometimes as much as eighty or a hundred thousand feet of negative in each of two cameras, when twenty thousand is enough overtake for anyone. That alone is five to ten thousand dollars for negative stock, almost fifteen with the sample print and developing. And the cost of stock, Mr. Kennedy, is the smallest item. All the extra length is long additional weeks of pay roll and overhead expense. I put an auditor and a film expert on the accounts of Stella Lamar's last picture. By their figures just sixty-three thousand dollars was absolutely thrown away." Kennedy rose, folding the newspaper carefully while he collected his thoughts. "My dear Mr. Phelps," he stated, finally, "that is simply inefficiency. I doubt if it is anything criminal; certainly there is no connection with the death of Stella Lamar, my only interest in Manton Pictures." Phelps was very grave. "There is every connection with the death of Stella Lamar!" "What do you mean?" "Mr. Kennedy, what I'm going to say to you I cannot substantiate in any court of law. Furthermore I'm laying myself open to action for libel, so I must not be quoted. But I want you to understand that Stella was inescapably wound up with all of Manton's financial schemes. His money maneuvers determined her social life, her friends--everything. She was then, as Enid Faye will be now, his come-on, his decoy. Manton has no scruples of any sort whatsoever. He is dishonest, tricky, a liar, and a cheat. If I could prove it I would tell him so, but he's too clever for me. I do know, however, that he pulled the strings which controlled every move Stella Lamar ever made. When she went to dinner with me it was because Manton wished her to do so. She was his right hand, his ears, almost his mouth. I have no doubt but that her death is the direct result of some business deal of his--something directly to do with his financial necessities." Kennedy did not glance up. "Those are very serious assertions." "It is a very serious matter. To show how unscrupulous Manton is, I can demonstrate that he is wrecking Manton Pictures deliberately. I've told you of the waste. Only the other day I came into the studio. Werner was putting up a great ballroom set. You saw it? No, that isn't the one I mean. I mean the first one. He had it all up; then some little thing didn't suit him. The next day I came in again. All struck--sloughed--every bit of it--and a new one started. 'Lloyd,' I said, 'just think a minute--that's my money!' What good did it do? He even began to alter the new set! He would only go on, encouraging Werner and the other directors to change their sets, to lose time in trying for foolish effects, anything at all to pad the expense. "You think I am romancing, but you don't understand the film world," Phelps hurried on angrily. "Do you know that Enid Faye's contract is not with Manton Pictures but with Manton himself? That means he can take her away from me after he has made her a star with my money, at my expense. Why should he wreck Manton Pictures, you ask? Do you know that, bit by bit, on the pretext that he needed the funds for this that, or the other thing, Manton has sold out his entire interest in the company to me? It is all mine now. I tell you," complained Phelps, bitterly, "he couldn't seem to wreck the company fast enough. Why? Do you realize that there isn't room both for this older company and the new Fortune Features? Can you see that if Manton Pictures fails the Fortune company will be able to pick up the studio and all the equipment for a song? I'm the fall guy! "And yet, Kennedy, all the efforts to wreck Manton Pictures would have failed, because 'The Black Terror' was too sure a success. In spite of all the expense, in spite of every effort to wreck it, that picture would have made half a million dollars. Stella's acting and Millard's story and script would have put it over. But now Millard's contract has expired and Manton has signed him for Fortune Features. Enid Faye will be made a star by 'The Black Terror,' but she is not now the drawing power to put it over big, as Stella would have done. I tell you, Kennedy, the death of Stella Lamar has completed the wreck of Manton Pictures!" Kennedy jumped to his feet. There was a hard light in his eyes I had never seen before. "Do I understand you, Phelps?" he snapped. "Are you accusing Manton of the cold-blooded murder of Stella Lamar to further various financial schemes?" "Hardly!" Phelps blanched a bit, and I thought that a shudder swept over him. "I don't mean anything like that at all. What I mean is that Manton, in encouraging various sorts of dissension to wreck the company, inadvertently fanned the flames of passion of those about her, and it resulted in her death." "Who killed her?" "I don't know!" Grudgingly I admitted that this seemed open and frank. "At Tarrytown," Kennedy went on, "I asked you if Stella Lamar was making any trouble, had threatened to quit Manton Pictures, and you said no. Is that still your answer?" "For several months she had been up-stage. That was not because she wanted to make trouble, but because she had fallen in love. Manton found he couldn't handle her as he had previously." "Do you suspect Manton of killing her himself?" "I don't suspect anyone. That is an honest answer, Mr. Kennedy." "What do you know about Fortune Features?" The banker's eye fell on the newspaper again. "I know who this new Wall Street fellow is. I've got my scouts out working for me. It's Leigh--that's who it is. And I'm sore; I have a right to be." Phelps was getting more and more heated, by the moment. "I tell you," he almost shouted, "this fake movie business is the modern gold-brick game, all right. Never again!" I was amazed at the Machiavellian cleverness of Manton. Here he was, on one hand openly working with, yet secretly ruining, the Manton Pictures, while on the other hand he was covertly building up the competing Fortune Features. Kennedy paced out into the little hall of our suite and back. He faced our visitor once more. "Why did you come to see me this morning? At our last encounter, you may recall you said you wished you could throw me down the steps." Phelps smiled ruefully. "That was a mistake. It was the way I felt, but--I'm sorry." "Now--?" Again the black clouds overshadowed the features of the financier. "Now I want you to bring out and prove the things I've told you." The malice showed in his voice plainly, for the first time. "I want it proved in court that Manton is a cheap crook. When you uncover the murderer of Stella Lamar you will find that the moral responsibility for her death traces right back to Lloyd Manton. I want him driven out of the business." Kennedy's attitude changed. As he escorted Phelps to the door his tones were self-controlled. "Anything of the sort is beyond my province. My task is simply to find the person who killed the girl." When the financier was gone I turned to Kennedy eagerly. "What do you think?" I asked. "I think, more than ever, that we should investigate Fortune Features. Let's have a look at the telephone book." There was no studio of the new corporation in New York, but we did find one listed in New Jersey, just across the river, at Fort Lee. We walked from the university down the hill and over to the ferry. On the other side a ten minutes' street-car ride took us to our destination. Facing us was a huge barn-like structure set down in the midst of a little park. Inquiry for Manton brought no response whatever; rather, surprise that we should be asking for him here. However, I reflected that that was exactly what we ought to expect if Manton was working under cover. The girl at the telephone switchboard, smiling at Kennedy, had a suggestion. "They're taking a storm exterior down in the meadow," she explained. "Perhaps he's down there, among the visitors--or perhaps there's someone who will be able to give you some information." I glanced outdoors at the brightly shining sun. "A storm?" I repeated, incredulously. "Yes," she smiled. "It might interest you to see it." Following her directions, we started across country, leaving the studio building some distance behind and entering a broad expanse of meadow beyond a thin clump of trees. At the farther end we could see a large group of people and paraphernalia which, at the distance, we could not make out. However, it was not long after we emerged from the trees that we perceived they were photographing squarely in our direction. Several began waving their arms wildly at us and shouting. Kennedy and I, understanding, turned and advanced, keeping well out of the camera lines, along the edge of the field. "Hello!" a voice greeted us as we approached the group standing back and watching the action. To my surprise it was Millard, with the spectators. I looked about for Manton but did not see him, nor anyone else we knew. "It's a storm and cyclone," said Millard, his attention rather on what was going on than on us. For the moment we said nothing. The scene before us was indeed interesting. Half a dozen aeroplane engines and propellers had been set up outside the picture, and anchored securely in place. The wind from them was actually enough to knock a man down. Rain was furnished by hose playing water into the whirling blades, sending it driving into the scene with the fury of a tropical storm. Back of the propellers half a dozen men were frantically at work shoveling into them sand and dirt, creating an amazingly realistic cyclone. We arrived in the midst of the cyclone scene, as the dust storm was ending and the torrential rain succeeded. For the storm, a miniature village had been constructed in break-away fashion, partially sawed through and tricked for the proper moment. Many objects were controlled by invisible wires, including an actual horse and buggy which seemed to be lifted bodily and carried away. Roofs flew off, walls crashed in, actors and actresses were knocked flat as some few of them failed to gain their cyclone cellars. Altogether, it was a storm of such efficiency as Nature herself could scarcely have furnished, and all staged with the streaming sunlight which made photography possible. Pandemonium reigned. Cameras were grinding, directors were bawling through megaphones, all was calculated chaos. Yet it took only a glance to see that some marvelous effects were being caught here. At the conclusion I recognized suddenly the little leading lady, It was the girl we had seen with Manton at Jacques' cabaret. "That's the way to take a picture," exclaimed Millard. "Everything right--no expense spared. I came over to see it done. It's wonderful." "Yes," was Kennedy's answer, "but it must be very costly." "It is all of that," said Millard. "But what of it if the film makes a big clean-up? I wouldn't have missed this for anything. Werner never staged a spectacle like this in his life. Fortune Features are going to set a new mark in pictures." "But can they keep it up? Have they the money?" Millard shrugged his shoulders. "Manton Pictures can't--that's a cinch. Phelps has reached the end of his rope, I guess. I'm afraid the trouble with him was that he was thinking of too many things besides pictures." There was no mistaking the meaning of the remark. Millard was still cut by Stella's desertion of him for the broker. I caught Kennedy's glance, but neither of us cared to refer to her. "Where can I find Manton now?" Kennedy asked. "Did you try his office at seven hundred and twenty-nine?" was Millard's suggestion. "No; I wanted to see this place first." "Well, you'll most likely find him there. I've got to go back to the city myself-some scenes of 'The Black Terror' to rewrite to fit Enid better. I'll motor you across the ferry and to the Subway." At the Subway station, Millard left us and we proceeded to Manton's executive offices in a Seventh Avenue skyscraper, built for and devoted exclusively to the film business. Manton's business suite was lavishly furnished, but not quite as ornate and garish as his apartment. The promoter himself welcomed us, for no matter how busy he was at any hour, he always seemed to have time to stop and chat. "Well, how goes it?" He pushed over a box of expensive cigars. "Have you found out anything yet?" "Had a visit from Phelps this morning." Kennedy plunged directly into the subject, watching the effect. Manton did not betray anything except a quiet smile. "Poor old Phelps," he said. "I guess he's pretty uneasy. You know he has been speculating rather heavily in the market lately. There was a time when I thought Phelps had a bank roll in reserve. But it seems he has been playing the game on a shoestring, after all." Manton casually flicked the ashes from his cigar into a highly polished cuspidor as he leaned over. "I happen to have learned that, to make his bluff good, he has been taking money from his brokerage business"--here he nodded sagely--"his customers' accounts you know. Leigh knows the inside of everybody's affairs in Wall Street. They say a quarter of a million is short, at least. To tell you the truth, poor Stella took a good deal of Phelps's money. Certainly his Manton Pictures holdings wouldn't leave him in the hole as deep as all that." I reflected that this was quite the way of the world--first framing up something on a boob, then deprecating the ease with which he was trimmed. Was it blackmail Stella had levied on Phelps, I wondered? Was she taking from him to give to Gordon? Had Stella broken him? Was she the real cause of the tangle in his affairs? And had Phelps in insane passion revenged himself on her? In the conversation with Manton there was certainly no hint of answer to my queries. With all his ease, Manton was the true picture promoter. Seldom was he betrayed into a positive statement of his own. Always, when necessary, he gave as authority the name of some one else. But the effect was the same. A hurried call of some sort took Manton away from us. Kennedy turned to me with a whimsical expression. "Let's go!" he remarked. "What do you make of it, offhand?" I asked, outside. "We're going about in a circle," he remarked. "Strange group of people. Each apparently suspects the other." "And, to cover himself, talks of the other fellow," I added. Kennedy nodded, and we made our way toward the laboratory. "I'll bet something happens before the day is over," I hazarded, for no reason in particular. Kennedy shrugged. As we went, I cast up in my mind the facts we had learned. The information from Manton was disconcerting, coming on top of what had already been revealed about the inner workings of his game. If Phelps had secretly "borrowed" from the trust accounts in his charge a quarter of a million or so, I saw that his situation must indeed be desperate. To what lengths he might go it was difficult to determine. XX THE BANQUET SCENE For once I qualified as a prophet. We were hardly in our rooms when the telephone rang for Kennedy. It was District-Attorney Mackay, calling in from Tarrytown. "My men have positive identification of one of the visitors to the Phelps home the night after the murder," he reported. "Fine!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Who was it? How did you uncover his trail?" "You remember that my deputy heard the sound of a departing automobile? Well, we have been questioning everyone. A citizen here, who returned home late at just about that hour, remembers seeing a taxicab tearing through the street at a reckless rate. He came in to see me this morning. He made a mental note of the license number at the time, and while nothing stuck with him but the last three figures, three sixes, he was sure that it was a Maroon taxi. We got busy and have located the driver who made the trip, from a stand at Thirty-third all the way out and back. On the return he dropped his fare at the man's apartment. The identification is positive." "Who is it?" Kennedy became quite excited. "Werner, the director." "Werner!" in surprise. "What are you going to do?" "Arrest him first--examine him afterward. I've sworn out the warrant already, and I'm going to start in by car just as soon as we hang up. I thought I'd phone you first in case you wanted to accompany me to the studio." "We'll hurry there," Kennedy replied, "and meet you." "Outside?" "No, up on the floor." "You'll be there fifteen minutes to half an hour ahead of me. I hope there is no way for anyone to tip him off so he can escape." "We'll stop him if he attempts it." "Good!" The courtyard of the studio of Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was about the same as upon the occasions of our previous visits except that I detected a larger number of cars parked in the inclosure, including a number of very fine ones. Also, it seemed to me that there was a greater absence of life than usual, as though something of particular interest had taken everyone inside the buildings. The gateman informed us that Werner was working the large studio. We made our way up through the structure containing the dressing rooms and found the proper door without difficulty. When we passed through under the big glass roof we grasped the reason for the lack of interest in the other departments about the quadrangle. Here everyone was gathered to watch the taking of the banquet scene for "The Black Terror." The huge set was illuminated brightly, and packed, thronged with people. It was a marvelous set in many ways. To carry out the illusion of size and to aid in the deceptive additional length given by the mirrors at the farther end, Werner had decided against the usual one large table arranged horseshoe-like, but had substituted instead a great number of individual smaller tables, about which he had grouped the various guests. The placing of those nearest the mirrors had been so arranged as to give no double images, thus betraying the trick. The waiters, all the characters who walked about, were kept near the front toward the cameras for the same reason. It seemed as if the banquet hall was at least twice its actual size. I saw that Millard had arrived ahead of us. Either the changing of the scenes in his script to fit Enid had not taken him very long or else the photographing of this particular bit of action had proved sufficiently fascinating to draw him away from his work. I wondered at first if he had come to the studio to use his office here, an infrequent happening, from Manton's account. Then I realized that he was in evening dress. Without doubt he planned to play a minor part in the banquet. His presence was no accident. Then I picked out Manton himself from our point of observation in a quiet corner selected by Kennedy for that purpose. It was evident that the promoter had cleared up his business at the office rapidly since we had left him there to go to our quarters on the Heights and had departed immediately from the latter place so as to precede the District Attorney here. Manton as well as Millard was in evening dress. A moment later I recognized Phelps, and he, too, wore his formal clothes. In an instant I grasped that Werner actually was saving money. Not only were these officials of the company present to help fill up the tables, but I was able now to pick out a number of the guests who were uneasy in their make-up and more or less out of place in full-dress attire. They certainly were not actors. One girl I definitely placed as the stenographer from Manton's waiting room at the studio; then other things caught my attention. I could not help but doubt the stories of waste told us by Phelps as I looked over the scene before me. The use of the mirrors to avoid building the full length of the floor did not seem to fit in with the theory that Manton and Werner were making every effort to wreck the company deliberately. I watched the financier for several moments, but did not detect anything from his manner except that he seemed to feel ill at ease and awkward in make-up. I picked out Millard again and this time found him talking with Enid Faye and Gordon. Immediately I sensed a dramatic conflict, carefully suppressed, but having too many of the outward indications to fool anyone. In fact, a child would have observed that Lawrence Millard and the leading man needed little urging to engage in a scuffle then and there. Though Stella Lamar was dead, this was the heritage she had left. Her touch had embittered two men beyond the point of reconciliation--the husband who had been, and the husband who was to be. Of the two, Millard had far the better control of himself, however. After a brief word or so Gordon left them. At once I could see the relief in the expressions of both the others. Again I wondered just what might be between these two. It was an easy familiarity which might have been as casual as it seemed to be, no more, or which might have been a mask for something far deeper and more enduring, the schooled outer cloak of an inner perfect understanding. Werner was by far the busiest of those waiting in the stifling heat beneath the glass roof. He was in evening dress, prepared to take his own place before the camera, and in straight make-up, so that he looked nothing like the slain millionaire, the part he had played in the opening scenes. I saw that he was a master in the art of make-up. I was sure that he was more nervous than usual. It struck me that he needed the stimulus of the drug he used, although later I knew that he must have felt, intuitively, the coming of events which followed close upon the attempt to photograph the action. As more of the people hurried up from the offices and around from the manuscript and other departments, very conscious of their formal attire, and as the regular players changed and adjusted the make-ups of these amateurs, the banquet took on the proportions of a real affair. The members of the cast were placed at the table in the foreground. Enid, Gordon, Marilyn, and a fourth man were assigned locations; after which Werner proceeded to fill the seats in the rear. With the exception of Millard and Phelps, none of the inexperienced people were allowed to face the camera. Manton, whose features were familiar through published interviews in many publicity campaigns, was placed to one side opposite Phelps. Millard was given charge of a group containing a number of giddy extra girls in somewhat diaphanous costume, and seemed to be in his element. The tables themselves were prepared with perfect taste. I could see that real food was being used, in order to achieve a greater degree of realism, for a caterer had set up a buffet some distance out of the scene from which to serve the courses called for in the script. Many of the dishes were being kept hot, the steam curling from beneath the covers in appetizing wisps. The wine, supposed to be champagne, was sparkling apple juice of the best quality, and I don't doubt but that before the days of prohibition Werner would have insisted upon the real fizz water. In details such as these the director was showing no economy. "All ready now?" Werner called, stepping back to a place at a table which he had reserved for himself. "All set? Remember the action of the script?" Instantly the buzz of conversation died and everyone turned to him. "No, no, no!" he exclaimed in vexation. "Don't go dead on your feet. This is a banquet. You are having a good time. It's not a funeral! You were all in just the right state of mind before, and you don't have to stop and gape to listen to me. Keep right on talking and laughing. My voice will carry and you can hear without getting out of your parts." I turned to Kennedy, to see how the picture-making struck him. I saw that he was watching the two girls at the forward table closely and so I faced about to follow his glance. Marilyn's face was red with anger, while Enid, calm and rather malicious, was ignoring her to devote all attention to Gordon. The leading man, bored and irritated, made no effort to conceal a heavy scowl. In the momentary interval following Werner's instructions, Marilyn lost all control of herself. "If you will pardon me, MISS Faye," she cried out in a voice which carried over to us and with cutting accent upon the "Miss," "I think that in this scene at least we should BOTH be facing the camera. If I understand the scene in the script at all it is intended to show the conflict between the two women over the one man seated between them. Jack Daring is to be swayed first by Stella Remsen, then by Zelda. At least this once I think the daughter of old Remsen and his ward are playing roles of equal importance." For a moment I smiled, realizing that Marilyn was not going to let Enid "take the picture away" from her as we had seen the new star do in one of her first scenes with the leading man. Then I sobered, realizing that it was the outer reflection of the deep-running passion of these people. The cloud of Stella's death was over them still. Enid responded, but in tones too low for us to hear. A new flush of red in Marilyn's face, however, demonstrated the power in the lash of the other girl's tongue. Werner hurried over to them, not masking his own irritation any too well. Without a word he began rearranging the table, moving it slightly so that while there was no great difference in its position he had yet made a show of satisfying Marilyn. In effect he pleased neither. The two pretty faces closest to the camera were a study in discontent. "I don't wonder that moving-picture directors are nervous," Kennedy remarked. "Film manufacture must keep everyone under constant tension." "What do you make of the feeling between the different people?" I asked. "Did you notice Millard and Gordon, and now Enid and Marilyn?" "There's something under cover," he rejoined; "something behind all this. I get the impression that our suspects are watching one another, like as many hawks. At various times most of them have glanced over at us. They know we are here and are conscious they may be under suspicion. Therefore I particularly want to see how those two girls act when Mackay arrives to arrest Werner." The director, stepping back to his place, took a megaphone from his assistant for use in the rehearsal. "Now you must act just as though this were a real banquet," he shouted. "Try to forget that the Black Terror is lurking outside the window, that an attack is coming from him. Remember, when the shot is fired you must all leap up as though you meant it. Here! You--you--you--" designating certain extra girls, "faint when it happens. That's not until after the toast is proposed. I'll propose the toast from my table and it will be the cue for Shirley, outside. Now don't get ahead of the action. You amateurs, don't turn around to see if the camera is working. We'll go through the action up to the moment I propose the toast." The buzz of conversation rose slightly as though an effort was being put into the gayety. I glanced about at some of the people who were cast for only this one scene, wishing I could read lips, because I was sure many of them talked of matters wholly out of place in this setting. At the same time I kept an eye on the principals and upon Werner. Finally the director was satisfied, after a second rehearsal. "All right," he bellowed, throwing the megaphone from the scene. "Shoot!" At the same instant he dropped to his place and apparently was a guest with no interest but in the food and wine before him. At the cameras-there were three of them-the assistant director kept a careful watch of the general action. In actual time by the watch the whole was very short, a second measuring to sixteen pictures or a foot of film as I explained afterward to Kennedy. The entire scene perhaps ran one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet. But on the screen, even to the spectators in the studio, the illusion in a scene of the kind would be the duration of half an hour or even more. This would be helped by close-ups of the individual action, especially by the byplay between the principals, taken later and inserted into the long shot by the film cutter. I know I was carried away by a sense of reality. It seemed to me that waiters made endless trips to and fro, that here and there pretty girls broke into laughter constantly or that men leaned forward every other moment to make witty remarks; in fact I felt genuinely sorry I could not take part in the festivities. I knew that danger, in the person of the Black Terror as played by Shirley, lurked just out the window. I felt delicious anticipatory thrills of fear, so thoroughly was I in the spirit of the thing. Then I saw that Werner was about to propose the toast, about to give the cue for the big action. "Watch him" whispered Kennedy. "He's an actor. He's taking that drink just as though he meant every drop of it." Werner had raised his delicately stemmed glass as though to join his neighbor in some pledge when a new idea seemed to strike him. He leaped to his feet. "Let's drink together! Let's drink to our hero and heroine of the evening!" Other voices rose in acclamation. The wine had been poured lavishly. Glasses clinked and we could hear laughter. Suddenly at the window, back of everyone, appeared the evil, black-masked figure of Shirley, eyes glittering menacingly from their slits, two weapons glistening blue in his hands. At the same moment there was a terrible groan, followed by a scream of agony. Werner staggered back, his left hand clutched at his breast. From his right hand the glass which he had drained fell to the canvas covered floor with an ominous dull crash. This was not in the script! Practically everybody realized the fact, for the scene instantly was in an uproar. In the general consternation no one seemed to know just what to do. Shirley was the first to act, the first to realize what had happened. Dropping his weapons, reaching the side of the stricken director in one leap, he supported him as he reeled drunkenly, then eased him to the floor. Behind us, before I could look to Kennedy to see what he would do, there was the gasp of a man out of breath from hurrying upstairs. I turned, startled. It was Mackay. "Shall I make the collar?" he wheezed. At the same instant he saw the gathering crowd in the set. "What--what's happened?" he asked. Kennedy had bounded forward only a few seconds after Shirley. As I pushed through after him, Mackay following, I discovered him kneeling at the side of Werner. "Some one send for a doctor, quick," he commanded, taking charge of things as a matter of course. "Hurry!" he repeated. "He's gasping for air and it'll be too late in a minute." Then he saw us. "Walter--Mackay"--he raised Werner's head--"push everyone back, please! Give him a chance to breathe!" A thousand thoughts flashed through my head as politely but firmly I widened the space about Kennedy and the director. Was this a case of suicide? Had Werner known we were coming for him? Had he thought to bring about his own end in the most spectacular fashion possible? Was this the fancy of a drug-weakened brain? Suddenly I realized that Werner was trying to speak. One of the camera men had helped Kennedy lift him to the top of a table, swept of its dishes and linen, so as to make it easier for him to breathe. "Out in Tarrytown," he muttered, weakly, "that night--I suspected--and--saw--" His voice trailed off into nothingness. Even the motion of his lips was too feeble to follow. In an instant I grasped the cruel injustice I had done this man in my mind. It was now that I remembered, in a flash, Kennedy's attitude and was glad that Kennedy had not suspected him. "See!" I faced Mackay, speaking in quick, low tones so the others could not hear. "I--we--have been totally and absolutely wrong in suspecting Werner. Instead, it was he who has been playing our game--trying to confirm his own suspicions. I've been entirely wrong in my deductions from the discovery of his dope and needles." "What do you mean, Jameson?" The district attorney had been taken completely off his feet by the unexpected developments. His eyes were rather dazed, his expression baffled. "What do you mean?" "Why he was out at Tarrytown that night, all right, don't you see--but--but he was the second man, the man who watched!" Mackay still seemed unable to comprehend. "There were two men," I went on, excitedly; covering my own chagrin in my impatience at the little district attorney. "The one your deputy struggled with was short, rather than tall, and very strong. That's Werner! Can't you see it? Haven't you noticed how stockily and powerfully the director is built?" "Werner must really have had some clue," murmured Mackay, dazed. It left me wondering whether the stimulation of the dope might not have heightened Werner's imagination and urged him on in following something that our more sluggish minds had never even dreamed. Meanwhile I saw that the doctor had arrived and that Kennedy had helped carry Werner to a dressing room where first aid could be given more conveniently. Now Kennedy hurried back into the studio, glancing quickly this way and that, as though to catch signs of confusion or guilt upon the faces of those about us. I colored. Instead of making explanations to Mackay, explanations which could have waited, I might have used what faculties of observation I possessed to aid Kennedy while he was giving first consideration to the life of a man. As it was, I didn't know what had become of any of the various people upon our list of possible suspects. As far as I was concerned, any or every sign and clue to the attack upon Werner might have been removed or destroyed. A sudden hush caused all of us to turn toward the door leading to the dressing rooms. It was the physician. He raised a hand for attention. His voice was low, but it carried to every corner of the studio: "Mr. Werner is dead," he announced. XXI MERLE SHIRLEY OVERACTS Appalled, I wondered who it was who had, to cover up one crime, committed another? Who had struck down an innocent man to save a guilty neck? Kennedy hurried to the side of the physician and I followed. "What symptoms did you observe?" asked Kennedy, quickly, seeking confirmation of his own first impressions. "His mouth seemed dry and I should say he suffered from a quick prostration. There seemed to be a complete loss of power to swallow or speak. The pupils were dilated as though from paralysis of the eyes. Both pharynx and larynx were affected. There was respiration paralysis. It seemed also as though the cranial nerves were partially paralyzed. It was typically a condition due to some toxic substance which paralyzed and depressed certain areas of the body." Kennedy nodded. "That fits in with a theory I have." I thought quickly, then inquired; "Could it be the snake venom again?" "No," Kennedy replied, shaking his head; "there's a difference in the symptoms and there is no mark on any exposed part of the body, as near as I could see in a superficial examination." He turned to the physician. "Could you give me blood smears and some of the stomach contents, at once? Twice, now, some one has been stricken down before the very eyes of the actors. This thing has gone too far to trifle with or delay a moment." The doctor hurried off toward the dressing room, anxious to help Kennedy, and as excited, I thought, as any of us. Next Kennedy faced me. "Did you watch the people at all, Walter?" "I--I was too upset by the suddenness of it," I stammered. All seemed to have suspicion of some one else, and there was a general constraint, as though even the innocent feared to do or say something that might look or sound incriminating. I turned. All were now watching every move we made, though just yet none ventured to follow us. It was as though they felt that to do so was like crossing a dead line. I wondered which one of them might be looking at us with inward trepidation--or perhaps satisfaction, if there had been any chance to remove anything incriminating. Kennedy strode over toward the ill-fated set, Mackay and I at his heels. As we moved across the floor I noticed that everyone clustered as close as he dared, afraid, seemingly, of any action which might hinder the investigation, yet unwilling to miss any detail of Kennedy's method. In contrast with the clamor and racket of less than a half hour previously there was now a deathlike stillness beneath the arched ground-glass roof. The heat was more oppressive than ever before. In the faces and expressions of the awed witnesses of death's swift hand there was horror, and a growing fear. No one spoke, except in whispers. When anybody moved it was on tiptoe, cautiously. Millard's creation, "The Black Terror," could have inspired no dread greater than this. Of the people we wished to study, Phelps caught our eyes the first. Dejected, crushed, utterly discouraged, he was slouched down in a chair just at the edge of the supposed banquet hall. I had no doubt of the nature of his thoughts. There was probably only the most perfunctory sympathy for the stricken director. Without question his mind ran to dollars. The dollar-angle to this tragedy was that the death of Werner was simply another step in the wrecking of Manton Pictures. Kennedy, I saw, hardly gave him a passing glance. Manton we observed near the door. With the possible exception of Millard he seemed about the least concerned. The two, scenario writer and producer, had counterfeited the melodrama of life so often in their productions that even the second sinister chapter in this film mystery failed to penetrate their sang-froid. Inwardly they may have felt as deeply as any of the rest, but both maintained their outward composure. On Manton's shoulders was the responsibility for the picture. I could see that he was nervous, irritable; yet, as various employees approached for their instructions in this emergency he never lost his grasp of affairs. In the vibrant quiet of this studio chamber, still under the shadow of tragedy, we witnessed as cold-blooded a bit of business generalship as has ever come to my knowledge. We overheard, because Manton's voice carried across to us in the stillness. "Kauf!" The name I remembered as that of the technical, or art, director under Werner, responsible for the sets of "The Black Terror." "Yes, Mr. Manton!" Kauf was a slim, stoop-shouldered man, gray, and a dynamo of energy in a quiet, subservient way. He ran to Manton's side. "Remember once telling me you wanted to become a director, that you wanted to make pictures for me?" "Yes, sir!" "You are familiar with the script of 'The Black Terror,' aren't you? You know the people and how they work and you have sets lined up. How would you like to finish the direction?" "But--but--" To the credit of the little man he dabbed at his eyes. I guess he had been fond of his immediate superior. "Mr.--Mr. Werner is d-dead--" he stammered. "Of course!" Manton's voice rose slightly. "If Werner wasn't dead I wouldn't need another director at a moment's notice. Some one has to complete 'The Black Terror.' We have all these people on salary, and all the studio expense, and the release date's settled, so that we can't stop. It's your chance, Kauf! Do you want it?" "Y-yes, sir!" "Good! I'll double your salary, including all this week. Now can you finish this banquet set to-night, while you have the people--" "To-night!" Kauf's eyes went wide, then he started to flush. "Well, to-morrow, then! We simply can't lay off a day, Kauf!" "All--all right, sir!" It seemed to me that everyone in the place sensed the horror of this. Literally, actually, Werner's body could not be cold. Even the police, the medical examiner, had not had sufficient time to make the trip out for their investigation. Yet the director's successor had been appointed and told to hurry the production. I glanced at Phelps. He raised his head slowly, his expression lifting at the thought that production was to continue without interruption. In another moment, however, there was a change in his face. His eyes sought Manton and hardened. His mouth tightened. Hate, a deep, unreasoning hate, settled into his features. Kennedy, pausing just long enough to observe the promoter's appointment of Kauf to Werner's position, continued on toward the set. Now as I looked about I saw that Jack Gordon was missing, as well as Marilyn Loring. Presumably they had gone to their dressing rooms. All the other actors and actresses were waiting, ill at ease, wondering at the outcome of the tragedy. Suddenly Kennedy stopped and I grasped that it was the peculiar actions of Merle Shirley which had halted him. The heavy man was the only one of the company actually in the fabricated banquet hall itself. Clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the Black Terror. As though he were some old-fashioned tragedian, he was pacing up and down, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes on the floor. More, he was mumbling to himself. It was evident, however, that it was neither a pose nor mental aberration. Shirley was searching for something, out in the open, without attempt at concealment, swearing softly at his lack of success. Kennedy pushed forward. "Did you lose something, Mr. Shirley?" "No!" The heavy man straightened. As he drew himself up in his sinister garb I thought again of the cheap actors of a day when moving pictures had yet to pre-empt the field of the lurid melodrama. It seemed to me that Merle Shirley was overacting, that it was impossible for him to be so wrought up over the slaying of a man who, after all, was only his director, certainly not a close nor an intimate relationship. "Mr. Kennedy," he stated, ponderously, "there has been a second death, and at the hand which struck down Stella Lamar in Tarrytown. Somewhere in this banquet hall interior there is a clue to the murderer. I have kept a careful watch so that nothing might be disturbed." "Do you suspect anyone?" Kennedy asked. Shirley glanced away and we knew he was lying. "No, not definitely." "Who has been in the set since I left with the doctor?" "No one except myself, that is"--Shirley wanted to make it clear--"no one has had any opportunity to hide or move or take or change a thing, because I have been right here all the time." "I see! Thanks, and"--Kennedy seemed genuinely apologetic--"if you don't mind--I would prefer to make my investigation alone." Shirley turned on his heel and made for his dressing room. Meanwhile I had noticed a bit of by-play between Enid Faye and Lawrence Millard, the only others of our possible suspects about. Enid first had caught my eye because she seemed to be pleading with the writer, trying to hold him. I gathered from the look of disgust on Millard's face that he wanted to get Shirley out of the set before Kennedy should observe the heavy man's odd reaction to the tragedy. While I had never seen Millard and Shirley together, so as to establish in mind the state of their feelings toward each other, this would seem to indicate that they were friendly. Certainly Shirley was making a fool of himself. Enid acted, I guessed, so as to prevent Millard's interference, probably with the idea that Millard in some fashion might bring suspicion upon himself. It struck me that Enid had a wholesome respect for Kennedy. At any rate, Millard watched the little scene between Kennedy and Shirley with a quizzical expression. As Shirley left he shrugged his shoulders, then he gave Enid's cheeks a playful pinch each and started out after the heavy man in leisurely fashion. Just about the same moment Kennedy called me to his side. "Walter," he pleaded, in a low voice, "will you hurry out to the dressing room where the doctor and I took Werner and get the blood smears and sample of the stomach contents? I don't want to leave this, because we must work fast and get all the data we need before the police arrive. With perhaps a hundred people to question they'll be apt to make a fine mess of everything. This is an outlying precinct where we'll draw the amateurs, you know." I saw that Mackay was helping him and so I left cheerfully, making my way as fast as I could toward the door through which both Shirley and Millard had passed. In the hallway of the building devoted to dressing rooms I found that I did not know which one contained Werner's body. This corridor was familiar. Here Kennedy and I had waited for Marilyn Loring and had witnessed the scene between Shirley and herself. Now I did not even remember the location of her room. At last, on a chance, I tried a door softly. From within came whispered voices of deep intensity. About to close it quickly, I realized suddenly that I recognized the speakers in spite of the whispers. It was Marilyn and Shirley. They were together. Now I recollected the figured chintz which covered the wall and was to be seen through the crack made by the open door. It was her room. They had not heard my hand on the knob, nor the catch, did not know that anyone could eavesdrop. "You see!" Her tones were the more vibrant "You waited!" "I had to!" "No! I advised you to act at once." "I couldn't! I can't even now!" "All right!" Her tone became bitter. "Go ahead, your own way. But you must count the cost. You may lose me again, Merle Shirley." "How do you mean?" Her answer, in the faintest of whispers, staggered me. "If you have the blood of another man on your hands I'm through." XXII THE STEM Though my hands trembled so that I could hardly control them, I managed to close the door softly and to back away down the hall without being discovered. My head was spinning and I was dizzy. With my own ears I had heard Marilyn Loring virtually betray the guilt of the man she loved and whom therefore she had tried to shield. "If you have the blood of another man on your hands--" What more could Kennedy want? I started to run toward the studio. Then recollection of my errand stopped me. Kennedy wished the blood smears and stomach contents and was anxious to get them before the arrival of the police. At first I thought that all such evidence would be unnecessary now, after the dialogue I had overheard, but it struck me as an afterthought that it might be necessary still to prove Shirley's guilt to the satisfaction of a court and jury, and so I rushed to the next dressing room and to another, until I located the doctor and the body of the dead man. With the little package for Kennedy safely in my pocket I hurried out again into the sweltering heat beneath the glass of the big studio, and to the side of Kennedy and Mackay in the banquet-hall set. "You have a sample of each article of food now?" he was asking the district attorney. "You are sure you have missed nothing?" "As far as possible I took my samples from the table where Werner sat," Mackay explained. "When the prop. boy gets here with an empty bottle and cork I'll have a sample of the wine. I think it's the wine," he added. Kennedy turned to me. "You've got--" "In my pocket!" I interrupted. Then, rather breathlessly, I repeated the conversation I had overheard. "Good Lord!" Mackay flushed. "There it is! Shirley's the man, and I'll take him now, quick, without waiting for a warrant." "See!" I ejaculated, to Kennedy. "He killed Stella because she made a fool of him and then, when Werner discovered that and followed him to Tarrytown the other night, it probably put him in a panic of fear, and so, to keep Werner from talking--" "Easy, Walter! Not so fast! What you overheard is insufficient ground for Shirley's conviction, unless you could make him confess, and I doubt you could make him do that." "Why?" This was Mackay. "Because I don't think he's guilty. At least"--Kennedy, as always, was cautious in his statements, "not so far as anything we now know would indicate." "But his anger at Stella," I protested, "and Marilyn's remark--"' "Miss Lamar's death was the result of a cool, unfeeling plan, not pique or anger. The same cruel, careful brain executed this second crime." Mackay, I saw, was three-quarters convinced by Kennedy. "How do you account for the dialogue Jameson overheard?" he asked. "Miss Loring told us that Shirley suspected some one and was watching, and would not tell her or anyone else who it was. It seems most likely to me that it is the truth, Mackay. In that case her remark means that she believes his silence in a way is responsible for Werner's death." "Oh! If Shirley had taken you into his confidence, for instance--?" "I might possibly have succeeded in gaining sufficient evidence for an arrest, thus averting this tragedy. But it is only a theory of mine." I scowled. It seemed to me that Kennedy was minimizing things in a way unusual for him. I wondered if he really thought the heavy man innocent. "It's still my belief that Shirley is guilty," I asserted. A sound of confusion from the courtyard beneath the heavy studio windows caught Kennedy's ear and ended the colloquy. From some of those near enough to look out we received the explanation. The police had arrived, fully three-quarters of an hour after Werner's death. "I'll get the little bottle of wine, sure," Mackay murmured, picking up the food samples he had wrapped and crowding the bulky package into a pocket. "I don't see why that would have been any easier to poison than the food," was my objection. "Everyone was looking." "Very simple. The food was brought in quite late. Besides, it was dished out by the caterer before the eyes of forty or fifty people or more and there was no telling which plate would go to Werner's place. The drinks were poured last of all. I remember seeing the bubbles rise and wondering whether they would register at the distance." Kennedy did not look at me. "Did it ever occur to you," he went on, casually, "that the glasses were all set out empty at the various places long before, and that there might easily have been a few drops of something, if it were colorless, placed in the bottom of Werner's glass, with scarcely a chance of its being discovered, especially by a man who had so much on his mind at the time as Werner had? He must have indicated where he would sit when he arranged the camera stands and the location of the tables." I had not thought of that. Kennedy frowned. "If only I could have located more of that broken glass!" As he faced me I could read his disappointment. "Walter, I've made a most careful search of his chair and the table and everything about the space where he dropped. The poison must have been in the wine, but there's not a tiny sliver of that glass left, nothing but a thousand bits ground into the canvas, too small to hold even a drop of the liquid. Just think, a dried stain of the wine, no matter how tiny, might have served me in a chemical analysis." Very suddenly there was a low exclamation from Mackay. "Look! Quick! Some one must have kicked it way over here!" Fully twenty feet from Werner's place in the glare of the lights was the hollow stem of a champagne glass, its base intact save for a narrow segment. In the stem still were a couple of drops of the wine, as if in a bulb or tube. "Can it be the director's glass?" Mackay asked, handing it to Kennedy. Kennedy slipped it into his pocket, fussing with his handkerchief so that the precious contents would not drip out. "I think so. I doubt whether any other glass was broken. Verify it quickly." The police were entering now with Manton. Following them was the physician. Mackay and I ascertained readily that no other glass had been shattered, while Kennedy searched the floor for possible signs that the stem was part of a glass broken where we had found it. Unquestionably we had a sample of the actual wine quaffed by the unfortunate Werner. Elated we strolled to a corner so as to give the police full charge. "They'll waste time questioning everyone," Kennedy remarked. "I have the real evidence." He tapped his pocket. The few moments that he had had to himself had been ample for him to obtain such evidence as was destroyed in so many cases by the time he was called upon the scene. A point occurred to me. "You don't think the poison was planted later during the excitement?" "Hardly! Our criminal is too clever to take a long chance. In such a case we would know it was some one near Werner and also there would be too many people watching. Foolhardiness is not boldness." I took to observing the methods of the police, which were highly efficient, but only in the minuteness of the examination of witnesses and in the care with which they recorded names and facts and made sure that no one had slipped away to avoid the notoriety. The actors and actresses who had stood rather in awe of Kennedy, both here and in Kennedy's investigation at Tarrytown, developed nimble tongues in their answers to the city detectives. The result was a perfect maze of conflicting versions of Werner's cry and fall. In fact, one scene shifter insisted that Shirley, as the Black Terror, had reached Werner's side and had struck him before the cry, while an extra girl with a faint lisp described with sobering accuracy the flight of a mysterious missile through the air. I realized then why Kennedy had made no effort to question them. Under the excitement of the scene, the glamour of the lights, the sense of illusion, and the stifling heat, it would have been strange for any of the people to have retained correct impressions of the event. The police sergeant knew Kennedy by reputation and approached him after a visit to the dead man's body with the doctor. His glance, including Mackay and myself, was frankly triumphant. "Well," he exclaimed, "I don't suppose it occurred to any of you SCIENTIFIC guys to search the fellow, now did it?" Kennedy smiled, in good humor. "Searching a man isn't always the scientific method. You won't find the word 'frisk' in any scientific dictionary." "No?" The police officer's eyes twinkled. There was enough of the Irish in him to enjoy an encounter of this kind. "Maybe not, but you might find things in a chap's pocket which is better." With a flourish he produced a hypodermic syringe, the duplicate of the one I had appropriated, and a tiny bottle. "The man's a dope," he added. "I knew that," replied Kennedy. "I examined his arm, where he usually took his shots, and found no fresh mark of the needle." "That doesn't prove anything. Wait until the medical examiner gets here. He'll find the fellow's heart all shot full of hop, or something. I guess it isn't so complicated, after all. He was a hop fiend, all right." "Still, there's nothing to indicate that he was a suicide." "Not suicide; accident-overdose," was the sergeant's reply. "How could he have died from an overdose of the drug, when he hasn't taken any recently?" "Well"--unabashed--"then he croaked because he hadn't had a shot--the same thing. Heart failure, either way. Excited, and all, you know, making the scene. Maybe he forgot to use the needle at that." "Perhaps you're right." Kennedy shrugged calmly. What was the use of disputing the matter? I started to protest against the detective's hypothesis. The idea of any drug addict ever forgetting to take his stimulant was too preposterous. But Kennedy checked me. All were now keenly listening to the argument. Better, perhaps, to let some one think that nothing was suspected than to disclose the cards in Craig's hand. I saw that he wished to get away and had not spoken seriously. He turned to Mackay. "Walter and I will have to hurry to the laboratory. Would you like to come along?" "You bet I would!" The district attorney showed his delight. "I was just going to ask if I might do so. There's nothing for me in Tarrytown to-day and this is out of my jurisdiction." As we turned away the police sergeant saw us and called across the floor, not quite concealing a touch of professional jealousy. "The three of you were here at the time, weren't you?" "No," Kennedy answered. "Mr. Jameson and myself." "Well, you two, then! You're witnesses and I'll ask you to hold yourself in readiness to appear at the hearing." I thought that the policeman was particularly delighted at his position to issue orders to Kennedy, and I was angered. Again Craig held me in check! "We'll be glad to tell anything we know," he replied, then added a little fling, a bit of sarcasm which almost went over the other's head. "That is," he amended, "as eye-witnesses!" XXIII BOTULIN TOXIN Mackay drove us to the laboratory in his little car and it was dark and we were dinnerless when we arrived. Knowing Kennedy's habits, I sent out for sandwiches and started in to make strong coffee upon an electric percolator. The aroma tingled in my nostrils, reminding me that I was genuinely hungry. The district attorney, too, seemed more or less similarly disposed. As for Kennedy, he was interested in nothing but the problem before him. He had been strangely quiet on the way, growing more and more impatient and nervous, as though the element of time had entered into the case, as though haste were suddenly imperative. Once the lights were on in the laboratory he hurried about his various preparations. The food samples he laid out, but he gave them no attention. The blood smears and stomach contents he put aside for future reference. His attack was upon the drop or two of liquid adhering to the stem of the broken champagne glass. The entire chemical procedure seemed to be incomprehensible to Mackay and he was fascinated, so that he had considerable trouble at times keeping out of the way of Kennedy's elbow. Kennedy first washed the stem out carefully with a few drops of distilled water, then he studied the resulting solution. One after another he tried the things that occurred to him, making tests wholly unproductive of results. Slowly the laboratory table became littered completely with chemicals and apparatus of all sorts, a veritable arsenal of glass. The sandwiches arrived, but Kennedy refused to drop his investigation for a moment. I did succeed in making him take a cup of strong coffee, and that was all. Over in a corner Mackay and I did full justice to the food, finishing the hot and welcome coffee and then refilling the percolator and starting it on the making of a second brew. The hours lengthened, and when Mackay grew tired of watching with intense admiration he joined me in the patient consumption of innumerable cigarettes. Kennedy was filled with the joy of discovery. I noticed that he did not stop even for the solace of tobacco. It seemed to me that at times his nostrils dilated exactly like those of a hound on the scent. Finally he held up a test tube and turned to us. "What is it?" I asked. "Some other poison as rare and little known as the snake venom?" "No--something much more curious. In the stem of the glass I find the toxin of the Bacillus botulinus." "Germs?" Mackay inquired. Kennedy shook his head. "Not germs, but the pure toxin, the poison secreted by this bacillus." "What does it do?" was my question. "Well," thoughtfully, "botulism may be ranked easily among the most serious diseases known to medical science. It is hard to understand why it is not a great deal more common. It is one of the most dangerous kinds of food poisoning." "Then the apple juice they used for the wine was bad, spoiled?" "No, not that. Werner was the only one stricken. Somebody put the pure toxin in his glass. It was, as I suspected, deliberate murder, as in the case of Miss Lamar. Bacillus botulinus produces a toxin that is extremely virulent. Hardly more than a ten-thousandth of a cubic centimeter would kill a guinea pig. This was botulin itself, the pure toxin, an alkaloid just like that which is formed in meat and other food products in cases of botulism. The idea might also have been to make the death seem natural--due solely to bad food." "Do you suppose it was used because it was quick and was colorless, so as not to be noticed in the glass?" I hazarded. Kennedy paced up and down the laboratory several times in thought. "To me, Walter, this is another indication of the satanic cleverness of the unknown criminal in the case. First Miss Lamar is to be killed. For that purpose something was sought, probably, which could not be traced easily to the perpetrator. In snake venom an agent was employed which may be said to be almost ideal for the grim business of murder. It is extremely difficult to identify in its results, it is comparatively unknown, yet it is swift in action and to be obtained with fair ease. "Differing from most poisons, it may be inflicted through a prick so slight as to be almost unnoticed by the victim. The scheme of fixing the needle in the curtain was so simple and yet so effective that the guilty person need never have feared its discovery under ordinary circumstances, or its association with the girl's death, if some one stumbled upon it accidentally. The idea of returning for the death-dealing point was only one of the many details of a precautionary measure upon which we have stumbled. Had I found it the next morning I would have been unable, in all probability, to identify it as belonging to or as obtained by any of our suspects. "You must realize, Walter, that with all the scientific aids I have been able to bring to bear we possess almost no direct evidence. There are no fingerprints, no cigarette stubs, no array of personal, intimate clues of any sort to this criminal. These are the threads which lead the detective to his quarry in fiction and on the stage. Here we lack even the faintest description of the man, or woman if that is her sex. It is murder from a distance, planned with almost meticulous care, executed coolly and without feeling or scruple. "After the death of Miss Lamar I was not so sure but that the selection of the snake venom was simply the inspiration of a perverted brain, the evolution of the detailed method of killing her--an outgrowth of someone's familiarity with studio life in general, with the script of 'The Black Terror' in particular. Now I realize that we are face to face with the studied handiwork of a skilled criminal. These two deaths may be his--or her--first departure into the realm of crime. But potentially we have a super-villain. "I make that statement because of the manner of Werner's demise. It is evident that the director stumbled on a clue to the murderer. If my first hypothesis had been correct, if the use of snake venom and the unlucky thirteenth scene had been largely a matter of blind chance in the selection of poison and method, then we might have expected Werner to be struck down in some dark street, or perhaps decoyed to his death--at the best, inoculated with the same crotalin which had killed Miss Lamar. "But let us analyze the method used in slaying the director. If he had been blackjacked there would be the clue of the weapon, always likely to turn up, the chance of witnesses, and also the likelihood in an extreme case that Werner might not die at once, but might talk and give a description of his assailant, or even survive. Much the same objections--from the criminal's standpoint--obtain in nearly all the accepted modes of killing a man. Even the use of venom a second time possesses the disadvantage of a certain alertness against the very thing on the part of the victim. Werner was a dope fiend, fully aware of the potency of a tiny skin puncture. I'll wager he was on constant guard against any sort of scratch. "On the other hand, the few drops of toxin in the glass possessed every advantage from the unknown's standpoint. It was invisible, and as sure in its action as the venom. Also it was as rare and as difficult to trace. For, remember this. Botulism is food poisoning. If I had not found the stem of that glass it would be absolutely impossible to show that Werner died from anything on earth but bad food. That is why I do not even take time to analyze the stomach contents. That is why I say we are confronted by an archscoundrel of highest intelligence and downright cleverness. More"--Kennedy paused for emphasis--"I realize now the presence of a grim, invisible menace. It has just now been driven home to me. The botulin, with its deadly paralyzing power, sealed Werner's tongue even while he tried to tell me what he knew." Mackay was tremendously impressed by Kennedy's explanation. "Does this mean," he asked, "that the guilty man or woman is some outsider? Those we have figured as possible suspects would hardly have this detailed knowledge of poisons." "There are two possibilities," Kennedy answered. "The real person behind the two murders may have employed some one else to carry out the actual killing, a hypothesis I do not take seriously, or"--again he paused--"this may be a case of some one with intelligence starting out upon his career of crime intelligently by reading up on his subject. It is as simple to learn how to use crotalin or botulin toxin or any number of hundreds of deadly substances as it is to obtain the majority of them. In fact, if people generally understood the ease with which whole communities could be wiped out, and grasped that it could be done so as to leave virtually no clue to the author of the horror, they might not sleep as soundly at night as they do. The saving grace is that the average criminal is often clever, but almost never truly scientific. Unfortunately, we have to combat one who possesses the latter quality to a high degree." "What is the invisible menace of which you spoke, Craig?" I inquired. "The possibility of another murder before we can apprehend the guilty person or gain the evidence we need." "Good heavens!" I imagine I blanched. "You mean--" "Werner was struck down, apparently, for no reason but that he had guessed the identity of the villain. There is a second man in the company who has certain suspicions and is acting upon them. If he is on the right trail, by any chance--" Kennedy shrugged his shoulders soberly. "Shirley?" "Exactly! And there is still another possibility." "What is that?" "Here in this laboratory I have blood spots made on the portieres at the house of Phelps by the man who removed the needle, probably the unknown himself, possibly his--or her--agent. In any case it is a clue and--THE ONLY DIRECT AND INFALLIBLE CLUE IN EXISTENCE TO THE CRIMINAL! Also I have the evidence of the snake venom and of the botulin toxin here. Sooner or later the person who killed Werner because he suspected things will wake up to the fact that we possess tangible proof against him." I grew pale. "You mean, then, that you may be attacked yourself? That even I--" Kennedy smiled, unafraid. But from the expression in his eyes I knew that he took the thought of our possible danger very seriously. XXIV THE INVISIBLE MENACE Mackay and I exchanged glances. Kennedy busied himself putting away some of the more important bits of evidence in the case, placing the tiny tubes of solution, the blood smears, and other items together in a cabinet at the farther corner of the laboratory. The vast bulk of his paraphernalia, the array of glass and chemicals and instruments, he left on the table for the morning. Then he faced us again, with a smile. "Suppose you start up the percolator once more, Walter!" He took a cigar and lighted it from the match I struck. "I believe I've earned another cup of coffee," he added. Mackay had been fidgeting considerably since Kennedy's explanation of the possible danger to Shirley, as well as to ourselves or even to others. "Isn't there something we can do, Kennedy?" he exclaimed, suddenly. "Is it necessary to sit back and wait for this unknown to strike again?" "Ordinarily," Kennedy replied, "on a case like this it has been my custom to permit the guilty parties to betray themselves, as they will do inevitably--especially when I call to my aid the recent discoveries of science for the detection and measurement of fine and almost imperceptible shades of emotion. But now that I realize the presence of this menace I shall become a detective of action; in fact, I shall not stop at any course to hurry matters. The very first thing in the morning I shall go to the studio and I want you and Jameson along. I"--his eyes twinkled; it was the excitement at the prospect--"I may need considerable help in getting the evidence I wish." "Which is--?" It was I who interposed the question. Kennedy blew a cloud of smoke. "There are three ways of tracing down a crime, aside from the police method of stool pigeons to betray the criminals and the detective bureau method of cross-examination under pressure, popularly known as the third degree." "What are they?" Mackay asked, unaware that Kennedy needed little prompting once he felt inclined to talk out some matter puzzling him. "One is the process of reasoning from the possible suspects to the act itself--in other words, putting the emphasis on the motive. A second is the reverse of the first, involving a study of the crime for clues and making deductions from the inevitable earmarks of the person for the purpose of discovering his identity. The third method, except for some investigations across the water, is distinctly my own, the scientific. "In all sciences," Kennedy went on, warming to his subject, "progress is made by a careful tabulation of proved facts. The scientific method is the method of exact knowledge. Thus, in crime, those things are of value to us which by an infinite series of empiric observations have been established and have become incontrovertible. The familiar example, of course, is fingerprints. Nearly everyone knows that no two men have the same markings; that the same man displays a pattern which is unchanging from birth to the grave. "No less certain is the fact that human blood differs from the blood of animals, that in faint variations the blood of no two people is alike, that the blood of any living thing, man or beast, is affected by various things--an infinite number almost--most of which are positively known to modern medical investigators. "In this case my principal scientific clue is the blood left upon the portiere by the man who took the needle the night following the murder. Next in importance is the fact, demonstrated by me, that some one at the studio wiped a hypodermic on a towel after inoculating himself with antivenin. Of course I am presuming that this latter man inoculated himself and not some one else, because it is obvious. If necessary I can prove it later, however, by analyzing the trace of blood. That is not the point. The point is that whoever removed the needle pricked himself and yet did not die of the venom--unless it was a person not under our observation, an unlikely premise. Therefore, because of this last fact, and because again it is obvious, I expect to find that the same individual inoculated himself with antivenin and removed the needle from the portiere; and I expect to prove it beyond possibility of doubt by an analysis of his blood. A sample of the blood from this person will be identical with the spot on the portiere, and--much the easier test--will contain traces of the antitoxin. "With that much accomplished, a little of the, well--third degree, will bring about a confession. It is circumstantial evidence of the strongest sort. Not only does a man take precautions against a given poison, but he is proved to be the one who removed the needle actually responsible for Miss Lamar's death. "My handicap, however, is that I have no justifiable excuse for taking a sample of blood from each of the people we suspect, or feel we might suspect. For that reason I was waiting until one of the other detective methods should narrow the field of suspicion. Now that there is the menace of another attempt to take a life I am forced to act. To-morrow we will get samples of blood from everyone by artifice--or force! "Meanwhile--" He hastened to continue, as though afraid we might interrupt to break his train of thought. "Meanwhile, to-night, let us see if it is possible to accomplish something by the deductive method. "Already I have gone into an analysis starting from the nature of the crime and reasoning to the type of criminal responsible. The guilty man--or woman--is a person of high intelligence, added to genuine cleverness. But for the results accomplished in this laboratory we would be without a clue; our hands would be tied completely. Both Miss Lamar and Werner were killed by unusual poisons; deadly, and almost impossible to trace. There was a crowd of people about in each case; yet we have no witnesses. Now who, out of all our people with possible motives, are intelligent enough and clever enough to be guilty?" Kennedy glanced first at me, then at Mackay. "Manton? Phelps?" suggested the district attorney. "The promoter," Kennedy rejoined, "is the typical man of the business world beneath the eccentricity of manner which seems to cling to everyone in the picture field. Ordinarily his type, thinking in millions of dollars and juggling nickel and dime admissions or other routine of commercial detail is apart from the finer subtle passions of life. When a business man commits murder he generally uses a pistol because he is sure it is efficient--he can see it work. The same applies to Phelps." "Millard?" Mackay hesitated now to face the logic of Kennedy's keen mind. "He was Stella Lamar's husband!" "Millard is a scenario writer and so apt to have a brain cluttered with all sorts of detail of crime and murder. At the same time an author is so used to counterfeiting emotion in his writings that he seldom takes things seriously. Life becomes a joke and Millard in particular is a butterfly, concerned more with the smiles of extra girls and the favor of Miss Faye than the fate of the woman whose divorce from him was not yet complete. A writer is the other extreme from the business man. The creator of stories is essentially inefficient because he tries to feel rather than reason. When an author commits murder he sets a stage for his own benefit. He is careful to avoid witnesses because they are inconvenient to dispose of. At the same time he wants the victim to understand thoroughly what is going to happen and so he is apt to accompany his crime with a speech worded very carefully indeed. Then he may start with an attempt to throttle a person and end up with a hatchet, or he may plan to use a razor and at the end brain his quarry with a chair. He lives too many lives to follow one through clearly--his own." "How about Shirley?" I put in. "At first glance Shirley and Gordon suggest themselves because both murders were highly spectacular, and the actor, above everything else, enjoys a big scene. After Werner's death, for instance, Shirley literally strutted up and down in that set. He was so full of the situation, so carried away by the drama of the occasion, that he failed utterly to realize how suspicious his conduct would seem to an observer. Unfortunately for our hypotheses, the use of venom and toxin is too cold-bloodedly efficient. The theatrical temperament must have emotion. An actor cruel and vicious enough to strike down two people as Miss Lamar and Werner were stricken, of sufficient dramatic make-up to conceive of the manner of their deaths, would want to see them writhe and suffer. He would select poisons equally rare and effective, but those more slow and painful in their operation. No, Walter, Shirley is not indicated by this method of reasoning. The arrangement of the scenes for the murders was simply another detail of efficiency, not due to a wish to be spectacular. The crowd about in each case has added greatly to the difficulty of investigation." "Do you include Gordon in that?" Mackay asked. "Yes, and in addition"--Kennedy smiled slightly--"I believe that Gordon is rather stupid. For one thing, he has had several fights in public, at the Goats Club and at the Midnight Fads and I suppose elsewhere. That is not the clever rogue. Furthermore, he had been speculating, not just now and then, but desperately, doggedly. Clever men speculate, but scientific men never. Our unknown criminal is both clever and intelligent." "That brings you to the girls, then," Mackay remarked. Kennedy's face clouded and I could see that he was troubled. "To be honest in this one particular method of deduction," he stated, "I must admit that both Miss Faye and Miss Loring are worthy of suspicion. The fact of their rise in the film world, the evidences of their popularity, is proof that they are clever. Miss Loring, in my few brief moments of contact with her on two occasions, showed a grasp of things and a quickness which indicate to me that she possesses a rare order of intelligence for a woman. As for Miss Faye"--again he hesitated--"one little act of hers demonstrated intelligence. When Shirley was standing guard in the set after Werner's death, and making a fool of himself, Millard evidently wanted to get over and speak to him, perhaps to tell him not to let me find him searching the scene as though his life depended upon it, perhaps something else. But Miss Faye stopped him. Unquestionably she saw that anyone taking an interest in the remains of the banquet just then would become an object of suspicion." "Do you really suspect Marilyn or Enid?" I inquired. "If this were half a generation ago I would say without hesitation that the crime was the handiwork of a man. But now the women are in everything. Young girls particularly--" He shrugged his shoulders. Mackay had one more suggestion. "The camera men, the extras, the technical and studio staffs--they are not worthy of consideration, are they?" Kennedy shook his head. The odor of coffee struck my nostrils and I turned to find the percolator steaming. Kennedy leaned over, to take a whiff. Mackay rose. At that moment there was a sudden crash and the window-pane was shattered. Simultaneously a flash of light and a deafening explosion took place in the room, scattering broadcast tiny bits of glass from the laboratory table, splashing chemicals, many of them dangerous, over everything. Kennedy hurried to the wreck of his paraphernalia. In an instant he held up a tiny bit of jagged metal. "An explosive bullet!" he exclaimed. "An attempt to destroy my evidence!" XXV ITCHING SALVE For once I rose with Kennedy. He preceded me to the laboratory after breakfast, however, leaving me to wait for Mackay. When the little district attorney arrived I noticed that he carried a package which looked as though it might contain a one-reel film can. "The negative we took from the cameras at Tarrytown," he explained. "Also a print from each roll, ready to run. I've been holding this as evidence. Mr. Kennedy wanted me to bring it with me to-day." "He's waiting for us at the laboratory," I remarked. "He'll straighten everything up in a hurry, won't he?" "Kennedy's the most high-handed individual I ever knew," I laughed, "if he sees a chance of getting his man." Then I became enthusiastic. "Often I've seen him gather a group of people in a room, perhaps without the faintest shred of legal right to do so, and there make the guilty person confess simply by marshaling the evidence, or maybe betray himself by some scientific device. It's wonderful, Mackay." "Do you think he plans something of that kind this morning?" I led the way to the door. "After what happened last night I know that Kennedy will resort to almost anything." The district attorney fingered the package under his arm. "He might get everyone in the projection room then, and make them watch the actual photographic record of Stella's death--the scene where she scratched herself--" "Let's hurry!" I interrupted. When we entered the laboratory we found Kennedy vigorously fanning a towel which he had hung up to dry. I recognized it as the one I had discovered in the studio washroom immediately following the first murder. "This will serve me better as bait than as evidence," he laughed. "I have impregnated it with a colorless chemical which will cling to the fibers and enable me to identify the most infinitesimal trace of it. We shall get up to the studio and start, well--I guess you could call it fishing for the guilty man." He fingered the folds, then jerked the towel down and flung it to me. "Here, Walter! It's dry enough. Now I want you to rub the contents of that tiny can of grease, open before you there, into the cloth." He hurried over to wash his hands. I spread the towel out on the table and began to work in the stuff indicated by Kennedy. There was no odor and it seemed like some patent ointment in color. At first I was puzzled. Then, absently, I touched the back of one hand with the greasy fingers of the other and immediately an itching set up so annoying that I had to abandon my task. Kennedy chuckled. "That's itching salve, Walter. The cuticle pads at your finger tips are too thick, but touch yourself anywhere else!--" He shrugged his shoulders. "You'd better use soap and water if you want any relief. Then you can start over again." At the basin I thought I grasped his little plot. "You're going to plant the towel," I asked, "so that the interested party will try to get hold of it?" Evidently he thought it unnecessary to reply to me. "Why couldn't you just put it somewhere without all the preparation," Mackay suggested, "and watch to see who came after it?" "Because our criminal's too clever," Kennedy rejoined. "Our only chance to get it stolen is to make it very plain that it is not being watched. Whoever steals it, however, possibly will reveal himself on account of the itching salve. In any case I expect to be able to trace the towel to the thief, no matter what efforts are made to destroy it." The towel was wrapped in a heavy bit of paper; then placed with a microscope and some other paraphernalia in a small battered traveling bag. Climbing into Mackay's little roadster, we soon were speeding toward the studio. "Will you be able to help me, to stay with Jameson and myself all day?" Kennedy asked the district attorney, after perhaps a mile of silence. "Surely! It's what I was hoping you'd allow me to do. I have no authority down here, though." "I understand. But the police, or an outsider, might allow some of my plans to become known." He paused a moment in thought. "The film you brought in with you consists of the scenes on the rolls of negative in use at the time of Miss Lamar's collapse. It may or may not include the action where she scratched herself. Now I want the scenes up to thirteen put together in proper order, first as photographed by one camera, then as caught by the other. I'll arrange for the services of a cutter, and for the delivery to me of any other negative or positive overlooked by us when we had the two boxes sealed and given into your custody at Tarrytown. Will you superintend the assembly of the scenes, so that you can be sure nothing is taken out or omitted?" "Of course! I want to do anything I can." Upon arrival at the studio we detected this time all the signs of a complete demoralization. The death of Werner, the fact that he had been stricken down during the taking of a scene and on the very stage, had served to bring the tragedy home to the people. More, it was a second murder in four days, apparently by the same hand as the first. A sense of dread, a nameless, intangible fear, had taken form and found its way under the big blackened glass roofs and around and through the corridors, into the dressing rooms, and back even to the manufacturing and purely technical departments. The gateman eyed us with undisguised uneasiness as we drove through the archway into the yard. In that inclosure there were only two cars--Manton's, and one we later learned belonged to Phelps. The sole human being to enter our range of vision was an office boy. He skirted the side of the building as though the menace of death were in the air, or likely to strike out of the very heavens without warning. We found Kauf in the large studio, obviously unhappy in the shoes of the unfortunate Werner. Probably from half-reasoned-out motives of efficiency in psychology the new director had made no attempt to resume work at once in the ill-fated banquet set, but had turned to the companion ballroom setting, since both had been prepared and made ready at the same time. Kennedy explained our presence so early in the morning very neatly, I thought. "I would appreciate it," he began, "if you could place a cutter at the disposal of Mr. Mackay. He has the scenes taken from the camera and sealed at the time of Miss Lamar's death. I would like to have any other film taken out there delivered to him and the whole joined in proper sequence. Then, Mr. Kauf, if you could arrange to have the same cutter take the film exposed yesterday when Mr. Werner--" "You think you might be able to see something, to discover something on the screen?" "Exactly!" Kauf beamed. "Mr. Manton gave me orders to assist you in every way I could, or to put any of my people at your disposal. More than that, Mr. Kennedy, he anticipated you. He thought you might want to look at the scenes taken yesterday and he rushed the laboratory and the printing room. We'll be able to fix you up very quickly." "Good!" Kennedy nodded to Mackay and the district attorney hurried off with Kauf. "Now, Walter!" he exclaimed, sobering. I picked up the traveling bag and together we strolled toward the ballroom set. There most of the players were gathered already--in make-up and evening clothes of a fancier sort even than those demanded for the banquet. I saw that Kennedy singled out Marilyn. "Good morning," she said, cheerfully, but with effort. It was obvious she had spent a nervous night. There were circles under her eyes ill concealed by the small quantity of cosmetic she used. Her hands, shifting constantly, displayed the loss of her usual poise. "You are out bright and early," she added. "We've stumbled into a very important clue," Kennedy told her, with a show of giving her his confidence. "In that bag in Walter's hand is one of the studio towels. It contains a hint of the poison used to kill Miss Lamar and--of utmost consequence--it has provided me with an infallible clue to the identity of the murderer himself--or herself." It seemed to me that Marilyn blanched. "Where--where did you find it?" she demanded, in a very awed voice. "In one of the studio washrooms." "It has been--it has been in the washroom ever since poor Stella's death?" "No, not that! Jameson discovered it the same day but"--the very slight pause was perceptible to me; Kennedy hated to lie--"I haven't realized its importance until just this morning." Enid Faye, seeing us from a distance, conquered her dislike of Marilyn sufficiently to join us. She was very erect and tense. Her eyes, wide and sober and searching, traveled from my face to Kennedy's and back. Then she dissembled, softening as she came close to me, laying a hand on my shoulder and allowing her skirt to brush my trousers. "Tell me, Jamie," she whispered, her warm breath thrilling me through and through. "Has the wonderful Craig Kennedy discovered something?" It was not sarcasm, but assumed playfulness, masking a throbbing curiosity. "I found a towel in one of the studio washrooms," I answered, "and Craig has demonstrated that it is a clue to the poison which killed Stella Lamar as well as to the person who did it." Enid gasped. Then she drew herself up and her eyes narrowed. Now she faced Kennedy. "How can the towel be a clue to the crime?" she protested. "Stella was--was murdered way out in Tarrytown! Mr. Jameson found the towel here!" Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot tell you that--just yet." He paused deliberately. "You see," he lied. "I have yet to make my analysis." "But you know it's a clue to the--" "That towel"--he raised his voice, as though in elation--"that towel will lead me to the murderer--infallibly!" Merle Shirley had come up in time to hear most of the colloquy between Enid and Kennedy. At the last he flushed, clenching his fists. "If you can prove who the murderer is, Mr. Kennedy," he exploded, "why don't you apprehend him before some one else meets the fate of Werner?" "I can do nothing until I return to my laboratory this afternoon. I will not know the identity of the guilty person until I complete a chemical analysis." One by one the various people possibly concerned in the two crimes joined the group. This morning all the faces were serious; most of them showed the marks of sleeplessness following the second murder. Kennedy walked away, but I saw that Jack Gordon hastened to question both the girls, ignoring their evident dislike for him. Among the others I recognized Watkins, the camera man, and his associate. Lawrence Millard came in and hastened to the side of Enid. As he drew her away to ask the cause of the gathering I wondered at his early presence. The scenario writer was typical of them all. The strange and unusual nature of the crimes, the evident relationship between them, had drawn the employees of Manton Pictures to the studio as a crowd of baseball fans collects before a public bulletin board. Not one of them but was afraid of missing some development in the case. In no instance could the interest of a particular individual be taken as an indication of guilt. Phelps entered the studio from the door to the dressing rooms. Disdaining to join the other group, he approached us to ask the cause for the excitement. Kennedy explained, patiently, and I saw that Phelps looked at the black bag uneasily. "I hope the guilty party is not a member of the company," he muttered. "Why?" Kennedy's mouth tightened. The financier grew red. "Because this picture has been crippled enough. First a new star; now a new director--if it wasn't so preposterous I'd believe that it was all part of a deliberate--" He stopped as if realizing suddenly the inadvisability of vague accusations. "Don't you want justice done?" Kennedy inquired. "Of course!" Phelps tugged at his collar uncomfortably. "Of course, Mr. Kennedy." Then he turned and hurried away, out of the studio. Gordon and Millard detached themselves from the others, coming over. "In which washroom was the towel found, Mr. Kennedy?" Gordon put the question as though he felt himself specially delegated to obtain this information. I wondered how Kennedy would evade a direct answer. To my surprise he made no attempt at concealment. "The one on the second floor of the office building." Millard laughed, facing Gordon. "That puts it on myself--or the big boss!" It struck me that the leading man was uneasy as he hurried back to the others. Millard, still smiling, turned to say something to us, but we were joined by Manton, entering from the other end of the big inclosure. "Good morning," the promoter exclaimed, somewhat breathless. "I just learned you were here. Is--is there some new development. Is there something I can do?" "I see you are not allowing anything to interfere with the making of the picture," Kennedy remarked. "All the people seem to be here bright and early." A shadow crept into Manton's face. "It seems almost as cold-blooded as--as war," he admitted. "But I can't help myself, Mr. Kennedy. The company has no money and if we don't meet this release we're busted." All at once he lowered his voice eagerly. "Tell me, have you discovered something? Is there some clue to the guilty man?" "He's found a towel," Millard put in, an expression of half amusement on his face as he faced the promoter. "In some way it's a clue to the identity of the murderer, an infallible clue, he says. He found it in the washroom by our offices. Since Werner is dead, that points the finger of suspicion at you or me." Manton's jaw dropped. His expression became almost ludicrous, as if the thought that he could possibly be suspected himself was new to him. Millard's eyes sobered a bit at his superior's confusion. "There's a door from the dressing rooms," Kennedy suggested. "Any of the actors or actresses could have used the place." "Of course!" Manton grasped at the straw. "I had forgotten. There have been complaints to me about the players using that room." "I have the towel with me, wrapped up in a paper in this grip," Kennedy went on. "It's so very valuable as a bit of evidence--I wonder if I could borrow a locker so as to keep it under lock and key until we're ready to return to the laboratory?" "Sure! Of course!" Manton glanced about and saw the little knot of people still gathered in the set. "Millard! Go over and tell Kauf to get busy. He's losing time." Then he turned to us again. "Come on, Mr. Kennedy, we have some steel lockers out by the property room." As we started across the floor I could see that Kennedy was framing a question with great care. "Do you ever use snakes in films, Mr. Manton?" he asked. "Why, no!" The promoter stopped in his surprise. "That is, not if we ever can help it. The censorship won't pass anything with snakes." "You have used them, though?" "Yes. Once we made a short-length special subject, nothing but snakes." Manton became enthusiastic. "It was a wonder, too; a pet film of mine. We made it with the direct co-operation and supervision of the greatest authority on poisonous snakes in the country, Doctor Nagoya of Castleton Institute." XXVI A CIGARETTE CASE Kennedy's face betrayed only a remote interest. "Have you any copies of that particular film?" "Just the negative, I believe." "Could I have that for a few days?" "Of course!" Manton seemed to wish to give us every possible amount of co-operation; yet this request puzzled him. "Would you care to go down to the negative vaults with me?" Kennedy nodded. First we stopped in a lengthy corridor in the rear building, where there were no great signs of life. Through a door I could see a long room filled with ornaments, pictures, furniture, rugs, and all the vast freak collections of a property room. Along the side of the hallway itself was a line of steel lockers of recent design. Manton called out to an employee and he appeared after a long wait and unlocked one of them. At Kennedy's direction I put the traveling bag in the lower compartment, pocketing the key. Then we retraced our steps to broad steel stairs leading up and down. We descended to the basement and found ourselves in a high-ceilinged space immaculately clean and used generally for storage purposes. "The film vaults," Manton explained, "are at the corner of the west wing. They have to be ventilated specially, on account of the high inflammability of the celluloid composition. Since the greatest fire risk, otherwise, is the laboratory and printing departments, and next to that the studios themselves with the scenery, the heat of the lights, the wires, etc., we have located them in the most distant corner of the quadrangle. The negative, you see, represents our actual invested capital to a considerable extent. The prints wear out and frequently large sections are destroyed and have to be reprinted. Then sometimes we can reissue old subjects. All in all we guard the negative with the care a bank would give actual funds in its vaults." In our many visits to the Manton studios I had been struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of every part of the place. The impression of orderliness came back to me with redoubled force as we made our way around in the basement. Nothing seemed out of its proper position, although a vast amount of various material for picture making was stored here. We passed two projection rooms, one a miniature theater with quite a bit of comfort, the other small and bare for the use of directors and cutters. Finally we saw the vaults ahead of us. The walls were concrete, matching the actual walls of the basement. There were two entrances and the doors were double, of heavy steel, arranged so that an air space would give protection in case of fire. At a roll-top desk, arranged for the use of the clerk in charge of the negatives and prints, was a young boy. "Where's Wagnalls?" demanded Manton. "He went out, sir," the boy replied, respectfully enough. "Said he would be right back and for me to watch and not to let anything get out." The promoter led the way into the first room. Here on all four sides and in several rows down the center, like the racks in a public library, were shelves supporting stacks of square thin metal boxes or trays with handles and tightly fitting covers. Cards were secured to the front of each, by clamps, giving the name of the picture and the number under which the film was filed. I was surprised because I expected to find everything kept in ordinary round film cans. "These are the negatives," Manton explained. He pulled out a box at random, opening it. "The negative is not all spliced together, the same length as the reels of positive, because the printing machines are equipped to take two-hundred-foot pieces at a time, or approximate fifths of a reel, the size of a roll of raw positive film stock. Then whenever there is a change in color, as from amber daylight to blue tint for night, the negative is broken because pieces of different coloring have to go through different baths, and that also determines the size of the rolls. The prints, or positives, in the other vaults, are in reel lengths and so are kept in the round boxes in which they are shipped." Kennedy glanced about curiously. "The negative of that snake picture is here, you said?" Manton went to a little desk where there was a card index. Thumbing through the records, he found the number and led us to the proper place in the rack. In the box were only two rolls of negative, both were large. "This was a split reel," the promoter began. "It was approximately four hundred feet and we used it to fill out a short comedy, a release we had years ago, a reel the first part of which was educational and the last two-thirds or so a roaring slap-stick. We never made money on it. "But this stuff was mighty good, Mr. Kennedy. We practically wrote a scenario for those reptiles. Doctor Nagoya was down himself and for the better part of a day it wasn't possible to get a woman in the studio, for fear a rattler or something might get loose." "Were there rattlers in the film?" "Altogether, I think. The little Jap was interesting, too. Between scenes he told us all about the reptiles, and how their poison--" Manton checked himself, confused. Was it because the thought of poison reminded him of the two deaths so close to him, or was it from some more potent twinge of conscience? "You'll see it all in the film," he finished, lamely. "I may keep these for a little bit?" Kennedy asked. "Of course! I can have the two rolls printed and developed and dry sometime this afternoon, if you wish." "No, this will do very well." Kennedy slipped a roll in each pocket, straining the cloth to get them in. Manton opened a book on the little table, making an entry of the delivery of the rolls and adding his own initials. "I have to be very careful to avoid the loss of negative," he told us. "Nothing can be taken out of here except on my own personal order." I thought that Manton was very frank and accommodating. Surely he had made no effort to conceal his knowledge of this film made with Doctor Nagoya, and he had even mentioned the poison of the rattlesnakes. Though it had confused him for a brief moment, that had not struck me as a very decisive indication of guilty knowledge. After all, no one knew of the use of crotalin to kill Stella Lamar except the murderer himself, and Kennedy and those of us in his confidence. The murderer might not guess that Kennedy had identified the venom. Yet if Manton were that man he had covered his feelings wonderfully in telling us about the film. My thoughts strayed to the towel upstairs. Had an attempt been made yet to steal it from the locker? It seemed to me that we were losing too much time down here if we hoped to notice anyone with itching hands. I realized that Kennedy had been very clever in including all our suspects in hearing at the time he revealed the importance of the clue. Of the original nine listed by Mackay, Werner was dead and Mrs. Manton had never entered the case. Enid we had assumed to be the mysterious woman in Millard's divorce, however, and the other six had all been upon the floor in contact with Kennedy. First there was Marilyn, the woman. Then the five men in order had displayed a lively interest in the towel--Shirley, Gordon, Millard, Phelps, and Manton. Kennedy's voice roused me from my reverie. "Does this door lead through to the other vaults, Mr. Manton?" "Yes." The promoter straightened, after replacing the records of the negative. "I designed this system of storage myself and superintended every detail of construction. It is--" He checked himself with an exclamation, noticing that the door was open. With a flush of anger he slammed it shut. "I should think the connecting doors would be kept shut all the time," Kennedy remarked. "In case of fire only one compartment would be a loss." "That's the idea exactly! That's why I was on the point of swearing. The boys down here are getting lax and I'm going to make trouble." Manton turned back and called to the boy outside. "Where did you say Wagnalls went?" "I don't know, sir! Sometimes he goes across to McCann's for a cup of coffee, or maybe he went up to the printing department." Manton faced us once more. "If you'll excuse me just a moment I'm going to see who's responsible for this. Why," he sputtered, "if you hadn't called me around the rack I wouldn't have noticed that the door was open and then, if there had been a fire--I--I'll be right back!" As Manton stormed off Kennedy smiled slightly, then nodded for me to follow. We passed through into the rooms for positive storage. These in turn had fireproof connecting doors, all of which were open. In each case Kennedy closed them. Eventually we emerged into the main part of the basement through the farther vault door. Nothing of a suspicious nature had caught our attention. I guessed that Kennedy simply had wished to cover the carelessness of the vault man in leaving the inner doors wide open. At the entrance which had first admitted us to the negative room, however, Kennedy stooped suddenly. At the very moment he bent forward I caught the glint of something bright behind the heavy steel door, and in the shadow so that it had escaped us before. As he rose I leaned over. It was a cigarette case, a very handsome one with large initials engraved with deep skillful flourish. "Who is 'J. G.'?" Kennedy asked. I felt a quiver of excitement. "Jack Gordon, the leading man." "What's an actor doing down in the film vaults?" he muttered. Slipping the case into his pocket, he glanced about on the floor and something just within the negative room caught his eye. Once more he bent down. With a speculative expression he picked up the cork-tipped stub of a cigarette. At this instant Manton returned, breathing hard as though his pursuit of the missing Wagnalls had been very determined. The butt in Kennedy's fingers attracted his attention at once. "Did--did you find that here?" he demanded. Kennedy pointed. "Right there on the floor." "The devil!" Manton flushed red. "This is no place to smoke. By--by all the wives of Goodwin and all the stars of Griffith I'm going to start firing a few people!" he sputtered. "Here, sonny!" He jumped at the boy, frightening him. "Close all these doors and turn the combinations. Tell Wagnalls if he opens them before he sees me I'll commit battery on his nose." Kennedy continued to hold the stub, and as Manton preceded us up the stairs he hung back, comparing it with the few cigarettes left in the case. Unquestionably they were of the same brand. On the studio floor Mackay was waiting for us. Under his arm was a reel of film in a can. He clutched it almost fondly. "All ready!" he remarked, to Kennedy. Kennedy's face was unrevealing as he faced Manton. "This bit of film is valuable evidence also. I think perhaps it would be safer in that locker." "Anything at all we can do to help," stated Manton, promptly. "Shall I show you the way again?" I produced the key, handing it to Kennedy as the four of us arrived in the corridor by the property room. Kennedy slipped the bit of metal into the lock; then simulated surprise very well indeed. "The lock is broken!" he exclaimed. "Some one has been here." Apparently the traveling bag had been undisturbed as we took it out. Nevertheless, the paper containing the towel was gone. "This is no joke, Mr. Kennedy," protested Manton, in indignation. "Where can I hire about a dozen good men to hang around and watch--and--and help you get to the bottom of this?" Mackay, without releasing his grasp of the film, had been inspecting the broken lock. "Look at the way this was done!" he murmured, almost in admiration. "This wasn't the work of any roughneck. It--it was a dainty job!" XXVII THE FILM FIRE The bag lay open at my feet. The microscope and other paraphernalia brought by Kennedy were untouched. Taking the film from Mackay and placing the can in with the other things, Kennedy snapped the catch and turned to me as he straightened. "I think our evidence is safest in plain sight, Walter. We'll carry it about with us." Lloyd Manton seemed to be a genuinely unhappy individual. After some moments he excused himself, nervously anxious about the turn of affairs at the studio. Immediately I faced Kennedy and Mackay. "Manton's the only one who knew just where we put the bag," I remarked. "When he left us in the basement he had plenty of time to run up and steal the towel and return." "How about the itching salve?" "In his hurry he might have left the towel in the paper, intending to destroy it later." Kennedy frowned. "That's possible, Walter. I had not thought of that. Still"--he brightened--"I'm counting on human nature. I don't believe anyone guilty of the crime could have that towel in his possession, after the hints I have thrown out, without examining it so as to see what telltale mark or stain would be apt to betray his identity." "You can see that Manton's the logical man?" "It would be easy for anyone else to follow and observe us." "Then--?" "First of all we must keep an eye out for any person showing signs of the itching concoction. We must observe anyone with noticeably clean hands. Principally, however, another thing worries me." "What's that, Mr. Kennedy?" asked Mackay. "Walter and I found a cigarette case belonging to Jack Gordon in the basement; also a butt smoked three-quarters of the way down and left directly in the negative room. The fire doors between the different film vaults, which are arranged like the safety compartments in a ship, were all open. I want to know why Gordon was down there and--well, I seem to sense something wrong." "Good heavens! Craig," I interposed. "You don't attach any importance to the fact that those doors were open!" "Walter, in a case of real mystery the slightest derangement of matters of ordinary routine is a cause for suspicion." I had no answer, and as we re-entered the studio I devoted my attention to the various people we had tabulated as possible suspects, noticing that Kennedy and Mackay did likewise. Jack Gordon was in the ballroom scene in make-up. Kauf still was concerned with technical details of the set and lighting, and, although the cameras were set up, they were not in proper place, nor was either camera man in evidence. With Gordon was Enid. From a distance they seemed to be engaged in an argument of real magnitude. There was no mistaking the dislike on the part of each for the other. Marilyn was the most uneasy of all of the principals. She was pacing up and down, glancing about in frank distress of mind. I looked at her hands and saw that she had crushed a tube of grease paint in her nervousness. Not only her fingers were soiled, but there were streaks on her arms where she had smeared herself unconsciously. As we watched she left the studio, hurrying out the door without a backward glance. Marilyn, at least, showed no indications of the salve, nor of painfully recent acquaintance with water. Both Manton and Phelps were in evidence, decidedly so, I imagined, from, the viewpoint of poor Kauf. Manton, at the heels of his new director, was doing all he could to help. Phelps, following Manton about, seemed to be urging haste upon the promoter. The result was far from advantageous to picture making; it was concentrated distraction. Millard was poring over the manuscript, perched upon a chair the wrong way so that its back would serve as a desk, engaged busily in making changes here and there in the pages with a pencil. Like any author, it was never too late for minor improvements and suggestions. I don't doubt but that if Manton had permitted it, Millard would have been quite apt to interrupt a scene in the taking in order to add some little touch occurring to him as his action sprang to life in the interpretation of players and director. At any rate, his hands seemed more clean than those of either Manton or Phelps, proving nothing because he was at a task not so apt to bring him into contact with dirt. "Shirley is missing," observed the district attorney, in an undertone. Kennedy faced me. "Give the bag to Mackay, Walter. While he keeps an eye on the people up here we'll pay a visit to Shirley's dressing room, and after that go down to the basement again. I can't account for it--intuition, perhaps--but I'm sure something's wrong." The heavy man's dressing room, pointed out to us by some employee passing through the hall, was empty. I led the way into Marilyn's quarters, but again no one was about. In each case Kennedy made a quick visual search for the towel, without result. We did not dare linger and run the risk of giving away our trick; then, too, Kennedy was nervously anxious to look through the basement once more. "I don't understand your suspicion of the state of affairs in the film vaults," I confessed. "Why should Jack Gordon, the leading man, be down there?" he countered. "That--that really is a cause for suspicion, isn't it." "Now, Walter, think a bit!" We were crossing the yard, and so not apt to be overheard. "Granting that Gordon actually had been down there, why should the fact concern us? Manton explained that no negative or positive can be given out except upon order. There is nothing down there but film and so no other errand to bring the leading man to the vault except to get some scenes or pieces showing his own work, and that isn't likely." "Unless," I interrupted, "Gordon is the guilty man and wanted to get the snake film before we did." "How could that be? When we asked Manton about the Doctor Nagoya subject we went right down with him and procured it. I doubt anyone could have overheard us as we talked about it, in any case." "Remember, Craig, we went to the locker first and it was some little time before that fellow came out to unlock it and give us the key. And when you questioned Manton we were passing right by all of them. Any one could have heard the mention of the snake film." Kennedy frowned. "I believe you're right, Walter. Or it is possible that the guilty person believed that the scenes taken out at Tarrytown, or those taken when Werner died, revealed something and so would have to be stolen or destroyed, and that they were kept in the vault. It is even possible"--a gleam came into Kennedy's eyes--"it is even possible that the mind smart enough to reason out the damaging nature of the chemical analyses I was making, and clever enough to utilize an explosive bullet in an effort to destroy the fruits of my work, would also have the foresight to anticipate me and to realize that I might guess the existence of a film showing snakes and suggesting the use of venom." "It's damning to Gordon, all right," I said. "On the contrary, Walter." Kennedy lowered his voice as we entered the building across the quadrangle and descended stairs leading directly into the basement. "We have mentioned over and over again the cleverness of our unknown criminal. That man, or woman, never would drop a cigarette case with his or her initials and leave without it, nor smoke a cigarette in a place he, or she, was not supposed to be." "What then?" "It's a plant; a deliberate plant to throw suspicion upon Gordon." "Why upon Gordon?" "I don't know that, unless because Gordon is supposed to have the best possible motive for killing Miss Lamar--his money troubles--and so becomes the logical man to throw the guilt upon." "As a matter of fact, Craig, why should the finding of that cigarette case be a cause for suspicion at all? That's what I didn't understand before." "Ordinarily it wouldn't be. But those open inner doors, the absence of the man in charge--isn't it possible that we interrupted an attempt not only to search for the particular damaging pieces of film, but perhaps to destroy the whole? If some one acted between the time I asked Manton about the snake film and the moment we arrived in the basement to get it, that some one had to move very fast." "In which case it might have been Gordon, after all. The cigarette stub may have been thrown in lighted to start a fire. He may not have had time to pick up the case, not knowing just where he dropped it." Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. "It all shows the futility of trying to arrive at a conclusion without definite facts. That is where science is superior to deduction." "It's all a maze to me just now," I agreed. We made our way to the vaults in silence, and, to our surprise, found that they were closed and that even the boy was gone now. The cellar, as a whole, probably for the purpose of fire protection on a larger scale, was divided into sections corresponding to the units of the buildings above, and this time I noticed that the door through which we had arrived before was closed also. Had Manton taken fright in earnest at the possibility of fire, or had he given his employees a genuine scare? We retraced our steps to the yard, and there the alert eye of Kennedy detected a slinking figure just as a man darted into the protection of a doorway. It was Shirley. Had he been watching us? Was he connected in some way with the vague mystery Kennedy seemed to sense in connection with the basement and the film vaults? Kennedy led the way to the entrance where Shirley had disappeared. Here there was no sign of him; only steps leading up and down and the open door to a huge developing room. Returning to the yard, we caught a gesture from the chauffeur of a car standing near by and recognized McGroarty, the driver who had found the ampulla a few days previously. "Excuse me, Mr. Kennedy," he apologized, as we approached. "I should have come to you instead of making you two walk over to me, but it's less suspicious this way." "What do you mean?" "You recognize me, McGroarty, the chauffeur as found the little bottle?" Kennedy nodded. "Well, I says to myself I ought to tell you, but I don't like to because it might be nothing, you know!" "It might prove very valuable, McGroarty." Kennedy wanted to encourage him. "Well, I've been sitting here for an hour, I guess. One of the other directors is going out to-day and his people are late and so here I am. Well, I don't like the way the heavy man Mr. Werner had--" "Shirley? Merle Shirley?" I spoke up. "That's him! Well, he's been, hanging and snooping around that building over there, where you just saw him, for twenty minutes or more. I guess he's gone in and out of that basement a dozen times. I says to myself, maybe he's up to something. You know how it is?" Kennedy glanced at me significantly. Then he extended his hand to the chauffeur. "Again I thank you, McGroarty. As I said before, I won't forget you." "Now what?" I asked, as we drew away. "Shirley's dressing room, and the studio floor and Mackay." As we rather expected, the heavy man's quarters were deserted. I thought that Kennedy would stop now to make a careful search, but he seemed anxious to compare notes with the district attorney. "Nothing here," reported Mackay. "Shirley?" "Hasn't been a sign of him." I looked about the moment we arrived under the big glass roof. "Marilyn Loring?" I inquired. "She's been missing, too!" All at once Mackay grinned broadly. "You know, either there's no efficiency in making moving pictures at all, or these people have all gone more or less out of their heads as the result of the two tragedies. Look!" He pointed. "When you left me Phelps and Manton were stepping on each other's toes, trying to help that new director and about half driving him crazy; and now Millard seems to have figured out some new way of handling the action and he's over in the thick of it. It's worse than Bedlam, and better than a Chaplin comedy." I was compelled to smile, although I knew that this was not uncommon in picture studios. Manton, Phelps, Millard, and Kauf were in the center of the group, all talking at once. Clustered about I saw Enid and Gordon, both camera men, and a miniature mob of extra people. But as I looked little Kauf seemed to come to the end of his patience. In an instant or two he demonstrated real generalship. Shutting up Manton and the banker and Millard with a grin, but with sharp words and a quick gesture which showed that he meant it, he called to the others gathered about, clearing the set of all but Enid and Gordon. He sent the camera men to their places; then confronted Phelps and Manton and the scenario writer once more. We could not hear his words, but could see that he was asserting himself, was forcing a decision so that he could proceed with his work. This seemed uninteresting to me. I remembered my success in my visit to Werner's apartment, when I had essayed the role of detective. "Listen, Kennedy!" I suggested. "Suppose I go out by myself and see if I can locate Shirley or Marilyn. Everyone else is right here where you can--" At that instant a deafening explosion shook the studio and every building about the quadrangle, the sound echoing and re-echoing with the sharpness of a terrific thunderclap. Mixed with the reverberations, which were intensified by the high arch of the studio roof, were the screams of women and the frightened calls of men. Following immediately upon the first roar were the muffled sounds of additional explosions, persisting for a matter of ten to fifteen seconds. With every detonation the floor beneath our feet trembled and rocked. Several flats of scenery stacked against a wall at our rear toppled forward and struck the floor with a resounding whack, not unlike some gigantic slap-stick. One entire side of the banquet set, luckily unoccupied, fell inward and I caught the sound as the dainty gold chairs and fragile tables snapped and were crushed as so much kindling wood. Then--a fitting climax of destruction, withheld until this moment--there followed the terrifying snap of steel from above. An entire section of roof literally was popped from place, the result of false stresses in the beams created by the explosion. Upon the heads of the unlucky group in the center of the ballroom set came a perfect hailstorm of broken and shattered bits of heavy ground glass. For an instant, an exceedingly brief instant, there was the illusion of silence. The next moment the factory siren rose to a shrill shriek, with a full head of steam behind it--the fire call! Kennedy dashed over to the scene where those beneath the shower of glass lay, dazed and uncertain of the extent of their own injuries. "Where are the first-aid kits?" he shouted. "Bring cotton and bandages, and--and telephone for a doctor, an ambulance!" It seemed to me that Kennedy had never been so excited. Mackay and I, at his heels, and some of the others, unhurt, hurriedly helped the various victims to their feet. Then we realized that by some miracle, some freak of fate, no one had been hurt seriously. Already a property boy was at Kennedy's side with a huge box marked prominently with the red cross. Inside was everything necessary and Kennedy started to bind up the wounds with all the skill of a professional physician. "Mackay," he whispered, "hurry and get me some envelopes, or some sheets of paper, anything--quick!" And to me, before I could grasp the reason for that puzzling request: "Don't let anyone slip away, Walter. No matter what happens, I must bind up these wounds myself." A few moments later I understood what Kennedy was up to. As he finished with each victim he took some bit of cotton or gauze with which he had wiped their cuts, enough blood to serve him in chemical analysis, and handed it to Mackay. The district attorney, very unobtrusively, slipped each sample into a separate envelope, sealing it, and marking it with a hieroglyph which he would be able to identify later. In this fashion Kennedy secured blood smears of Manton and Phelps, Millard and Kauf and Enid, Gordon, the two camera men, and a scene shifter. I smiled to myself. Meanwhile a bitter, acrid odor penetrated through the windows and to every part of the structure, the odor of burning film, an odor one never forgets to fear. All those uninjured in the explosions had rushed out to see the fire, or else to escape from any further danger, the moment they recovered their wits. Manton, only cut at the wrist, and impatient as Kennedy cleaned, dusted, and bound the wound, was the first to receive attention. "The vaults!" he called, to the men who seemed disposed to linger about. "For God's sake get busy!" The next instant he was gone himself. Enid was cut on the head. Tears streamed from her eyes as she clung to Kennedy's coat, trembling. "Will it make a scar?" she sobbed. "Will I be unable to act before the camera any more?" He reassured her. In the case of Millard, who had several bad scalp wounds, he advised a trip to a doctor, but the scenario writer laughed. Phelps was yellow. It seemed to me that he whimpered a bit. Gordon was disposed to swear cheerfully, although a point of glass had penetrated deep in his shoulder and another piece had gashed him across the forehead. Finally Kennedy was through. He packed the little envelopes in the bag, still in the possession of Mackay, and added the two rolls of film from his pocket. Then, for the first time, he locked it. As he straightened, his eyes narrowed. "Now for Shirley," he muttered. "And Marilyn," I added. XXVIII THE PHOSPHORUS BOMB We rushed out into the courtyard, Kennedy in the lead, Mackay trailing with the bag. Here there were dense clouds of fine white suffocating smoke mixed with steam, and signs of the utmost confusion on every hand. Because Manton, fortunately, had trained the studio staff through frequent fire drills, there was a semblance of order among the men actually engaged in fighting the spread of the blaze. Any attempt to extinguish the conflagration in the vault itself was hopeless, however, and so the workers contented themselves with pouring water into the basement on either side, to keep the building and perhaps the other vaults cool, and with maintaining a constant stream of chemical mixture from a special apparatus down the ventilating system into and upon the smoldering film. The studio fire equipment seemed to be very complete. There was water at high pressure from a tank elevated some twenty to thirty feet above the uppermost roof of the quadrangle. In addition Manton had invested in the chemical engine and also in sand carts, because water aids rather than retards the combustion of film itself. I noticed that the promoter was in direct charge of the fire-fighters, and that he moved about with a zeal and a recklessness which ended for once and all in my mind the suspicion that Phelps might be correct and that Manton sought to wreck this company for the sake of Fortune Features. In an amazingly quick space of time the thing was over. When the city apparatus arrived, after a run of nearly three miles, there was nothing for them to do. The chief sought out Manton, to accompany him upon an inspection of the damage and to make sure that the fire was out. The promoter first beckoned to Kennedy. "This is unquestionably of incendiary origin," he explained to the chief. "I want Mr. Kennedy to see everything before it is disturbed, so that no clue may be lost or destroyed." The fire officer brightened. "Craig Kennedy?" he inquired. "Gee! there must be some connection between the blaze and the murder of Stella Lamar and her director. I've been reading about it every day in the papers." "Mr. Jameson of the Star," Kennedy said, presenting me. We found we could not enter the basement immediately adjoining the vaults--that is, directly from the courtyard--because it seemed advisable to keep a stream of water playing down the steps, and a resulting cloud of steam blocked us. Manton explained that we could get through from the next cellar if it was not too hot, and so we hurried toward another entrance. Mackay, who had remained behind to protect the bag from the heat, joined us there. "I've put the bag in charge of that chauffeur, McGroarty, and armed him with my automatic," he explained. He paused to wipe his eyes. The fumes from the film had distressed all of us. "Shirley and Marilyn Loring are both missing still," he added. "I've been asking everyone about them. No one has seen them." The fire chief looked up. "Everyone is out? You are sure everybody is safe?" "I had Wagnalls at my elbow with a hose," Manton replied. "I saw the boy around, also. No one else had any business down there and the vaults were closed and the cellar shut off." The door leading from the adjoining basement was hot yet, but not so that we were unable to handle it. However, the catch had stuck and it took considerable effort to force it in. As we did so a cloud of acrid vapor and steam drove us back. Then Kennedy seemed to detect something in the slowly clearing atmosphere. He rushed ahead without hesitation. The fire chief followed. In another instant I was able to see also. The form of a woman, dimly outlined in the vapor, struggled to lift the prone figure of a man. After one effort she collapsed upon him. I dashed forward, as did Mackay and Manton. Two of them carried the girl out to the air; the other three of us brought her unconscious companion. It was Marilyn and Shirley. The little actress was revived easily, but Shirley required the combined efforts of Kennedy and the chief, and it was evident that he had escaped death from suffocation only by the narrowest of margins. How either had survived seemed a mystery. Their clothes were wet, their faces and hands blackened, eyebrows and lashes scorched by the heat. But for the water poured into the basement neither would have been alive. They had been prisoners during the entire conflagration, the burning vault holding them at one end of the basement, the door in the partition resisting their efforts to open it. "Thank heaven he's alive!" were Marilyn's first words. "How did you get in the cellar?" Kennedy spoke sternly. "I thought he might be there." Now that the reaction was setting in, the girl was faint and she controlled herself with difficulty. "I was looking for him and as soon as I heard the first explosion I ran down the steps into the film-vault entrance--I was right near there--and I found him, stunned. I started to lift him, but there were other explosions almost before I got to his side. The flames shot out through the cracks in the vault door and I--I couldn't drag him to the steps; I had to pull him back where you found us." She began to tremble. "It--it was terrible!" "Was there anyone else about, anyone but Mr. Shirley?" "No. I--I remember I wondered about the vault man." "What was Mr. Shirley down there for, Miss Loring?" "He"--she hesitated--"he said he had seen some one hanging around and--and he didn't want to report anything until he was sure. He--he thought he could accomplish more by himself, although I told him he was--was wrong." "Whom did he see hanging around?" "He wouldn't tell me." Shirley was too weak to question and the girl too unstrung to stand further interrogation. In response to Manton's call several people came up and willingly helped the two toward the comfort of their dressing rooms. At the fire chief's suggestion the stream of water into the basement was cut off. Manton led the way, choking, eyes watering, to the front of the vaults. Feverishly he felt the steel doors and the walls. There was no mistaking the conclusion. The negative vault was hot, the others cold. "The devil!" Manton exclaimed. A deep poignancy in his voice made the expression childishly inadequate. "Why couldn't it have been the prints!" Suddenly he began to sob. "That's the finish. Not one of our subjects can ever be worked again. It's a loss of half a million dollars." "If you have positives," Kennedy asked, "can't you make new negatives?" "Dupes?" Manton looked up in scorn. "Did you ever see a print from a dupe negative? It's terrible. Looks like some one left it out in the wet overnight." "How about the 'Black Terror'?" I inquired. "All of that's in the safe in the printing room; that and the two current five reelers of the other companies. We won't lose our releases, but"--again there was a catch in his voice--"we could have cleared thousands and thousands of dollars on reissues. All--all of Stella's negative is gone, too!" To my amazement he began to cry, without attempt at concealment. It was something new to me in the way of moving-picture temperament. "First they kill her and now--now they destroy the photographic record which would have let her live for those who loved her. The"--his voice trailed away to the merest whisper as he seemed to collapse against the hot smoked wall--"the devil!" The fire chief took charge of the job of breaking into the vault. First Wagnalls attempted to open the combination of the farther door, but the heat had put the tumblers out of commission. Returning to the entrance of the negative vault itself, the thin steel, manufactured for fire rather than burglar protection, was punctured and the bolts driven back. A cloud of noxious fumes greeted the workers and delayed them, but they persisted. Finally the door fell out with a crash and men were set to fanning fresh air into the interior while a piece of chemical apparatus was held in readiness for any further outbreak of the conflagration. Manton regained control of himself in time to be one of the first to enter. Mackay held back, but the fire chief, the promoter, Kennedy, and myself fashioned impromptu gasmasks of wet handkerchiefs and braved the hot atmosphere inside the room. The damage was irremediable. The steel frames of the racks, the cheaper metal of the boxes, the residue of the burning film, all constituted a hideous, shapeless mass clinging against the sides and in the corners and about the floor. Only one section of the room retained the slightest suggestion of its original condition. The little table and the boxes of negative records, the edges of the racks which had stood at either side, showed something of their former shape and purpose. This was directly beneath the ventilating opening. Here the chemical mixture pumped in to extinguish the fire had preserved them to that extent. All at once Kennedy nudged the fire chief. "Put out your torch!" he directed, sharply. In the darkness there slowly appeared here and there on the walls a ghostly bluish glow persisting in spite of the coating of soot on everything. Kennedy's keen eye had caught the hint of it while the electric torch had been flashed into some corner and away for a moment. "Radium!" I exclaimed, entirely without thought. Kennedy laughed. "Hardly! But it is phosphorus, without question." "What do you make of that?" The fire chief was curious. "Let's get out!" was Kennedy's reply. Indeed, it was almost impossible for us to keep our eyes open, because of the smarting, and, more, the odor was nauseating. A guard was posted and in the courtyard, disregarding the curious crowd about, Kennedy asked for Wagnalls and began to question him. "When did you close the vaults?" "About two hours before the fire. Mr. Manton sent for me." "Was there anything suspicious at that time?" "No, sir! I went through each room myself and fixed the doors. That's why the fire was confined to the negatives." "Have you any idea why the doors were open when we went through?" "No, sir! I left them shut and the boy I put there while I went over to McCann's said no one was near. He"--Wagnalls hesitated. "Once he went to sleep when I left him there. Perhaps he dozed off again." "Why did you leave? Why go over to McCann's in business hours?" "We'd worked until after midnight the night before. I had to open up early and so I figured I'd have my breakfast in the usual morning slack time--when nothing's doing." "I see!" Kennedy studied the ground for several moments. "Do you suppose anyone could have left a package in there--a bomb, in other words?" Wagnalls's eyes widened, but he shook his head. "I'd notice it, sir! If I do say it, I'm neat. I generally notice if a can has been touched. They don't often fool me." "Well, has any regular stuff been brought to you to put away; anything which might have hidden an explosive?" Again Wagnalls shook his head. "I put nothing away or give nothing out except on written order from Mr. Manton. Anything coming in is negative and it's in rolls, and I rehandle them because they're put away in the flat boxes. I'd know in a minute if a roll was phony." "You're sure nothing special--" "Holy Jehoshaphat!" interrupted Wagnalls. "I'd forgotten!" He faced Manton. "Remember that can of undeveloped stuff, a two-hundred roll?" He turned to Kennedy, explaining. "When negative's undeveloped we keep it in taped cans. Take off the tape and you spoil it--the light, you know. Mr. Manton sent down this can with a regular order, marking on it that some one had to come to watch it being developed--in about a week. Of course I didn't open the can or look in it. I put it up on top of a rack." "When was this?" "About four days ago--the day Miss Lamar was killed." The expression on Manton's face was ghastly. "I didn't send down any can to you, Wagnalls," he insisted. "It was your writing, sir!" Kennedy rose. "What did you do with orders like that, such as the one you claim came with the can of undeveloped negative?" "Put them on the spindle on that table in the vault." "Wet your handkerchief and come show me." When they returned Kennedy had the spindle in his hand, the charred papers still in place. This was one of the items preserved in part by the chemical spray through the ventilating opening above. "Can you point out which one it is?" Kennedy asked. "Let's see!" Wagnalls scratched his head. "Next to the top," he replied, in a moment. "Miss Lamar's death upset everything. Only one order came down after that." With extreme care Kennedy took his knife and lifted the ashy flakes of the top order. "Get me some collodion, somebody!" he exclaimed. Wagnalls jumped up and hurried off. The fire chief leaned forward. "Do you think, Mr. Kennedy, that the little can he told you about started the fire?" "I'm sure of it, although I'll never be able to prove it." "How did it work?" "Well, I imagine a small roll of very dry film was put in to occupy a part of the space. Film is exceedingly inflammable, especially when old and brittle. In composition it is practically guncotton and so a high explosive. In this recent war, I remember, the Germans drained the neutral countries of film subjects until we woke up to what they were doing, while in this country scrap film commanded an amazing price and went directly into the manufacture of explosives. Then I figure that a quantity of wet phosphorus was added, to fill the can, and that then the can was taped. The tape, of course, is not moisture proof entirely. With the dampness from within it would soften, might possibly fall off. In a relatively short time the phosphorus would dry and burn. Immediately the film in the can would ignite. As happened, it blew up, a minor explosion, but enough to scatter phosphorus everywhere. That, in the fume-laden air of the vault--there are always fumes in spite of the best ventilation system made--caused the first big blast and started all the damage." Mackay had rejoined us in time to hear the explanation. "Ingenious," he murmured. "As ingenious as the methods used to murder the girl and her director." Breathless, Wagnalls returned with the collodion. We watched curiously as Kennedy poured it over the charred remains of the second order on the spindle. It seemed almost inconceivable that the remnants of the charred paper would even support the weight of the liquid, yet Kennedy used it with care, and slowly the collodion hardened before us, creating a tough transparent coating which held the tiny fibers of the slip together. At the same time the action of the collodion made the letters on the order faintly visible and readable. "A little-known bank trick!" Kennedy told us. Then he held the slip up to the light and the words were plain. Wagnalls had been correct. The order from Manton was unmistakable. The can was to be kept in the negative vault for a week without being opened, until a certain party unnamed was to come to watch the development of the film. The promoter wet his lips, uneasily. "I--I never wrote that! It--it's my writing, all right, and my signature, but it's a forgery!" XXIX MICROSCOPIC EVIDENCE Kennedy made some efforts to preserve the forged order which he had restored with the collodion, but I could see that he placed no great importance upon its possession. Gradually the yard of the studio had cleared of the employees, who had returned to their various tasks. Under the direction of one stout individual who seemed to possess authority the fire apparatus had been replaced in a portable steel garage arranged for the purpose in a farther corner, and now several men were engaged in cleaning up the dirt and litter caused in the excitement. Except in the basement there were few signs of the blaze. Manton accompanied the fire chief to his car, then hurried up into the building without further notice of us. Mackay went to McGroarty's machine to claim the traveling bag containing our evidence. Kennedy and I started for the dressing rooms. "I want to get blood smears of Shirley and Marilyn," he confided in a low voice. "I shall have to think of some pretext." Neither of the two we sought were in their quarters and so we continued on into the studio. Here we found Kauf at work; at least he was engaged in a desperate attempt to get something out of his people. "Ye gods, Gordon!" we heard him exclaim, as we made our way through the debris of the banquet set to the ballroom now dazzlingly bright under the lights. "What if you do have to wear a bandage around your head? It's a masked ball, isn't it? You've got a monk's cowl over everything but your features, haven't you?" It struck me that the faces had never been more ghastly, although my reason convinced me it was simply the usual effect of the Cooper-Hewitt tubes. But there was no question but that the explosion had given everyone a bad fright, that not an actress or actor but would have preferred to have been nearly anywhere else but under the heat of the glass roof, now a constant reminder of the accident because of the gaping hole directly above them. Marilyn was in the center of the revelers in the set, already in costume. Shirley I saw close to the camera men, standing uneasily on shaky legs, shielding his eyes with one hand while he clung to a massive sideboard for support with the other. He had not yet donned his carnival clothes, nor essayed to put on a make-up. Enid Faye, the only one in sight whose spirits seemed to have rallied at all, was offering him comfort of a sort. "You'll get by, all right, Merle, if you can keep on your pins, and I'll say you deserve credit for trying it. There's"--she stepped back a bit to study him--"there's just one thing. Your eyes show the result of all that smoke and vapor--no color or luster at all. I--I wonder if belladonna wouldn't brighten them up a bit and--well, get you by, for to-day?" "I'll go out and get some at lunch." He smiled weakly. "I'll try anything once." "That's the spirit!" She patted him on the shoulder, then danced on into the center of the set, stopping to direct some barbed remark at Marilyn. Kauf took his megaphone to call his people around him. There seemed to be a certain essential competence about the little man, now that Manton and Phelps and Millard were not about to bother him. While we watched he succeeded in photographing one of the full shots of the general action or atmosphere of the dance. Then he hurried to the side of Shirley, to see if the heavy man felt equal to the task of resuming his make-up once more. I found the time dragging heavy on my hands and I wished that Kennedy would return to the laboratory or decide upon some definite action. Though I racked my brain, I failed to think of a device whereby Kennedy could get blood smears of Shirley or Marilyn without their knowledge. Once more my reflections veered around to the matter of the stolen towel and I wondered if that had been wasted effort on Kennedy's part; if the fire had thrown out his carefully arranged plans to trap whoever took it. Suddenly I realized that Kennedy was following a very definite procedure, that his seeming indifference, his apparent idle curiosity concerning the scene taking, masked a settled purpose. When Phelps entered he approached him casually and turned to him with skilled nonchalance, holding up a finger. "Will you lend me a pocket knife for a moment?" he asked, "to get a hang-nail?" Phelps produced one, rather grudgingly. Kennedy promptly went over to the window, as though seeking better light. Thereafter he avoided Phelps. Soon the banker had forgotten the incident. Some time later Manton rushed in from the office. Kennedy maneuvered his way to the promoter's side and waited his chance to borrow that man's pocket knife under conditions when Manton would be the least apt to remember it. Then he made his way around to Mackay and I saw that both the acquisitions went into little envelopes of the sort used to take the blood smears after the explosion and falling glass. Kennedy now seemed rather elated. Millard entered and he borrowed the scenario writer's knife in exactly the same fashion as the others. No one of the three men noticed his loss. I thought it lucky that all three carried the article, and tried to guess how far Kennedy intended to carry this little scheme. Kauf's announcement of lunch gave me my answer. It seemed that there would be just half an hour and that the entire cast was expected to make shift at McCann's rather than attempt to go to any better place at a greater distance. Immediately Kennedy turned to me. "Hurry, Walter! Twenty minutes' quick work and then it's the laboratory and the solution of this mystery." With Mackay and the bag we stole to the dressing rooms, waiting until sure that everyone was downstairs. In Enid's chamber Kennedy glanced about carefully but swiftly. When nothing caught his attention he picked up her finger-nail file, gingerly, from the blunt end, slipping it into one of the little envelopes which Mackay held open. Thereupon the district attorney put his identifying mark upon the outside and we went to the next room. It proved to be Gordon's. The general search was barren of result, but the dressing table yielded another finger-nail file, handled in the same manner as before. Then we entered Marilyn's room and left with the file from her dressing stand. In Shirley's quarters, the last we visited, we were in greater luck, however. While Kennedy and Mackay abstracted the usual file, I discovered some bits of tissue paper used in shaving. There was caked soap left to dry just as it had been wiped from the razor. More, there was a blood stain of fair proportions. "Here's your smear, Kennedy," I exclaimed. "Good! Fine!" He faced Mackay. "Now I lack just one thing, a sample of the blood of Miss Loring." "Is that all?" The district attorney brightened. "Let me try to get it! I--I'll manage it in some way!" "All right!" Kennedy took the bag. "Explain your marks so I'll know--" He stopped suddenly. "No, don't tell me anything. I'll make my chemical analyses and microscopic examinations without knowing the identity in the case either of the blood samples or the finger-nail files. If I obtain results by both methods, and they agree, I'll return armed with double-barreled evidence. Meanwhile, Mackay, you get a smear from Miss Loring and follow us to the laboratory. I'll coax McGroarty to drive us down, so you'll have your car and you can bring us back." The district attorney nodded. "Me for McCann's," he muttered. "That's where she went to eat." He rushed off eagerly. Kennedy had no difficulty persuading McGroarty to put his particular studio car at our disposal without an order from Manton or from the director who had called him. In a very brief space of time we were at the laboratory. "You expect to find the blood of one of those people showing traces of the antivenin?" I grasped Kennedy's method of procedure, but wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. Already I was blocking out the detailed article for the Star, the big scoop which that paper should have as a result of my close association with Kennedy on the case. "One of those samples should correspond, I suppose, to the trace of blood on the portieres?" "Exactly!" He answered me rather absently, being concerned in setting out the apparatus he would need for a hasty series of tests. "Will the antivenin show in the blood after four, perhaps five days?" "I should say so, Walter. If it does not, by any chance, I will be able to identify the blood, but that is much more involved and tedious--a great deal more actual work." "I've got it straight, then. Now--" I paced up and down several times. "The finger-nail files should show a trace of the itching salve? Is that correct, Craig?" For a moment he didn't answer, as his mind was upon his paraphernalia. Then he straightened. "Hardly, Walter! The salve is soluble in water. What I shall find, if anything, is some of the fibers of the towel. You see, a person's finger nails are great little collectors of bits of foreign matter, and anyone handling that rag is sure to show some infinitesimal trace for a long while afterward. If the person stealing the towel filed or cleaned his nails there will be evidence of the fibers on his pocket knife or finger-nail file. I impregnated the towel with that chemical so that I would be able to identify the fibers positively." "The use of the itching salve was unnecessary?" A quizzical smile crept across Kennedy's face. "Did you think I expected some one to go walking around the studio scratching his hands? Did you imagine I thought the guilty party would betray his or her identity in such childish fashion, after all the cleverness displayed in the crimes themselves?" "But you were insistent that I rub in the--" "To force them to wash their hands after touching the towel, Walter." "Oh!" I felt rather chagrined. "Wouldn't some pigment, some color, have served the purpose better?" "No, because anyone would have understood that and would have taken the proper measures to remove all traces. But the itching salve served two purposes. It was misleading, because obviously a trap upon reflection, and so it would distract attention from the impregnated fibers, my real scheme. Then it was the best device of all I could think of, for it set up a local irritation of the sort most calculated to make a person clean his finger nails. The average man and woman is not very neat, Walter. I was not sure but a scientific prodding was necessary to transfer my evidence to some object I could borrow and examine under a microscope." Meanwhile Kennedy's long fingers were busy at the preliminary operations in his tests. He turned away and I asked no more questions, not wishing to delay him. I noticed that first he examined the blood samples under the microscope. Afterward he employed a spectroscope. But none of the operations took any great amount of time, since he seemed to anticipate his results. Mackay burst in upon us, very elated, and produced a handkerchief with a bit of blood upon it. "I scratched her deliberately with the sharp point of my ring," he chuckled. "I found her in the restaurant and the seat beside her was empty. I--I talked about everything under the sun and I guess she thinks I'm a clumsy boob! Anyhow she cried out when I did it, and got red in the face for a moment; but she suspects nothing." Kennedy cut the spot from the handkerchief, put it in an envelope, and turned back to his table. I drew Mackay into the corner. As the minutes sped by and Craig worked in absorbed concentration, Mackay grew more and more impatient to get back to the studio. "Did you find anything?" repeated Mackay, for the tenth time. With a gesture of annoyance, Kennedy reached out for the nail files. "This is a grave matter," he frowned. "I must check it up--and double check it--then I'm going back to the studio to triple check it. Let me see what the nail files reveal. It will be a bare ten minutes more." Insisting that we remain back in the corner, he spread out the four nail files and the open blades of the three pocket knives, setting each upon the envelope which identified it. The next quarter of an hour seemed interminable. Finally Kennedy started replacing the files and the pocket knives in their envelopes, his face still wearing the inscrutable frown. Next he packed the blood samples and other evidence in the traveling bag once more. Mackay was bursting with impatience, but Craig still refused to betray his suspicions. "I must get back there--quick," he hastened. "I want everybody in the projection room. In court, a jury might not grasp the infallibility of the methods I've used. There would be a great deal of medical and expert testimony required--and you know, Mackay, what that means." "Is it a man--or a woman you suspect?" persisted the district attorney. "Three of the men had pocket knives and--" Kennedy led the way to the door without answering, and Mackay cut short his hopeless quizzing as Craig nodded to me to carry the bag. XXX THE BALLROOM SCENE Sounds of music caught our ears as we entered the studio courtyard of Manton Pictures. Carrying the bag with its indisputable proof of some person's guilt, we made our way through the familiar corridor by the dressing rooms, out under the roof of the so-called large studio. There a scene of gayety confronted us, in sharp contrast with the gloomy atmosphere of the rest of the establishment. Kauf, however, had thoroughly demonstrated his genius as a director. To counteract the depression caused by all the recent melodramatic and tragic happenings, he had brought in an eight-piece orchestra, establishing the men in the set itself so as to get full photographic value from their jazz antics. Where Werner and Manton had dispensed with music, in a desperate effort at economy, Kauf had realized that money saved in that way was lost through time wasted with dispirited people. It was a lesson learned long before by other companies. In other studios I had seen music employed in the making of soberly dramatic scenes, solely as an aid to the actors, enabling them to get into the atmosphere of their work more quickly and naturally. Under the lights the entire set sparkled with a tawdry garishness apt to fool those uninitiated into the secrets of photography. On the screen, colors which now seemed dull and flat would take on a soft richness and a delicacy characteristic of the society in which Kauf's characters were supposed to move. Obviously fragile scenery would seem as heavy and substantial as the walls and beams of the finest old mansion. Even the inferior materials in the gowns of most of the girls would photograph as well as the most expensive silk; in fact, by long experience, many of the extra girls had learned to counterfeit the latest fashions at a cost ridiculous by comparison. Kennedy approached Kauf, then returned to us. "He asks us to wait until he gets this one big scene. It's the climax of the picture, really, the unmasking of the 'Black Terror.' If we interrupt now he loses the result of half a day of preparation." "He may lose more than that!" muttered Mackay; and I wondered just whom the district attorney suspected. "Is everyone here?" I asked. "All seven?" Gordon and Shirley, of the men, and Marilyn and Enid, of course, were out on the floor of the supposed ballroom. Gordon I recognized because I remembered that he was to wear the garb of a monk. Marilyn was easily picked out, although the vivacity she assumed seemed unnatural now that we knew her as well as we did. Her costume was a glorious Yama Yama creation, of a faint yellow which would photograph dazzling white, revealing trim stockinged ankles and slender bare arms, framing face and eyes dancing with merriment and maliciousness. Unquestionably she was the prettiest girl beneath the arcs, never to be suspected as the woman who had braved the terrors of a film fire to rescue the man she loved. Enid was stately and serene in the gown of Marie Antoinette. In the bright glare her features took on a round innocence and she was as successful in portraying sweetness as Marilyn was in the simulation of the mocking evil of the vampire. Shirley interested me the most, however. I wondered if Kennedy still eliminated him in guessing at the identity of the criminal. I called to mind the heavy man's presence in the basement at the time of the explosion and McGroarty's information that he had been hanging about that part of the studio for some time previously. Some one had planted a cigarette case and stub to implicate Gordon, according to Kennedy's theory. Shirley certainly had had opportunity to steal the towel from the locker as well as to point suspicion toward the leading man. In the midst of my reverie Shirley approached and passed us. He was in the garb of Mephisto. Like the others, he had not yet masked his face. A peculiar brightness in his eyes struck me and I nudged Kennedy. "Belladonna," Kennedy explained when he was beyond earshot. "Oh!" I remembered. "Enid told him to use it." "What?" I repeated the conversation as near as I could reconstruct it. "H-m! That's a new cure for smoke-burned eyes; no cure at all." I was unable to get any more out of Kennedy, however. Manton I detected in the background with Phelps. The two men were arguing, as always, and it was evident that the banker was accomplishing nothing by this constant hanging about the studio. Where previously my sympathy had been with Phelps entirely, now I realized that the promoter had won me. Indeed, Manton's interest in all the affairs of picture making at this plant had been far too sincere and earnest to permit the belief that he was seeking to wreck the company or to double-cross his backer. Millard entered the studio as I glanced about for him. He handed some sheets to Kauf, then turned to leave. I attracted Kennedy's attention. "You don't want Millard to get away," I whispered. Kennedy sent Mackay to stop him. The author accompanied the district attorney willingly. "Yes, Mr. Kennedy?" "As soon as this scene is over we're going down to the projection room; everyone concerned in the death of Miss Lamar and of Mr. Werner." The scenario writer looked up quickly. "Do you--do you know who it is?" he asked, soberly. "Not exactly, but I will identify the guilty person just as soon as we are assembled down in front of the screen." Shirley had left the studio floor, apparently to go to his dressing room. Now I noticed that he returned and passed close just in time to hear Millard's question and Kennedy's answer. His eyes dilated. As he turned away his face fell. He went on into the set, but his legs seemed to wabble beneath him. I was sure it was more than the weakness resulting from his experience in the fire. Kauf's voice, through the megaphone, echoed suddenly from wall to wall, reverberating beneath the roof. "All ready! Everyone in the set! Masks on! Take your places!" At a signal the orchestra struck up and the couples started to dance. It was a wonderfully colorful scene and I saw that Kauf proposed to rehearse it thoroughly, doing it over and over without the cameras until every detail reached a practiced perfection. In this I was certain he achieved results superior to Werner's slap, dash, and bang. Then came the call for action. "Camera!" Kauf began to bob up and down. "Into it, everybody!" For fascination and charm this far exceeded the banquet scene which we had witnessed in the taking previously. The music was surprisingly good, so that it was impossible for the people not to get into the swing, and the result was a riotous swirling of gracefully dancing pairs; the girls, selected for their beauty, flashing half-revealed faces toward the camera, displaying eyes which twinkled through their masks in mockery at a wholly ineffectual attempt at concealment. Enid maintained her stately carriage, but made full use of the dazzling whiteness of her teeth. Early she permitted the attentions of the cowled monk whom she knew to be her lover. Marilyn was everywhere, making mischief the best she could. Shirley stalked about in his satanic red, which would photograph black and appear even more somber on the screen. Of course the whole was not photographed in a continuous strip from one camera position. I saw that Kauf made several long shots to catch the general atmosphere. Then he made close-up scenes of all the principals and of some of the best appearing extras. At one time he ordered a panorama effect, in which the cameras "panned," swept from one side to the other, giving a succession of faces at close range. Finally everything was ready for the climax. Shirley had been playing a sort of Jekyll and Hyde role in which he was at once the young lawyer friend of Enid and the Black Terror. Unmasked and cornered at this function of a society terrified by the dread unknown menace, he was to make the transformation directly before the eyes of everyone, using the mythical drug which changed him from a young man of good appearance and family to the being who was a very incarnation of evil. For once Kauf did not rehearse the scene. Shirley was obviously weakened from his experience and the director wished to spare him. All the details were shouted out through the megaphone, however, and I grasped that the action of this part of the dance was familiar to everyone; it was the big scene of the story toward which all other events had built. Then came the familiar order. "Camera!" At the start of this episode the orchestra was playing and the dancers were in motion. Suddenly Gordon, as the hero, strode up to Shirley and unmasked him with a few bitter words which later would be flashed upon the screen in a spoken title. Instantly a crowd gathered about, but in such a way as not to obstruct the camera view. Cornered, seeing that flight was impossible unless he became the Black Terror and possessed the strength and fearlessness of that strange other self, Shirley drew a little vial from his breast pocket and drank the contents. Evidently he knew his Mansfield well. Slowly he began to act out the change in his appearance which corresponded with the assumption of control by the evil within. His body writhed, went through contortions which were horrible yet fascinating. It was almost as though a new fearful being was created within sight of the onlookers. Not only was the face altered, but the man's stature seemed to shrink, to lose actual inches. I thought it a wonderful exhibition. The very next instant there came a groan from Shirley, something which at once indicated pain and realization and fear. He lost all control of himself and in a moment pitched forward upon the floor, sputtering and clutching at the empty air. Another cry broke from between his lips, a ghastly contracted shriek as treble as though from the throat of a woman. This was no part of the story, no skillful bit of acting! It was real! Even before I had grasped the full significance of the happening Kennedy had dashed forward. The cameras still were grinding and they caught him as he kneeled at the side of the stricken man. Hardly a second afterward Mackay and I followed and were at Kennedy's side. Kauf and the others, their faces weirdly ashen, clustered about in fright. A third time the invisible hand had struck at a member of the company. "The Black Terror," with all the horror written into that story, contained nothing as fearful as the menace to the people engaged in its production. Shirley's skin was cold and clammy, his face almost rigid. While conscious, he was helpless. Kennedy found the little vial and examined it. "Atropin!" he ejaculated. "Walter!" He turned to me. "Get some physostigmin, quick! Have Mackay drive you! It's--it's life or death! Here--I'll write it down! Physostigmin!" As I raced madly out and down the stairs, Mackay at my heels, I heard a woman's scream. Marilyn! Did she think him dead? Once in the car, headed for the nearest drug store, grasping wildly at the side or at the back of the seat every few moments as the district attorney skidded around curves and literally hurdled obstacles, I remembered a forgotten fact. Atropin! That was belladonna, simply another name for the drug. Shirley had procured the stuff for use in his eyes. Nevertheless, he had been aware, undoubtedly, of its deadly nature. Passing by Kennedy and the rest of us, he had overheard Kennedy state that the murderer would be identified as soon as all could be assembled in the projection room. The heavy man had not cared to face justice in so prosaic a manner. With the same sense of the melodramatic which had led him to slay Stella Lamar in the taking of a scene, Werner in the photographing of another, he had preferred suicide and had selected the most spectacular moment possible for his last upon earth. Yes, Shirley was guilty. Rather than wait the slow processes of legal justice he had attempted suicide. Now we raced to save his life, to preserve it for a more fitting end in the electric chair. XXXI PHYSOSTIGMIN The first drug store we found was unable to supply us. At a second we had better luck. All in all, we were back at the Manton Pictures plant in a relatively few minutes, a remarkable bit of driving on the part of the district attorney. Shirley was still in the set. Kennedy at once administered the physostigmin, I thought with an air of great relief. "This is one of the rare cases in which two drugs, both highly poisonous, are definitely antagonistic," he explained. "Each, therefore, is an antidote for the other when properly administered." Marilyn was chafing Shirley's cold hands, tears resting shamelessly upon her lids, a look of deep inexpressible fear in her expression. "Will--will you be able to save him, Professor?" she asked, not once, but a dozen different times. None of the rest of us spoke. We waited anxiously for the first signs of hope, the first indication that the heavy man's life might be preserved. It was wholly a question whether the physostigmin had been given to him quickly enough. Kennedy straightened finally, and we knew that the crisis was over. Marilyn broke down completely and had to be supported to a chair. Strong, willing arms lifted Shirley to take him to his dressing room. At that moment Kennedy stood up, raising his voice so as to demand the attention of everyone, taking charge of matters through sheer force of personality. "I have come here this afternoon," he began, "to apprehend the man or woman responsible for the death of Miss Lamar and Mr. Werner, for the fire in the negative vault, and now for this attempt upon the life of Mr. Shirley." Not a sound was evident as he paused, no movement save a vague, uneasy shifting of position on the part of some of those who had been on the point of leaving. "I have indisputable evidence of the guilty person's identity, but, nevertheless, for reasons which I will explain to you I have not yet completed my identification. To do so it is necessary that certain photographed scenes be projected on the screen and that certain other matters be made perfectly clear. I am very anxious, you see, to eliminate the slightest possibility of error. "Mr. Mackay here"--Kennedy smiled, very slightly--"is the district attorney with jurisdiction at Tarrytown. At my request, since yesterday--or, to be exact, since the death of Mr. Werner warned us that no time could be lost--he has carried a 'John Doe' warrant. Immediately following my identification of the guilty person he--or she--will be placed under arrest. The charge will be the murder of Stella Lamar by the use of poison in a manner which I will explain to you. The trial will take place at White Plains, the county seat of Westchester County, where the murder occurred. Mr. Mackay informs me that the courts there are not crowded; in fact, he personally has been able to devote most of his time to this case. Therefore the trial will be speedy and I am sure that the cold-blooded methods used by this criminal will guarantee a quick sentence and an early trip to the electric chair at Ossining. Now"--suddenly grim--"if everyone will go down to the projection room, the larger one, we will bring matters to their proper conclusion." I imagined that Kennedy's speech was calculated to spread a little wholesome fear among the people we had considered suspects. In any case that was the result, for an outsider, from the expressions upon the various faces, might have concluded that several of them were guilty. Each seemed to start off across the studio floor reluctantly, as though afraid to obey Kennedy, yet unable to resist the fascination of witnessing the identification of the criminal, as though feeling that he or she individually might be accused, and yet unwilling to seek safety at the expense of missing Kennedy's revelation of his methods and explanation of their result. I drew him aside as quickly as I could. "Craig," I started, eagerly, "isn't this all unnecessary? Can't you see that Shirley is the guilty man? If you will hurry into his room with paper and pencil and get his confession before he recovers from his fright and regains his assurance--" "What on earth, Walter!" Kennedy interrupted me with a look of surprise which I did not miss even in my excitement. "What are you driving at, anyway?" "Why, Shirley is the criminal. He--" "Nonsense! Wasn't an attempt made to kill him just now? Wasn't it evident that he was considered as dangerous to the unknown as Werner, the director? Hasn't he been eliminated from our calculations as surely as the man slain yesterday?" "No!" I flushed. "Not at all, Craig! This was not an attempt at murder. There were none of the criminal's earmarks noticeable at Tarrytown or in the banquet scene." "How do you mean, Walter?" For once Kennedy regarded me seriously. "Why, you pointed out yourself that this unknown was exceptionally clever. The attempt on Shirley, if it were an attempt, was not clever at all." "Why?" "Why?" I was a little sarcastic, because I was sure of myself. "Because the poison was atropin--belladonna. That is common. I've read of any number of crimes where that was used. Do you think for a moment that the mind which figured out how to use snake venom, and botulin toxin, would descend to anything as ordinary as all this?" "Well, if it was not an attempt at murder, what was it?" "Suicide! It's as plain as the nose on your face. Shirley was passing us as we were standing with Millard and as you told Millard we all were to go to the projection room to identify the criminal. Therefore Shirley knew he was at the end of his rope. With the theatrical temperament, he took the poison just as he finished playing his last great scene. It--it was a sort of swan song." "Quite a theory, Walter!" Now I knew Kennedy was unimpressed. "But, where did he get the belladonna?" "For his eyes. After the smoke smart." "The drug is of no use against such inflammation." "No, but it served to brighten his eyes. Enid suggested it to him and he went out and got it. It helped him play his scenes. It gave him the glittering expression he needed in his characterization." Again Kennedy seemed to grasp my view. He hesitated for several moments. Finally he looked up. "If Shirley is the criminal, and if he is above using as common a drug as atropin for killing another man, then--then why isn't he above using it upon himself?" That struck me as easy to answer. "Because if he is killing himself it is not necessary for him to cover his tracks, or to do it cleverly, and besides"--it was my big point--"he probably didn't decide to try to do it until he overheard us and realized the menace. At that time he had the belladonna in his pocket. He did not have an opportunity to procure anything else." Kennedy grinned. "You're all wrong, Walter, and I'll show you where your reasoning is faulty. In the first place if this criminal was the type to commit suicide at the moment he thought he was about to be caught he would be the type who would reflect upon that idea beforehand. As his crimes show a great deal of previous preparation, so we may assume that he would prepare for suicide, or rather for the possibility that he might wish to attempt it. Therefore he would have something better for that purpose than atropin." I shook my head, but Kennedy continued. "As a matter of fact, the use of that drug is not less clever than the use of the venom or the toxin; it is more so. Stop and think a minute! The snake venom was employed in the case of Miss Lamar's death because it offered about the least possible chance of leaving telltale clues behind. The snake poison could be inflicted with a tiny scratch, and in such a way that an outcry from the girl would never be noticed. Nothing but my pocket lens caught the scratch; only the great care I used in my examination put us on the trail at all. "Now remember how Werner met his death. The toxin gave every symptom of food poisoning. Except that we discovered the broken stem of the wineglass we would never have been able to prove the tragedy anything but accident. Very possibly we have Shirley to thank for the fact that our one clue there was not removed or destroyed. "In both cases the selection of the poison was suited to the conditions. Therefore, if an attempt was made to kill Shirley--and of the fact I am sure--we might expect that the agent likewise would be one least apt to create suspicion. There are no portieres, no opportunity for the use of another venom; and besides, that has lost its novelty, and so its value. Similarly there is no use of food or wine in the scene, precluding something else along the toxin order. "Our unknown realizes that the safest place to commit murder is where there is a crowd. He has followed that principle consistently. In the case of the heavy man, who has a bit of business before the camera where he drinks the contents of a little bottle, the very cleverest thing is to use belladonna, because Shirley has employed it for his eyes, and because"--maliciously, almost--"it leads immediately to the hypothesis of suicide." "Ye gods, Craig!" A sudden thought struck me and rather terrified me. "Do you suppose Enid Faye suggested the use of the drug to Shirley as part of the scheme to kill him? Is she--" "I prefer," Kennedy interrupted--"I prefer to suppose that the guilty person overheard her, or perhaps saw him buy it or learned in some other way that he was going to use it." Completely taken up with this new line of thought, I failed to question Kennedy further, and it was just as well because most of the people were on their way down to the projection room, not only those we wished present, but practically everyone of sufficient importance about the studio to feel that he could intrude. Kennedy turned to Mackay, who had taken no part in our discussion, although an interested listener. "You have the bag and all the evidence?" "Yes!" Mackay picked it up. "Watkins, the camera man, watched it for me while Jameson and I went after that drug." Kennedy stooped down quickly, but it was locked and had not been tampered with. In the corridor by the dressing rooms we met Kauf, and Kennedy stopped him. "How long would it take to make a print from the scene where Shirley took the poison?" "We could have it ready in half an hour, in a case of grim necessity." "Half an hour?" I exclaimed at that, in disbelief. "You couldn't begin to dry the negative in that time, Kauf." He glanced at me tolerantly. "We make what is called a wet print; that is, we print from the negative while it is still wet and so we only have the positive to dry. Then we put it on drums in a forced draught of hot air. The result is not very good, but it's a fine thing sometimes to get a picture of a parade or some accident in a theater right after it happens." "Will you do it for me, Kauf?" Kennedy broke in, impatiently. "This is a case of grim necessity," he added. Kauf hurried off and we made our way across the yard to the stairs leading down into the basement and to the projection room specified by Kennedy. Here Manton was waiting, uneasy, flushed, his face gathered in a frown and his hands clenching and unclenching in his nervousness. "Do you--do you know who it is?" he demanded. "Not yet," Kennedy replied. "First I must marshal all my evidence." "Who--who do you want present in the projection room?" "Mr. Phelps, Mr. Millard, and--yourself, Mr. Manton. Miss Loring and Miss Faye. Mr. Gordon. Anyone else who wishes, if there is room." "Phelps, Millard, Gordon, and the two girls are inside already." "Good! We will start at once." Manton turned, to lead the way in. At that moment there was a call from the yard. We stopped, looking up. It was Shirley. "Wait just a minute," he cried. He was so weak that the two extra men who were helping him virtually supported his weight. On his face was a look of desperate determination. "I--I must see this too!" he gasped. XXXII CAMERA EVIDENCE Coming in from the bright light of open day, the projection room seemed a gloomy, forbidding place, certainly well calculated to break down the reserve of perhaps the cleverest criminal ever pitting his skill against the science of Craig Kennedy. It was a small room, long and not so wide, with a comparatively low ceiling. In order to obviate eye strain the walls were painted somberly and there were no light colors in evidence except for a nearly square patch of white at the farther end, the screen upon which the pictures were projected. The illumination was very dim. This was so that there would be no great contrast between the light reflected from the images cast upon the screen during pictures and the illumination in the room itself between reels; again designed to prevent strain upon the eyes of the employees whose work was the constant examination of film in various stages of its assembly. The chairs were fastened to the floor, arranged in tiny crescents and placed so as not to interfere with the throw of the pictures from behind. The projection machines themselves, two in number in order to provide continuous projection by alternating the reels and so threading one machine while running the other, were in a fireproof booth or separate room, connected with the tiny auditorium only by slits in the wall and a sort of porthole through which the operator could talk or take his instructions. Directly beneath the openings to the booth were a table equipped with a shaded lamp, a stand for manuscripts, and a signal button. Here the film cutters and editors sat, watching the subject upon which they worked and making notes for changes, for bits of superfluous action to be cut out, or for titles or spoken inserts to be moved. At a signal the operator could be instructed to stop at any point, or to start, or to wind back and run some given piece over again. The lights in the room were controlled from within the booth and also by a switch just at the side of the door. A telephone on the table offered a connection with any part of the studio or with the city exchanges, so that an official of the company could be reached while viewing a picture. As we entered I tried to study the different faces, but found it a hopeless task on account of the poor light. Kennedy took his place at the little table, switching on the little shaded lamp and motioning for Mackay to set the traveling bag so he could open it and view the contents. Then Mackay took post at the door, a hand in his pocket, and I realized that the district attorney clasped a weapon beneath the cover of his clothing, and was prepared for trouble. I moved over to be ready to help Kennedy if necessary. As Kennedy took his key, unlocking the bag, it would have been possible to have heard the slightest movement of a hand or foot, the faintest gasp of breath, so tense was the silence. First Kennedy took out the various rolls of film. Looking up, he caught the face of the operator at the opening in the wall and handed them to him one by one. "Here are two sections of the opening of the story, scenes one to thirteen of 'The Black Terror' put together in order, but without subtitles. One is printed from the negative of the head camera man, Watkins. The other is exactly the same action as taken by the other photographer. We will run both, but wait for my signal between each piece. Understand?" "Yes, sir!" "Now I am giving you two rolls which contain prints of the negative from both cameras of the action at the moment of Werner's death. Those are to be projected in the same way when I give you the signal. Following that there will be two very short pieces which show the attempt upon the life of Mr. Shirley. They are being rushed through the laboratory at this moment and will be brought to you by the time we are ready for them. Finally"--Kennedy paused and as he took the rolls of negative of the snake film I could see that he hesitated to allow them out of his hands even for a few moments--"here is some negative which will be my little climax. It--it is very valuable indeed, so please be careful." "You--you want to project the NEGATIVE?" queried the operator. "Yes. They tell me it can be done, even with negative as old and brittle as this, if you are careful." "I'll be careful, sir! You punch the button there once to stop and two to go. I'll be ready in a moment." As he spoke he disappeared and soon we heard the unmistakable hiss of the arcs in his machines. Kennedy stooped and from the bag produced the little envelopes with the pocket knives and nail files, the set of envelopes with the samples of blood, the piece of silk he had cut from the portiere at Tarrytown, the tiny bits he had cut from the towel found by me in the washroom of this studio, and a microscope--the last, I guessed, for effect. Around in the semidarkness I could see the faces as necks were craned to watch us. Kennedy's deliberateness, his air of certainty, must have struck terror home to some one person in the little audience. Often Kennedy depended upon hidden scientific instruments to catch the faint outward signs of the emotions of his people in a seance of this sort, to allow the comparison of their reactions in the course of his review of the evidence, to give him what amounted to a very sure proof of the one person's guilt. The very absence of some such preparation indicated to me the extent of his confidence. At length he began his little lecture, for all the world as though this were one of his classes at the University, as though there were at stake some matter of chemical reaction. "I need not tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that this is a highly scientific age in which we live." His tones were leisurely, businesslike, cool. "Your own profession, the moving picture, with all its detail of photography and electricity, its blending of art and drama and mechanics, is indicative of that, but"--a pause for emphasis--"it is of my own profession I wish to talk just now, the detection and prevention of crime. "Criminals as a whole were probably the very first class of society to realize the full benefit of modern science. Banks and business institutions, the various detective and police forces, all grades and walks of life have been put to it to keep abreast of the development of scientific crime. So true has this been that it is a matter of common belief with many people that the hand of the law may be defied with impunity, that justice may be cheated with absolute certainty, just so long as a guilty man or woman is sufficiently clever and sufficiently careful. "Fortunately, the real truth is quite the reverse. Science has extended itself in many dimensions of space. With the use of a microscope, for instance, a whole new world is opened up to the trained detective. "Everyone knows now that the examination of hands and fingers is an infallible aid in the identification of criminals and in the proof of the presence of a suspect at the scene of a crime--I refer to fingerprints, of course. But fingerprints are only one small detail in this department of investigation. Our criminals know that gloves must be worn, or any smooth surface wiped so as to remove the prints. In that way they believe they cheat the microscope or the pocket lens. "As a matter of fact few people have thought of another way of gaining evidence from the finger tips, but it is a method possible to the scientist, and is not only practicable but exceedingly effective. In time it will be recognized by all specialists in crime. Now I refer to the deposits under the finger nail. "Indeed, it is surprising how many things find their way under the nail and into the corners of the cuticle." Kennedy indicated the files and pocket knives visible in the shaded square of light before him. "The value of examining finger-nail deposits becomes evident when we realize that everyone carries away in that fashion a sample of every bit of material he handles. To touch a piece of cloth, even lightly, will result in the catching of a few of its fibers. Similarly, the finger nails will deposit either a small or large portion of their accumulation upon such things as the knife blades or files used to clean them; and there identification still is possible. Nothing in the world is too infinitesimal for use as evidence beneath the microscope. "In classifying these accumulations"--Kennedy paused and the silence in the little room was death-like--"we may say that there are some which are legitimate and some which are not. It is the latter which concern us now. The first day we were here at the studio, just four days ago now, and immediately following the murder of Miss Lamar, Mr. Jameson discovered a towel in the washroom on the second floor of the office building. On that towel there were spots of Chinese yellow, make-up, as though it had been used to wipe a face or hands by some actor or actress. Those spots were unimportant. There were others, however, of an entirely different nature, together with the mark of blood and a stain which showed that a hypodermic needle had been cleaned upon the towel before it was thrown in the basket." Kennedy leaned forward. His eyes traveled from face to face. "That towel was a dangerous clue." Now there was a new grim element in his voice. "That towel alone has given me the evidence on which I shall obtain a conviction in this case. To-day I let it be known that it was in my possession and the guilty man or woman understood at once the value it would be to me. In order to gain additional clues I purposely gave the impression that I had yet to analyze either the spots or the trace of blood. I wanted the towel stolen, and for that purpose I placed the bag containing it in a locker and left the locker unguarded. I coated the towel with a substance which would cause discomfort and alarm--itching salve--not with the idea that anyone would be foolish enough to go about scratching before my eyes, but with the idea of making that person believe that such was my purpose and with the idea of driving him--or her--to washing his hands at once and, more, with the idea of forcing him or scaring him into cleaning his fingernails. "I succeeded. On one of these files or knife blades I have found and identified the fibers of that towel. I do not yet know the person, but I know the mark placed by Mackay on the outside of the little envelope, and when I tell Mackay the mark he will name the guilty person." "Mr. Kennedy!" Manton spoke up, impulsively, "every towel in the studio is the same. I bought them all at the same time. The fibers would all be alike. You have named seven people to me, including myself, as possibly guilty of these--these murders. Your conclusions may be very unjust--and may lead to a serious miscarriage of justice." Kennedy was unperturbed. "This particular towel, in addition to the itching salve, was thoroughly impregnated with a colorless chemical which changed the composition of the fibers in a way easily distinguishing them from the others under the microscope. Do you see, Mr. Manton?" The promoter had no more to say. "Now what connection has the towel with the case? Simply this!" Kennedy picked up one of the tiny pieces he had cut out of it. "The poison used to kill Miss Lamar was snake venom." He paused while a little murmur went through his audience, the first sound I had detected. "These spots on the towel are antivenin. The venom itself is exceedingly dangerous to handle. The guilty man--or woman--took no chances, but inoculated himself with antivenin, protection against any chance action of the poison. The marks on the towel are the marks made by the needle used by that person in taking the inoculation. "If you will follow me closely you will understand the significance of this. Miss Lamar was killed by the scratch of a needle secreted in the portieres through which she came, playing the scene in Mr. Phelps's library. That I will prove to you when I show you the film. The night following her death some one broke into the room there at Tarrytown and removed the needle. In removing the needle that person scratched himself, or herself. On the portieres I found some tiny spots of blood." Kennedy paused to hold up the bit of heavy silk. "I analyzed them and found that the blood serum had changed in character very subtly. I demonstrated that the blood of the person who took the needle contained antivenin, and if necessary I can prove the blood to come from the same individual who wiped the needle on the towel in the studio." Kennedy pressed the button before him, twice. "Now I want you to see, actually see Miss Lamar meet her death." The lights went out, then the picture flashed on the screen before us, revealing the gloom and mystery of the opening scene of "The Black Terror." We saw the play of the flashlight, finally the fingers and next the arm of Stella as she parted the curtains. In the close-up we witnessed the repetition of her appearance, since the film was simply spliced together, not "matched" or trimmed. Following came all the action down to the point where she collapsed over the figure of Werner on the floor. Before the camera man stopped, Manton rushed in and was photographed bending over her. Kennedy's voice was dramatically tense, for not one of us but had been profoundly affected by the reproduction of the tragedy. "Did you notice the terror in her face when she cried out? Was that terror, really? If you were watching, you would have detected a slight flinch as she brushed her arm up against the silk. For just a moment she was not acting. It was pain, not pretended terror, which made her scream. The devilish feature to this whole plot was the care taken to cover just that thing-her inevitable exclamation. Now watch closely as I signal the operator to run the same action from the other camera. Notice the gradual effect of the poison, how she forces herself to keep going without realization of the fact that death is at hand, how she collapses finally through sheer inability to maintain her control of herself a moment longer." During the running of the second piece the tense silence in the room was ghastly. Who was the guilty person? Who possessed such amazing callousness that an exhibition of this sort brought no outcry? "Now"--Kennedy glanced around in the dim light, switched on between the running of the different strips--"I'm going to project the banquet scenes and show you the manner of Werner's death." Scene after scene of the banquet flashed before us. Here the cutter had not been sure just what Kennedy wanted and had spliced up everything. We saw the marvelous direction of Werner, who little realized that it was to be his last few moments on earth, and we grasped the beauty and illusion of the set caused by the mirrors and the man's skill in placing his people. Yet there was not a sound, because we knew that this was a tragedy, a grim episode in which there was no human justification whatever. Werner rose at his place. He proposed his toast. He drank the contents of his glass. Then, his expression changed to wonderment and from that to fear and realization, and he dropped to the floor. Kennedy's voice, interrupting, seemed to me to come from a great distance, so powerfully was I affected by the bit of film. "The poison used to kill Mr. Werner was botulin toxin, selected because its effects could not be diagnosed as anything other than ordinary food poisoning. When we look at the print from the second camera's negative you will notice how quickly it acted. It was the pure toxin, placed in his glass before the wine was poured." Once more the unfortunate director's death was reproduced before us. "Struck down," exclaimed Craig, "as though by some invisible lightning bolt, without mercy, without a chance, without the slightest bit of compunction! Why? I'll tell you. Because he suspected, in fact knew, who the guilty person was. Because he followed that person out to Tarrytown the night the needle was removed from the portieres. Because he was a menace to that person's life!" Kennedy turned to the operator. "Have those other scenes come down?" "Yes, sir!" "All right!" Kennedy faced the rest of us again. "There was, or rather is, another person who suspects the identity of the criminal. To-day an attempt was made upon the life of Shirley. Shirley will not tell whom he suspects because he has no definite proof, yet for the mere fact that he suspects he narrowly escaped the fate of Stella Lamar and Werner." Kennedy pressed the button. "Witness the effort to kill the man playing the part of the Black Terror." The print was terribly bad, in appearance almost a "dupe," due to the speed with which it had been made. Nevertheless the two very brief scenes rushed through for this showing were more absorbingly thrilling, more graphic than anything ever to be seen even in a news reel at a movie theater. "Notice!" Kennedy exclaimed. "He puts his hand in one pocket, he fumbles, hesitates, then finds the bottle in the other. Whoever put the poison in the vial replaced it in the wrong pocket. The film shows that very clearly. The camera proves that it was not an attempt at suicide. Yet the poison used was belladonna, selected because this victim had purchased some and because it would seem sure, therefore, that he had committed suicide." We sat in silence, listening, horrified. "There is still another matter," Kennedy went on, after a moment. "The fire in the negative vault this morning was incendiary. I have proved to the satisfaction of several of us that a bomb was constructed of wet phosphorus and old film and placed in the vault by trickery four days ago, the same day Stella Lamar was killed. Through a miscalculation the phosphorus was slow in drying and the fire did not occur until to-day. Thanks to that fact I have in my possession a bit of negative which the murderer very likely wished to have destroyed; in fact, I believe its destruction to be the motive in planning the fire in the vault." He faced the operator. "Ready to run the negative?" "Yes, sir!" Kennedy pressed the button and when the projection machine threw its picture upon the screen I saw something such as I had never imagined before. Everything was black which should have been white and everything white which should have been black. The two extremes shaded into each other in weird fashion. In fact it was uncanny to watch a negative projected and I followed, fascinated. "This is a film made with the co-operation of Doctor Nagoya of the Castleton Institute and I am told by Mr. Manton that it is one of the finest snake pictures ever made." Kennedy spoke fast, so that we would get the full benefit of his explanation and so that it would not be necessary to subject the negative to the wear and tear of the sprocket wheels in the projection machine again. "I am running this for you to show you the action of the rattlesnake, whose venom was used to kill Miss Lamar, and to give you an idea of the source of the murderer's knowledge of snake poison." At this moment Doctor Nagoya, whom I could barely recognize in the inverted photography, seized one of the rattlers. It was a close-up and we could see the reptile dart out its forked tongue, seeking to get at the hands of the Japanese, locked firmly about its neck. Then another man walked into the picture, holding a jar. At once the snake struck at the glass. As it did so it was possible to see drops of the venom projected into the jar. Other details followed and there were views of other sorts and breeds of snakes, from the poisonous to the most harmless. The principal scene, however, had been the one showing the venom. "Lights up!" The operator threw the switch again, stopping the film and at the same time lighting the projection room. Kennedy stepped forward and turned to face us. "There was this negative in the vaults." He spoke rapidly. "It bore a certain name on the film, as editor. Some one knew that proof of the possession of this knowledge of snakes might prove a powerful link in the chain against him. If that had been a positive instead of a negative, you would have recognized Doctor Nagoya's 'assistant.' There was a double motive in blowing that vault--to destroy the company and to protect himself. In fact, all the rest of the negative was destroyed. Only by chance I saved this piece--the very one that he wanted to destroy." Everyone waited breathlessly for Kennedy's next move. Suddenly Kennedy flushed. I could see that he became genuinely angry. "In this room," he exclaimed, "there sits the most unscrupulous, cold-blooded, inhuman being I have ever known. Yet he maintains silence, believing still that he can defy the scientific evidence of his crimes. I have not yet mentioned, however, the real proof of his guilt." Kennedy picked up one of the little envelopes, one which contained a blood smear. "During the explosion this morning a number of you were cut by falling glass. You will remember that I bound up your cuts, carefully cleansing each one and wiping away the blood. That gave me a sample of the blood of everyone but Miss Loring and Mr. Shirley. Subsequently, without their knowledge, I obtained a sample from each of them. Thus I have a specimen from everyone concerned, or possibly concerned in the murders." He glanced about, but even now there was no telltale revelation. "I have analyzed these and one shows that the person from whom I obtained the sample has been inoculated with antivenin. The mark on the envelope is the same as the mark on the envelope containing the towel fibers, a double proof. Furthermore, I am prepared to show that it is the same blood as the blood upon the portiere." He faced me. All at once his voice carried the sharpness of a whip. "Walter, relieve Mackay at the door and take his weapon. Let no one out. Mackay, come here!" An instant later the district attorney leaned over. He glanced at the mark indicated by Kennedy, then whispered a name. The next instant Kennedy rose. "I thought so," he muttered. Raising his voice, he addressed all of us. "Here is a man who thought crime so long that he believed he could get away with--murder! Not only did he commit a second murder and plan a third to cover the first, but he planted evidence against nearly all of you. He dropped the ampulla in McGroarty's car to implicate any one of four people. He coolly stole a cigarette case to put it where it would be found after the film fire and clinch suspicion. "For all this, what justification has he had? Jealousy, jealousy of the narrowest, most primitive, sort actuated him. Not only was he willing to kill Stella Lamar, but he sought to destroy every foot of negative in which she had appeared. He was jealous of her success, greater than his, jealous of her interest in other men, greater than her interest in him. Her divorce was maneuvered directly by him simply because he thought it would hurt and humiliate her, and for no other reason. "When nothing seemed to stop her, on her upward climb, when he realized that she was as ambitious as he was and that her position in the picture world alone interested her, he sought by devious means, by subtle schemes, by spreading dissatisfaction and encouraging dissension, to wreck the company which had made her. At the end--he killed her--waiting craftily until she was at the very climax of her finest piece of work, the opening scenes of 'The Black Terror.'" There was bitterness in Kennedy's tones. "Before, I would not believe that a man--" Suddenly the projection room was plunged into darkness. Some one had pushed the wall switch close by me. I backed into the doorway, raising my weapon to resist any attempt to escape. Almost at the same instant there were the sounds of a struggle. Kennedy had dashed forward in the darkness, sure of the position of his man, unafraid. A scream I recognized from the throat of Enid. I groped for the switch, but the operator in the booth anticipated me. In the first burst of illumination I saw that Kennedy had forced his antagonist back over the front row of chairs. Almost I heard the crack of the man's spine. I caught a glimpse of the man's face and gasped at the murderous rage as he struggled and strove to break Kennedy's iron grip. Enid was the first at Kennedy's side. With an expression I failed to analyze until long afterward she sought to claw at the murderer's unprotected features, twitching now in impotent fury. "You wrote that note for her to meet you at the tearoom," Kennedy muttered, eyes narrowing grimly, "knowing she would be dead before that time. You protected yourself against the poisoned needle in the portieres--but--your own blood convicts you--Millard!" THE END 
5094	----	THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES THE ROMANCE OF ELAINE A DETECTIVE NOVEL Sequel to the "Exploits" BY ARTHUR B. REEVE CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE SERPENT SIGN II THE CRYPTIC RING III THE WATCHING EYE IV THE VENGEANCE OF WU FANG V THE SHADOWS OF WAR VI THE LOST TORPEDO VII THE GRAY FRIAR VIII THE VANISHING MAN IX THE SUBMARINE HARBOR X THE CONSPIRATORS XI THE WIRELESS DETECTIVE XII THE DEATH CLOUD XIII THE SEARCHLIGHT GUN XIV THE LIFE CHAIN XV THE FLASH XVI THE DISAPPEARING HELMETS XVII THE TRIUMPH OF ELAINE THE ROMANCE OF ELAINE CHAPTER I THE SERPENT SIGN Rescued by Kennedy at last from the terrible incubus of Bennett's persecution in his double life of lawyer and master criminal, Elaine had, for the first time in many weeks, a feeling of security. Now that the strain was off, however, she felt that she needed rest and a chance to recover herself and it occurred to her that a few quiet days with "Aunt" Tabitha, who had been her nurse when she was a little girl, would do her a world of good. She sent for Aunt Tabby, yet the fascination of the experiences through which she had just gone still hung over her. She could not resist thinking and reading about them, as she sat, one morning, with the faithful Rusty in the conservatory of the Dodge house. I had told the story at length in the Star, and the heading over it caught her eye. It read: THE CLUTCHING HAND DEAD ------ Double Life Exposed by Craig Kennedy Perry Bennett, the Famous Young Lawyer, Takes Poison--Kennedy Now on Trail of Master Criminal's Hidden Millions. ---- As Elaine glanced down the column, Jennings announced that Aunt Tabby, as she loved to call her old friend, had arrived, and was now in the library with Aunt Josephine. With an exclamation of delight, Elaine dropped the paper and, followed by Rusty, almost ran into the library. Aunt Tabby was a stout, elderly, jolly-faced woman, precisely the sort whom Elaine needed to watch over her just now. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you," half laughed Elaine as she literally flung herself into her nurse's arms. "I feel so unstrung--and I thought that if I could just run off for a few days with you and Joshua in the country where no one would know, it might make me feel better. You have always been so good to me. Marie! Are my things packed? Very well. Then, get my wraps." Her maid left the room. "Bless your soul," mothered Aunt Tabby stroking her soft golden hair, "I'm always glad to have you in that fine house you bought me. And, faith, Miss Elaine, the house is a splendid place to rest in but I don't know what's the matter with it lately. Joshua says its haunts--" "Haunts?" repeated Elaine in amused surprise. "Why, what do you mean?" Marie entered with the wraps before Aunt Tabby could reply and Jennings followed with the baggage. "Nonsense," continued Elaine gaily, as she put on her coat, and turned to bid Aunt Josephine good-bye. "Good-bye, Tabitha," said her real aunt. "Keep good care of my little girl." "That I will," returned the nurse. "We don't have all these troubles out in the country that you city folks have." Elaine went out, followed by Rusty and Jennings with the luggage. "Now for a long ride in the good fresh air," sighed Elaine as she leaned back on the cushions of the Dodge limousine and patted Rusty, while the butler stowed away the bags. The air certainly did, if anything, heighten the beauty of Elaine and at last they arrived at Aunt Tabby's, tired and hungry. The car stopped and Elaine, Aunt Tabby and the dog got out. There, waiting for them, was "Uncle" Joshua, as Elaine playfully called him, a former gardener of the Dodges, now a plain, honest countryman on whom the city was fast encroaching, a jolly old fellow, unharmed by the world. Aunt Tabby's was an attractive small house, not many miles from New York, yet not in the general line of suburban travel. . . . . . . . Kennedy and I had decided to bring Bennett's papers and documents over to the laboratory to examine them. We were now engaged in going over the great mass of material which he had collected, in the hope of finding some clue to the stolen millions which he must have amassed as a result of his villainy. The table was stacked high. A knock at the door told us that the expressman had arrived and a moment later he entered, delivering a heavy box. Kennedy signed for it and started to unpack it. I was hard at work, when I came across a large manila envelope carefully sealed, on which were written the figures "$7,000,000." Too excited even to exclaim, I tore the envelope open and examined the contents. Inside was another envelope. I opened that. It contained merely a blank piece of paper! With characteristic skill at covering his tracks, Bennett had also covered his money. Puzzled, I turned the paper over and over, looking at it carefully. It was a large sheet of paper, but it showed nothing. "Huh!" I snorted to myself, "confound him." Yet I could not help smiling at my own folly, a minute later, in thinking that the Clutching Hand would leave any information in such an obvious place as an envelope. I threw the paper into a wire basket on the desk and went on sorting the other stuff. Kennedy had by this time finished unpacking the box, and was examining a bottle which he had taken from it. "Come here, Walter," he called at length. "Ever see anything like that?" "I can't say," I confessed, getting up to go to him. "What is it?" "Bring a piece of paper." he added. I went back to the desk where I had been working and looked about hastily. My eye fell on the blank sheet of paper which I had taken from Bennett's envelope, and I picked it up from the basket. "Here's one," I said, handing it to him. "What are you doing?" Kennedy did not answer directly, but began to treat the paper with the liquid from the bottle. Then he lighted a Bunsen burner and thrust the paper into the flame. The paper did not burn! "A new system of fire-proofing," laughed Craig, enjoying my astonishment. He continued to hold the paper in the flame. Still it did not burn. "See?" he went on, withdrawing it, and starting to explain the properties of the new fire-proofer. He had scarcely begun, when he stopped in surprise. He had happened to glance at the paper again, bent over to examine it more intently, and was now looking at it in surprise. I looked also. There, clearly discernible on the paper, was a small part of what looked like an architect's drawing of a fireplace. Craig looked up at me, nonplussed. "Where did you say you got that?" he asked. "It was a blank piece of paper among Bennett's effects," I returned, as mystified as he, pointing at the littered desk at which I had been working. Kennedy said nothing, but thrust the paper back again into the flame. Slowly, the heat of the burner seemed to bring out the complete drawing of the fireplace. We looked at it, even more mystified. "What is it, do you suppose?" I queried. "I think," he replied slowly, "that it was drawn with sympathetic ink. The heat of the burner brought it out into sight." What was it about? . . . . . . . Elaine had gone to bed that night at Aunt Tabby's in the room which her old nurse had fixed up especially for her. It was a very attractive little room with dainty chintz curtains and covers and for the first time in many weeks Elaine slept soundly and fearlessly. Down-stairs, in the living-room, Rusty also was asleep, his nose between his paws. The living-room was in keeping with everything at Aunt Tabby's, plain, neat, homelike. On one side was a large fireplace that gave to it an air of quaint hospitality. Suddenly Rusty woke up, his ears pointed at this fireplace. He stood a moment, listening, then, with a bark of alarm he sped swiftly from the living-room, up the stairs at a bound, until he came to Elaine's room. Elaine felt his cold nose at her hand and stirred, then awoke. "What is it, Rusty?" she asked, mindful of the former days when Rusty gave warning of the Clutching Hand and his emissaries. Rusty wagged his tail. Something was wrong. Elaine followed him down to the living-room. She went over and lighted the electric lamp on the table, then turned to Rusty. "Well, Rusty?" she asked, almost as if he were human. She had no need to repeat the question. Rusty was looking straight at the fireplace. Elaine listened. Sure enough, she heard strange noises. Was that Aunt Tabby's "haunt"? Whatever it was, it sounded as if it came up from the very depths of the earth. She could not make out just what it sounded like. It might have been some one striking a piece of iron, a bolt, with a sledge. What was it? She continued to listen in wonder, then ran to Aunt Tabby's bedroom door, on the first floor, and knocked. Aunt Tabby woke up and shook Joshua. "Aunt Tabby! Aunt Tabby!" called Elaine. "Yes, my dear," answered the old nurse, now fully awake and straightening her nightcap. "Joshua!" Together the old couple came out into the living-room, still in their nightclothes, Joshua yawning sleepily still. "Listen!" whispered Elaine. There was the noise again. This time it was more as though some one were beating a rat-tat-tat with something on a rock. It was weird, uncanny, as all stood there, none knowing where the strange noises came from. "It's the haunts!" cried Aunt Tabby, trembling a bit. "For three nights now we've been hearing these noises." Around and around the room they walked, still trying to locate the strange sounds. Were they under the floor? It was impossible to say. They gave it up and stood there, looking blankly at each other. Was it the work of human or superhuman hands? Finally Joshua went to a table drawer and opened it. He took out a huge, murderous-looking revolver. "Here, Miss Elaine," he urged, pressing it on her, "take this--keep it near you!" The noises ceased at length, as strangely as they had begun. Half an hour later, they had all gone back to bed and were asleep. But Elaine's sleep now was fitful, a constant procession of faces flitted before her closed eyes. Suddenly, she woke with a start and stared into the semi-darkness. Was that face real, or a dream face? Was it the hideous helmeted face that had dragged her down into the sewer once? That man was dead. Who was this? She gazed at the bedroom window, holding the huge revolver tightly. There, vague in the night light, appeared a figure. Surely that was no dream face of the oxygen helmet. Besides, it was not the same helmet. She sat bolt upright and fired, pointblank, at the window, shivering the glass. A second later she had leaped from the bed, switched on the lights and was running to the sill. Down-stairs, Aunt Tabby and Uncle Joshua had heard the shot. Joshua was now wide awake. He seized his old shotgun and ran out into the livingroom. Followed by Aunt Tabby, he hurried to Elaine. "Wh-what was it?" he asked, puffing at the exertion of running up-stairs. "I saw--a face--at the window--with some kind of thing over it!" gasped Elaine. "It was like one I saw once before." Uncle Joshua did not wait to hear any more. With the gun pointed ahead of him, ready for instant action, he ran out of the room and into the garden, beneath Elaine's window. He looked about for signs of an intruder. There was not a sound. No one was about, here. "I don't see any one," he called up to Elaine and Aunt Tabby in the window. He happened to look down at the ground. Before him was a small box. He picked it up. "Here's something, though," he said. Joshua went back into the house. "What is it?" asked Elaine as he rejoined the women. She took the curious little box and unfastened the cover. As she opened it, she drew back. There in the box was a little ivory figure of a man, all hunched up and shrunken, a hideous figure. She recoiled from it--it reminded her too much of the Chinese devil-god she had seen,--and she dropped the box. For a moment all stood looking at it in horrified amazement. . . . . . . . It was the afternoon following the day of our strange discovery of the fireplace done in sympathetic ink on the apparently blank sheet of paper in Bennett's effects, when the speaking-tube sounded and I answered it. "Why--it's Elaine," I exclaimed. Kennedy's face showed the keenest pleasure at the unexpected visit. "Tell her to come right up," he said quickly. I opened the door for her. "Why--Elaine--I'm awfully glad to see you," he greeted, "but I thought you were rusticating." "I was, but, Craig, it seems to me that wherever I go, something happens," she returned. "You know, Aunt Tabby said there were haunts. I thought it was an old woman's fear--but last night I heard the strangest noises out there, and I thought I saw a face at the window--a face in a helmet. And when Joshua went out, this is what he found on the ground under my window." She handed Kennedy a box, a peculiar affair which she touched gingerly and only with signs of the greatest aversion. Kennedy opened it. There, in the bottom of the box, was a little ivory devil-god. He looked at it curiously a moment. "Let me see," he ruminated, still regarding the sign. "The house you bought for Aunt Tabby, once belonged to Bennett, didn't it?" Elaine nodded her head. "Yes, but I don't see what that can have to do with it," she agreed, adding with a shudder, "Bennett is dead." Kennedy had taken a piece of paper from the desk where he had put it away carefully. "Have you ever seen anything that looks like this?" he asked, handing her the paper. Elaine looked at the plan carefully, as Kennedy and I scanned her face. She glanced up, her expression showing plainly the wonder she felt. "Why, yes," she answered. "That looks like Aunt Tabby's fireplace in the living-room." Kennedy said nothing for a moment. Then he seized his hat and coat. "If you don't mind," he said, "we'll go back there with you." "Mind?" she repeated. "Just what I had hoped you would do." . . . . . . . Wu Fang, the Chinese master mind, had arrived in New York. Beside Wu, the inscrutable, Long Sin, astute though he was, was a mere pigmy--his slave, his advance agent, as it were, a tentacle sent out to discover the most promising outlet for the nefarious talents of his master. New York did not know of the arrival of Wu Fang, the mysterious--yet. But down in the secret recesses of Chinatown, in the ways that are devious and dark, the oriental crooks knew--and trembled. Thus it happened that Long Sin was not permitted to enjoy even the foretaste of Bennett's spoils which he had forced from him after his weird transformation into his real self, the Clutching Hand, when the Chinaman had given him the poisoned draught that had put him into his long sleep. He had obtained the paper showing where the treasure amassed by the Clutching Hand was hidden, but Wu Fang, his master, had come. Wu had immediately established himself in the most sumptuous of apartments, hidden behind the squalid exterior of the ordinary tenement building in Chinatown. The night following his arrival, Wu Fang was reclining on a divan, when his servant announced that Long Sin was at the door. As Long Sin entered, it was evident that, cunning and shrewd though he was himself, Wu was indeed his master. He approached in fear and awe, cringing low. "Have you brought the map with you?" asked Wu. Long Sin bowed low again, and drew from under his coat the paper which he had obtained from Bennett. For a moment the two, master and slave in guile, bent over, closely studying it. At one point in the map Long Sin's bony finger paused over a note which Bennett had made: BEWARE POISONED GAS UPON OPENING COMPARTMENT. "And you think you can trace it out?" asked Wu. "Without a doubt," bowed Long Sin. He went over to a bag near-by, which he had already sent up by another servant, and opened it. Inside was an oxygen helmet. He replaced it, after showing it to Wu. "With the aid of the science of the white devil, we shall overcome the science of the white devil," purred Long Sin subtly. Outside, Wu had already ordered a car to wait, and together the two drove off rapidly. Into the country, they sped, until at last they came to a lonely turn in a lonely road, somewhat removed from the section that was rapidly being built up as population reached out from the city, but on a single-tracked trolley line. Long Sin alighted and disappeared with a parting word of instruction from Wu who remained in the car. The Chinaman carried with him the heavy bag with the oxygen helmet. Along this interurban trolley the cars made only half-hourly trips at this time of night. Long Sin hurried down the road until he came to a trolley pole, then looked hastily at his watch. It was twenty minutes at least before the next car would pass. Quickly, almost monkey-like, he climbed up the pole, carrying with him the end of a wire which he had taken from the bag. Having thrown this over the feed wire, he slid quickly to the ground again. Then, carrying the other end of the wire in his rubber-gloved hands, he made his way through the underbrush, in and out, almost like the serpent he was, until he came to a passageway in the rough and uncleared hillside--a small opening formed by the rocks. It was dark inside, but he did not hesitate to enter, carrying the wire and the bag with him. . . . . . . . It was nightfall before we arrived with Elaine at Aunt Tabby's. We entered the living-room and Elaine introduced us both to Aunt Tabby and her husband. It was difficult to tell whether Elaine's old nurse was more glad to see her than the faithful Rusty who almost overwhelmed her even after so short an absence. In the midst of the greetings, I took occasion to look over the living-room. It was a very cozy room, simply and tastefully furnished, and I fancied that I could see in the neatness of Aunt Tabby a touch of Elaine's hand, for she had furnished it for her faithful old friend. I followed Kennedy's eyes, and saw that he was looking at the fireplace. Sure enough, it was the same in design as the fireplace which the heat had so unexpectedly brought out in sympathetic ink on the blank sheet of paper. Kennedy lost no time in examining it, and we crowded around him as he went over it inch by inch, following the directions on the drawing. At one point in the drawing a peculiar protuberance was marked. Kennedy was evidently hunting for that. He found it at last and pressed the sort of lever in several ways. Nothing seemed to happen. But finally, almost by chance, he seemed to discover the secret. A small section at the side of the fireplace opened up, disclosing an iron ladder, leading down into one of those characteristic hiding-places in which the Clutching Hand used to delight. Kennedy looked at the mysterious opening some time, as if trying to fathom the mystery. "Let's go down and explore it," I suggested, taking a step toward the ladder. Kennedy reached out and pulled me back. Then without a word he pressed the little lever and the door closed. "I think we'd better wait a while, Walter," he decided. "I would rather hear Aunt Tabby's haunts myself." He carefully went over not only the rest of the house but the grounds about it, without discovering anything. Aunt Tabby, with true country hospitality, seemed unable to receive guests without feeding them, and, although we had had a big dinner at a famous road-house on the way out, still none of us could find it in our hearts to refuse her hospitality. Even that diversion, however, did not prevent us from talking of nothing else but the strange noises, and I think, as we waited, we all got into the frame of mind which would have manufactured them even if there had been none. We were sitting about the room when suddenly the most weird and uncanny rappings began. Rusty was on his feet in a moment, barking like mad. We looked from one to another. It was impossible to tell where the noises came from, or even to describe them. They were certainly not ghostly rappings. In fact, they sounded more like some twentieth century piece of machinery. We listened a moment, then Kennedy walked over to the fireplace. "You can explore it with me now, Walter," he said quietly, touching the lever and opening the panel which disclosed the ladder. He started down the ladder and I followed closely. Elaine was about to join us, when Kennedy paused on the topmost round and looked up at her. "No, no, young lady," he said with mock severity, "you have been through enough already--you stay where you are." Elaine argued and begged but Kennedy was obdurate. It was only when Aunt Tabby and Joshua added their entreaties that she consented reluctantly to remain. Together, Craig and I descended into the darkness about eight or ten feet. There we found a passageway, excavated through the earth and rock, along which we crept. It was crooked and uneven, and we stumbled, but kept going slowly ahead. Kennedy, who was a few feet in front of me, stopped suddenly and I almost fell over him. "What is it?" I whispered. . . . . . . . Long Sin had made his way from the opening of the cave to the point on the plan which was marked by a cross, and there he had set up his electric drill which was connected to the trolley wire. He was working furiously to take advantage of the fifteen minutes or so before the next car would pass. The tunnel had been widened out at this point into a small subterranean chamber. It was dug out of the earth and the roof was roughly propped up, most of the weight being borne by one main wooden prop which, in the dampness, had now become old and rotten. On one side it was evident that Long Sin had already been at work, digging and drilling through the earth and rock. He had gone so far now that he had disclosed what looked like the face of a small safe set directly into the rock. As he worked he would stop from time to time and consult the map. Then he would take up drilling again. He had now come to the point on which Bennett had written his warning. Quickly he opened the bag and took out the oxygen helmet, which he adjusted carefully over his head. Then he set to work with redoubled energy. It was that drill as well as his pounding on the rock which had so alarmed Elaine and Aunt Tabby the night before and which now had been the signal for Kennedy's excursion of discovery. . . . . . . . Our man, whoever he was, must have heard us approaching down the tunnel, for he paused in his work and the noise of the drill ceased. He looked about a moment, then went over to the prop and examined it, looking up at the roof of the chamber above him. Evidently he feared that it was not particularly strong. From our vantage point around the bend in the passageway we could see this strange and uncouth figure. "Who is it, do you think?" I whispered, crouching back against the wall for fear that he might look even around a corner or through the earth and discover us. As I spoke, my hand loosened a piece of rock that jutted out and before I knew it there was a crash. "Confound it, Walter," exclaimed Kennedy. Down the passageway the figure was now thoroughly on the alert, staring with his goggle-like eyes into the blackness in our direction. It was not the roof above him that was unsafe. He was watched, and he did not hesitate a minute to act. He seized the bag and picked his way quickly through the passage as if thoroughly familiar with every turn of the walls and roughness of the floor. We were discovered and if we were to accomplish anything, it was now or never. Kennedy dashed forward and I followed close after him. We were making much better time than our strange visitor and were gaining on him rapidly. Nearer and nearer we came to him, for, in spite of his familiarity with the cavern he was hampered by the outlandish head-gear that he wore. It was only another instant, when Kennedy would have laid his hands on him. Suddenly he half turned, raised his arm and dashed something to the earth much as a child explodes a toy torpedo. I fully expected that it was a bomb; but, as a moment later, I found that Kennedy and I were still unharmed, I knew that it must be some other product of this devilish genius. The thickest and most impenetrable smoke seemed to pervade the narrow cavern! "A Chinese smoke bomb!" sputtered and coughed Kennedy, as he retreated a minute, then with renewed vigor endeavored to penetrate the dense and opaque fumes. We managed to go ahead still, but the intruder had exploded one after another of his peculiar bombs, always keeping ahead of the smoke which he created, and we found that under its cover he had made good his escape, probably reaching the entrance of the cave in the underbrush. At the other end of the passageway, up in the living-room of the cottage, the draught had carried large quantities of the smoke. Elaine, Aunt Tabby and Joshua coughing and choking, saw it, and opened a window, which seemed to cause a current of air to sweep through the whole length of the passageway and helped to clear away the fumes rapidly. Long Sin, meanwhile, had started to work his way through the bushes to reach the waiting car, with Wu, then paused and listened. Hearing no sound, he replaced the helmet which he had taken off. Pursuit was now useless for us. With revolvers drawn, we crept back along the passageway until we came again to the chamber itself. There, on the floor, lay a bag of tools, opened, as though somebody had been working with them. "Caught red-handed!" exclaimed Kennedy with great satisfaction. He looked at the tools a minute and then at the electric drill, and finally an idea seemed to strike him. He took up the drill and advanced toward the safe. Then he turned on the current and applied the drill. The drill was of the very latest design and it went quickly through the steel. But beyond that there was another thin steel partition. This Kennedy tackled next. The drill went through and he withdrew it. Instantly the most penetrating and nauseous odor seemed to pervade everything. Kennedy cried out. But his warning was too late. We staggered back, overcome by the escaping gas and fell to the ground. . . . . . . . Long Sin, with his oxygen helmet on again, had returned to the passageway and was now stealthily creeping back. He came to the chamber and there discovered us lying on the ground, overcome. He bent down and, to his great satisfaction, saw that we were really unconscious. Quickly he moved over to the safe and pried open the last thin steel plate. Inside was a small box. He picked it up and tried to open it, but it was locked. There was no time to work over it here, and he took it under his arm and started to leave. He paused a moment to look at us, then took out a piece of paper and a pencil and on the paper wrote, "Thanks for your trouble." Beneath, it was signed by his special stamp--the serpent's head, mouth open and fangs showing. Long Sin looked at us a moment, then a subtle smile seemed to spread over his face. At last he had us in his power. He drew out a long, wicked-looking Chinese knife and stuck it through the note. Then he felt the edge of the knife. It was keen. . . . . . . . In the sitting-room, Elaine, Aunt Tabby and Joshua had been listening intently at the fireplace but heard nothing. They were now getting decidedly worried. Finally, the fumes which we had released made their way to the room. They were considerably diluted by fresh air by that time, but, although they were nauseous, were not sufficient to overcome any one. Still, the smell was terrible. "I can't stand it any longer," cried Elaine. "I'm going down there to see what has become of them." Aunt Tabby and Joshua tried to stop her, but she broke away from them and went down the ladder. Rusty leaped down after her. Joshua tried to follow, but Aunt Tabby held him back. He would have gone, too, if she had not managed to strike the spring and shut the door, closing up the passageway. Joshua got angry then. "You are making a coward of me," he cried, beating on the panel with the butt of his gun and struggling to open it. He seemed unable to fathom the secret. Elaine was now making her way as rapidly as she could through the tunnel, with Rusty beside her. . . . . . . . It was just as Long Sin had raised his knife that the sound of her footsteps alarmed him. He paused and leaped to his feet. There was no time for either to retreat. He started toward Elaine, and seized her roughly. Back and forth over the rocky floor they struggled. As they fought,--she with frantic strength, he craftily,--he backed her slowly up against the prop that upheld the roof. He raised his keen knife. She recoiled. The prop, none too strong, suddenly gave way under her weight. The whole roof of the chamber fell with a crash, earth and stone overwhelming Elaine and her assailant. . . . . . . . By this time Joshua had left the house and had gone out into the garden to get something to pry open the fireplace door. Of a sudden, to his utter amazement, a few feet from him, it seemed as if the very earth sank in his garden, leaving a yawning chasm. He looked, unable to make it out. Before his very eyes a strange figure, the figure of Long Sin in his oxygen helmet, appeared, struggling up, as if by magic from the very earth, shaking the debris off himself, as a dog would shake off the water after a plunge in a pond. Long Sin was gone in a moment. Then again the earth began to move. A paw appeared, then a sharp black nose, and a moment later, Rusty, too, dug himself out. Joshua had run into the house to get a spade when Rusty, like a shot, bolted for the house, took the window at a leap and all covered with earth landed before Joshua and Aunt Tabby. "See!--he went down there--now he's here!" cried Aunt Tabby, pointing at the fireplace, then looking at the window. Rusty was running back and forth from Joshua to the window. "Follow him!" cried Aunt Tabby. Rusty led the way back again to the garden, to the cave-in. "Elaine!" gasped Aunt Tabby. By this time Joshua was digging furiously. Rusty, too, seemed to understand. He threw back the earth with his paws, helping with every ounce of strength in his little body. At last the spade turned up a bit of cloth. "Elaine!" Aunt Tabby cried out again. She was in a sort of little pocket, protected by the fortunate formation of the earth as it fell, yet almost suffocated, weak but conscious. Aunt Tabby rushed up as Joshua laid down the spade and lifted out Elaine. They were about to carry her into the house, when she cried weakly, but with all her remaining strength. "No--no--Dig! Craig--Walter!" she managed to gasp. Rusty, too, was still at it. Joshua fell to again. Man and dog worked with a will. "There they are!" cried Elaine, as all three pulled us out, unconscious but still alive. Though we did not know it, they carried us into the house, while Elaine and Aunt Tabby bustled about to get something to revive us. At last I opened my eyes and saw the motherly Aunt Tabby bending over me. Craig was already revived, weak but ready now to do anything Elaine ordered, as she held his hand and stroked his forehead softly. . . . . . . . Meanwhile Long Sin had made his way to the automobile where his master, Wu, waited impatiently. "Did you get it?" asked Wu eagerly. Long Sin showed him the box. "Hurry, master!" he cried breathlessly, leaping into the car and struggling to take off the helmet as they drove away. "They may be here--at any moment." The machine was off like a shot and even if we had been able to follow, we could not now have caught it. Back in Wu's sumptuous apartment, later, Wu and his slave, Long Sin, after their hurried ride, dismissed all the servants and placed the little box on the table. Wu rose and locked the door. Then, together, they took a sharp instrument and tried to pry off the lid of the box. The lid flew off. They gazed in eagerly. Inside was a smaller box, which Wu seized eagerly and opened. There, on the plush cushion lay merely a round knobbed ring! Was this the end of their great expectations? Were Bennett's millions merely mythical? The two stared at each other in chagrin. Wu was the first to speak. "Where there should have been seven million dollars," he muttered to himself, "why is there only a mystic ring?" CHAPTER II THE CRYPTIC RING Kennedy had been engaged for some time in the only work outside of the Dodge case which he had consented to take for weeks. Our old friend, Dr. Leslie, the Coroner, had appealed to him to solve a very ticklish point in a Tong murder case which had set all Chinatown agog. It was, indeed, a very bewildering case. A Chinaman named Li Chang, leader of the Chang Wah Tong, had been poisoned, but so far no one had been able to determine what poison it was or even to prove that there had been a poison, except for the fact that the man was dead, and Kennedy had taken the thing up in a great measure because of the sudden turn in the Dodge case which had brought us into such close contact with the Chinese. I had been watching Kennedy with interest, for the Tong wars always make picturesque newspaper stories, when a knock at the door announced the arrival of Dr. Leslie, anxious for some result. "Have you been able to find out anything yet?" he greeted Kennedy eagerly as Craig looked up from his microscope. Kennedy turned and nodded. "Your dead man was murdered by means of aconite, of which, you know, the active principle is the deadly alkaloid aconitine." Craig pulled down from the shelf above him one of his well-thumbed standard works on toxicology. He turned the pages and read: "Pure aconite is probably the most actively poisonous substance with which we are acquainted. It does not produce any decidedly characteristic post-mortem appearances, and, in fact, there is no reliable chemical test to prove its presence. The chances of its detection in the body after death are very slight." Dr. Leslie looked up. "Then there is no test, none?" he asked. "There is one that is brand new," replied Kennedy slowly. "It is the new starch-grain test just discovered by Professor Reichert, of the University of Pennsylvania. The peculiarities of the starch grains of various plants are quite as great as those of the blood crystals, which, you will recall, Walter, we used once. "The starch grains of the poison have remained in the wound. I have recovered them from the dead man's blood and have studied them microscopically. They can be definitely recognized. This is plainly a case of aconite poisoning--probably suggested to the Oriental mind by the poison arrows of the Ainus of Northern Japan." Dr. Leslie and I both looked through the microscope, comparing the starch grains which Kennedy had discovered with those of scores of micro-photographs which lay scattered over the table. "There are several treatments for aconite poisoning," ruminated Kennedy. "I would say that one of the latest and best is digitalin given hypodermically." He took down a bottle of digitalin from a cabinet, adding, "only it was too late in this case." . . . . . . . Just what the relations were between Long Sin and the Chong Wah Tong I have never been able to determine exactly. But one thing was certain: Long Sin on his arrival in New York had offended the Tong and now that his master, Wu Fang, was here the offence was even greater, for the criminal society brooked no rival. In the dark recesses of a poorly furnished cellar, serving as the Tong headquarters, the new leader and several of his most trusted followers were now plotting revenge. Long Sin, they believed, was responsible for the murder, and, with truly Oriental guile, they had obtained a hold over Wu Fang's secretary. Their plan decided on, the Chinamen left the headquarters and made their way separately up-town. They rejoined one another in the shelter of a rather poor house, before which was a board fence, in the vicinity of a fashionable apartment house. A moment's conference followed, and then the secretary glided away. . . . . . . . Wu had taken another apartment up-town in one of the large apartment houses near a parkway; for he was far too subtle to operate from his real headquarters back of the squalid exterior of Chinatown. There Long Sin was now engaged in making all possible provisions for the safety of his master. Any one who had been walking along the boulevard and had happened to glance up at the roof of the tall apartment building might have seen Long Sin's figure silhouetted against the sky on the top of the mansard roof near a flagpole. He had just finished fastening to the flagpole a stout rope which stretched taut across an areaway some twenty or thirty feet wide to the next building, where it was fastened to a chimney. Again and again he tested it, and finally with a nod of satisfaction descended from the roof and went to the apartment of Wu. There, alone, he paused for a few minutes to gaze in wonder at the cryptic ring which had been the net result so far of his efforts to find the millions which Bennett, as the Clutching Hand, had hidden. He wore it, strangely enough, over his index finger, and as he examined it he shook his head in doubt. Neither he nor his master had yet been able to fathom the significance of the ring. Long Sin thought that he was unobserved. But outside, looking through the keyhole, was Wu's secretary, who had stolen in on the mission which had been set for him at the Tong headquarters. Long Sin went over to a desk and opened a secret box in which Wu had placed several packages of money with which to bribe those whom he wished to get into his power. It was Long Sin's mission to carry out this scheme, so he packed the money into a bag, drew his coat more closely about him and left the room. No sooner had he gone than the secretary hurried into the room, paused a moment to make sure that Long Sin was not coming back, then hurried over to a closet near-by. From a secret hiding-place he drew out a small bow and arrow. He sat down at a table and hastily wrote a few Chinese characters on a piece of paper, rolling up the note into a thin quill which he inserted into a prepared place in the arrow. Then he raised the window and deftly shot the arrow out. Down the street, back of the board fence, where the final conference has taken place, was a rather sleepy-looking Chinaman, taking an occasional puff at a cigarette doped with opium. He jumped to his feet suddenly. With a thud an arrow had buried itself quivering in the fence. Quickly he seized it, drew out the note and read it. In the Canton vernacular it read briefly: "He goes with much money." It was enough. Instantly the startling news overcame the effect of the dope, and the Chinaman shuffled off quickly to the Tong headquarters. They were waiting for him there, and he had scarcely delivered the message before their plans were made. One by one they left the headquarters, hiding in doorways, basements and areaways along the narrow street. . . . . . . . Long Sin was making his rounds, visiting all those whom the glitter of Wu's money could corrupt. Suddenly from the shadows of a narrow street, lined with the stores of petty Chinese merchants, half a dozen lithe and murderous figures leaped out behind Long Sin and seized him. He struggled, but they easily threw him down. Any one who has visited Chinatown knows that at every corner and bend of the crooked streets stands a policeman. It was scarcely a second before the noise of the scuffle was heard, but it was too late. The half dozen Tong men had seized the money which Long Sin carried and had deftly stripped him of everything else of value. The sound of the approaching policeman now alarmed them. Just as the new Tong leader had raised an axe to bring it down with crushing force on Long Sin's skull a shot rang out and the axe fell from the broken wrist of the Chinaman. In another moment the policeman had seized him. Then followed a sharp fight in which the Tong men's knowledge of jiu-jitsu stood them in good stead. The policeman was hurled aside, the Tong leader broke away, and one by one his followers disappeared through dark hallways and alleyways, leaving the policeman with only two prisoners and Long Sin lying on the sidewalk. But the ring and the money were gone. "Are you hurt much?" demanded the burly Irish officer, assisting Long Sin to his feet, none too gently. Long Sin was furious over the loss of the precious ring, yet he knew to involve himself in the white man's law would end only in disaster both for him and his master. He forced a painful smile, shook his head and managed to get away down the street muttering. He made his way up-town and back to the apartment of Wu, and there, pacing up and down in a fury, attended to his wounds. His forefinger, from which the ring had been so ruthlessly snatched, was a constant reminder to him of the loss. Any one who could have studied the vengefulness of his face would have seen that it boded ill for some one. . . . . . . . It was the day after her return from Aunt Tabby's that Kennedy called again upon Elaine to find that she and Aunt Josephine were engaged in the pleasant pastime of arranging an entertainment. Jennings announced Craig and held back the portieres as he entered. "Oh, good!" cried Elaine as she saw him. "You are just in time. I was going to send you this, but I should much rather give it to you." She handed him a tastefully engraved sheet of paper which he read with interest: Miss Elaine Dodge requests the honor of your presence at an Oriental Reception on April 6th, at 8 o'clock. "Very interesting," exclaimed Craig enthusiastically. "I shall be delighted to come." He looked about a moment at the library which Elaine was already rearranging for the entertainment. "Then you must work," she cried gaily. "You are just in time to help me buy the decorations. No objections--come along." She took Kennedy's arm playfully. "But I have a very important investigation for the Coroner that I am--" "No excuses," she cried, laughingly, dragging him out. Among the many places which Elaine had down on her shopping list was a small Chinese curio shop on lower Fifth avenue. They entered and were greeted with a profound bow by the proprietor. He was the new Tong leader, and this up-town shop was his cover. In actual fact, he was what might have been called a Chinese fence for stolen goods. In their interest in the wealth of strange and curious ornaments displayed in the shop they did not notice that the Chinaman's wrist was bound tightly under his flowing sleeve. Elaine explained what it was she wanted, and with Kennedy's aid selected a number of Chinese hangings and decorations. They were about to leave the shop when Elaine's eye was attracted by a little show case in which were many quaint and valuable Chinese ornaments in gold and silver and covered ivory. "What an odd looking thing," she said, pointing out a knobbed ring which reposed on the black velvet of the case. "Quite odd," agreed Kennedy. The subtle Chinaman stood by the pile of hangings on the counter which Elaine had bought, overjoyed at such a large sale. Praising the ring to Elaine, he turned insinuatingly to Kennedy. There was nothing else for Craig to do--he bought the ring, and the Chinaman proved again his ability as a merchant. From the curio shop where Elaine had completed her purchases they drove to Kennedy's laboratory. I had been at work on a story for the Star when they entered. "You will be there, too, Mr. Jameson?" coaxed Elaine, as she told of their morning's work. I needed no urging. We were in the midst of planning the entertainment when a slight cough behind me made me start and turn quickly. There stood Long Sin, the astute Chinaman who had delivered the bomb to Kennedy and had betrayed Bennett. We had seen very little of him since then. Long Sin bowed low and shuffled over closer to Kennedy. I noticed that Elaine eyed Long Sin sharply. But as yet we had seen no reason to suspect him, so cleverly had he covered his tracks. Kennedy, having used him once to capture Bennett, was still not unwilling to use him in attempting to discover where Bennett's hidden millions lay. "I am in great trouble, Professor Kennedy," began Long Sin in a low tone. "You don't know the Chinese of the city, but if you did you would know what blackmailers there are among them. I have refused to pay blackmail to the Chong Wah Tong, and since then it has been trouble, trouble, trouble." Kennedy looked up quickly at the name Chong Wah Tong, thinking of the investigation which the Coroner had asked him to make into the murder. He and Long Sin moved a few steps away, discussing the affair. Elaine and I were still talking over the entertainment. She happened to place her hand on the desk near Long Sin. My back was toward him and I did not see him start suddenly and look at her hand. On it was the ring--the ring which, unknown to us, Long Sin had found in the passageway under Aunt Tabby's garden, of which he had been robbed, and which now, by a strange chance, had come into Elaine's possession. It was a peculiar situation for Long Sin, although as yet we did not know it. He could not lay claim to the mystic ring, for then Kennedy would make him prove his ownership, and the whole affair of which we still knew nothing would be exposed. He acted quickly. Long Sin decided to recover the ring by stealth. Elaine was still talking enthusiastically about her party, when Long Sin turned from Kennedy and moved toward us with a bow. "The lady speaks of an Oriental reception," he remarked. "Would she care to engage a magician?" Elaine turned to him surprised. "Do you mean that you are a magician?" she asked, puzzled. Long Sin smiled quietly. He reached over and took a small bottle from Kennedy's laboratory table. Holding it in his hand almost directly before us, he made a few sleight-of-hand passes, and, presto! the bottle had disappeared. A few more passes, and a test tube appeared in its place. Before we knew it he had caused the test tube to disappear and the bottle to reappear. We all applauded enthusiastically. "I don't think that is such a bad idea after all," nodded Kennedy to Elaine. "Perhaps not," she agreed, a little doubtfully. "I hadn't intended to have such a thing, but--why, of course, that would interest everybody." . . . . . . . It was the night of the reception. The Dodge library was transformed. The Oriental hangings which Elaine and Kennedy had purchased seemed to breathe mysticism. At the far end of the room a platform had been arranged to form a stage on which Long Sin was to perform his sleight-of-hand. The drawing-room also was decorated like the library. At the other end of the room Elaine and Aunt Josephine, in picturesque Oriental costume, were greeting the guests. Every one seemed to be delighted with the novelty of the affair. We came in just a bit ahead of Long Sin, and Elaine greeted us. Almost everybody had arrived when Elaine turned to the guests and introduced Long Sin with a little speech. Long Sin bowed and every one applauded. He made his way to the platform in the library and mounted it. I shall not attempt to describe the amazing series of tricks which he performed. His hands and fingers seemed to move like lightning. Among other things, I remember he took up a cover from a table near-by. He held it up before us. Instantly it seemed that a flock of pigeons flew out of it around the room. How he did it I don't know. They were real pigeons, however, and the trick brought down the house. Long Sin bowed. Another of his feats which I recall was nothing less than kindling a fire on a small bit of tin and, as the flames mounted, he deliberately stepped into them, apparently as unharmed as a salamander. So it went from one thing to another. The entertainment was brilliant in itself, but Long Sin seemed to put the finishing touch to it. In fact, I suppose that it was a couple of hours that he continued to amuse us. He had finished and every one crowded about him to congratulate him on his skill. His only answer, however, was his inscrutable smile. "This is wonderful, wonderful," I repeated as I happened to meet Elaine alone. We walked into the conservatory while the guests were crowding around Long Sin. She seated herself for the first time during the evening. "May I get you an ice?" I suggested. She thanked me, and I hurried off. As I passed through the drawing-room I did not notice that Long Sin had managed to escape further congratulations of the guests. Just then a waiter passed through with ices on a tray. I called to him and he stopped. A moment later Long Sin himself took an ice from the tray and retreated back of the portieres. No one was about, and he hastily drew a bottle from his pocket. On the bottle was a Chinese label. He palmed the bottle, and any one who had chanced to see him would have noticed that he passed it two or three times over the ice, then, lifting the portieres, entered the drawing-room again. He had made the circuit of the rooms in such a way as to bring himself out directly in my path. With a smile he stopped before me, rubbing both hands together. "It is for Miss Elaine?" he asked. I nodded. By this time several of the guests who were fascinated with Long Sin gathered about us. Long Sin fluttered open a Chinese fan which he had used in his tricks, passed it over my hand, and in some incomprehensible way I felt the plate with the ice literally disappear from my grasp. My face must have shown my surprise. A burst of laughter from the other guests greeted me. I looked at Long Sin, half angry, yet unable to say anything, for the joke was plainly on me. He smiled, made another pass with the fan, and instantly the plate with the ice was back in my hand. There was nothing for me but to take the joke in the spirit in which the other guests had taken it. I laughed with them and managed to get away. Meanwhile Kennedy had been moving from one to another of the guests seeking Elaine. He had already taken an ice from the waiter and was going in the direction of the conservatory. There he found her. "Won't you take this ice?" he asked, handing it to her. "It is very kind of you," she said, "but I have already sent Walter for one." Kennedy insisted and she took it. She had already started to eat it when I appeared in the doorway. I was rather vexed at Long Sin for having delayed me, and I mumbled something about it. Kennedy laughed, rather pleased at having beaten me. "Never mind, Walter," he said with a smile, "I'll take it. And er--I don't think that Elaine will object if you play the host for a little while with Aunt Josephine," he hinted. I saw that three was a crowd and I turned to retrace my steps to the drawing-room. Kennedy, however, was not alone. Back of the palms in the conservatory two beady black eyes were eagerly watching. Long Sin had noted every movement as his cleverly laid plan miscarried. Chatting with animation, Kennedy tasted the ice. He had taken only a couple of spoonfuls when a look of wonder and horror seemed to spread over his face. He rose quickly. A cold sweat seemed to break out all over him. His nerves almost refused to respond. His tongue seemed to be paralyzed and the muscles of his throat seemed to be like steel bands. He took only a few steps, began to stagger, and finally sank down on the floor. Elaine screamed. We rushed in from the library and drawing-room. There lay Kennedy on the floor, his face most terribly contorted. We gathered around him and he tried to raise himself and speak, but seemed unable to utter a sound. He had fallen near the fountain and one hand drooped over into the water. As he fell back he seemed to have only just enough strength to withdraw his hand from the fountain. On the stone coping, slowly and laboriously, he moved his finger. "What's the matter, old man?" I asked, bending over him. There was no answer, but he managed to turn his head, and I followed the direction of his eyes. With trembling finger he was tracing out, one by one, some letters. I looked and it flashed over me what he meant. He had written with the water: "Digitalin--lab--" I jumped up and almost without a word dashed out of the conservatory, down the hall and into the first car waiting outside. "To the laboratory," I directed, giving the driver the directions, "and drive like the deuce!" Fortunately there was no one to stop us, and I know we broke all the speed laws of New York. I dashed into the laboratory, almost broke open the cabinet, and seized the bottle of digitalin and a hypodermic syringe, then rushed madly out again and into the car. Meanwhile some of the guests had lifted up Kennedy, too excited to notice Long Sin in his hiding-place. They had laid Craig down on a couch and were endeavoring to revive him. Some one had already sent for a doctor, but the aconite was working quickly on its victim, and he was slowly stiffening out. Elaine was frantic. I scarcely waited for the car to stop in front of the house. I opened the door and rushed in. Without a word I thrust the antidote and the syringe into the hands of the doctor and he went to work immediately. We watched with anxiety. Finally Kennedy's eyes opened and gradually his breathing seemed to become more normal. The antidote had been given in time. . . . . . . . Kennedy was considerably broken up by the narrow escape which he had had, and, naturally, even the next morning, did not feel like himself. In the excitement of leaving Elaine's we had forgotten the bottle of digitalin. As for myself, I had been so overjoyed at seeing my old friend restored that I would have forgotten anything. Kennedy looked rather wan and peaked, but insisted on going to the laboratory as usual. "Do you remember what became of the bottle of digitalin?" he asked, fumbling in the closet. Mechanically I felt in my own pockets; it was not there. I shook my head. "I don't seem to remember what became of it--perhaps we left it there. In fact, we must have left it there." "I don't like to have such things lying around loose," remarked Kennedy, taking up his hat and coat with forced energy. "I think we had better get it." Elaine had spent rather a sleepless night after the attempt to poison her which had miscarried and resulted in poisoning Kennedy. To keep her mind off the thing, she had already started to take down the decorations. Jennings and Marie, as well as a couple of workmen, were restoring the library to its normal condition under the direction of Aunt Josephine. The telephone rang and Elaine answered it. Her face showed that something startling had happened. "It was Jameson," she cried, almost dropping the receiver, overcome. They all hurried to her. "He says that Mr. Kennedy and he were visiting that Chinaman this morning and Mr. Kennedy suffered a relapse--is dying there, in the Chinaman's apartment. He wants us to come quickly and bring that medicine that they used last night. He says it is on the tabaret in the library. Marie, will you look for it? And, Jennings, get the car right away." Jennings hurried from the room, and a moment later Marie had found the bottle behind some ornaments on the tabaret and came back with it. Scarcely knowing what to do, Elaine, followed by Aunt Josephine, had rushed from the house, hatless and coatless, just as the car swung around from the garage in the rear. Jennings went out with the wraps. They seized them and leaped into the car, which started off swiftly. It was only a matter of minutes when they pulled up before the apartment house where Wu had taken the suite from which Long Sin had telephoned the message in my name. Together Elaine and Aunt Josephine hurried in. . . . . . . . Kennedy went directly from the laboratory to the Dodge house. I don't think I ever saw such an expression of surprise on anybody's face as that on Jennings's when he opened the door and saw us. He was aghast. Back of him we could see Marie. She looked as if she had seen a ghost. "Is Miss Elaine in?" asked Kennedy. Jennings was even too dumfounded to speak. "Why, what's the matter?" demanded Kennedy. "Then--er--you are not ill again?" he managed to blurt out. "Ill again?" repeated Kennedy. "Why," explained Jennings, "didn't Mr. Jameson just now telephone that you had had a relapse in the apartment of that Chinaman, and for Miss Elaine to hurry over there right away with that bottle of medicine?" Kennedy waited to hear no more. Seizing me by the arm, he turned and dashed down the steps and back again into the taxicab in which we had come. . . . . . . . In Wu's apartment Long Sin was giving his secretary and another Chinaman the most explicit instructions. As he finished each nodded and showed him a Chinese dirk concealed under his blouse. Just then a knock sounded at the door. The secretary opened it, and Aunt Josephine and Elaine almost ran in. Before they knew it, the secretary had locked the door. Long Sin rose and bowed with a smile. "Where is Mr. Kennedy?" demanded Elaine. Long Sin bowed again, spreading out his hands, palm outward. "Mr. Kennedy? He is not here." Then, straightening up, he faced the two women squarely. "You have a ring that means much to me," he said quickly. "The only way to get it from you was to bring you here." He was pointing now at the ring on Elaine's finger. She looked at it a moment in surprise, then at the menacing Chinaman, and turned quickly. She ran to the door. It was locked. Long Sin, motionless, smiled. "There is no way to get out," he murmured. Aunt Josephine was standing now with her back to the door leading into another room. She happened to look up and saw the secretary, who was near her and half turned away. From where she was standing she could see the murderous dirk up his sleeve. She acted instantly. Without a word she summoned all her strength and struck him. The secretary stumbled. "Elaine," she cried, "look out! they have knives." Before Elaine knew it Aunt Josephine had taken her by the arm, had pulled her into the back room, and, although Long Sin and the others had rushed forward, managed to slam the door and lock it. The Chinamen set to work immediately to pry it open. While they were at work on the doer, which was already swaying, Aunt Josephine and Elaine were running about, trying to find an outlet from the room. There seemed to be no way out. Even the windows were locked. "I don't know why they want the ring," whispered Aunt Josephine, "but they won't get it. Give it to me, Elaine." She almost seized the ring, hiding it in her waist. As she did so the door burst open and Wu, Long Sin and the other Chinamen rushed in. A second later they seized Elaine and Aunt Josephine. . . . . . . . Kennedy and I dashed up before the apartment house in which we knew that Long Sin lived, leaped out of the car and hurried in. It was on the second floor, and we did not wait for the elevator but took the steps two at a time. Kennedy found the door locked. Instantly he whipped out his revolver and shot the lock in pieces. We threw ourselves against the door, the broken lock gave way and we rushed in through the front room. No one was there, but in a back room we could hear sounds. It was Elaine and Aunt Josephine struggling with the Chinamen. Long Sin and the others had seized Elaine and Aunt Josephine was trying to help her just as we rushed in. With a blow Kennedy knocked out the secretary, while I struggled with the other Chinamen who blocked the way. Then Kennedy went directly at Long Sin. They struggled furiously. Long Sin, with his wonderful knowledge of jiu-jitsu, might not have been a match for six other Chinamen, but he was for one white man. With a mighty effort he threw Kennedy, rushed for the door and, as he passed through the outside room, seized a Tong axe from the wall. Afraid of the wonderful jiu-jitsu, I had picked up the first thing handy, which was a tabaret. I literally broke it over the head of my Chinaman, then turned and dashed out after Long Sin just as Kennedy picked himself up and followed. I caught up with the Chinaman and we had a little struggle, but he managed to break away and raised his axe threateningly. A shout from Kennedy caused him to turn and run down the flight of stairs, Kennedy closely behind him. In the main hall of the apartment house were two elevator shafts facing the street entrance, some twenty-five or thirty feet away. Through the street door the janitor and two or three other men were running in. They had heard the noise of the fighting above. Escape to the street was cut off. We were behind him on the flight of stairs. Long Sin did not hesitate a moment. He ran to the elevator, the door of which was open, seized the elevator boy and sent him sprawling on the marble floor. Then he slammed the door and the elevator shot up. Kennedy was only a few feet behind, and he took in the situation at a glance. He leaped into the other elevator, and before the surprised boy could interfere shot it up only a few feet behind Long Sin. Up the two elevators rose, Kennedy firing as best he could at Long Sin, while the shots reverberated through the elevator shaft like cannon. It was a wild race to the roof. Long Sin had the start, and as the elevator reached the top floor he flung it open, dashed out and through a door up to the roof itself. A second later Kennedy's elevator stopped. Craig leaped out and fired his last shot at the legs of Long Sin as he disappeared at the top of the flight of stairs to the roof. He flung the revolver from him and followed. Without a moment's hesitation Kennedy threw himself at Long Sin. They struggled with each other. Finally Long Sin managed to wrench one arm lose and raise the Tong axe over Kennedy's head. Kennedy dodged back. As he did so he tripped on the very edge of the roof and went sliding down the slates of the mansard. Fortunately he was able to catch himself in the gutter. It was the opportunity that Long Sin wanted. He started across the rope, which he had stretched from this apartment house to the building across the court, with all the deftness of the most expert Chinese acrobat. By this time I had reached the roof, followed by the janitor and the elevator boys. Kennedy was now crawling up the mansard, helping himself as best he could by some of the ornamental ironwork. I hurried over with the janitor, and together we pulled him out of danger. Long Sin had reached the roof on the opposite side as we ran across in the direction of the taut rope. A moment later he returned and bowed at us mockingly, then disappeared behind a skylight. Kennedy did not stop an instant. "You fellows go down to the street and see if you can head him off that way," he cried. "Stay here, Walter." Before I knew it he had seized the rope and was going across to the other building, hand over hand. It was a perilous undertaking, but his blood was up. Kennedy had almost reached the other roof when suddenly from behind the skylight stepped Long Sin. With a wicked leer, he advanced to the edge of the roof, his axe upraised. I looked across the yawning chasm, horrified. Slowly Long Sin raised the axe above his head, gathering all the strength which he had, waiting for Kennedy to approach closer. Kennedy stopped. Swiftly the axe descended, slashing the rope at one blow. Like the weight of a pendulum Kennedy swung back against our own building, managing to keep his hold on the rope with superhuman strength. I bent far over the edge of the roof, fully expecting to see him dashed to pieces at the bottom of the court. There was a tremendous shattering of glass. The rope had been just long enough to make him strike a window and he had gone crashing through the glass three floors below. I dashed down the stairs and into the apartment. Kennedy was lying on the floor badly cut. I raised him up. He was dazed and considerably overcome; but as he staggered to his feet with my help I saw that no bones were broken. "Help me, quick, Walter," he urged, moving toward the elevators. Meanwhile Long Sin had quickly dived down into the next building. A few moments later he had come out on the ground floor at the rear. Gazing about to see whether he was followed, he disappeared. . . . . . . . Back in the apartment, Elaine and Aunt Josephine were just about to run out when the two Chinamen who had been knocked out recovered. One of them threw himself on Elaine. Aunt Josephine tried to ward him off, but the other one struck her and threw her down. Before she could recover they had seized Elaine. With a hasty guttural exclamation they picked her up and ran out. Instead of going down-stairs they crossed the hallway, slamming the door behind them. As Kennedy and I reached the ground floor we saw the janitor and one of the elevator boys on either side of Aunt Josephine. "Elaine! Elaine!" she cried. "What's the matter?" demanded Kennedy, leaning heavily on me. "They have kidnapped her," cried Aunt Josephine. Kennedy pulled himself together. "Tell me, quick--how did it happen?" he demanded of Aunt Josephine. "It was the ring," she cried, handing it to him. Kennedy took the ring and looked at it for a moment. Then he turned to us blankly. All the rooms were empty. Elaine had been spirited away. CHAPTER III THE WATCHING EYE Not a clue was left by the kidnappers when they so mysteriously spirited Elaine away from the apartment of Wu Fang. She had disappeared as completely as if she had vanished into the thin air. Kennedy was frantic. Wu and Long Sin themselves seemed to have vanished, too. Where they held her, what had happened to her was a sealed book. And yet, no move of ours was made, no matter how secret, that it did not seem to be known to them. It was as though a weird, uncanny eye glared at us, watching everything. Craig neglected no possibility in his eager search. He even visited the little house in the country which Elaine had given to Aunt Tabby, and spent several hours examining the collapsed subterranean chamber in the vain hope that it might yield a clue. But it had not. It was half filled with debris from above, where the pillar had given way that night when we had all so nearly lost our lives. Still, there was enough room in what remained of the cavern so that we could move about. Kennedy had even dug away some of the earth and rock, in the hope of discovering some trace of the strange visitor whom we had surprised at work. But here, also, he had found nothing. It was maddening. What might at any moment be happening to Elaine--and he powerless to help her? Unescapably, he was forced to the conclusion that not only Elaine's amazing disappearance, but the tragic succession of events which had preceded it, had been caused, in some way, by the curiously engraved ring which Aunt Josephine had taken from Elaine. Craig had taken possession of the mystic ring himself, and now, forced back on this sole clue, it had occurred to him that if the ring were so valuable, other attempts would, without doubt, be made to get possession of it. I came into the laboratory, one afternoon, to find Kennedy surrounded by jeweler's tools, hard at work making an exact copy of the ring. "What do you think of it, Walter?" he asked, holding up the replica. "Perfect," I replied, admiringly. "What are you going to do with it?" "I can't say--yet," answered Kennedy, forlornly, "but if I understand these Chinese criminals at all, I know that the only way we can ever track them is through some trick. Perhaps the replica will suggest something to us later." He placed the copy in a velvet-lined box closely resembling that in which the real ring lay, and dropped both into his pocket. "Let's see if Aunt Josephine has received any word," he remarked abruptly, putting on his hat and coat, and nodding to me to follow. Kennedy and I were not the only visitors to the subterranean chamber where it had seemed that the clue to the Clutching Hand's millions might be found. It was as though that hidden, watching eye followed us. The night after our own unsuccessful search, Wu Fang, accompanied by Long Sin, made his way into the cavern. As they flashed their electric bull's-eyes about the place, they could see readily that we had already been digging there. Wu examined the safe which had been broken into, while Long Sin repeated his experiences there. "And you say there was nothing else in it?" demanded Wu. "Nothing but the ring which they got from me," replied Long Sin, ruefully. "Strange--very strange," ruminated Wu, still regarding the empty strong box. Long Sin was now going over the walls of the cavern minutely, his close-set, beady black eyes examining every square inch of it. A sudden low guttural exclamation caused Wu to turn to him quickly. Long Sin had discovered, back of the debris, a small oblong slot, cut into the rock. Above it were some peculiar marks. Wu hurried over to his henchman, and together they tried to decipher what had been scratched on the rock. As Long Sin's slender and sinister forefinger traced over the inscription, Wu suddenly caught him by the elbow. "The ring!" he cried, as at last he interpreted the meaning of the cryptic characters. But what about the ring? For a moment Wu looked at the slot in deep thought. Then he reached down and withdrew a ring from his own finger and dropped it through the slot. They listened a moment. They could hear the ring tinkle as though it were running down some sort of track-like declivity inside the rock. Then, faintly, they could hear it drop. It had fallen into a little cup of a compartment below at their feet. Nothing happened. Wu recovered his ring. But he had hit at last upon the Clutching Hand's secret! Bennett had devised a ring-lock which would open, the treasure vault. No other ring except the one which he had so carefully hidden was of the size or weight that would move the lever which would set the machinery working to open the treasure house. Again Wu tried another of his own rings, and a third time Long Sin dropped in a ring from his finger. Still there was no result. "The ring which we lost is the key to the puzzle--the only key," exclaimed Wu Fang finally. "We must recover it at all hazard." To his subtle mind a plan of action seemed to unfold almost instantly. "There is no good remaining here," he added. "And we have gained nothing by the capture of the girl, unless we can use her to recover the ring." Long Sin followed his master with a sort of intuition. "If we have to steal it," he suggested deferentially, "it can be accomplished best by making use of Chong Wah Tong." The Tong was the criminal band which they had offended, which had in fact stolen the ring from Long Sin and sold it to Elaine. Yet in a game such as this enmity could not last when it was mutually disadvantageous. Wu took the suggestion. He decided instantly to make peace with his enemies--and use them. Later that night, in his car, Wu stopped near the little curio shop kept by the new Tong leader. Long Sin alighted and entered the shop, while the Tong man eyed him suspiciously. "My master has come to make peace," he began, saluting the Tong leader behind the counter. Nothing, in reality, could have pleased the Tong men more, for in their hearts they feared the master-like subtlety of Wu Fang. The conference was short and Long Sin with a bow left quickly to rejoin Wu, while the Tong leader disappeared into a back room of the shop where several of the inner circle sat. "All is well, master," reported Long Sin when he had made his way back to the car around the corner in which Wu was waiting. Wu smiled and a moment later followed by his slave in crime entered the curio shop and passed through with great dignity into the room in the rear. As the two entered, the Tong men bowed with great respect. "Let us be enemies no more," began Wu briefly. "Let us rather help each other as brothers." He extended his right hand, palm down, as he spoke. For a moment the Tong leader parleyed with the others, then stepped forward and laid his own hand, palm down, over that of Wu. One by one the others did the same, including Long Sin, the aggrieved. Peace was restored. Wu had risen to go, and the Tong men were bowing a respectful farewell. He turned and saw a large vase. For a moment he paused before it. It was an enormous affair and was apparently composed of a mosaic of rare Chinese enamels, cunningly put together by the deft and patient fingers of the oriental craftsmen. Extending from the widely curving bowl below was an extremely long, narrow, tapering neck. Wu looked at it intently; then an idea seemed to strike him. He called the Tong leader and the others about him. Quickly he outlined the details of a plan. . . . . . . . "Have you received any word yet?" asked Aunt Josephine anxiously, when Jennings had ushered us into the Dodge library. Kennedy shook his head sadly. There was no need to repeat the question to Aunt Josephine. The tears in her eyes told only too plainly that she herself had heard nothing, either. Craig bent over and placed his hand on her shoulder. For the moment, none of us could control our emotions. A few minutes later, Jennings entered the room softly again. "The expressmen are outside, ma'am, with a large package," he said. "A package?" inquired Aunt Josephine, looking up, surprised. "For me--are you sure?" Jennings bowed and repeated his remark. Aunt Josephine followed him out into the hall. There, already, the delivery men had set down a huge oriental vase with a remarkably long and narrow neck. It was, as befitted such a really beautiful object of art, most carefully crated. But to Aunt Josephine it came as a complete surprise. "I can't imagine who could have sent it," she temporized. "Are you quite sure it is for me?" The expressman, with a book, looked up from the list of names down which he was running his finger. "This is Mrs. Dodge, isn't it?" he asked, pointing with his pencil to the entry with the address following it. There seemed to be no name of a shipper. "Yes," she replied dubiously, "but I don't understand it. Wait just a moment." She went to the library door. "Mr. Kennedy," she said, "may I trouble you and Mr. Jameson a moment?" We followed her into the hall and there stood gazing at the mysterious gift while she related its recent history. "Why not set it up in the library?" I suggested, seeing that the expressmen were getting restive at the delay. "If there is any mistake, they will send for it soon. No one ever gets anything for nothing." Aunt Josephine turned to the expressmen and nodded. With the aid of Jennings they carried the vase into the library and there it was uncrated, while Kennedy continued to question the man with the book, without eliciting any further information than that he thought it had been reconsigned from another express company. He knew nothing more than that it had been placed on his wagon, properly marked and prepaid. When Kennedy rejoined us, the vase had been completely uncrated, Aunt Josephine signed for it, and, grumbling a bit, the expressmen left. There we stood, nonplussed by the curious gift. Craig walked around the vase, looking at it critically. I had a feeling of being watched, one of those sensations which psychologists tell us are utterly baseless and unfounded. I was glad I had not said anything about it when he tapped the vase with his cane, then stuck it down the long narrow neck, working it around as well as he could. The neck was so long and narrow, however, that his stick could not fully explore the inside of the vase, but it seemed to me to be quite empty. "Well, there's nothing in it, anyhow," I ventured. I had spoken too soon. Kennedy withdrew his cane and on the ferrule, adhering as though by some sticky substance, was a note. Kennedy pulled it off and unfolded it, while we gathered about him. "Maybe it's from Elaine," cried Aunt Josephine, grasping at a straw. We read: DEAR AUNT JOSEPHINE, This is a token that I am unharmed. Have Mr. Kennedy give the ring to the man at the corner of Williams and Brownlee Avenues at midnight to-night, and they will surrender me to him.--ELAINE. P. S. Have him come alone or my life will be in danger. We looked at each other in amazement. "I thought something like this would happen," remarked Craig at length. "Oh," cried Aunt Josephine, "it's too good to be true." "We'll do it," exclaimed Kennedy quickly, "only this is the ring that we'll give them." He drew from his pocket the replica of the ring which he had made and showed it to Aunt Josephine. Then he drew from another pocket the real ring, replacing the replica. "Here's the real one," he said in a low tone. "Guard it as you would guard your life." She took the ring, almost fearfully. It seemed as if nothing but misfortune had followed it. Still, she realized that it was necessary that she should take care of it, if the plan was to work. "And, oh, Mr. Kennedy," she implored, as we rose to go, "please get back my little girl for me." Craig clasped her hand. "I'll try my best," he replied fervently, patting her shoulder to cheer her up, as she sank into a chair. Aunt Josephine was worn out with the sleepless nights of worry since Elaine's disappearance. After we had gone, she tried to eat dinner, but found that she had no appetite. All the evening she sat in the library, with a book at which she stared, though she scarcely read a page. However, as the hours lengthened, she found herself nodding through sheer exhaustion. It was getting late and her thoughts were still on Elaine, At the desk in the library, she was examining the curious ring, which she had taken from her jewel case, thinking of the terrible train of events that had followed it. Although she had intended to sit up until she received some word from Kennedy that night, the long strain had told on her and in spite of her worry about Elaine, she decided, at length, to retire. She replaced the ring in the case, locked the case, and turned out the lights. "Good night, Jennings," she said, as she passed the faithful old butler in the hall. "Good night, ma'am," he replied, pausing on his rounds to see that the doors and windows were locked. Aunt Josephine, clasping the jewel case tightly, mounted the stairs and entered her room. She locked the door carefully and put the jewelry case under her pillow. Then she switched off the light. The moment Jennings's footsteps ceased down-stairs in the library, a small piece of the vase seemed to break away from the rest of the mosaic, as though it were knocked out from the inside. Then a large piece fell out, and another. At last from the strange hiding-place a lithe figure, as shiny as though bathed in oil, naked except for a loin-cloth, seemed to squirm forth like a serpent. It was Wu Fang--the watchful eye which, literally as well as figuratively, had been leveled at us in one form or another ever since the kidnapping of Elaine. Silently he tiptoed to the doorway and listened. There was not a sound. Just as noiselessly then he went back to the library table and muffling the telephone bell, took down the receiver. He whispered a number, waited, then whispered some directions. A moment later he wormed his way out of the library and into the drawing-room. On he went cautiously, snake-like, up the stairs until he came to the door of Aunt Josephine's room. He bent down and listened. There was no sound except Aunt Josephine's breathing. Silently he drew from a fold in the loin-cloth a screwdriver and removed the screws from the hinges of the door. Quietly he pushed the bedroom door open, pivoting it on the lock, just far enough open so that he could slip through. Creeping along the floor, like a reptile whose sign he had assumed, he came nearer and nearer Aunt Josephine's bed. As he paused for a moment his quick eye seemed to catch sight of the bulging lump under her pillow. His long thin hand reached out for it. Aunt Josephine moved restlessly in her sleep. Instantly he seized a murderous-looking Chinese dirk fastened to his side and raised it above her head ready to strike on the slightest outcry. She moved slightly, and relapsed into sound sleep again. Holding the knife above her, Wu slowly and quietly removed the jewel-case from under her pillow. . . . . . . . In a country road-house Long Sin was waiting patiently. The telephone rang and the proprietor answered. Long Sin was at his side almost before he could hand over the receiver. It was Long Sin's master, Wu. "Beware," came the whispered message over the wire. "Kennedy has made a false ring. I'll get the real one. By the great Devil of Gobi, you must cut him off." "It is done," returned Long Sin, hanging up the receiver in great excitement. He hurried out of the room and left the road-house. Down the road in an automobile, bound between two Chinamen, one at her head and the other at her feet, was Elaine, wrapped around in blankets, not even her face visible. The guards looked up startled as Long Sin streaked out of the shadow to the car. "Quick!" he ordered. "The master will get the ring himself. I will take care of Kennedy." An instant and they were gone, while Long Sin slunk back into the shadows from which he had come. Through the underbrush the wily Chinaman made his way to an old barn, which stood back some distance from the road, and entered the front door. There was another door in the rear, and one quite large window. In the dim light of a lantern hanging from a rafter could be seen several large barrels in a corner. Without a moment's hesitation, Long Sin seized a bucket and placed it under the spiggot of one of the barrels. The liquid poured forth into the bucket and he emptied the contents on the floor, filling the bucket again and again and swinging it right and left in every direction until the barrel had finally run dry. Then he moved over to the window, which he examined carefully. Satisfied with what he had done, he drew a slip of paper from his pocket and hastily wrote a note, resting the paper on an old box. When he had finished writing, he folded up the note and thrust it into a little hollow carved Chinese figure which he took also from his pocket. These were, apparently, his emergency preparations which he was ready to execute in case he received such a message from his master as he had actually received. With a final hasty glance about he extinguished the lantern, letting the moonlight stream fitfully through the single window. Then he left the barn, with both front and rear doors open. Taking advantage of every bit of shelter, he made his way across the field in the direction of the crossroads, finally dropping down behind a huge rock some yards from the finger post that pointed each way to Williams and Brownlee Avenues. . . . . . . . Late that night, Kennedy left his apartment prepared to follow the instructions in the note which had been so strangely delivered in the vase. As he climbed into a roadster, he tucked the robe most carefully into a corner under the leather seat. "For heaven's sake, Craig," I gasped from under the robe, "let me have a little air." I had taken my place under the robe before the car was driven up before the apartment, lest some emissary of Wu Fang might be watching to see that there was no such trick. "You'll get air enough when we get started, Walter," he laughed back under his breath, apparently addressing the engine. Kennedy was a hard driver when he wanted to be and enough was at stake to-night to make him drive hard. He whizzed along in the roadster, and I was indeed glad enough to huddle up under the robe. We had reached a point in the suburbs which was deserted and I did not recognize a thing when he pulled up by the side of the road with a jerk. I peered through a crease in the corner of the robe, and saw him slide out from under the wheel and stand by the side of the car, looking up and down. Ahead of us the road curved sharply and I had no idea what was there, though Kennedy seemed to know the place. A moment later he pulled the robe partly off me, and bent down as though examining the batteries on the side of the car. "Get out on the other side in the shadow of the car, Walter," he whispered hoarsely. "Go down the road a bit--only cut in and keep under cover. This is Williams Avenue. You'll see a big rock. Hide behind it. Ahead you'll see Brownlee Avenue. Be prepared for anything. I shall have to trust the rest to you. I don't know myself what's going to happen." I slid out and went along the edge of the road, as Craig had directed, and finally crouched behind a huge rock, feeling on as much tension as if I had been a boy playing at Wild West. Only this might at any moment develop into the reality of a Wild Far East. After a moment to give me a chance, Craig himself left the car pulled up close by the side of the road and went ahead on foot. At last he came to the cross-roads just around the bend, where in the moonlight he could read the sign: "Williams Avenue" and "Brownlee Avenue." He stood there a moment, then glanced at his watch which registered both hands approaching the hour of twelve. He gazed about at the deserted country. Had the appointment been a hoax, after all, a scheme to get him away from the city for some purpose? Suddenly, at his feet in the dust of the road something heavy seemed to drop. He looked about quickly. No one was in sight. He reached down and picked up a little Chinese figure. Tapping it with his knuckle, he examined it curiously. It was hollow. From the inside he drew out a piece of paper. He strained his eyes in the moonlight and managed to make out: The Serpent is all-wise, and his fang is fatal. You have signed the white girl's death warrant. Beneath this sinister warning was stamped the serpent sign of Wu Fang. It was not a hoax, and Kennedy stood there a moment gazing about in tense anxiety. Had that uncanny watching eye observed his every action? Was it staring at him now in the blackness? . . . . . . . Meanwhile, I had made my way stealthily, peering into the bushes and careful not even to step on anything that would make a noise and was now, as I have said, crouched behind the big rock to which Craig had directed me. I heard him go along the road and looked about cautiously, but could hear and see nothing else. I had begun to wonder whether Kennedy might not have made a mistake when, suddenly, from behind the shadow of another rock, ahead of me, but toward Brownlee Avenue, I saw a tall, gaunt figure of a man rise in the moonlight, almost as if it had sprung from the very earth. My heart gave a leap, as he quickly raised his right arm and hurled something as far as he could in the direction that Kennedy had taken. If it had been a bomb, followed by an explosion, I would not have been surprised. But no sound followed as the figure dropped back as if it had been a wraith. I stole out from my own hiding-place in the shadow of my rock and darted quickly to the shelter of a bush, nearer the figure. The figure was no wraith. It turned to steal away. I remembered Kennedy's parting words. If the man ever gained the darkness of a clump of woods, just beyond us, he was as good as safe. This was the time to act. I leaped at him and we went down, rolling over and over in the underbrush and stubble. We fought fiercely, but I could not seem to get a glimpse of his face which was muffled. He was powerful and stronger than I and after a tough tussle he broke loose. But I had succeeded, nevertheless. I had delayed him just long enough. Kennedy heard the sound of the struggle and was now crashing through the hedge at the cross-roads in our direction. I managed to pick myself up, just as Kennedy reached my side and, together, we followed the retreating figure, as it made its way among the shadows. Across the open space before us we followed him and at last saw him dive into an old barn. A moment later we followed hot-foot into the barn. As we entered, we could hear a peculiar grating noise, as though a door was swung on its rusty hinges. The front door was open. Evidently the man had gone through and closed the back door. We threw ourselves against the back door. But it did not yield. There was no time to waste and we turned to rush out again by the way we had come, just as the front door was slammed shut. The man had trapped us. He had left both doors open, had run through, braced the back door, then had rushed around outside just in time to brace the front door also. We could hear his feet crunching the dry leaves and twigs as he went around the side of the barn again. Together we threw ourselves against the front door, but, although it yielded a little he had barred it so that it would resist our united strength for some time. Again and again we threw ourselves against it. It was horribly dark in there, except for an oblong spot where the moonlight streamed in through a window. Suddenly the pale silver of the moonlight on the floor reddened. The man had struck a match and thrown it into a mass of oil-soaked straw and gunpowder which protruded through one of the weather-beaten boards, near the floor. It was only a matter of a second or so now when the fire swept into the barn itself. There was no beating it out. Some one had literally soaked the straw and the floor with oil. It seemed as though the whole place burst into a sudden blaze of tinder. Outside, we could hear footsteps rapidly retreating toward the shelter of the clump of woods. For a second I looked dismayed at the rapidly-mounting flames. "A very pretty situation," I forced with a laugh. "But I hope he doesn't think we'll stay here and burn, with a perfectly good window in full view." I took a step toward the window, but before I could take another, Kennedy yanked me back. "Don't think for a moment that he overlooked that," he shouted. Craig looked around hastily. In a corner, just back of us was a long pole. He snatched it up and moved cautiously toward the window, keeping the pole as level as possible as he endeavored to get a leverage on the sash. The flames were mounting faster and higher, licking up everything. "Keep back, Walter," he muttered, "just as far as you can." He had scarcely raised the window a fraction of an inch when an old rusty, heavy anvil and a bent worn plowshare crashed down to the floor directly over the spot where I should have been if he had not dragged me away. I started back, aghast. Nothing had been overlooked to finish us off. "I think you may try it safely now, all right," smiled Kennedy coolly. We climbed out of the window, not an instant too soon from the raging inferno about us. Having gained the clump of woods, the gaunt figure had paused long enough to gloat over his clever scheme. Instead, he saw us making good our escape. With a gesture of intense fury he turned. There was nothing more for him to do but to zigzag his way to safety across country. The barn was now burning fiercely and it was almost as light as day about us. Kennedy paused only long enough to look down at the ground where the fire had been started. "See, Walter," he exclaimed pointing to a square indention in the soft soil. "No white man ever made a footprint like that." I bent over. The prints had the squareness of those paper-layered soles of a Chinaman. "Long Sin," came the name involuntarily to my lips, for I knew that Wu would delegate just such a job to his faithful slave. Kennedy did not pause an instant longer, but in the light of the burning barn, as best he could, started to follow the trail in a desperate endeavor either to overtake Long Sin, or at least to find the final direction in which he would go. . . . . . . . At the entrance of the passageway which led to the little underground chamber in which we had sought the treasure hidden by the Clutching Hand, Wu Fang was seated on a rock waiting impatiently, though now and then indulging in a sinister smile at the subtle trick by which he had recovered the ring. The sound of approaching footsteps disturbed him. He was far too clever to leave anything to chance and, like a serpent, he wriggled behind another rock and waited. It was only a glance, however, that he needed to allay his suspicions. It was Long Sin, breathless. Wu stepped out beside him so quietly that even the acute Long Sin did not hear. "Well?" he said in a guttural tone. Long Sin drew back in fear. "I have failed, oh master," he replied in an imploring tone. "Even now they follow my tracks." It was bad enough to confess defeat without the fear of capture. Wu frowned. "We must work quickly, then," he muttered. He picked up a dark lantern near-by, indicating another to Long Sin. They entered the cave, flashing the lights ahead of them. "Be careful," ordered Wu, proceeding gingerly from one stepping-stone to another. "We shall be followed no further than this." He paused a moment and pointed his finger at the earth. Everywhere, except here and there where a stone projected, was a sticky, slimy substance. It was an old trick of primitive races. "Bird lime," hissed Wu, pointing at the viscid substance made of the juice of the holly bark, extracted by boiling, and mixed with a third part of nut oil and grease. They passed on from stone to stone until they came to the subterranean chamber itself. Without a moment's hesitation, Wu made his way toward the rock in which they had found the slot with its cryptic inscription. Long Sin watched his master in silent admiration as, at last, he drew forth the mystic ring for which they had dared all. Without a word, Wu dropped it in the slot. It tinkled down the runway, a protuberance hit a trigger and pushed it a hair's breadth. A noise behind them caused the two to turn startled. Even Wu had not expected it. On the other side of the chamber, a great rock in the ground slowly turned, as though on a pivot. They watched, fascinated. Even then Wu did not forget the precious ring, but as the rock turned, reached down quickly and recovered it from the cup at the floor. Inch by inch the pivoted rock moved on its axis. They flashed their lanterns full on it and, as it moved, they could see disclosed huge piles of gold and silver in coins and bars and ornaments, a chest literally filled with brilliants, set and unset, rubies, emeralds, precious stones of every conceivable variety, a cave that would have staggered even Aladdin--the rich reward of the countless marauding operations of Bennett's other personality. For a moment they could merely stand in avaricious exultation. . . . . . . . Painfully and slowly, we managed to trail Long Sin's footprints, until we came to a road where they were lost in the hard macadam. There was no time to stop. We must follow the road on the chance that he had taken it. But which way? Kennedy chose the most likely direction, for the trail had been at an angle to the road and Long Sin was not likely to double back. We had not gone many rods before Kennedy paused a minute and looked about in the moonlight. "It's right, Walter," he cried. "Do you recognize it?" I looked about. Then it flashed over me. This was the back road that led past the entrance to the treasure vault at Aunt Tabby's. We went on now more quickly, listening carefully to catch any sounds, but heard nothing. At last Kennedy stopped, then plunged among the rocks and bushes beside the road. We were at the cave. "You go in this way, Walter," he directed. "I'll go around and down where it caved in." I groped my way along through the darkness. I had gone only a yard or two, when it seemed as though something had grasped my foot. With a great wrench I managed to pull it loose. But the weight on my other foot had imbedded it deeper. I struggled to free this foot and got the other caught. My revolver, which I had drawn, was jarred from my hand and in the effort to recover it, I lost my balance. Unable to move a foot in time to catch myself, I fell forward. My hands were now covered by the slimy, sticky stuff, and the more I struggled, the worse I seemed to get entangled. . . . . . . . Wu and Long Sin paused only a minute in astonishment. Then they literally fell upon the wealth that lay before them, gloating over the gold, stuffing their hands into the jewels, lifting them up and letting the priceless gems run through their fingers. Suddenly they paused. There was the slight tinkle of a Chinese bell. Kennedy had reached Aunt Tabby's garden, outside the roof of the subterranean chamber where it had given way, had gone down carefully over the earth and rock, and in doing so had broken a string stretched across the passageway. The tinkle of a bell attached to it aroused his attention and he stopped short, a second, to look about. Wu Fang had arranged a primitive alarm. Quickly, Wu and Long Sin blew out their lanterns while Wu gave the rock a push. Slowly, as it had opened, it now closed and they stood there listening. I was still struggling in the bird lime, getting myself more and more covered with it, when the reverberation of revolver shots reached me. Wu and Long Sin had opened fire on Kennedy, and Kennedy was replying in kind. In the cavern it sounded like a veritable bombardment. As they retreated, they came nearer and nearer to me and I could see the revolvers spitting fire in the darkness. So intent were they on Kennedy that they forgot me. I watched them fearfully as they hopped deftly from one stone to another to avoid the lime--and were gone. "Craig! Craig!" I managed to cry feebly. "Be careful. Keep to the stones." He strained his eyes toward the ground in the darkness, at the sound of my voice. Then he struck a match and instantly took in the situation which, to me, under any other circumstances, would have been ludicrous. Stepping from stone to stone, he followed the retreating Chinamen. But they had already reached the mouth of the cave and were making their way rapidly down the road to a bend, in the opposite direction from which we had come. There, Wu's automobile was waiting. They leaped into it and the driver, without a word, shot the car off into the darkness of early dawn. A moment later, Kennedy appeared, but they had made their getaway. Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps to the cave. I don't think that I ever welcomed him more sincerely than I did as, finally, I crawled slowly out from the bird lime, exhausted by the effort that I had made to free myself from the sticky mess. "They got away, Walter," he said, lighting a lantern they had dropped. "By George," he added, I think a little vexed that I had not been able to stop them, "you are a sight!" He was about to laugh, when I fainted. I can remember nothing until I woke up over by the wall of the chamber where he dragged me. Kennedy had been working hard to revive me, and, as I opened my eyes, he straightened up. His eye suddenly caught something on the rock beside him. There was a little slot carved in it, and above the slot was a peculiar inscription. For several minutes, Kennedy puzzled over it, as Wu had done. Then he discovered the little cup near the ground. "The ring!" he suddenly cried out. I was too muddled to appreciate at once what he meant, but I saw him reach into his fob pocket and draw forth the replica of the trinket which had caused so much disaster, as if it had been cursed by the Clutching Hand himself. He dropped it into the slot. Struggling to my feet, I saw across from me the very rock itself moving. Was it an hallucination, born of my nervous condition? "Look, Craig!" I cried involuntarily, pointing. He turned. No, it was not a vision. It actually moved. Together we watched. Slowly the rock turned on a pivot. There were disclosed to our astonished eyes the hidden millions of the Clutching Hand. I looked from the gold and jewels to Kennedy, in speechless amazement. "We have beaten them, anyhow," I cried. Slowly Craig shook his head sadly. "Yes," he murmured, "we have found the Clutching Hand's millions, but we have lost Elaine." CHAPTER IV THE VENGEANCE OF WU FANG Elaine was still in the power of Wu Fang. Kennedy had thwarted the Chinese master criminal in his search for the millions amassed by the Clutching Hand. But any joy that we might have derived from this success was completely obscured by the fear that Wu might wreak some diabolical vengeance on Elaine. It was a ticklish situation. In fact, I doubt whether Craig would have discovered the treasure at all, if our pursuit of Wu and Long Sin the night before had not literally forced us into doing so. Nor were Kennedy's fears unfounded. Wu and Long Sin had scarcely reached the secret apartment back of the deceptive exterior of the Chinatown tenement, when the subtle Chinaman began to contemplate his revenge. Long Sin was smoking a Chinese pipe, resting after their hurried flight, while Wu, the tireless, was seated at a table at the other end of the room. At last Wu Fang took up a long Chinese dirk from the table before him, looked at it, turned it over, felt its edge. It was keen and the point was sharp. He rose and deliberately walked across to a door leading into a back room. On a couch lay Elaine and with her, as a guardian, was Weepy Mary whom the Clutching Hand had used to lure her to the church where the faked record of her father's marriage was supposed to be. Indeed, though Wu had lost the Clutching Hand's millions, he had seen his chance and had fallen heir to what was left of Bennett's criminal organization. As Wu, the Serpent, entered and advanced slowly towards Elaine, she crouched back from him in deadly fear. He stopped before her without a word and his menacing eye seemed to read her very thoughts. Slowly he drew from under his robe the Chinese dirk. He felt the edge of it again and gazed significantly at Elaine. She shrank back even further, as far as the divan would permit. It was a critical moment. Just then Long Sin entered. "One of the five millions waits outside," he reported simply, with a bow. Wu understood. It had been a pleasant fiction of his that although he did not, of course, absolutely control such a stupendous organization he could, by his subtle power, force almost unlimited allegiance from the simple coolies in that district of China from which he came. Out in the front room, just a moment before, a knock at the door had disturbed Long Sin, and a Chinese servant had announced a visitor. Long Sin had waved to the servant to usher him in and a poorly clad coolie had entered. He bowed as Long Sin faced him. "Where is the master?" he had asked. Long Sin had not deigned to speak. With a mere wave of his hand, he indicated that he would be the bearer of the message, and had followed Wu through the door of the back room. So, almost by chance, Wu was interrupted in the brutal vengeance which had first come to his mind. He sheathed the knife and, still without a word, went back into the main room, giving a nod to Weepy Mary to guard Elaine closely. Wu eyed the coolie until the newcomer could almost feel the master's penetrating gaze, although his head was bowed in awe. Quickly the coolie thrust his hand under his blouse and drew forth a package. With another bow, he advanced. "For your enemies, oh master," he said, handing the package over to Wu. For the first time since the loss of the treasure, Wu Fang seemed to take an interest in something besides revenge. The coolie started to open the package, removed the paper wrapper, and then a silk wrapping inside. Finally he came to a box, from which he drew a leather pouch, each operation conducted with greater care as it became evident that the contents were especially precious in some way. Then he took from the pouch a small vial. "What is it?" demanded Wu Fang, as the coolie displayed it. The coolie drew forth now a magnifying glass and a glass slide. Opening the vial with great care he shook something out on the slide, then placed it under the lens. "Look!" he said simply. Wu bent over and looked. Under the lens what had formerly seemed to be merely a black speck of dirt became now one of the most weird and uncanny little creatures to be found in all the realm of nature. It seemed to be all legs and feelers moving at once. A normal person would have looked at the creature only with the greatest repugnance. Wu regarded it with a sort of unholy fascination. "And it is?" he queried. "What the white man calls the African tick which carries the recurrent fever," answered the coolie deferentially. A flash of intense exultation seemed to darken Wu Fang's sinister face. Several times he paced up and down the room, as he contemplated the sight which he had just seen. Then he came to a sudden determination. "Wait," he said to the coolie, as he moved slowly again into the back room. Long Sin had remained there. With Weepy Mary he was guarding Elaine when Wu Fang reentered. Elaine was thoroughly aroused by this time. Even the fact that Wu no longer held the murderous dirk did not serve to reassure her, for the look on his face was even more terrible than before. He smiled cunningly to himself. "Suffering is a state of mind," he said in a low tone, "and I have decided that it would be poor revenge for me to harm you. You are free." Nothing could have come as a greater surprise to Elaine. Even Long Sin had not expected any such speech as this. Elaine, however, was wonder-stricken. "Do you--do you really mean it?" she asked, scarcely able to believe what her ears heard. Wu merely nodded, and with a wave of his hand to Long Sin indicated that Elaine was to be released. Long Sin, the slave, did not stop to question his master, but merely moved over to a closet and took out the hat and wraps which Elaine had worn when she had been kidnapped in the up-town apartment. He handed them over to her and she put them on with trembling hands. No one stopped her and she nerved herself to take several steps toward the door. She had scarcely crossed half the room. "Wait!" ordered Wu sharply. Was he merely torturing her, as a cat might torture a mouse? She stopped obediently, afraid to look at him. "This will be the vengeance of Wu Fang," he went on impressively. "Slowly, one by one, your friends will weaken and die, then your family, until finally only you are left. Then will come your turn." He stopped again and raised his long lean forefinger. "Go," he hissed. "I wish you much joy." He turned to Long Sin and whispered a word to him. A moment later, Long Sin drew forth a large silken handkerchief and tied it tightly over Elaine's eyes. Then he took her hand and led her out. There was to be no chance by which she could lead a raiding party back to the den in which she had been held. I don't think that in all our friendship I have ever seen Kennedy so utterly depressed as he was when we returned after the discovery of the vast fortune which Bennett had cleverly secreted. I came upon him in the laboratory the next morning while he was trying to read. He had laid aside his scientific work, and now he had even laid aside his book. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to do until some new clue turned up. I placed my hand on his shoulder, but the words that would encourage him died on my lips. Several times I started to speak, but each time I checked myself. There did not seem to be anything that would be appropriate for such an occasion. A sharp ring at the telephone made both of us fairly jump, so nervous had we become. Kennedy reached over instantly for the instrument in the vague hope that at last there was some news. As I watched his face, it changed first from despair to wonder, and finally it seemed to light up with the most remarkable look of relief and happiness that one could imagine. "I shall be right over," he cried, jamming the receiver down on the hook, and in the same motion reaching for his hat and coat. "Walter," he cried, "it is Elaine! They have let her go!" I seized my own hat and coat in time to follow him and we dashed out of the laboratory. The suspense under which Aunt Josephine had been living had told on her. Her niece, Elaine's cousin, Mary Brown, who lived at Rockledge, had come into the city to comfort Aunt Josephine and they had been sitting, that morning, in the library. Marie, the maid was busy about the room, while Aunt Josephine talked sadly over Elaine's strange disappearance. She was on the verge of tears. Suddenly a startled cry from Jennings out in the hall caused both ladies to jump to their feet. They could scarcely believe what they heard as the faithful old butler cried out the name. "Why--Miss Elaine!" he gasped. An instant later Elaine herself burst into the room and flung herself into Aunt Josephine's arms. All talking and half crying from joy at once, they crowded about her. Breathlessly she answered the questions that flew thick and fast. In the excitement Aunt Josephine had seized the telephone and called our number. She did not even wait to break the good news, but handed the telephone to Elaine herself. We left the laboratory on the run, too fast to notice that just around the building line at the corner stood a limousine with shades drawn. Even if we had paused to glance back, we could not have seen Wu Fang and Long Sin inside, gazing out through the corner of the curtains. They were in European dress now and had evidently come prepared for just what they knew was likely to happen. In all the strange series of events, I doubt whether we had ever made better time from the laboratory over to the Dodge house than we did now. We were admitted by the faithful Jennings and almost ran into the library. "Oh, Craig!" cried Elaine, as Kennedy, almost speechless, seized her by both hands. For a few seconds none of us could speak. Then followed a veritable flood of eager conversation. I watched Elaine carefully, in fact we all did, for she seemed, in spite of the excitement of her return, to be almost a complete nervous wreck from the terrible experiences she had undergone. "Won't you come and stay with me a few days up in the country, dear?" urged Mary at last. Elaine thought a moment, then turned to Aunt Josephine. "Yes," considered her aunt, "I think it would do you good." Still she hesitated; then shyly looked at Kennedy and laughed. "You, too, Craig, must be fagged out," she said frankly. "Come up there with us and take a rest." Kennedy smiled. "I shall be delighted," he accepted promptly. "You, too, Mr. Jameson," she added, turning to me. I hesitated a moment and Kennedy tried to catch my eye. I was just about to speak when he brought his heel down sharply on my toe. I looked at him again and caught just the trace of a nod of his head. I saw that I was de trop. "No, thank you," I replied. "I'm afraid I'd better not go. Really, I have too much work staring at me. I can't get away--but it's very kind of you to think of asking me." We chatted, then left a few moments later so that Kennedy could pack. Around the corner from the laboratory, as we dashed out, had been, as I have said, Wu Fang and Long Sin looking out from the limousine. No sooner had we disappeared across the campus than their driver started up the car and they sped around to our apartment. Cautiously they alighted and walked down the street. Then making sure they were not observed, they entered and mounted the stairs to our doorway. Long Sin was stationed down the hall on guard while Wu Fang drew from his pocket a blank key, a file and a candle. He lighted the candle and held the key in its flame until it was covered with soot. Then he inserted the key in the keyhole, turned it and took the key out. Working quickly now, he examined the key sharply. In the soot were slight scratches indicating where it struck and prevented the turning of the lock. He filed the key, trying it again and again. Finally he finished, and opened the door. Beckoning Long Sin, he entered our rooms. As they stood there, Wu Fang gazed about our living-room, keenly. He was evidently considering where to place something, for, one after another, he picked up several articles on the desk and examined them. Each time that he laid one down he shook his head. Finally his eye rested on the telephone. It seemed to suggest an idea to him and he crossed over to it. Carefully holding down the receiver on the hook, he unscrewed the case which holds the diaphragm, while with his clever fingers he held the rest of the instrument intact. Then he removed from his pocket the vial which the coolie had given him and placed its contents on the diaphragm itself. Quickly now he replaced the receiver, and, having finished their work, Long Sin and Wu Fang stealthily crept out. A second time, as we approached our apartment after the visit to Elaine, we were too excited to notice the limousine in which were Wu and Long Sin. But no sooner had we entered than Long Sin left the car with a final word of instruction from his master. Up-stairs, in the apartment, Kennedy began hurriedly to pack, and I helped him as well as I could. We were in the midst of it when the telephone rang and I answered it. "Hello!" I called. There was no response. "Hello, Hello!" I repeated, raising my voice. Still there was no answer. I worked the hook up and down but could get no reply. Finally, disgusted, I hung up. A moment later, I recall now, it seemed to me as though some one had stuck a pin into the lobe of my ear. Still, I thought nothing of it in the excitement of Kennedy's departure, and went to work again to help him pack. We had scarcely got back to work, when the telephone bell jangled again, and a second time I answered it. "Is Mr. Kennedy there?" came back a strange voice. I handed the instrument to Craig. "Hello," he called. "Who is this?" No response. "Hello, hello," he shouted, working the hook as I had done and, as in my case, there was still no answer. "Some crank," he exclaimed, jamming down the receiver in disgust and returning to his packing. Neither of us thought anything of it at the time, but now I recall that I did see Kennedy once or twice press the lobe of his ear as though something had hurt it. We did not know until later that in a pay station down the street our arch enemy, Long Sin, had been calling us up and then, with a wicked smile, refusing to speak to us. . . . . . . . It was about a week later that I came home late one night from the Star, feeling pretty done up. Whatever it was, a violent fever seemed to have come on me suddenly. I thought nothing of it, at first, because I soon grew better. But while it lasted, I had the most intense shivering, excruciating pains in my limbs, and delirious headache. I recall, too, that I felt a peculiar soreness on the ear. It was all like nothing I had ever had before. Indeed the next morning when I woke up, I felt a lassitude that made it quite hard enough even to lounge about in my bath-robe. Finally, feeling no better, I decided to see a doctor. I put on my clothes with a decided effort and went out. The nearest doctor was about half a block away and we scarcely knew him, for neither Kennedy nor I were exactly sickly. "Well," asked the doctor, as he closed the door of his office and turned to me. "What seems to be the matter?" I tried to smile. "I feel as though I had been celebrating not wisely but too well," I replied, trying to cheer up, "but as a matter of fact I have been leading the simple life." He sounded me and pounded me, looked at my tongue and my eyes, listened to my heart and lungs, though I don't think he treated my symptoms very seriously. In fact, I might have known what he would do. He talked a little while on generalities, diet and exercise then walked over to a cabinet, and emptied out a few pills into a little paper box. "Take one every hour," he said, handing them to me, and carefully returning the bottle to the cabinet so that I could not see what was on the label. "Cut your cigarettes to three a day, and don't drink coffee. Four dollars, please." I suppose I ought to have been cured, and in fact I was cured--of going to that doctor. I paid him and went back to the apartment, my head soon in a whirl from a new onset of the fever. I managed to get back into my bath-robe, and threw myself down on the divan, propped up with pillows. I had taken the pills but they had no more effect than sugar of milk. By this time, I was much more delirious and was crying out. I saw faces about me, but I did not see the faces which were actually out by our hall door. Wu Fang and Long Sin had waited patiently for their revenge. Now that they thought sufficient time had elapsed, they had stolen stealthily to the apartment door. While Long Sin watched, Wu listened. "The white devil has it," whispered Wu Fang, as he rejoined his fellow conspirator. How long I should have remained in this state, and in fact how long I did remain, I don't know. Vaguely, I recall that our acquaintance, Johnson, who had the apartment across the hall, at last heard my cries and came out to his own door. He needed only a moment to listen at ours to know that something was wrong. "Why, what's the matter, Jameson?" he asked, poking his head in and looking anxiously at me. I could only rave some reply, and he tried his best to quiet me. "What's the matter, old man?" he repeated. "Tell me. Shall I send for a doctor?" Somehow or other I knew the state I was in. I knew it was Johnson, yet it all seemed unreal to me. With a great effort I gathered all my scattered wits and managed to shout out, "Telegraph Kennedy--Rockledge." By this time Johnson himself was thoroughly alarmed. He did not lose a second in dictating a telegram over the telephone. . . . . . . . At about the same time, up at Rockledge, Kennedy and Elaine, with her cousin Mary Brown, were starting out for a horseback ride through the hills. They were chatting gaily, but Kennedy was forcing himself to do so. In fact, they had scarcely gone half a mile when Kennedy, who was riding between the two and fighting off by sheer nerve the illness he felt, suddenly fell over in half a faint on the horse's neck. Elaine and Mary reined up their horses. "Why, Craig," cried Elaine, startled, "what's the matter?" The sound of her voice seemed to arouse him. He braced up. "Oh, nothing, I guess," he said with a forced smile. "I'm all right." It was no use, however. They had to cut short the ride, and Kennedy returned to the house, glad to drop down in an easy chair on the porch, while Elaine hovered about him solicitously. His head buzzed, his skin was hot and dry, his eyes had an unnatural look. Every now and then he would place his hand to his ear as though he felt some pain. They had already summoned the country doctor, but it took him some time to get out to the house. Suddenly a messenger boy rode up on his bicycle and mounted the porch steps. "Telegram for Mr. Kennedy," he announced, looking about and picking out Craig naturally as the person he wanted. Kennedy nodded and took the yellow envelope while Elaine signed for it. Listlessly he tore it open. It read: CRAIG KENNEDY, c/o Wellington Brown, Rockledge, N. J. Jameson very ill. Wants you. Better come. JOHNSON. The message seemed to rouse Kennedy in spite of his fever. His face showed keen alarm, which he endeavored to conceal from Elaine. But her quick eye had caught the look. "I must see Walter," he exclaimed, rising rather weakly and going into the house. How he ever did it is still, I think, a mystery to him, but he managed to pack up and, in spite of the alternating fever and chills, made the journey back to the city. When at last Craig arrived at our apartment, it must have seemed to him that he found me almost at death's door. I was terribly ill and weak by that time, but had refused to see the doctor again and Johnson had managed to get me into bed. Ill himself, Kennedy threw himself down for a moment exhausted. "When did this thing come on Walter?" he asked of Johnson. "Yesterday, I think, at least as nearly as I can find out," replied our friend. Craig was decidedly worried. "There's only one person in New York to call on," he murmured, pulling himself out of bed and getting into the living-room as best he could. "Is that you, Godowski?" he asked over the telephone. "Well, doctor, this is Kennedy. Come over to my apartment, quick. I've a case--two cases for you." Godowski was a world-famous scientist in his line and had specialized in bacteriology, mainly in tropical diseases. As Kennedy hung up the receiver, he made his way back again to the bedroom, scratching his ear. He noticed that I was doing the same in my delirium. "Has Walter been scratching his ear?" he asked of Johnson. Johnson nodded. "That's strange," considered Craig thoughtfully. "I've been doing the same." He turned back into the living-room and for a moment looked about. Finally his eye happened to fall on the telephone and an idea seemed to occur to him. He went over to the instrument and unscrewed the receiver. Carefully he looked inside. Then he looked closer. There was something peculiar about it and he picked up a blank sheet of white paper, dusting off the diaphragm on it. There, on the paper, were innumerable little black specks. Just then, outside, Dr. Godowski's car drew up and he jumped out, swinging his black bag. Not being acquainted with what we were going through, Godowski did not notice the almond-eyed Chinaman who was watching down the street. "How do you do, doctor," greeted Craig faintly, at the door. "What seems to be the difficulty?" inquired the doctor eagerly. "I don't know," returned Craig, "but I have my suspicions. I'm too ill to verify them myself. So I've called on you. Look at Jameson first," he added. While Godowski was examining me, Craig managed to get out his microscope and was looking through it at the strange black specks on the paper. There, under the lens, he could see the most remarkable, almost microscopic creature, all legs and feelers, a most vicious object. Weak though he was, he could not help an exclamation of exultation at his discovery, just as Godowski had finished with me. "Look!" he cried, calling the doctor. "I know what the trouble is, Godowski." He had started to tell, but the excitement of the journey and the exertion were so great that he could hardly mumble. "Here--look--on this paper," he cried. "From the telephone--" He had risen and was handing the paper to the scientist when his weakness overcame him. He fell flat on his face on the floor and dropped the paper, spilling the contents. Godowski, now thoroughly alarmed, bent over Craig. But the delirium had overcome Kennedy, too. Unable to make any sense out of Craig's broken wanderings, Godowski lost no time in taking samples of our blood. Then he hurried away to his laboratory in his car. As he did so, however, Long Sin leaped into a taxicab which was waiting and followed. . . . . . . . In Godowski's laboratory, where he was studying tropical diseases, the bacteriologist set to work at once to confirm his own growing suspicions. From a monkey which he had there for experimental purposes, he drew off some blood samples. Then, with the aid of his assistant, he took the blood samples he had obtained from us. The monkey's blood, under the microscope, seemed full of rather elongated wriggling germs of a peculiar species. In and out they made their way among the blood corpuscles each like a dart aimed at life itself. Then he took the samples of our blood. In them were the same germs--carried by that gruesome tick! "The spirillum!" he muttered. "They are infected with African recurrent fever. The only remedy is atoxyl, administered intravenously, after the manner of Professor Ehrlich's famous '606'." Godowski had rung the call box hastily for a messenger, when Long Sin, who had managed stealthily to creep up to the doctor's laboratory window, scowled, through at the action--then moved away. While his assistant gathered the apparatus, the doctor wrote: MISS ANNE SEPTIX, 301 W. --th St. Please go at once to the apartment of Craig Kennedy,--Claremont Ave. Surgical case. GODOWSKI, M. D. The boy arrived finally and the doctor gave him a generous tip to hurry with the note. He had not turned the corner, however, when Long Sin appeared. Subtly he played on the boy's cupidity to get him to deliver a note of his own, even offered to deliver the boy's note for him. The flash of a five dollar bill made the rest easy. As the boy disappeared on a fake errand, Long Sin, with the real note hurried down-town, smiling wickedly. "They have discovered the fever, Master," he reported in the den. Wu was beside himself with rage. Before he could speak, however, Long Sin spread out Godowski's message. "But I have this," he added. It took merely a glance to suggest to Wu a new plan of action. He rose and moved quickly into the back room. "Come," he ordered Weepy Mary. "You must dress up as a nurse--immediately." Quickly she donned one of the numerous disguises while Wu planned his campaign. "Here," he directed when she was ready, handing her a little vial. "You must infect every instrument the doctor uses on Kennedy and Jameson,--see?" She nodded and a moment later was on her way uptown. . . . . . . . Meanwhile Godowski himself had arrived at our apartment, much to the relief of our friend Johnson, and was unpacking his instruments. Quickly he improvised two operating tables, and placed one of us on each. Then, with his assistant, he put on his white robes, mask, gloves and other precautions for asepsis, setting out the apparatus for the intravenous administration of the drug that would kill the spirillum. Godowski was busy with the atoxyl, mixing it in a normal salt solution. He would drop in a few drops of an acid, then a few drops of an alkaline solution, so as to keep the mixture neutral. Finally, he poured the solution into a container, to the bottom of which was attached a long tube. This container he raised high over our heads, clamping the tube. Then he fastened a tiny needle to the end of the tube, so that it could be inserted in our arms, catching skillfully a vein--a very difficult piece of work in which he excelled. The liquid would then flow by the force of gravity from the container down through the tube, through the hollow needle and into the vein where it would act on the germs of the fever. They had finished their preparations and were waiting for Miss Septix. "She ought to be here, now," muttered Godowski impatiently, looking at his watch. Just then a cab drove up outside. "Perhaps that is she," he exclaimed. "It must be." A few moments later the door of the apartment opened. His face showed his disappointment. It was a stranger. "Miss Septix is ill," she introduced, "and sent me to take her place." The doctor looked about. "Very well, then," he said briskly, seeing his preparations. "Are you ready to go ahead?" She nodded and threw off her coat that covered her immaculate white uniform. The specialist plunged whole-heartedly into his work of saving us now. "Hand me that needle, please," he directed the false nurse. She moved over to the table near-by and took it up, pausing only long enough to dip it secretly into a vial she carried with her. "Please hurry," repeated the doctor. She turned from the table and handed it to him. He adjusted it and already held it poised for the thrust which was not to cure but to poison us further. "Weepy Mary!" cried a frightened voice at our door. Elaine had been deeply alarmed by the sudden illness of Kennedy and the message from Jameson. No sooner had Kennedy gone, than it flashed over her that Wu Fang had predicted something like this. "The threat!" she exclaimed, seeking her cousin. "Mary, I must go to the city--right away." On the next train, then, she had been speeding back to New York, and, arriving at the station, she realized that there was not a moment to lose. She called a cab, drove directly to our apartment, and hurried in, without even ringing the bell. One glance at the improvised hospital was enough to alarm her. But the sight that had transfixed her was of a woman whose face she remembered only too well, though Kennedy and I had never seen her. "Please, Miss," began Godowski's assistant, trying to quiet Elaine, while Godowski turned in vexation to his work. "No, no!" repeated Elaine. "This woman is no nurse. She is a criminal!" Godowski paused. It was true he did not know the woman. He gazed from Elaine to Weepy Mary in doubt. The game was up. Weepy Mary dropped a piece of gauze which she had soaked in the solution from the vial which Wu had given her and bolted for the door. So sudden was her flight that no one was quick enough to stop her. She managed to reach the hall and slam the door. Down she rushed to the street, Godowski's assistant after her. There, awaiting, was Long Sin's car. She leaped in and was off in a moment. The assistant had just time to dive at the running-board. But his grip was poor and Long Sin easily threw him off. "You--you fool!" he hissed at Mary, as soon as the danger of pursuit was over and the assistant had gone back into the apartment. "Oh, sir," she begged, "it was not my fault. Miss Dodge came in--unexpectedly--she recognized me. If I had not fled, they would have caught me--perhaps you, too." Long Sin was furious. He threatened her and she cowered back. However, there was nothing to be gained by that and he subsided and drove quickly down-town. The excitement more than ever alarmed Elaine now. "Tell me," she appealed to Dr. Godowski, "what is the matter?" "In some way," he replied quickly, "they have become infected by the bite of an African tick which carries spirillum fever." "She got away, in a cab," panted the assistant, returning. Godowski raised his hands in despair. "I was just about to start," he cried. "Everything is ready. I can't send for another nurse. Every minute counts." Elaine had thrown off her coat and hat. Her sleeves were up in a moment and before the doctor knew what she was about she was scrubbing her hands in the antiseptic wash. "Only--show me--what to do," she cried. "I will be the nurse!" . . . . . . . Several days later, when we had recovered sufficiently from the diabolical attack that had been made upon us, Kennedy was again at work in the laboratory, while I was writing. We still felt rather weak, but Godowski's skill had pulled us out all right. Our speaking-tube sounded and I knew that it was Elaine and Aunt Josephine. "How do you feel?" inquired Elaine anxiously, as she almost ran across the laboratory to Craig. "Fine!" he exaggerated, brightly. "Really?" she repeated anxiously. "Look!" he said, turning to his microscope. He took some blood from a test tube in our electric incubator and placed a drop on a slide. It was some of the blood infected by the germs carried by the tick. "That is how our blood looked--before the new nurse arrived," he smiled, while Elaine looked at it in horror. Then he pricked his arm and let a drop smear on another slide. "Now look at that--perfectly normal," he added. "Oh--I'm so glad," she exclaimed radiantly. "Normal--thanks to you. You saved us. You were just in time," cried Craig taking both her hands in his. He was about to kiss her, when she broke away. "Craig," she whispered, blushing and looking hastily at us. Aunt Josephine and I could only smile at the disgusted glance Craig gave us, as he thrust his hands in his pockets and wished us a thousand miles away at that moment. CHAPTER V SHADOWS OF WAR For a long time Kennedy had, I knew, been at work at odd moments in the laboratory secretly. What it was that he was working on, even I was unable to guess, so closely had he guarded his secret. But that it was something momentous, I was assured. Long Sin had already been arrested and it was a day or two after the escape of Wu himself who had come just in time to prevent the confession by one of his emissaries of the whereabouts of his secret den. Kennedy had Chase and another detective whom he frequently employed on routine matters at work over the clues developed by his use of the sphygmograph. Elaine, anxious for news, had dropped in on us at the laboratory just as Kennedy was hastily opening his mail. Craig came to a large letter with an official look, slit open the envelope, and unfolded the letter. "Hurrah!" he cried, jumping up and thrusting the letter before us. "Read that." Across the top of the paper were embossed in blue the formidable words: United States Navy Department, Washington, D. C. The letter was most interesting: PROFESSOR CRAIG KENNEDY, The University, New York City. DEAR SIR, Your telautomatic torpedo model was tested yesterday and I take great pleasure in stating that it was entirely successful. There is no doubt that the United States is safe from attack as long as we retain its secret. Very sincerely yours, DANIEL WATERS, Ass't Sec'y. "Oh, Craig," congratulated Elaine, as she handed back the note. "I'm so glad for your sake. How famous you will be!" "When are we going to see the wonderful invention, Craig?" I added as I grasped his hand and, in return, he almost broke the bones in mine wringing it. "As soon as you wish," he replied, moving over to the safe near-by and opening it. "Here's the only other model in existence besides the model I sent to Washington." He held up before us a cigar-shaped affair of steel, about eight inches long, with a tiny propeller and rudder of a size to correspond. Above was a series of wires, four or five inches in length, which, he explained, were the aerials by which the torpedo was controlled. "The principle of the thing," he went on proudly, "is that I use wireless waves to actuate relays on the torpedo. The power is in the torpedo; the relay releases it. That is, I send a child with a message; the grown man, through the relay, does the work. So, you see, I can sit miles away in safety and send my little David out anywhere to strike down a huge Goliath." It was not difficult to catch his enthusiasm over the marvellous invention, though we could not follow him through the mazes of explanation about radio-combinators, telecommutators and the rest of the technicalities. I may say, however, that on his radio-combinator he had a series of keys marked "Forward," "Back," "Start," "Stop," "Rudder Right," "Rudder Left," and so on. He had scarcely finished his brief description when there came a knock at the door. I answered it. It was Chase and his assistant, whom Kennedy had employed in the affair. "We've found the place on Pell Street that we think is Wu Fang's," they reported excitedly. "It's in number fourteen, as you thought. We've left an operative disguised as a blind beggar to watch the place." "Oh, good!" exclaimed Elaine, as Craig and I hurried out after Chase and his man with her. "May I go with you?" "Really, Elaine," objected Craig, "I don't think it's safe. There's no telling what may happen. In fact, I think Walter and I had better not be seen there even with Chase." She pouted and pleaded, but Craig was obdurate. Finally she consented to wait for us at home provided we brought her the news at the earliest moment and demonstrated the wonderful torpedo as well. Craig was only too glad to promise and we waved good-bye as her car whisked her off. Half an hour later we turned into Chinatown from the shadow of the elevated railroad on Chatham Square, doing our best to affect a Bowery slouch. We had not gone far before we came to the blind beggar. He was sitting by number fourteen with a sign on his breast, grinding industriously at a small barrel organ before him on which rested a tin cup. We passed him and Kennedy took out a coin from his pocket and dropped it into the cup. As he did so, he thrust his hand into the cup and quickly took out a piece of paper which he palmed. The blind beggar thanked and blessed us, and we dodged into a doorway where Kennedy opened the paper: "Wu Fang gone out." "What shall we do?" I asked. "Go in anyhow," decided Kennedy quickly. We left the shelter of the doorway and walked boldly up to the door. Deftly Kennedy forced it and we entered. We had scarcely mounted the stairs to the den of the Serpent, when a servant in a back room, hearing a noise, stuck his head in the door. Kennedy and I made a dash at him and quickly overpowered him, snapping the bracelets on his wrists. "Watch him, Walter," directed Craig as he made his way into the back room. . . . . . . . In the devious plots and schemes of Wu Fang, his nefarious work had brought him into contact not only with criminals of the lowest order but with those high up in financial and diplomatic circles. Thus it happened that at such a crisis as Kennedy had brought about for him Wu had suddenly been called out of the city and had received an order from a group of powerful foreign agents known secretly as the Intelligence Office to meet an emissary at a certain rocky promontory on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound the very day after Kennedy's little affair with him in the laboratory and the day before the letter from Washington arrived. Though he was mortally afraid of Kennedy's pursuit, there was nothing to do but obey this imperative summons. Quietly he slipped out of town, the more readily when he realized that the summons would take him not far from the millionaire cottage colony where Elaine had her summer home, which, however, she had not yet opened. There, on the rocky shore, he sat gazing out at the waves, waiting, when suddenly, from around the promontory, came a boat rowed by two stalwart sailors. It carried as passengers two dark-complexioned, dark-haired men, foreigners evidently, though carefully dressed so as to conceal both their identity and nationality. As the boat came up to a strip of sandy beach among the rocks, the sailors held it while their two passengers jumped out. Then they rowed away as quickly as they had come. The two mysterious strangers saluted Wu. "We are under orders from the Intelligence Office," introduced one who seemed to be the leader, "to get this American, Kennedy." A subtle smile overspread Wu's face. He said nothing but this adventure promised to serve more than one end. "Information has just come to us," the stranger went on, "that Kennedy has invented a new wireless automatic torpedo. Already a letter is on its way informing him that it has been accepted by the Navy." The other man who had been drawing a cigar-shaped outline on the wet sand looked up. "We must get those models," he put in, adding, "both of them--the one he has and that the government has. Can it be done?" "I can get them," answered Wu sinisterly. And so, while Kennedy was drawing together the net about Wu, that wily criminal had already planned an attack on him in an unexpected quarter. Down in Washington the very morning that our pursuit of Wu came to a head, the officials of the navy department, both naval and civil, were having the final conference at which they were to accept officially Kennedy's marvellous invention which, it was confidently believed, would ultimately make war impossible. Seated about a long table in one of the board rooms were not only the officers but the officials of the department whose sanction was necessary for the final step. By a window sat a stenographer who was transcribing, as they were taken, the notes of the momentous meeting. They had just completed the examination of the torpedo and laid it on the end of the table scarcely an arm's length from the stenographer. As he finished a page of notes he glanced quickly at his watch. It was exactly three o'clock. Hastily he reached over for the torpedo and with one swift, silent movement tossed it out of the window. Down below, in a clump of rhododendrons, for several moments had been crouching one of the men who had borne the orders to Wu Fang at the strange meeting on the promontory. His eyes seemed riveted at the window above him. Suddenly the supreme moment for which this dastardly plot had been timed came. As the torpedo model dropped from the window, he darted forward, caught it, turned, and in an instant he was gone. . . . . . . . Wu Fang himself had returned after setting in motion the forces which he found necessary to call to aid the foreign agents in their plots against Kennedy's torpedo. As Wu approached the door of his den and was about to enter, his eye fell on our outpost, the blind beggar. Instantly his suspicions were aroused. He looked the beggar over with a frown, thought a moment, then turned and instead of entering went up the street. He made the circuit of the block and now came to an alley on the next street that led back of the building in which he had his den. Still frowning, he gazed about, saw that he was not followed, and entered a doorway. Up the stairs he made his way until he came to an empty loft. Quickly he went over to the blank wall and began feeling cautiously about as if for a secret spring hidden in the plaster. "No one in the back room," said Kennedy rejoining me in the den itself with the prisoner. "He's out, all right." Before Craig was a mirror. As he looked into it, at an angle, he could see a part of the decorations of the wall behind him actually open out. For an instant the evil face of Wu Fang appeared. Without a word, Craig walked into the back room. As he did so, Wu Fang, knife in hand, stealthily opened the sliding panel its full length and noiselessly entered the room behind me. With knife upraised for instant action he moved closer and closer to me. He had almost reached me and paused to gloat as he poised the knife ready to strike, when I heard a shout from Kennedy, and a scuffle. Craig had leaped out from behind a screen near the doorway to the back room where he had hidden to lure Wu on. With a powerful grasp, he twisted the knife from Wu's hand and it fell with a clatter on the floor. I was at Wu myself an instant later. He was a powerful fighter, but we managed to snap the handcuffs on him finally, also. "Walter," panted Kennedy straightening himself out after the fracas, "I'll stay here with the prisoners. Go get the police." I hurried out and rushed down the street seeking an officer. Up in the den, Wu Fang, silent, stood with his back to the wall, scowling sullenly. Close beside him hung a sort of bell-cord, just out of reach. Kennedy, revolver in hand, was examining the writing-table to discover whatever evidence he could. Slowly, imperceptibly, inch by inch, Wu moved toward the bell-cord. He was reaching out with his manacled hands to seize it when Kennedy, alert, turned, saw him, and instantly shot. Wu literally crumpled up and dropped to the floor as Craig bounded over to him. By this time I had found a policeman and he had summoned the wagon from the Elizabeth Street station, a few blocks away. As we drove up before the den, I leaped out and the police followed. Imagine my surprise at seeing Wu stretched on the floor. Kennedy had tried to staunch the flow of blood from a wound on Wu's shoulder with a handkerchief and now was making a temporary bandage which he bound on him. "How are you, sergeant?" nodded Kennedy. "Well, I guess you'll admit I made good this time." The sergeant smiled, recalling a previous occasion when the slippery Wu had squirmed through our fingers. Kennedy's restless eye fell on the bell-rope which had caused the trouble. Somehow, he seemed to have an irresistible desire to pull that rope. He gazed about the room. "Walter, you and the sergeant take the prisoners into the next room," he said. "I want to see what this thing really is." We moved Wu and his servant and stood in the doorway. Craig gave the rope a yank. Instantly there was an explosion. A concealed shotgun in the wall fired, scattering shot all over the front of Wu's table, just where we had been standing, knocking over and breaking vases, scattering papers and in general wrecking everything before it. "So, that's it," whistled Craig. "You fellows can come back now. Two of you men I'm going to leave here to watch the place and make other arrests if you can. Come on." With Kennedy I left the tenement while the sergeant marched the prisoners out, and we drove off with them. Quite a crowd had collected outside by the time we came out. Among them, naturally, were many Chinamen, and we could not see two of them hiding behind the rest on the outskirts, jabbering in low tones together and making hasty plans. As we clanged away down the street they followed more slowly on foot. Common humanity dictated that we take Wu first of all to a hospital and get him fixed up and to a hospital we went. Kennedy and I entered with our prisoners, closely guarded by the police. Craig handed Wu over to two young doctors and a nurse. By this time Wu was very weak from loss of blood. Still he had his iron nerve and that was carrying him through. The two young doctors and the nurse had scarcely begun to take off Craig's rude bandage to replace it properly, when a noise outside told us that a weeping and gesticulating delegation of Chinese had arrived. "Keep 'em back," called one of the doctors to an attendant. The attendant tried to drive them away, but nothing could force them back more than an inch or two as, in broken English, they sought to find out how Wu was. Their importunity proved too much for only one attendant. Still gibbering and gesticulating, the crowd brushed past him as if he had been a mere reed. The attendant raged about until he lost his head. But it was no use. There was nothing for him to do but to follow them in. Kennedy by this time had finished talking to the doctors and handing Wu over to them. They had taken him into a room in the dispensary. Just then the chattering crowd pushed in, some asking questions, others bewailing the fate of the great Wu Fang. They were so insistent that at last one of the doctors was forced to demand that the police drive them out. They started to push them back. In the melee, one of their number managed to get away from the rest and reach the doorway to the emergency room. He was, as we found out later, dressed almost precisely like Wu, although he had on a somewhat different cap. In build and size as well as features he was a veritable Dromio. The other Chinaman drew back behind the screen which hid the doorway to the emergency room and concealed himself. Meanwhile, Kennedy and I were laughing at the truly ludicrous antics of the astounded Celestials, thunderstruck at the capture of the peerless leader, while the police forced them back. "Well, good-bye," nodded Craig to the first doctor and nurse who had attended Wu Fang outside. "Good-bye. We'll fix him up and take good care that he doesn't cheat the law," they said, with a nod to the sergeant. . . . . . . . In the emergency room, Wu was placed on an operating table and there was bound up properly, though he was terribly weak now. Back of the screen, however, the other Chinaman was hiding, able to get an occasional glance at what was going on. There happened to be a table near him on which were gauze, cotton and other things. He reached over and took the gauze and quickly made it into a bandage, keeping one eye on the bandaging of Wu. Then he placed the bandage over his own shoulder and arm in the same way that he saw the doctors doing with Wu. They had finished with Wu and one of the doctors moved over to the doorway to call the sergeant. For the moment the rest had left Wu alone, his eyes apparently half closed through weakness. Each was busy about his own especial task. From behind the screen which was only a few feet from the operating table, the secreted Chinaman stepped out. Quickly he placed his own hat on Wu and took Wu's, then took Wu's place on the table while Wu slipped behind the screen. The doctor turned to the supposed Wu. "Come now," he ordered, handing him over to the police. "Here he is at last." The sergeant started to lead the prisoner out. As he did so, he looked sharply at him. He could scarcely believe his eyes. There was something wrong. All Chinaman might look alike to some people but not to him. "That's not Wu Fang!" he exclaimed. Instantly there was the greatest excitement. The doctors were astounded as all rushed into the emergency room again. One of them looked behind the screen. There was an open window. "That's how he got away," he cried. Meanwhile, several blocks from the hospital, Wu, still weak but more than ever nerved up, came out of his place of concealment, gazed up and down the street, and, seeing no one following, hurried away from the hospital as fast as his shaky legs would bear him. . . . . . . . Confident that at last our arch enemy was safely landed in the hands of the police, Kennedy and I had left the hospital and were hastening to Elaine with the news. We stopped at the laboratory only long enough to get the torpedo from the safe and at a toy store where Craig bought a fine little clockwork battleship. We found Elaine and Aunt Josephine in the conservatory and quickly Kennedy related how we had captured Wu. But, like all inventors, his pet was the torpedo and soon we were absorbed in his description of it. As he unwrapped it, Elaine drew back, timidly, from the fearful engine of destruction. Kennedy smiled. "No, it isn't dangerous," he said reassuringly. "I've removed its charge and put in a percussion cap. Let me show you, on a small scale, how it works," he added, winding up the battleship and placing it in the fountain. Next he placed the torpedo in the water at the other end of the tank. "Come over here," he said, indicating to us to follow him into the palms. There he had placed the strange wireless apparatus which controlled the torpedo. He pressed a lever. We peered out through the fronds of the palms. That uncanny little cigar-shaped thing actually started to move over the surface of the water. "Of course I could make it dive," explained Craig, "but I want you to see it work." Around the tank it went, turned, cut a figure eight, as Kennedy manipulated the levers. Then it headed straight toward the battleship. It struck. There was a loud report, a spurt of water. One of the skeleton masts fell over. The battleship heeled over, and slowly sank, bow first. "Wonderful!" exclaimed Elaine. "That was very realistic." We brushed our way out through the thick palms, congratulating Kennedy on the perfect success of his demonstration. So astonished were we that we did not hear the doorbell ring. Jennings answered it and admitted two men. "Is Professor Kennedy here?" asked one. "We have been to his apartment and to the laboratory." "I'll see," said Jennings discretely, taking the card of one of them and leaving them in the drawing-room. "Two gentlemen to see you, Mr. Kennedy," Jennings interrupted our congratulations, handing Craig a card. "Shall I tell them you are here, sir?" Craig glanced at the card. "I wonder what that can be?" he said, turning the card toward us. It was engraved: W. R. Barnes U. S. Secret Service. "Yes, I'll see them," he said, then to us, "Please excuse me?" Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I strolled off in the palms toward the Fifth Avenue side, while Jennings went out toward the back of the house. "Well, gentlemen," greeted Kennedy as he met the two detectives, "what can I do for you?" The leader looked about, then leaned over and whispered, "We've just had word, Professor, that your model of the torpedo has been stolen from the Navy Department in Washington." "Stolen?" repeated Kennedy, staring aghast. "Yes. We fear that an agent of a foreign government has found a traitor in the department." Rapidly Kennedy's mind pictured what might be done with the deadly weapon in the hands of an enemy. "And," added the Secret Service man, "we have reason to believe that this foreign agent is using a Chinaman, Wu Fang." "But Wu has been arrested," replied Craig. "I arrested him myself. The police have him now." "Then you don't know of his escape?" Kennedy could only stare as they told the story. Suddenly, down the hall, came cries of, "Help! Help!" . . . . . . . While Craig was showing us the torpedo, the criminal machinery which Wu had set in motion at orders from the foreign agents was working rapidly. Outside the Dodge house, a man had shadowed us. He waited until we went in, then slunk in himself by the back way and climbed through an open window into the cellar. Quietly he made his way up through the cellar until finally he reached the library. Listening carefully he could hear us talking in the conservatory. Stealthily he moved out of the library. We had left the conservatory when he entered, peering through the palms. On he stole till he came to the fountain. He looked about. There, bobbing up and down, was the model of the torpedo for which he had dared so much. He picked it up and looked at it, gloating. The crook was about to move back toward the library, hugging the precious model close to himself when he heard Jennings coming. He started back to the conservatory. Jennings entered just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of some one. His suspicions were roused and he followed. The crook reached the conservatory and opened a glass window leading out into the little garden beside the house. He was about to step out when the sound of voices in the garden arrested him. Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I had gone out and Elaine was showing me a new rose which had just been sent her. The crook fell back and dropped down behind the palms. Jennings looked about, but saw no one and stood there puzzled. Then the crook, fearing that he might be captured at any moment, looked about to see where he might hide the torpedo. There did not seem to be any place. Quickly he began to dig out the earth in one of the palm pots. He dropped the torpedo, wrapped still in the handkerchief, into the hole and covered it up. Jennings was clearly puzzled. He had seen some one rush in, but the conservatory was apparently empty. He had just turned to go out when he saw a palm move. There was a face! He made a dive for it and in a moment both he and the crook were rolling over and over. . . . . . . . Kennedy and the Secret Service men were talking earnestly when they heard the cry for help and the scuffle. They rushed out and into the conservatory in time to see the crook, who had broken away, knock out Jennings. He sprang to his feet and darted away. Kennedy's mind was working rapidly. Had the man been after the other model? The detectives went after him. But Craig went for the torpedo. As he looked in the tank, it was gone! He turned and followed the crook. I was still in the garden with Elaine and Aunt Josephine when I heard sounds of a struggle and a moment later a man emerged through the window of the conservatory followed by two other men. I went for him, but he managed to elude me and dashed for the wall in the back of the garden. The Secret Service men fired at him but he kept on. A moment later Craig came through the window. "Did any of you take the torpedo?" he asked. "No," replied Elaine, "we left it just as you had it." Kennedy seemed wild with anxiety. "Then both models have been stolen!" he cried, dashing after the Secret Service men with me close behind. The crook by this time had reached the top of the wall. Just as he was about to let himself down safely on the other side, a shot struck him. He pitched over and we ran forward. But he had just enough of a start. In spite of the shock and the wound he managed to pick himself up and with the help of a confederate hobbled into a waiting car, which sped away just as we came over the wall. We dropped to the ground just as another car approached. Craig commandeered it from its astonished driver, the Secret Service men and I piled in and we were off in a few seconds in hot pursuit. . . . . . . . Down at the terminal where trains came in from Washington, Wu, much better now, was waiting. He had pulled a long coat over his Chinese clothes and wore a slouch hat. As he looked at the incoming passengers he spied the man he was waiting for, the young crook who had been waiting in the shrubbery outside the Navy Building when the torpedo model was thrown out. The man had the model carefully wrapped up, under his arm. As his eye travelled over the crowd he recognized Wu but did not betray it. He walked by and, as he passed, hastily handed Wu the package containing the model. Wu slipped it under his coat. Then each went his way, in opposite directions. . . . . . . . It was a close race between the car bearing the two crooks and that which Kennedy had impressed into service, but we kept on up through the city and out across the country, into Connecticut. Time and again they almost got away until it became a question of following tire tracks. Once we came to a cross-road and Kennedy stopped and leaped out. Deeply planted in the mud, he could see the tracks of the car ahead leading out by the left road. Close beside the tire tracks were the footprints of two men going up the right hand road toward the Sound. "You follow the car and the driver," decided Craig, hastily indicating the road by which it had gone. "I'll follow the footprints." The Secret Service men jumped back into the car and Kennedy and I went along the shore road following the two crooks. Already the wounded crook, supported by his pal, had made his way down to the water and had come to a long wharf. There, near the land-end, they had a secret hiding-place into which they went. The other crook drew forth a smoke signal and began to prepare it. Kennedy and I were able, now, to move faster than they. As we came in sight of the wharf, Kennedy paused. "There they are, two of them," he indicated. I could just make them out in their hiding-place. The fellow who had stolen the torpedo was by this time so weak from loss of blood that he could hardly hold his head up, while the other hurried to fix-the smoke signal. He happened to glance up, and saw us. "Come, Red, brace up," he muttered. "They're on our trail." The wounded man was almost too weak to answer. "I--I can't," he gasped weakly, "You--go." Then, with a great effort, remembering the mission on which he had been sent, he whispered hoarsely, "I hid the second torpedo model in the Dodge house in the bottom of--" He tried hard to finish, but he was too weak. He fell back, dead. His pal had waited as long as he dared to learn the secret. He jumped up and ran out just as we burst into the hiding-place. Kennedy dropped down by the dead man and searched him, while I dashed after the other fellow. But I was not so well acquainted with the lay of the land as he and, before I knew it, he had darted into another of his numerous hiding-places. I hunted about, but I had lost the track. When I returned, I found Kennedy writing a hasty note. "I couldn't follow him, Craig," I confessed. "Too bad," frowned Craig evidently greatly worried by what had happened, as he folded the note. "Walter," he added seriously, "I want you to go find the fellow." He handed me the note. "And if anything separates us to-day--give this note to Elaine." I did not pay much attention to the tone he assumed, but often afterward I pondered over it and the serious and troubled look on his face. I was too chagrined at losing my man to think much of it then. I took the note and hurried out again after him. Meanwhile, as nearly as I can now make out, Kennedy searched the dead man again. There was certainly no clue to his identity on him, nor had he the torpedo model. Craig looked about. Suddenly, he fell flat on his stomach. There was Wu Fang himself, coming to the wharf, carrying the model of the torpedo which had been stolen in Washington and brought up to him by his emissary. Kennedy, crouching down and taking advantage of every object that sheltered him, crawled cautiously into an angle. Unsuspecting, Wu came to the land-end of the wharf. There he saw his lieutenant, dead--and the smoke signal still beside him, unlighted. He bent over in amazement and examined the man. From his hiding-place Kennedy crept stealthily. He had scarcely got within reach of Wu when the alert Chinaman seemed to sense his presence. He rose quickly and swung around. The two arch enemies gazed at each other a moment silently. Each knew it was the final, fatal encounter. Slowly Wu drew a long knife and leaped at Kennedy who grappled with him. They struggled mercilessly. In the struggle, Craig managed to tear the torpedo out of Wu's hands, just as they rolled over. It fell on a rock. Instantly an explosion tore a hole in the sand, scattering the gravel all about. Relentlessly the combat raged. Out on the wharf itself they went, right up to the edge. Then both went over into the water, locked in each other's vice-like grip. Even in the water, they struggled, frantically. . . . . . . . My search for the escaped crook was unsuccessful. Somehow, however, it led me across country to a road. As I approached, I heard a car and looked up. There were the Secret Service men. I called them and stepped out of the bushes. They stopped and jumped out of the car and I ran to them. "Come back with me," I urged. "We found two of them. One is dead. Craig sent me to trace the other. I've lost the trail. Perhaps you can find it for me." We crashed through the brush quickly. Suddenly I heard something that caused me to start. It sounded like an explosion. "There's the place--over there," I pointed, pausing and indicating the direction of the wharf whence had come the explosion. What was it? We did not stop a moment, but hurried in that direction. We reached the shore where we saw marks of the explosion and of a fight. Out on the pier I ran breathlessly. I rushed to the very edge and gazed over, then climbed down the slippery piling and peered into the black water beneath. A few bubbles seemed to ooze up from below. Was that all? No, as I gazed down I saw that some dark object was there. Slowly Wu Fang's body floated to the surface and lay there, rocked by the waves. Deep in his breast stuck his own knife with its handle of the Sign of the Serpent! I reached down and seized him, as I peered about for Kennedy. There was nothing more there. "Craig!" I called desperately, "Craig!" There was no answer. The silence, the echo of the lapping water under the wharf was appalling, mocking. I managed to call the Secret Service men and they got Wu Fang's body up on the wharf. But I could not leave the spot. Where was Craig? There was not a sign of him. I could not realize it, even when the men brought grappling irons and began to search the black water. It was all a hideous dream. I saw and heard, in a daze. . . . . . . . It was not until late that night that I returned to the Dodge house. I had delayed my return as long as I could, but I knew that I must see Elaine some time. As I entered even Jennings must have seen that something was wrong. Elaine, who was sitting in the library with Aunt Josephine, rose as she saw me. "Did you get them?" she asked eagerly. I could not speak. She seemed to read the tragic look on my haggard face and stopped. "Why," she gasped, clutching at the desk, "what is the matter?" As gently as I could, I told her of the chase, of leaving Craig, of the explosion, of the marks of the struggle and of the finding of Wu Fang. As I finished, I thought she would faint. "And you--you went over everything about the wharf?" "Everything. The men even dragged for the--" I checked myself over the fateful word. Elaine looked at me wildly. I thought that she would lose her reason. She did not cry. The shock was too great for that. Suddenly I remembered the note. "Before I left him--the last time," I blurted out, "he wrote a note--to you." I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket and Elaine almost tore it from me--the last word from him--and read: DEAREST: I may not return until the case is settled and I have found the stolen torpedo. Matters involving millions of lives and billions of dollars hang on the plot back of it. No matter what happens, have no fear. Trust me. Lovingly, CRAIG. She finished reading the note and slowly laid it down. Then she picked it up and read it again. Slowly she turned to me. I think I have never seen so sublime a look of faith on any one's face before. If I had not seen and heard what I had, it might have shaken my own convictions. "He told me to trust him and to have no fear," she said simply, gripping herself mentally and physically by main force, then with an air of defiance she looked at me. "I do not believe that he is dead!" I tried to comfort her. I wanted to do so. But I could do nothing but shake my head sadly. My own heart was full to overflowing. An intimacy such as had been ours could not be broken except with a shock that tore my soul. I knew that the poor girl had not seen what I had seen. Yet I could not find it in my heart to contradict her. She saw my look, read my mind. "No," she cried, still defiant, "no--a thousand times, no! I tell you--he is not dead!" CHAPTER VI THE LOST TORPEDO From the rocks of a promontory that jutted out not far from the wharf where Wu Fang's body was found and Kennedy had disappeared, opened up a beautiful panorama of a bay on one side and the Sound on the other. It was a deserted bit of coast. But any one who had been standing near the promontory the next day might have seen a thin line as if the water, sparkling in the sunlight, had been cut by a huge knife. Gradually a thin steel rod seemed to rise from the water itself, still moving ahead, though slowly now as it pushed its way above the surface. After it came a round cylinder of steel, studded with bolts. It was the hatch of a submarine and the rod was the periscope. As the submarine lay there at rest, the waves almost breaking over it, the hatch slowly opened and a hand appeared groping for a hold. Then appeared a face with a tangle of curly black hair and keen forceful eyes. After it the body of a man rose out of the hatch, a tall, slender, striking person. He reached down into the hold of the boat and drew forth a life preserver. "All right," he called down in an accent slightly foreign, as he buckled on the belt. "I shall communicate with you as soon as I have something to report." Then he deliberately plunged overboard and struck out for the shore. Hand over hand, he churned his way through the water toward the beach until at last his feet touched bottom and he waded out, shaking the water from himself like a huge animal. The coming of the stranger had not been entirely unheralded. Along the shore road by which Kennedy and I had followed the crooks whom we thought had the torpedo, on that last chase, was waiting now a powerful limousine with its motor purring. A chauffeur was sitting at the wheel and inside, at the door, sat a man peering out along the road to the beach. Suddenly the man in the machine signalled to the driver. "He comes," he cried eagerly. "Drive down the road, closer, and meet him." The chauffeur shot his car ahead. As the swimmer strode shivering up the roadway, the car approached him. The assistant swung open the door and ran forward with a thick, warm coat and hat. Neither the master nor the servant spoke as they met, but the man wrapped the coat about him, hurried into the car, the driver turned and quickly they sped toward the city. Secret though the entrance of the stranger had been planned, however, it was not unobserved. Along the beach, on a boulder, gazing thoughtfully out to sea and smoking an old briar pipe sat a bent fisherman clad in an oilskin coat and hat and heavy, ungainly boots. About his neck was a long woolen muffler which concealed the lower part of his face quite as effectually as his scraggly, grizzled whiskers. Suddenly, he seemed to discover something that interested him, slowly rose, then turned and almost ran up the shore. Quickly he dropped behind a large rock and waited, peering out. As the limousine bearing the stranger, on whom the fisherman had kept his eyes riveted, turned and drove away, the old salt rose from behind his rock, gazed after the car as if to fix every line of it in his memory and then he, too, quickly disappeared up the road. The stranger's car had scarcely disappeared when the fisherman turned from the shore road into a clump of stunted trees and made his way to a hut. Not far away stood a small, unpretentious closed car, also with a driver. "I shall be ready in a minute," the fisherman nodded almost running into the hut, as the driver moved his car up closer to the door. The larger motor had disappeared far down the bend of the road when the fisherman reappeared. In an almost incredible time he had changed his oilskins and muffler for a dark coat and silk hat. He was no longer a fisherman, but a rather fussy-looking old gentleman, bewhiskered still, with eyes looking out keenly from a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. "Follow that car--at any cost," he ordered simply as he let himself into the little motor, and the driver shot ahead down a bit of side road and out into the main shore road again, urging the car forward to overtake the one ahead. Such was the entrance of the stranger--Marcius Del Mar--into America. . . . . . . . How I managed to pass the time during the first days after the strange disappearance of Kennedy, I don't know. It was all like a dream--the apartment empty, the laboratory empty, my own work on the Star uninteresting, Elaine broken-hearted, life itself a burden. Hoping against hope the next day I decided to drop around at the Dodge house. As I entered the library unannounced, I saw that Elaine, with a faith for which I envied her, was sitting at a table, her back toward the door. She was gazing sadly at a photograph. Though I could not see it, I needed not to be told whose it was. She did not hear me come in, so engrossed was she in her thoughts. Nor did she notice me at first as I stood just behind her. Finally I put my hand on her shoulder as if I had been an elder brother. She looked up into my face. "Have you heard from him yet?" she asked anxiously. I could only shake my head sadly. She sighed. Involuntarily she rose and together we moved toward the garden, the last place we had seen him about the house. We had been pacing up and down the garden talking earnestly only a short time when a man made his way in from the Fifth Avenue gate. "Is this Miss Dodge?" he asked. "Yes," she replied eagerly. Neither Elaine nor I knew him at the time, though I think she thought he might be the bearer of some message from Craig. As a matter of fact he was the emissary to whom the stenographer had thrown the torpedo model from the Navy Building in Washington. His visit was only a part of a deep-laid scheme. Only a few minutes before, three crooks--among them our visitor--had stopped just below the house on a side street. To him the others had given final instructions and a note, and he had gone on, leaving the two standing there. "I have a note for you," he said, bowing and handing an envelope to Elaine, which she tore open and read. WASHINGTON, D. C. MISS ELAINE DODGE, Fifth Avenue, New York. MY DEAR MISS DODGE, The bearer, Mr. Bailey, of the Secret Service, would like to question you regarding the disappearance of Mr. Kennedy and the model of his torpedo. MORGAN BERTRAND, U. S. Secret Service. Even as we were talking the other two crooks had already moved up and had made their way around back of the stone wall that cut off the Dodge garden back of the house. There they stood, whispering eagerly and gazing furtively over the wall as their man talked to Elaine. After a moment I stepped aside, while Elaine read the note, and as he asked her a few questions, I could not help feeling that the affair had a very suspicious look. The more I thought of it, the less I liked it. Finally I could stand it no longer. "I beg your pardon," I excused myself to the alleged Mr. Bailey, "but may I speak to Miss Dodge alone just a minute?" He bowed, rather ungraciously I thought, and Elaine followed me aside while I told her my fears. "I don't like the looks of it myself," she agreed. "Yes, I'll be very careful what I say." While we were talking I could see out of the corner of my eye that the fellow was looking at us askance and frowning. But if I had had an X-ray eye, I might have seen his two companions on the other side of the wall, peering over as they had been before and showing every evidence of annoyance at my interference. The man resumed his questioning of Elaine regarding the torpedo and she replied guardedly, as in fact she could not do otherwise. Suddenly we heard shouts on the other side of the wall, as though some one were attacking some one else. There seemed to be several of them, for a man quickly flung himself over the wall and ran to us. "They're after us," he shouted to Bailey. Instantly our visitor drew a gun and followed the newcomer as he ran to get out of the garden in the opposite direction. Just then a tall, well-dressed, striking man came over the wall, accompanied by another dressed as a policeman, and rushed toward us. . . . . . . . The car bearing the mysterious stranger, Del Mar, kept on until it reached New York, then made its way through the city until it came to the Hotel La Coste. Del Mar jumped out of the car, his wet clothes covered completely by the long coat. He registered and rode up in the elevator to rooms which had already been engaged for him. In his suite a valet was already unpacking some trunks and laying out clothes when Del Mar and his assistant entered. With an exclamation of satisfaction at his unostentatious entry into the city, Del Mar threw off his heavy coat. The valet hastened to assist him in removing the clothes still wet and wrinkled from his plunge into the sea. Scarcely had Del Mar changed his clothes than he received two visitors. Strangely enough they were men dressed in the uniform of policemen. "First of all we must convince them of our honesty," he said looking fixedly at the two men. "Orders have been given to the men employed by Wu Fang to be about in half an hour. We must pretend to arrest them on sight. You understand?" "Yes, sir," they nodded. "Very well, come on," Del Mar ordered taking up his hat and preceding them from the room. Outside the La Coste, Del Mar and his two policemen entered the car which had driven Del Mar from the sea coast and were quickly whisked away, up-town, until they came near the Dodge house. Del Mar leaped from the car followed by his two policemen. "There they are, already," he whispered, pointing up the avenue. All three hastened up the avenue now where, beside a wall, they could see two men looking through intently as though very angry at something going on inside. "Arrest them!" shouted Del Mar as his own men ran forward. The fight was short and sharp, with every evidence of being genuine. One of the men managed to break away and jump the garden wall, with Del Mar and one of the policemen after him, while the other only reached the wall to be dragged down by the other policeman. Elaine and I had been, as I have said, talking with the man named Bailey who posed as a Secret Service man, when the rumpus began. As the man came over the fence, warning Bailey, it was evident that neither of them had time to escape. With his club the policeman struck the newcomer of the two flat while the tall, athletic gentleman leaped upon Bailey and before we knew it had him disarmed. In a most clean-cut and professional way he snapped the bracelets on the man. Elaine was astounded at the kaleidoscopic turn of affairs, too astounded even to make an outcry. As for me, it was all so sudden that I had no chance to take part in it. Besides I should not have known quite on which side to fight. So I did nothing. But as it was over so quickly, I took a step forward to our latest arrival. "Beg pardon, old man," I began, "but don't you think this is just a little raw? What's it all about?" The newest comer eyed me for a moment, then with quiet dignity drew from his pocket and handed me his card which read simply: M. Del Mar, Private Investigator. As I looked up, I saw Del Mar's other policeman bringing in another manacled man. "These are crooks--foreign agents," replied Del Mar pointing to the prisoners. "The government has employed me to run them down." "What of this?" asked Elaine holding up the note from Bertrand. "A fake, a forgery," reiterated Del Mar, looking at it a moment critically. Then to the men uniformed as police he ordered, "You can take them to jail. They're the fellows, all right." As the prisoners were led off, Del Mar turned to Elaine. "Would you mind answering a few questions about these men?" "Why--no," she hesitated. "But I think we'd better go into the house, after such a thing as this. It makes me feel nervous." With Del Mar I followed Elaine in through the conservatory. . . . . . . . Del Mar had scarcely registered at the La Coste when the smaller car which had been waiting at the fisherman's hut drew up before the hotel entrance. From it alighted the fussy old gentleman who bore such a remarkable resemblance to the fisherman, hastily paid his driver and entered the hotel. He went directly to the desk and with well-manicured finger, scarcely reminiscent of a fisherman, began tracing the names down the list until he stopped before one which read: Marcius Del Mar and valet. Washington, D. C. Room 520. With a quick glance about, he made a note of it, and turned away, leaving the La Coste to take up quarters of his own in the Prince Henry down the street. Not until Del Mar had left with his two policemen did the fussy old gentleman reappear in the La Coste. Then he rode up to Del Mar's room and rapped at the door. "Is Mr. Del Mar in?" he inquired of the valet. "No, sir," replied that functionary. The little old man appeared to consider, standing a moment dandling his silk hat. Absent-mindedly he dropped it. As the valet stooped to pick it up, the old gentleman exhibited an agility and strength scarcely to be expected of his years. He seized the valet, while with one foot he kicked the door shut. Before the surprised servant knew what was going on, his assailant had whipped from his pocket a handkerchief in which was concealed a thin tube of anesthetic. Then leaving the valet prone in a corner with the handkerchief over his face, he proceeded to make a systematic search of the rooms, opening all drawers, trunks and bags. He turned pretty nearly everything upside down, then started on the desk. Suddenly he paused. There was a paper. He read it, then with an air of extreme elation shoved it into his pocket. As he was going out he stopped beside the valet, removed the handkerchief from his face and bound him with a cord from the portieres. Then, still immaculate in spite of his encounter, he descended in the elevator, reentered a waiting car and drove off. Quite evidently, however, he wanted to cover his tracks for he had not gone a half dozen blocks before he stopped, paid and tipped the driver generously, and disappeared into the theatre crowd. Back again in the Prince Henry, whither the fussy little old man made his way as quickly as he could through a side street, he went quietly up to his room. His door was now locked. He did not have to deny himself to visitors, for he had none. Still, his room was cluttered by a vast amount of paraphernalia and he was seated before a table deep in work. First of all he tied a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Then he took up a cartridge from the table and carefully extracted the bullet. Into the space occupied by the bullet he poured a white powder and added a wad of paper, like a blank cartridge, placing the cartridge in the chamber of a revolver and repeating the operation until he had it fully loaded. It was his own invention of an asphyxiating bullet. Perhaps half an hour later, the old gentleman, his room cleaned up and his immaculate appearance restored, sauntered forth from the hotel down the street like a veritable Turveydrop, to show himself. . . . . . . . Elaine seemed quite impressed with our new friend, Del Mar, as we made our way to the library, though I am not sure but that it was a pose on her part. At any rate he seemed quite eager to help us. "What do you suppose has become of Mr. Kennedy?" asked Elaine. Del Mar looked at her earnestly. "I should be glad to search for him," he returned quickly. "He was the greatest man in our profession. But first I must execute the commission of the Secret Service. We must find his torpedo model before it falls into foreign hands." We talked for a few moments, then Del Mar with a glance at his watch excused himself. We accompanied him to the door, for he was indeed a charming man. I felt that, if in fact he were assigned to the case, I ought to know him better. "If you're going down-town," I ventured, "I might accompany you part of the way." "Delighted," agreed Del Mar. Elaine gave him her hand and he took it in such a deferential way that one could not help liking him. Elaine was much impressed. As Del Mar and I walked down the avenue, he kept up a running fire of conversation until at last we came near the La Coste. "Charmed to have met you, Mr. Jameson," he said, pausing. "We shall see a great deal of each other I hope." I had not yet had time to say good-bye myself when a slight exclamation at my side startled me. Turning suddenly, I saw a very brisk, fussy old gentleman who had evidently been hurrying through the crowd. He had slipped on something on the sidewalk and lost his balance, falling near us. We bent over and assisted him to his feet. As I took hold of his hand, I felt a peculiar pressure from him. He had placed something in my hand. My mind worked quickly. I checked my first impulse to speak and, more from curiosity than anything else, kept the thing he had passed to me surreptitiously. "Thank you, gentlemen," he puffed, straightening himself out. "One of the infirmities of age. Thank you, thank you." In a moment he had bustled off quite comically. Again Del Mar said good-bye and I did not urge him to stay. He had scarcely gone when I looked at the thing the old man had placed in my hand. It was a little folded piece of paper. I opened it slowly. Inside was printed in pencil, disguised: "BE CAREFUL. WATCH HIM." I read it in amazement. What did it mean? . . . . . . . At the La Coste, Del Mar was met by two of his men in the lobby and they rode up to his room. Imagine their surprise when they opened the door and found the valet lying bound on the floor. "Who the deuce did this?" demanded Del Mar as they loosened him. The valet rose weakly to his feet. "A little old man with gray whiskers," he managed to gasp. Del Mar looked at him in surprise. Instantly his active mind recalled the little old man who had fallen before us on the street. Who--what was he? "Come," he said quickly, beckoning his two companions who had come in with him. Some time later, Del Mar's car stopped just below the Dodge house. "You men go around back of the house and watch," ordered Del Mar. As they disappeared he turned and went up the Dodge steps. . . . . . . . I walked back after my strange experience with the fussy little old gentleman, feeling more than ever, now that Craig was gone, that both Elaine and Aunt Josephine needed me. As we sat talking in the library, Rusty, released from the chain on which Jennings kept him, bounded with a rush into the library. "Good old fellow," encouraged Elaine, patting him. Just then Jennings entered and a moment later was followed by Del Mar, who bowed as we welcomed him. "Do you know," he began, "I believe that the lost torpedo model is somewhere in this house and I have reason to anticipate another attempt of foreign agents to find it. If you'll pardon me, I've taken the liberty of surrounding the place with some men we can trust." While Del Mar was speaking, Elaine picked up a ribbon from the table and started to tie it about Rusty's neck. As Del Mar proceeded she paused, still holding the ribbon. Rusty, who hated ribbons, saw his chance and quietly sidled out, seeking refuge in the conservatory. Alone in the conservatory, Rusty quickly forgot about the ribbon and began nosing about the palms. At last he came to the pot in which the torpedo model had been buried in the soft earth by the thief the night it had been stolen from the fountain. Quickly Elaine recalled herself and, seeing the ribbon in her hand and Rusty gone, called him. There was no answer, and she excused herself, for it was against the rules for Rusty to wander about. In his haste the thief had left just a corner of the handkerchief sticking out of the dirt. What none of us had noticed, Rusty's keen eyes and nose discovered and his instinct told him to dig for it. In a moment he uncovered the torpedo and handkerchief and sniffed. Just then he heard his mistress calling him. Rusty had been whipped for digging in the conservatory and now, with his tail between his legs, he seized the torpedo in his mouth and bolted for the door of the drawing-room, for he had heard voices in the library. As he did so he dropped the handkerchief and the little propeller, loosened by his teeth, fell off. Elaine entered the conservatory, still calling. Rusty was not there. He had reached the stairs, scurrying up to the attic, still holding the torpedo model in his mouth. He pushed open the attic door and ran in. Rusty's last refuge in time of trouble was back of a number of trunks, among which were two of almost the same size and appearance. Behind one of them, he had hidden a miscellaneous collection of bones, pieces of biscuit and things dear to his heart. He dropped the torpedo among these treasures. Del Mar, meanwhile, had followed Elaine through the hall and into the conservatory. As he entered he could see her stooping down to look through the palms for Rusty. She straightened up and went on out. Del Mar followed. Beside the palm pot where Rusty had found the torpedo, he happened to see the old handkerchief soiled with dirt. Near-by lay the little propeller. He picked them up. "She has found it!" he exclaimed in wonder, following Elaine. By this time Rusty had responded to Elaine's calls and came tearing down-stairs again. "Naughty Rusty," chided Elaine, tying the ribbon on him. "So--you have found him at last?" remarked Del Mar looking quickly at Elaine to see if she would get a double meaning. "Yes. He's had a fine time running away," she replied. Del Mar was scarcely able to conceal his suspicion of her. Was she a clever actress, hiding her discovery, he wondered? . . . . . . . Outside, on the lawn, Del Mar's men had been looking about, but had discovered nothing. They paused a moment to speak. "Look out!" whispered one of them. "There's some one coming." They dropped down in the shadow. There in the light of the street lamps was the fussy old gentleman coming across the lawn. He stole up to the door of the conservatory and looked through. Del Mar's men crawled a few feet closer. The little old man entered the conservatory and looked about again stealthily. The two men followed him in noiselessly and watched as he bent over the palm pot from which the dog had dug up the torpedo. He looked at the hole curiously. Just then he heard sounds behind him and sprang to his feet. "Hands up!" ordered one of the men covering him with a gun. The little old man threw up his hands, raising his cane still in his right hand. The man with the gun took a step closer. As he did so, the little old man brought down his cane with a quick blow and knocked the gun out of his hand. The second man seized the cane. The old man jerked the cane back and was standing there with a thin tough steel rapier. It was a sword-cane. Del Mar's man held the sheath. As the man attacked with the sheath, the little old man parried, sent it flying from his grasp, and wounded him. The wounded man sank down, while the little old man ran off through the palms, followed by the other of Del Mar's men. Around the hall, he ran, and back into the conservatory where he picked up a heavy chair and threw it through the glass, dropping himself behind a convenient hiding-place near-by. Del Mar's man, close after him, mistaking the crash of glass for the escape of the man he was pursuing, went on through the broken exit. Then the little old man doubled on his tracks and made for the front of the house. . . . . . . . With Aunt Josephine I had remained in the library. "What's that?" I exclaimed at the first sounds. "A fight?" Together we rushed for the conservatory. The fight followed so quickly by the crash of glass also alarmed Elaine and Del Mar in the hallway and they hurried toward the library, which we had just left, by another door. As they entered, they saw a little old gentleman rushing in from the conservatory and locking the door behind him. He whirled about, and he and Del Mar recognized each other at once. They drew guns together, but the little old man fired first. His bullet struck the wall back of Del Mar and a cloud of vapor was instantly formed, enveloping Del Mar and even Elaine. Del Mar fell, overcome, while Elaine sank more slowly. The little old man ran forward. In the conservatory, Aunt Josephine and I heard the shooting, just as one of Del Mar's men ran in again. With him we ran back toward the library. By this time the whole house was aroused. Jennings and Marie were hurrying down-stairs, crying for help and making their way to the library also. In the library, the little old man bent over Del Mar and Elaine. But it was only a moment later that he heard the whole house aroused. Quickly he shut and locked the folding-doors to the drawing-room, as, with Del Mar's man, I was beating at the rear library door. "I'll go around," I suggested, hurrying off, while Del Mar's man tried to beat in the door. Inside the little old man who had been listening saw that there was no means of escape. He pulled off his coat and vest and turned them inside out. On the inside he had prepared an exact copy of Jennings' livery. It was only a matter of seconds before he had completed his change. For a moment he paused and looked at the two prostrate figures before him. Then he took a rose from a vase on the table and placed it in Elaine's hand. Finally, with his whiskers and wig off he moved to the rear door where Del Mar's man was beating and opened it. "Look," he cried pointing in an agitated way at Del Mar and Elaine. "What shall we do?" Del Mar's man, who had never seen Jennings, ran to his master and the little old man, in his new disguise, slipped quietly into the hall and out the front door, where he had a taxicab waiting for him, down the street. A moment later I burst open the other library door and Aunt Josephine followed me in, just as Jennings himself and Marie entered from the drawing-room. It was only a moment before we had Del Mar, who was most in need of care, on the sofa and Elaine, already regaining consciousness, lay back in a deep easy chair. As Del Mar moved, I turned again to Elaine who was now nearly recovered. "How do you feel?" I asked anxiously. Her throat was parched by the asphyxiating fumes, but she smiled brightly, though weakly. "Wh-where did I get that?" she managed to gasp finally, catching sight of the rose in her hand. "Did you put it there?" I shook my head and she gazed at the rose, wondering. Whoever the little man was, he was gone. I longed for Craig. CHAPTER VII THE GRAY FRIAR So confident was Elaine that Kennedy was still alive that she would not admit to herself what to the rest of us seemed obvious. She even refused to accept Aunt Josephine's hints and decided to give a masquerade ball which she had planned as the last event of the season before she closed the Dodge town house and opened her country house on the shore of Connecticut. It was shortly after the strange appearance of the fussy old gentleman that I dropped in one afternoon to find Elaine addressing invitations, while Aunt Josephine helped her. As we chatted, I picked up one from the pile and mechanically contemplated the address: "M. Del Mar, Hotel La Coste, New York City." "I don't like that fellow," I remarked, shaking my head dubiously. "Oh, you're--jealous, Walter," laughed Elaine, taking the envelope away from me and piling it again with the others. Thus it was that in the morning's mail, Del Mar, along with the rest of us, received a neatly engraved little invitation: Miss Elaine Dodge requests the pleasure of your presence at the masquerade ball to be given at her residence on Friday evening June 1st. "Good!" he exclaimed, reaching for the telephone, "I'll go." In a restaurant in the white light district two of those who had been engaged in the preliminary plot to steal Kennedy's wireless torpedo model, the young woman stenographer who had betrayed her trust and the man to whom she had passed the model out of the window in Washington, were seated at a table. So secret had been the relations of all those in the plot that one group did not know the other and the strangest methods of communication had been adopted. The man removed a cover from a dish. Underneath, perhaps without even the waiter's knowledge, was a note. "Here are the orders at last," he whispered to the girl, unfolding and reading the note. "Look. The model of the torpedo is somewhere in her house. Go to-night to the ball as a masquerader and search for it." "Oh, splendid!" exclaimed the girl. "I'm crazy for a little society after this grind. Pay the check and let's get out and choose our costumes." The man paid the check and they left hurriedly. Half an hour later they were at a costumer's shop choosing their disguises, both careful to get the fullest masks that would not excite suspicion. It was the night of the masquerade. During the afternoon Elaine had been thinking more than ever of Kennedy. It all seemed unreal to her. More than once she stopped to look at his photograph. Several times she checked herself on the point of tears. "No," she said to herself with a sort of grim determination. "No--he IS alive. He will come back to me--he WILL." And yet she had a feeling of terrific loneliness which even her most powerful efforts could not throw off. She was determined to go through with the ball, now that she had started it, but she was really glad when it came time to dress, for even that took her mind from her brooding. As Marie finished helping her put on a very effective and conspicuous costume, Aunt Josephine entered her dressing-room. "Are you ready, my dear?" she asked, adjusting the mask which she carried so that no one would recognize her as Martha Washington. "In just a minute, Auntie," answered Elaine, trying hard to put out of her mind how Craig would have liked her dress. Somewhat earlier, in my own apartment, I had been arraying myself as Boum-Boum and modestly admiring the imitation I made of a circus clown as I did a couple of comedy steps before the mirror. But I was not really so light-hearted. I could not help thinking of what this night might have been if Kennedy had been alive. Indeed, I was glad to take up my white mask, throw a long coat over my outlandish costume and hurry off in my waiting car in order to forget everything that reminded me of him in the apartment. Already a continuous stream of guests was trickling in through the canopy from the curb to the Dodge door, carriages and automobiles arriving and leaving amid great gaping from the crowd on the sidewalk. As I entered the ballroom it was really a brilliant and picturesque assemblage. Of course I recognized Elaine in spite of her mask, almost immediately. Characteristically, she was talking to the one most striking figure on the floor, a tall man in red--a veritable Mephistopheles. As the music started, Elaine and his Satanic Majesty laughingly fox-trotted off but were not lost to me in the throng. I soon found myself talking to a young lady in a spotted domino. She seemed to have a peculiar fascination for me, yet she did not monopolize all my attention. As we trotted past the door, I could see down the hall. Jennings was still admitting late arrivals, and I caught a glimpse of one costumed as a gray friar, his cowl over his head and his eyes masked. Chatting, we had circled about to the conservatory. A number of couples were there and, through the palms, I saw Elaine and Mephisto laughingly make their way. As my spotted domino partner and I swung around again, I happened to catch another glimpse of the gray friar. He was not dancing, but walking, or rather stalking, about the edge of the room, gazing about as if searching for some one. In the conservatory, Elaine and Mephisto had seated themselves in the breeze of an open window, somewhat in the shadow. "You are Miss Dodge," he said earnestly. "You knew me?" she laughed. "And you?" He raised his mask, disclosing the handsome face and fascinating eyes of Del Mar. "I hope you don't think I'm here in character," he laughed easily, as she started a bit. "I--I--well, I didn't think it was you," she blurted out. "Ah--then there is some one else you care more to dance with?" "No--no one--no." "I may hope, then?" He had moved closer and almost touched her hand. The pointed hood of the gray friar in the palms showed that at last he saw what he sought. "No--no. Please--excuse me," she murmured rising and hurrying back to the ballroom. A subtle smile spread over the gray friar's masked face. Of course I had known Elaine. Whether she knew me at once I don't know or whether it was an accident, but she approached me as I paused in the dance a moment with my domino girl. "From the--sublime--to the ridiculous," she cried excitedly. My partner gave her a sharp glance. "You will excuse me?" she said, and, as I bowed, almost ran off to the conservatory, leaving Elaine to dance off with me. . . . . . . . Del Mar, quite surprised at the sudden flight of Elaine from his side, followed more slowly through the palms. As he did so he passed a Mexican attired in brilliant native costume. At a sign from Del Mar he paused and received a small package which Del Mar slipped to him, then passed on as though nothing had happened. The keen eyes of the gray friar, however, had caught the little action and he quietly slipped out after the Mexican bolero. Just then the domino girl hurried into the conservatory. "What's doing?" she asked eagerly. "Keep close to me," whispered Del Mar, as she nodded and they left the conservatory, not apparently together. Up-stairs, away from the gayety of the ballroom, the bolero made his way until he came to Elaine's room, dimly lighted. With a quick glance about, he entered cautiously, closed the door, and approached a closet which he opened. There was a safe built into the wall. As he stooped over, the man unwrapped the package Del Mar had handed him and took out a curious little instrument. Inside was a dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, something like a little flat telephone transmitter, yet attached by wires to ear-pieces that fitted over the head after the manner of those of a wireless detector. He adjusted the head-piece and held the flat instrument against the safe, close to the combination which he began to turn slowly. It was a burglar's microphone, used for picking combination locks. As the combination turned, a slight sound was made when the proper number came opposite the working point. Imperceptible ordinarily to even the most sensitive ear, to an ear trained it was comparatively easy to recognize the fall of the tumblers over this microphone. As he worked, the door behind him opened softly and the gray friar entered, closing it and moving noiselessly over back of the shelter of a big mahogany high-boy, around which he could watch. At last the safe was opened. Rapidly the man went through its contents. "Confound it!" he muttered. "She didn't put it here--anyhow." The bolero started to close the safe when he heard a noise in the room and looked cautiously back of him. Del Mar himself, followed by the domino girl, entered. "I've opened it," whispered the emissary stepping out of the closet and meeting them, "but I can't find the--" "Hands up--all of you!" They turned in time to see the gray friar's gun yawning at them. Most politely he lined them up. Still holding his gun ready, he lifted up the mask of the domino girl. "So--it's you," he grunted. He was about to lift the mask of the Mexican, when the bolero leaped at him. Del Mar piled in. But sounds down-stairs alarmed them and the emissary, released, fled quickly with the girl. The gray friar, however, kept his hold on Mephistopheles, as if he had been wrestling with a veritable devil. . . . . . . . Down in the hall, I had again met my domino girl, a few minutes after I had resigned Elaine to another of her numerous admirers. "I thought you deserted me," I said, somewhat piqued. "You deserted me," she parried, nervously. "However, I'll forgive you if you'll get me an ice." I hastened to do so. But no sooner had I gone than Del Mar stalked through the hall and went up-stairs. My domino girl was watching for him, and followed. When I returned with the ice, I looked about, but she was gone. It was scarcely a moment later, however, that I saw her hurry down-stairs, accompanied by the Mexican bolero. I stepped forward to speak to her, but she almost ran past me without a word. "A nut," I remarked under my breath, pushing back my mask. I started to eat the ice myself, when, a moment later, Elaine passed through the hall with a Spanish cavalier. "Oh, Walter, here you are," she laughed. "I've been looking all over for you. Thank you very much, sire," she bowed with mock civility to the cavalier. "It was only one dance, you know. Please let me talk to Boum-Boum." The cavalier bowed reluctantly and left us. "What are you doing here alone?" she asked, taking off her own mask. "How warm it is." Before I could reply, I heard some one coming down-stairs back of me, but not in time to turn. "Elaine's dressing-table," a voice whispered in my ear. I turned suddenly. It was the gray friar. Before I could even reach out to grasp his robe, he was gone. "Another nut!" I exclaimed involuntarily. "Why, what did he say?" asked Elaine. "Something about your dressing-table." "My dressing-table?" she repeated. We ran quickly up the steps. Elaine's room showed every evidence of having been the scene of a struggle, as she went over to the table. There she picked up a rose and under it a piece of paper on which were some words printed with pencil roughly. "Look," she cried, as I read with her: Do honest assistants search safes? Let no one see this but Jameson. "What does it mean?" I asked. "My safe!" she cried moving to a closet. As she opened the door, imagine our surprise at seeing Del Mar lying on the floor, bound and gagged before the open safe. "Get my scissors on the dresser," cried Elaine. I did so, hastily cutting the cords that bound Del Mar. "What does it all mean?" asked Elaine as he rose and stretched himself. Still clutching his throat, as if it hurt, Del Mar choked, "I found a man, a foreign agent, searching the safe. But he overcame me and escaped." "Oh--then that is what the--" Elaine checked herself. She had been about to hand the note to Del Mar when an idea seemed to come to her. Instead, she crumpled it up and thrust it into her bosom. On the street the bolero and the domino girl were hurrying away as fast as they could. Meanwhile, the gray friar had overcome Del Mar, had bound and gagged him, and trust him into the closet. Then he wrote the note and laid it, with a rose from a vase, on Elaine's dressing-table before he, too, followed. More than ever I was at a loss to make it out. . . . . . . . It was the day after the masquerade ball that a taxicab drove up to the Dodge house and a very trim but not over-dressed young lady was announced as "Miss Bertholdi." "Miss Dodge?" she inquired as Jennings held open the portieres and she entered the library where Elaine and Aunt Josephine were. If Elaine had only known, it was the domino girl of the night before who handed her a note and sat down, looking about so demurely, while Elaine read: MY DEAR MISS DODGE, The bearer, Miss Bertholdi, is an operative of mine. I would appreciate it if you would employ her in some capacity in your house, as I have reason to believe that certain foreign agents will soon make another attempt to find Kennedy's lost torpedo model. Sincerely, M. DEL MAR. Elaine looked up from reading the note. Miss Bertholdi was good to look at, and Elaine liked pretty girls about her. "Jennings," she ordered, "call Marie." To the butler and her maid, Elaine gave the most careful instructions regarding Miss Bertholdi. "She can help you finish the packing, first," she concluded. The girl thanked her and went out with Jennings and Marie, asking Jennings to pay her taxicab driver with money she gave him, which he did, bringing her grip into the house. Later in the day, Elaine had both Marie and Bertholdi carrying armsful of her dresses from the closets in her room up to the attic where the last of her trunks were being packed. On one of the many trips, Bertholdi came alone into the attic, her arms full as usual. Before her were two trunks, very much alike, open and nearly packed. She laid her armful of clothes on a chair near-by and pulled one of the trunks forward. On the floor lay the trays of both trunks already packed. Bertholdi began packing her burden in one trunk which was marked in big white letters, "E. Dodge." Down in Elaine's room at the time Jennings entered. "The expressman for the trunks is here, Miss Elaine," he announced. "Is he? I wonder whether they are all ready," Elaine replied hurrying out of the room. "Tell him to wait." In the attic, Bertholdi was still at work, keeping her eyes open to execute the mission on which Del Mar had sent her. Rusty, forgotten in the excitement by Jennings, had roamed at will through the house and seemed quite interested. For this was the trunk behind which he had his cache of treasures. As Bertholdi started to move behind the trunk, Rusty could stand it no longer. He darted ahead of her into his hiding-place. Among the dog biscuit and bones was the torpedo model which he had dug up from the palm pot in the conservatory. He seized it in his mouth and turned to carry it off. There, in his path, was his enemy, the new girl. Quick as a flash, she saw what it was Rusty had, and grabbed at it. "Get out!" she ordered, looking at her prize in triumph and turning it over and over in her hands. At that moment she heard Elaine on the stairs. What should she do? She must hide it. She looked about. There was the tray, packed and lying on the floor near the trunk marked, "E. Dodge." She thrust it hastily into the tray pulling a garment over it. "Nearly through?" panted Elaine. "Yes, Miss Dodge." "Then please tell the expressman to come up." Bertholdi hesitated, chagrined. Yet there was nothing to do but obey. She looked at the trunk by the tray to fix it in her mind, then went down-stairs. As she left the room, Elaine lifted the tray into the trunk and tried to close the lid. But the tray was too high. She looked puzzled. On the floor was another tray almost identical. "The wrong trunk," she smiled to herself, lifting the tray out and putting the other one in, while she placed the first tray with the torpedo concealed in the other, unmarked, trunk where it belonged. Then she closed the first trunk. A moment later the expressman entered, with Bertholdi. "You may take that one," indicated Elaine. "Miss Dodge, here's something else to go in," said Bertholdi in desperation, picking up a dress. "Never mind. Put it in the other trunk." Bertholdi was baffled, but she managed to control herself. She must get word to Del Mar about that trunk marked "E. Dodge." . . . . . . . Late that afternoon, before a cheap restaurant might have been seen our old friend who had posed as Bailey and as the Mexican. He entered the restaurant and made his way to the first of a row of booths on one side. "Hello," he nodded to a girl in the booth. Bertholdi nodded back and he took his seat. She had begged an hour or two off on some pretext. Outside the restaurant, a heavily-bearded man had been standing looking intently at nothing in particular when Bertholdi entered. As Bailey came along, he followed and took the next booth, his hat pulled over his eyes. In a moment he was listening, his ear close up to the partition. "Well, what luck?" asked Bailey. "Did you get a clue?" "I had the torpedo model in my hands," she replied, excitedly telling the story. "It is in a trunk marked 'E. Dodge.'" All this and more the bearded stranger drank in eagerly. A moment later Bailey and Bertholdi left the booth and went out of the restaurant followed cautiously by the stranger. On the street the two emissaries of Del Mar stopped a moment to talk. "All right, I'll telephone him," she said as they parted in opposite directions. The stranger took an instant to make up his mind, then followed the girl. She continued down the street until she came to a store with telephone booths. The bearded stranger followed still, into the next booth but did not call a number. He had his ear to the wall. He could hear her call Del Mar, and although he could not hear Del Mar's answers, she repeated enough for him to catch the drift. Finally, she came out, and the stranger, instead of following her further, took the other direction hurriedly. . . . . . . . Del Mar himself received the news with keen excitement. Quickly he gave instructions and prepared to leave his rooms. A short time later his car pulled up before the La Coste and, in a long duster and cap, Del Mar jumped in, and was off. Scarcely had his car swung up the avenue when, from an alleyway down the street from the hotel, the chug-chug of a motor-cycle sounded. A bearded man, his face further hidden by a pair of goggles, ran out with his machine, climbed on and followed. On out into the country Del Mar's car sped. At every turn the motor-cycle dropped back a bit, observed the turn, then crept up and took it, too. So they went for some time. . . . . . . . On the level of the Grand Central where the trains left for the Connecticut shore where Elaine's summer home was located, Bailey was now edging his way through the late crowd down the platform. He paused before the baggage-car just as one of the baggage motor trucks rolled up loaded high with trunks and bags. He stepped back as the men loaded the luggage on the car, watching carefully. As they tossed on one trunk marked "E. Dodge," he turned with a subtle look and walked away. Finally he squirmed around to the other platform. No one was looking and he mounted the rear of the baggage-car and opened the door. There was the baggageman sitting by the side door, his back to Bailey. Bailey closed the door softly and squeezed behind a pile of trunks and bags. . . . . . . . Finally Del Mar reached a spot on the railroad where there were both a curve and a grade ahead. He stopped his car and got out. Down the road the bearded and goggled motorcyclist stopped just in time to avoid observation. To make sure, he drew a pocket field-glass and leveled it ahead. "Wait here," ordered Del Mar. "I'll call when I want you." Back on the road the bearded cyclist could see Del Mar move down the track though he could not hear the directions. It was not necessary, however. He dragged his machine into the bushes, hid it, and hurried down the road on foot. Del Mar's chauffeur was waiting idly at the wheel when suddenly the cold nose of a revolver was stuck under his chin. "Not a word--and hands up--or I'll let the moonlight through you," growled out a harsh voice. Nevertheless, the chauffeur managed to lurch out of the car and the bearded stranger, whose revolver it was, found that he would have to shoot. Del Mar was not far enough away to risk it. The chauffeur flung himself on him and they struggled fiercely, rolling over and over in the dust of the road. But the bearded stranger had a grip of steel and managed to get his fingers about the chauffeur's throat as an added insurance against a cry for help. He choked him literally into insensibility. Then, with a strength that he did not seem to possess, he picked up the limp, blue-faced body and carried it off the road and around the car. . . . . . . . In the baggage-car, the baggageman was smoking a surreptitious pipe of powerful tobacco between stations and contemplating the scenery thoughtfully through the open door. As the engine slowed up to take a curve and a grade, Bailey who had now and then taken a peep out of a little grated window above him, crept out from his hiding-place. Already he had slipped a dark silk mask over his face. As he made his way among the trunks and boxes, the train lurched and the baggageman who had his back to Bailey heard him catch himself. He turned and leaped to his feet. Bailey closed with him instantly. Over and over they rolled. Bailey had already drawn his revolver before he left his hiding-place. A shot, however, would have been fatal to his part in the plans and was only a last resort for it would have brought the trainmen. Finally Bailey rolled his man over and getting his right arm free, dealt the baggageman a fierce blow with the butt of the gun. The train was now pulling slowly up the grade. More time had been spent in overcoming the baggageman than he expected and Bailey had to work quickly. He dragged the trunk marked "E. Dodge" from the pile to the door and glanced out. . . . . . . . Just around the curve in the railroad, Del Mar was waiting, straining his eyes down the track. There was the train, puffing up the grade. As it approached he rose and waved his arms. It was the signal and he waited anxiously. Had his plans been carried out? The train passed. From the baggage-car came a trunk catapulted out by a strong arm. It hurtled through the air and landed with its own and the train's momentum. Over it rolled in the bushes, then stopped--unbroken, for Elaine had had it designed to resist even the most violent baggage-smasher. Del Mar ran to it. As the tail light of the train disappeared he turned around in the direction from which he had come, placed his two hands to his mouth and shouted. . . . . . . . From the side of the road by Del Mar's car the bearded motor-cyclist had just emerged, buttoning the chauffeur's clothes and adjusting his goggles to his own face. As he approached the car, he heard a shout. Quickly he tore off the black beard which had been his disguise and tossed it into the grass. Then he drew the coat high up about his neck. "All right!" he shouted back, starting along the road. Together he and Del Mar managed to scramble up the embankment to the road and, one at each handle of the trunk, they carried it back to the car, piling it in the back. The improvised chauffeur started to take his place at the wheel and Del Mar had his foot on the running-board to get beside him, when the now unbearded stranger suddenly swung about and struck Del Mar full in the face. It sent him reeling back into the dust. The engine of the car had been running and before Del Mar could recover consciousness, the stranger had shot the car ahead, leaving Del Mar prone in the roadway. . . . . . . . The train, with Bailey on it, had not gained much speed, yet it was a perilous undertaking to leap. Still, it was more so now to remain. The baggageman stirred. It was now a case of murder or a getaway. Bailey jumped. Scratched and bruised and shaken, he scrambled to his feet in the briars along the track. He staggered up to the road, pulled himself together, then hurried back as fast as his barked shins would let him. He came to the spot which he recognized as that where he had thrown off the trunk. He saw the trampled and broken bushes and made for the road. He had not gone far when he saw, far down, Del Mar suddenly attacked and thrown down, apparently by his own chauffeur. Bailey ran forward, but it was too late. The car was gone. As he came up to Del Mar lying outstretched in the road, Del Mar was just recovering consciousness. "What was the matter?" he asked. "Was he a traitor?" He caught sight of the real chauffeur on the ground, stripped. Del Mar was furious. "No," he swore, "it was that confounded gray friar again, I think. And he has the trunk, too!" . . . . . . . Speeding up the road the former masquerader and motor-cyclist stopped at last. Eagerly he leaped out of Del Mar's car and dragged the trunk over the side regardless of the enamel. It was the work of only a moment for him to break the lock with a pocket jimmy. One after another he pulled out and shook the clothes until frocks and gowns and lingerie lay strewn all about. But there was not a thing in the trunk that even remotely resembled the torpedo model. The stranger scowled. Where was it? CHAPTER VIII THE VANISHING MAN Del Mar had evidently, by this time, come to the conclusion that Elaine was the storm centre of the peculiar train of events that followed the disappearance of Kennedy and his wireless torpedo. At any rate, as soon as he learned that Elaine was going to her country home for the summer, he took a bungalow some distance from Dodge Hall. In fact, it was more than a bungalow, for it was a pretentious place surrounded by a wide lawn and beautiful shade trees. There, on the day that Elaine decided to motor in from the city, Del Mar arrived with his valet. Evidently he lost no time in getting to work on his own affairs, whatever they might be. Inside his study, which was the largest room in the house, a combination of both library and laboratory, he gave an order or two to his valet, then immediately sat down to his new desk. He opened a drawer and took out a long hollow cylinder, closed at each end by air-tight caps, on one of which was a hook. Quickly he wrote a note and read it over: "Install submarine bell in place of these clumsy tubes. Am having harbor and bridges mined as per instructions from Government. D." He unscrewed the cap at one end of the tube, inserted the note and closed it. Then he pushed a button on his desk. A panel in the wall opened and one of the men who had played policeman once for him stepped out and saluted. "Here's a message to send below," said Del Mar briefly. The man bowed and went back through the panel, closing it. Del Mar cleaned up his desk and then went out to look his new quarters over, to see whether everything had been prepared according to his instructions. From the concealed entrance to a cave on a hillside, Del Mar's man who had gone through the panel in the bungalow appeared a few minutes later and hurried down to the shore. It was a rocky coast with stretches of cliffs and now and then a ravine and bit of sandy beach. Gingerly he climbed down the rocks to the water. He took from his pocket the metal tube which Del Mar had given him and to the hook on one end attached a weight of lead. A moment he looked about cautiously. Then he threw the tube into the water and it sank quickly. He did not wait, but hurried back into the cave entrance. . . . . . . . Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I motored down to Dodge Hall from the city. Elaine's country house was on a fine estate near the Long Island Sound and after the long run we were glad to pull up before the big house and get out of the car. As we approached the door, I happened to look down the road. "Well, that's the country, all right," I exclaimed, pointing down the road. "Look." Lumbering along was a huge heavy hay rack on top of which perched a farmer chewing a straw. Following along after him was a dog of a peculiar shepherd breed which I did not recognize. Atop of the hay the old fellow had piled a trunk and a basket. To our surprise the hay rack stopped before the house. "Miss Dodge?" drawled the farmer nasally. "Why, what do you suppose he can want?" asked Elaine moving out toward the wagon while we followed. "Yes?" "Here's a trunk, Miss Dodge, with your name on it," he went on dragging it down. "I found it down by the railroad track." It was the trunk marked "E. Dodge" which had been thrown off the train, taken by Del Mar and rifled by the motor-cyclist. "How do you suppose it ever got here?" cried Elaine in wonder. "Must have fallen off the train," I suggested. "You might have collected the insurance under this new baggage law!" "Jennings," called Elaine. "Get Patrick and carry the trunk in." Together the butler and the gardener dragged it off. "Thank you," said Elaine, endeavoring to pay the farmer. "No, no, Miss," he demurred as he clucked to his horses. We waved to the old fellow. As he started to drive away, he reached down into the basket and drew out some yellow harvest apples. One at a time he tossed them to us as he lumbered off. "Truly rural," remarked a voice behind us. It was Del Mar, all togged up and carrying a magazine in his hand. We chatted a moment, then Elaine started to go into the house with Aunt Josephine. With Del Mar I followed. As she went Elaine took a bite of the apple. To her surprise it separated neatly into two hollow halves. She looked inside. There was a note. Carefully she unfolded it and read. Like the others, it was not written but printed in pencil: Be careful to unpack all your trunks yourself. Destroy this note.--A FRIEND. What did these mysterious warnings mean, she asked herself in amazement. Somehow so far they had worked out all right. She tore up the note and threw the pieces away. Del Mar and I stopped for a moment to talk. I did not notice that he was not listening to me, but was surreptitiously watching Elaine. Elaine went into the house and we followed. Del Mar, however, dropped just a bit behind and, as he came to the place where Elaine had thrown the pieces of paper, dropped his magazine. He stooped to pick it up and gathered the pieces, then rejoined us. "I hope you'll excuse me," said Elaine brightly. "We've just arrived and I haven't a thing unpacked." Del Mar bowed and Elaine left us. Aunt Josephine followed shortly. Del Mar and I sat down at a table. As he talked he placed the magazine in his lap beneath the table, on his knees. I could not see, but he was in reality secretly putting together the torn note which the farmer had thrown to Elaine. Finally he managed to fit all the pieces. A glance down was enough. But his face betrayed nothing. Still under the table, he swept the pieces into his pocket and rose. "I'll drop in when you are more settled," he excused himself, strolling leisurely out again. . . . . . . . Up in the bedroom Elaine's maid, Marie, had been unpacking. "Well, what do you know about that?" she exclaimed as Jennings and Patrick came dragging in the banged-up trunk. "Very queer," remarked Jennings, detailing the little he had seen, while Patrick left. The entrance of Elaine put an end to the interesting gossip and Marie started to open the trunk. "No, Marie," said Elaine. "I'll unpack them my self. You can put the things away later. You and Jennings may go." Quickly she took the things out of the battered trunk. Then she started on the other trunk which was like it but not marked. She threw out a couple of garments, then paused, startled. There was the lost torpedo--where Bertholdi had stuck it in her haste! Elaine picked it up and looked at it in wonder as it recalled all those last days before Kennedy was lost. For the moment she did not know quite what to make of it. What should she do? Finally she decided to lock it up in the bureau drawer and tell me. Not only did she lock the drawer but, as she left her room, she took the key of the door from the lock inside and locked it outside. . . . . . . . Del Mar did not go far from the house, however. He scarcely reached the edge of the grounds where he was sure he was not observed when he placed his fingers to his lips and whistled. An instant later two of his men appeared from behind a hedge. "You must get into her room," he ordered. "That torpedo is in her luggage somewhere, after all." They bowed and disappeared again into the shrubbery while Del Mar turned and retraced his steps to the house. In the rear of the house the two emissaries of Del Mar stole out of the shelter of some bushes and stood for a moment looking. Elaine's windows were high above them, too high to reach. There seemed to be no way to get to them and there was no ladder in sight. "We'll have to use the Dutch house-man's method," decided one. Together they went around the house toward the laundry. It was only a few minutes later that they returned. No one was about. Quickly one of them took off his coat. Around his waist he had wound a coil of rope. Deftly he began to climb a tree whose upper branches fell over the roof. Cat-like he made his way out along a branch and managed to reach the roof. He made his way along the ridge pole to a chimney which was directly back of and in line with Elaine's windows. Then he uncoiled the rope and made one end fast to the chimney. Letting the other end fall free down the roof, he carefully lowered himself over the edge. Thus it was not difficult to get into Elaine's room by stepping on the window-sill and going through the open window. The man began a rapid search of the room, turning up and pawing everything that Elaine had unpacked. Then he began on the little writing-desk, the dresser and the bureau drawers. A subtle smile flashed over his face as he came to one drawer that was locked. He pulled a sectional jimmy from his coat and forced it open. There lay the precious torpedo. The man clutched at it with a look of exultation. Without another glance at the room he rushed to the window, seized the rope and pulled himself to the roof, going as he had come. . . . . . . . It did not take me long to unpack the few things I had brought and I was soon back again in the living-room, where Aunt Josephine joined me in a few minutes. Just as Elaine came hurriedly down the stairway and started toward me, Del Mar entered from the porch. She stopped. Del Mar watched her closely. Had she found anything? He was sure of it. Her hesitation was only for a moment, however. "Walter," she said, "may I speak to you a moment? Excuse us, please?" Aunt Josephine went out toward the back of the house to see how the servants were getting on, while I followed Elaine up-stairs. Del Mar with a bow seated himself and opened his magazine. No sooner had we gone, however, than he laid it down and cautiously followed us. Elaine was evidently very much excited as she entered her dainty little room and closed the door. "Walter," she cried, "I've found the torpedo!" We looked about at the general disorder. "Why," she exclaimed nervously, "some one has been here--and I locked the door, too." She almost ran over to her bureau drawer. It had been jimmied open in the few minutes while she was down-stairs. The torpedo was gone. We looked at each other, aghast. Behind us, however, we did not see the keen and watchful eyes of Del Mar, opening the door and peering in. As he saw us, he closed the door softly, went down-stairs and out of the house. . . . . . . . Perhaps half a mile down the road, the farmer abandoned his hay rack and now, followed by his peculiar dog, walked back. He stopped at a point in the road where he could see the Dodge house in the distance, sat on the rail fence and lighted a blackened corn-cob pipe. There he sat for some time apparently engrossed in his own thoughts about the weather, the dog lying at his feet. Now and then he looked fixedly toward Dodge Hall. Suddenly his vagrant attention seemed to be riveted on the house. He drew a field-glass from his pocket and levelled it. Sure enough, there was a man coming out of a window, pulling himself up to the roof by a rope and going across the roof tree. He lowered the glasses quickly and climbed off the fence with a hitherto unwonted energy. "Come, Searchlight," he called to the dog, as together they moved off quickly in the direction he had been looking. Del Mar's men were coming through the hedge that surrounded the Dodge estate just as the farmer and his dog stepped out in front of them from behind a thicket. "Just a minute," he called. "I want to speak to you." He enforced his words with a vicious looking gun. It was two to one and they closed with him. Before he could shoot, they had knocked the gun out of his hand. Then they tried to break away and run. But the farmer seized one of them and held him. Meanwhile the dog developed traits all his own. He ran in and out between the legs of the other man until he threw him. There he stood, over him. The man attempted to rise. Again the dog threw him and kept him down. He was a trained Belgian sheep hound, a splendid police dog. "Confound the brute," growled the man, reaching for his gun. As he drew it, the dog seized his wrist and with a cry the man dropped the gun. That, too, was part of the dog's training. While the farmer and the other man struggled on the ground, the torpedo worked its way half from the man's pocket. The farmer seized it. The man fell back, limp, and the farmer, with the torpedo in one hand, grasped at the gun on the ground and straightened up. He had no sooner risen than the man was at him again. His unconsciousness had been merely feigned. The struggle was renewed. At that point, the hedge down the road parted and Del Mar stepped out. A glance was enough to tell him what was going on. He drew his gun and ran swiftly toward the combatants. As Del Mar approached, his man succeeded in knocking the torpedo from the farmer's hand. There it lay, several feet away. There seemed to be no chance for either man to get it. Quickly the farmer bent his wrist, aiming the gun deliberately at the precious torpedo. As fast as he could he pulled the trigger. Five of the six shots penetrated the little model. So surprised was his antagonist that the farmer was able to knock him out with the butt of his gun. He broke away and fled, whistling on a police whistle for the dog just as Del Mar ran up. A couple of shots from Del Mar flew wild as the farmer and his dog disappeared. Del Mar stopped and picked up the model. It had been shot into an unrecognizable mass of scrap. In a fury, Del Mar dashed it on the ground, cursing his men as he did so. The strange disappearance of the torpedo model from Elaine's room worried both of us. Doubtless if Kennedy had been there he would have known just what to do. But we could not decide. "Really," considered Elaine, "I think we had better take Mr. Del Mar into our confidence." "Still, we've had a great many warnings," I objected. "I know that," she persisted, "but they have all come from very unreliable sources." "Very well," I agreed finally, "then let's drive over to his bungalow." Elaine ordered her little runabout and a few moments later we climbed into it and Elaine shot the car away. As we rode along, the country seemed so quiet that no one would ever have suspected that foreign agents lurked all about. But it was just under such a cover that the nefarious bridge and harbor-mining work ordered by Del Mar's superiors was going ahead quietly. As our car climbed a hill on the other side of which, in the valley, was a bridge, we could not see one of Del Mar's men in hiding at the top. He saw us, however, and immediately wigwagged with his handkerchief to several others down at the bridge where they were attaching a pair of wires to the planking. "Some one coming," muttered one who was evidently a lookout. The men stopped work immediately and hid in the brush. Our car passed over the bridge and we saw nothing wrong. But no sooner had we gone than the men crept out and resumed work which had progressed to the point where they were ready to carry the wires of an electric connection through the grass, concealing them as they went. In the study of his bungalow, all this time, Del Mar was striding angrily up and down, while his men waited in silence. Finally he paused and turned to one of them. "See that the coast is clear and kept clear," he ordered. "I want to go down." The man saluted and went out through the panel. A moment later Del Mar gave some orders to the other man who also saluted and left the house by the front door, just as our car pulled up. Del Mar, the moment the man was gone, put on his hat and moved toward the panel in the wall. He was about to enter when he heard some one coming down the hall to the study and stepped back, closing the panel. It was the butler announcing us. We had entered Del Mar's bungalow and now were conducted to his library. There Elaine told him the whole story, much to his apparent surprise, for Del Mar was a wonderful actor. "You see," he said as she finished telling of the finding and the losing of the torpedo, "just what I had feared would happen has happened. Doubtless the foreign agents have the deadly weapon, now. However, I'll not quit. Perhaps we may run them down yet." He reassured us and we thanked him as we said good-bye. Outside, Elaine and I got into the car again and a moment later spun off, making a little detour first through the country before hitting the shore road back again to Dodge Hall. On the rocky shore of the promontory, several men were engaged in sinking a peculiar heavy disk which they submerged about ten or twelve feet. It seemed to be held by a cable and to it wires were attached, apparently so that when a key was pressed a circuit was closed. It was an "oscillator", a new system for the employment of sound for submarine signalling, using water instead of air as a medium to transmit sound waves. It was composed of a ring magnet, a copper tube lying in an air-gap in a magnetic field and a stationary central armature. The tube was attached to a steel diaphragm. Really it was a submarine bell which could be used for telegraphing or telephoning both ways through water. The men finished executing the directions of Del Mar and left, carefully concealing the land connections and key of the bell, while we were still at Del Mar's. We had no sooner left, however, than one of the men who had been engaged in installing the submarine bell entered the library. "Well?" demanded Del Mar. "The bell is installed, sir," he said. "It will be working soon." "Good," nodded Del Mar. He went to a drawer and from it took a peculiar looking helmet to which was attached a sort of harness fitting over the shoulders and carrying a tank of oxygen. The head-piece was a most weird contrivance, with what looked like a huge glass eye in front. It was in reality a submarine life-saving apparatus. Del Mar put it on, all except the helmet which he carried with him, and then, with his assistant, went out through the panel in the wall. Through the underground passage the two groped their way, lighted by an electric torch, until at last they came to the entrance hidden in the underbrush, near the shore. Del Mar went over to the concealed station from which the submarine bell was sounded and pressed the key as a signal. Then he adjusted the submarine helmet to his head and deliberately waded out into the water, further and further, up to his head, then deeper still. As he disappeared into the water, his emissary turned and went back toward the shore road. . . . . . . . The ride around through the country and back to the shore, road from Del Mar's was pleasant. In fact it was always pleasant to be with Elaine, especially in a car. We were spinning along at a fast clip when we came to a rocky part of the coast. As we made a turn a sharp breeze took off my hat and whirled it far off the road and among the rocks of the shore. Elaine shut down the engine, with a laugh at me, and we left the car by the road while we climbed down the rocks after the hat. It had been carried into the water, close to shore and, still laughing, we clambered over the rocks. Elaine insisted on getting it herself and in fact did get it. She was just about to hand it to me, when something bobbed up in the water just in front of us. She reached for it and fished it out. It was a cylinder with air-tight caps on both ends, in one of which was a hook. "What do you suppose it is?" she asked, looking it over as we made our way up the rocks again to the car. "Where did it come from?" We did not see a man standing by our car, but he saw us. It was Del Mar's man who had paused on his way to watch us. As we approached he hid on the other side of the road. By this time we had reached the car and opened the cylinder. Inside was a note which read: "Chief arrived safely. Keep watch." "What does it mean?" repeated Elaine, mystified. Neither of us could guess and I doubt whether we would have understood any better if we had seen a sinister face peering at us from behind a rock near-by, although doubtless the man knew what was in the tube and what it meant. We climbed into the car and started again. As we disappeared, the man came from behind the rocks and ran quickly up to the top of the hill. There, from the bushes, he pulled out a peculiar instrument composed of a strange series of lenses and mirrors set up on a tripod. Eagerly he placed the tripod, adjusting the lenses and mirrors in the sunlight. Then he began working them, and it was apparent that he was flashing light beams, using a Morse code. It was a heliograph. Down the shore on the top of the next hill sat the man who had already given the signal with the handkerchief to those in the valley who were working on the mining of the bridge. As he sat there, his eye caught the flash of the heliograph signal. He sprang up and watched intently. Rapidly he jotted down the message that was being flashed in the sunlight: Dodge girl has message from below. Coming in car. Blow first bridge she crosses. Down the valley the lookout made his way as fast as he could. As he approached the two men who had been mining the bridge, he whistled sharply. They answered and hurried to meet him. "Just got a heliograph," he panted. "The Dodge girl must have picked up one of the messages that came from below. She's coming over the hill now in a car. We've got to blow up the bridge as she crosses." The men were hurrying now toward the bridge which they had mined. Not a moment was to be lost, for already they could see us coming over the crest of the hill. In a few seconds they reached the hidden plunger firing-box which had been arranged to explode the charge under the bridge. There they crouched in the brush ready to press the plunger the moment our car touched the planking. One of the men crept out a little nearer the road. "They're coming!" he called back, dropping down again. "Get ready!" . . . . . . . Del Mar's emissaries had not reckoned, however, that any one else might be about to whom the heliograph was an open book. But, further over on the hill, hiding among the trees, the old farmer and his dog were sitting quietly. The old man was sweeping the Sound with his glasses, as if he expected to see something any moment. To his surprise, however, he caught a flash of the heliograph from the land. Quickly he turned and jotted down the signals. As he did so, he seemed greatly excited, for the message read: Dodge girl has message from below. Coming in car. Blow first bridge she crosses. Quickly he turned his glasses down the road. There he could see our car rapidly approaching. He put up his glasses and hurried down the hill toward the bridge. Then he broke into a run, the dog scouting ahead. We were going along the road nicely now, coasting down the hill. As we approached the bridge, Elaine slowed up a bit, to cross, for the planking was loose. Just then the farmer who had been running down the hill saw us. "Stop!" he shouted. But we did not hear. He ran after us, but such a chase was hopeless. He stopped, in despair. With a gesture of vexation he took a step or two mechanically off the road. Elaine and I were coming fast to the bridge now. In their hiding-place, Del Mar's men were watching breathlessly. The leader was just about to press the plunger when all of a sudden a branch in the thicket beside him crackled. There stood the farmer and his dog! Instantly the farmer seemed to take in the situation. With a cry he threw himself at the man who had the plunger. Another man leaped at the farmer. The dog settled him. The others piled in and a terrific struggle followed. It was all so rapid that, to all, seconds seemed like hours. We were just starting to cross the bridge. One of the men broke away and crawled toward the plunger box. Our car was now in the middle of the bridge. Over and over rolled the men, the dog doing his best to help his master. The man who had broken away reached toward the plunger. With a shout he pushed it down. . . . . . . . Our car had just cleared the bridge when we were startled by a terrific roar behind us. It was as though a thousand tires had blown out at once. Elaine shut off the engine automatically and we looked back. The whole bridge had been blown up. A second before we had been in the middle of it. As the explosion came, the men who had been struggling in the thicket, paused, startled, and stared out. At that instant the old farmer saw his chance. It was all over and he bolted, calling the dog. Along the road to the bridge he ran, two of the men after him. "Come back," growled the leader. "Let him go. Do you want us all to get caught?" As the farmer ran up to the bridge, he saw it in ruins. But down the road he could see Elaine and myself, sitting in the car, staring back at the peril which we had so narrowly escaped. His face lighted up in as great joy as a few moments before it had showed despair. "What can that have been?" asked Elaine, starting to get out of the car. "What caused it?" "I don't know," I returned, taking her arm firmly. "But enough has happened to-day. If it was intended for us, we'd better not stop. Some one might take a shot at us. Come. We have the car. We can get out before any one does anything more. Let's do it. Things are going on about us of which we know nothing. The safest thing is to get away." Elaine looked at the bridge in ruins and shuddered. It was the closest we could have been to death and have escaped. Then she turned to the wheel quickly and the little car fairly jumped ahead. "Oh, if Craig were only here," she murmured. "He would know what to do." As we disappeared over the crest of the next hill, safe, the old farmer and his dog looked hard at us. The silence after the explosion was ominous. He glanced about. No one was pursuing him. That seemed ominous, too. But if they did pursue he was prepared to elude them. They must never recognize the old farmer. As he turned, he deliberately pulled off his beard, then plunged again into the woods and was lost. CHAPTER IX THE SUBMARINE HARBOR It was not long after the almost miraculous escape of Elaine and myself from the blowing up of the bridge on the shore road that Del Mar returned from his mysterious mission which had, apparently, taken him actually down to the bottom of the sea. The panel in the wall of his library opened and in the still dripping submarine suit, holding under his arm the weird helmet, Del Mar entered. No sooner had he begun to remove his wet diving-suit than the man who had signalled with the heliograph that we had found Del Mar's message from "below," whatever that might mean, entered the house and was announced by the valet. "Let him come in immediately," ordered Del Mar, placing his suit in a closet. Then to the man, as he entered, he said, "Well, what's new?" "Quite a bit," returned the man, frowning still over Elaine's accidental discovery of the under-water communication. "The Dodge girl happened to pick up one of the tubes with a message just after you went down. I tried to get her by blowing up the bridge, but it didn't work, somehow." "We'll have to silence her," remarked Del Mar angrily with a sinister frown. "You stay here and wait for orders." A moment later he made his way down to a private dock on his grounds and jumped aboard a trim little speed boat moored there. He started the motor and off the boat feathered in a cloud of spray. It was only a moment by water before he reached the Dodge dock. There he tied his boat and hurried up the dock. . . . . . . . Elaine and I arrived home without any further experiences after our hairbreadth escape from the explosion at the bridge. We were in doubt at first, however, just what to do about the mysterious message which we had picked up in the harbor. "Really, Walter," remarked Elaine, after we had considered the matter for some time, "I think we ought to send that message to the government at Washington." Already she had seated herself at her desk and began to write, while I examined the metal tube and the note again. "There," she said at length, handing me the note she had written. "How does that sound?" I read it while she addressed the envelope. "Very good," I replied, handing it back. She folded it and shoved it into the envelope on which she had written: Chief, Secret Service, Washington, D. C. I was studying the address, wondering whether this was just the thing to do, when Elaine decided the matter by energetically ringing the bell for Jennings. "Post that, Jennings, please," she directed. The butler bowed just as the door-bell rang. He turned to go. "Just a minute," I interrupted. "I think perhaps I'd better mail it myself, after all." He handed me the letter and went out. "Yes, Walter," agreed Elaine, "that would be better. Register it, too." "How do you do?" greeted a suave voice. It was Del Mar. As he passed me to speak to Elaine, apparently by accident, he knocked the letter from my hand. "I beg your pardon," he apologized, quickly stooping and picking it up. Though he managed to read the address, he maintained his composure and handed the letter back to me. I started to go out, when Elaine called to me. "Excuse me just a moment, Mr. Del Mar?" she queried, accompanying me out on the porch. Already a saddle horse had been brought around for me. "Perhaps you'd better put a special delivery stamp on it, too, Walter," she added, walking along with me. "And be very careful." "I will," I promised, as I rode off. Del Mar, alone, seized the opportunity to go over quietly to the telephone. It was the work of only a moment to call up his bungalow where the emissary who had placed the submarine bell was waiting for orders. Quickly Del Mar whispered his instructions which the man took, and hung up the receiver. "I hope you'll pardon me," said Elaine, entering just as Del Mar left the telephone. "Mr. Jameson was going into town and I had a number of little things I wanted him to do. Won't you sit down?" They chatted for a few moments, but Del Mar did not stay very long. He excused himself shortly and Elaine bade him good-bye at the door as he walked off, apparently, down the road I had taken. . . . . . . . Del Mar's emissary hurried from the bungalow and almost ran down the road until he came to a spot where two men were hiding. "Jameson is coming with a letter which the Dodge girl has written to the Secret Service," he cried pointing excitedly up the road. "You've got to get it, see?" I was cantering along nicely down the road by the shore, when suddenly, from behind some rocks and bushes, three men leaped out at me. One of them seized the horse's bridle, while the other two quickly dragged me out of the saddle. It was very unexpected, but I had time enough to draw my gun and fire once. I hit one of the men, too, in the arm, and he staggered back, the blood spurting all over the road. But before I could fire at the others, they knocked the gun from my hand. Frightened, the horse turned and bolted, riderless. Together, they dragged me off the road and into the thicket where I was tied and gagged and laid on the ground while one of them bound up the wounded arm of the man I had hit. It was not long before one of them began searching me. "Aha!" he growled, pulling the letter from my pocket and looking at it with satisfaction. "Here it is." He tore the letter open, throwing the envelope on the ground, and read it. "There, confound you," he muttered. "The government 'll never get that. Come on, men. Bring him this way." He shoved the letter into his pocket and led the way through the underbrush, while the others half-dragged, half-pushed me along. We had not gone very far before one of the three men, who appeared to be the leader, paused. "Take him to the hang-out," he ordered gruffly. "I'll have to report to the Chief." He disappeared down toward the shore of the harbor while the others prodded me along. . . . . . . . Down near the Dodge dock, along the shore, walked a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a plain suit of duck. His prim collar and tie comported well with his smoked glasses. Instinctively one would have called him "Professor", though whether naturalist, geologist, or plain "bugologist", one would have had difficulty in determining. He seemed, as a matter-of-fact, to be a naturalist, for he was engrossed in picking up specimens. But he was not so much engrossed as to fail to hear the approach of footsteps down the gravel walk from Dodge Hall to the dock. He looked up in time to see Del Mar coming, and quietly slipped into the shrubbery up on the shore. On the dock, Del Mar stood for some minutes, waiting. Finally, along the shore came another figure. It was the emissary to whom Del Mar had telephoned and who had searched me. The naturalist drew back into his hiding-place, peering out keenly. "Well?" demanded Del Mar. "What luck?" "We've got him," returned the man with brief satisfaction. "Here's the letter she was sending to the Secret Service." Del Mar seized the note which the man handed to him and read it eagerly. "Good," he exclaimed. "That would have put an end to the whole operations about here. Come on. Get into the boat." For some reason best known to himself, the naturalist seemed to have lost all interest in his specimens and to have a sudden curiosity about Del Mar's affairs. As the motor-boat sped off, he came slowly and cautiously out of his hiding-place and gazed fixedly at Del Mar. No sooner had Del Mar's boat got a little distance out into the harbor than the naturalist hurried down the Dodge dock. There was tied Elaine's own fast little runabout. He jumped into it and started the engine, following quickly in Del Mar's wake. "Look," called the emissary to Del Mar, spying the Dodge boat with the naturalist in it, skimming rapidly after them. Del Mar strained his eyes back through his glass at the pursuing boat. But the naturalist, in spite of his smoked glasses, seemed not to have impaired his eyesight by his studies. He caught the glint of the sun on the lens at Del Mar's eye and dropped down into the bottom of his own boat where he was at least safe from scrutiny, if his boat were not. Del Mar lowered his glass. "That's the Dodge boat," he said thoughtfully. "I don't like the looks of that fellow. Give her more speed." . . . . . . . Del Mar had not been gone long before Elaine decided to take a ride herself. She ordered her horse around from the stables while she donned her neat little riding-habit. A few minutes later, as the groom held the horse, she mounted and rode away, choosing the road by which I had gone, expecting to meet me on the return from town. She was galloping along at a good clip when suddenly her horse shied at something. "Whoa, Buster," pacified Elaine. But it was of no use. Buster still reared up. "Why, what is the matter?" she asked. "What do you see?" She looked down at the ground. There was a spot of blood in the dust. Buster was one of those horses to whom the sight of blood is terrifying. Elaine pulled up beside the road. There was a revolver lying in the grass. She dismounted and picked it up. No sooner had she looked at it than she discovered the initials "W. J." carved on the butt. "Walter Jameson!" she exclaimed, realizing suddenly that it was mine. "It's been fired, too!" Her eye fell again on the blood spots. "Blood and--footprints--into the brush!" she gasped in horror, following the trail. "What could have happened to Walter?" With the revolver, Elaine followed where the bushes were trampled down until she came to the place where I had been bound. There she spied some pieces of paper lying on the ground and picked them up. She put them together. They were pieces of the envelope of the letter which we had decided to send to Washington. "Which way did they take him?" she asked, looking all about but discovering no trail. She was plainly at a loss what course to pursue. "What would Craig do?" she asked herself. Finding no answer, she stood thinking a moment, slowly tearing the envelope to pieces. If she were to do anything at all, it must be done quickly. Suddenly an idea seemed to occur to her. She threw the pieces of paper into the air and let them blow away. It was unscientific detection, perhaps, but the wind actually took them and carried them in the direction in which the men had forced me to walk. "That's it!" cried Elaine to herself. "I'll follow that direction." . . . . . . . Meanwhile, the men had hurried me off along a trail that led to the foot of a cliff. Then the trail wound up the cliff. We climbed it until we reached the top. There in the rock was a rude stairway. I drew back. But one man drew a gun and the other preceded me down. Along the steep stone steps cut out in the face of the rock, they forced me. Below, in a rift in the very wall of the cliff, was a cave in which already were two more of Del Mar's men, talking in low tones, in the dim light. As we made our way down the breakneck stairway, the foremost of my captors stepped on a large flat rock. As he did so, it gave way slightly under his foot. A light in the cave flashed up. Under the rock was a secret electric connection which operated a lamp. "Some one coming," muttered the two men, on guard instantly. It was a somewhat precarious footing as we descended and for the moment I was more concerned for my safety from a fall than anything else. Once my foot did slip and a shower of pebbles and small pieces of rock started down the face of the cliff. As we passed down, the man behind me, still keeping me covered, raised the flat stone on the top step. Carefully, he reset the connection of the alarm rock, a series of metal points that bent under the weight of a person and made a contact which signalled down in the cavern the approach of any one who did not know the secret. As he did so, the light in the cavern went out. "It's all right," said one of the men down there, with a look of relief. We now went down the perilous stairway until we came to the cave. "I've got a prisoner--orders of the Chief," growled one of my captors, thrusting me in roughly. They forced me into a corner where they tied me again, hand and foot. Then they began debating in low, sinister tones, what was to be done with me next. Once in a while I could catch a word. Fear made my senses hypersensitive. They were arguing whether they should make away with me now or later! Finally the leader rose. "It's three to one," I heard him mutter. "He dies now." He turned and took a menacing step toward me. "Hands up!" It was a shrill, firm voice that rang out at the mouth of the cave as a figure cut off what little light there was. . . . . . . . Elaine passed along, hunting for the trail. Suddenly a shower of pebbles came falling down from a cliff above her. Some of them hit her and she looked up quickly. There she could see me being led along by my captors. She hid in the brush and watched. During all the operations of the descent of the rock stairway and the resetting of the alarm, she continued to watch, straining her eyes to see what they were doing. As we entered the cave, she stepped out from her concealment and looked sharply up at us, as we disappeared. Then she climbed the path up the cliff until she came to the flight of stone steps leading downward again. Already she had seen the man behind me doing something with the stone that formed the top step. She stooped down and examined the stone. Carefully she raised it and looked underneath before stepping on it. There she could see the electric connection. She set the stone aside and looked again down the dangerous stairway. It made her shudder. "I must get him," she murmured to herself. "Yes, I must. Even now it may be too late." With a supreme effort of determination she got herself together, drew my gun which she had picked up, and started down the cliff, stepping noiselessly. At last Elaine came to the cave. She stood just aside from the door, gun in hand, and listened, aghast. Inside she could hear voices of four men, and they were arguing whether they should kill me or not. It was four against one woman, but she did not falter. They had just decided to make away with me immediately and the leader had turned toward me with the threat still on his lips. It was now or never. Resolutely she took a step forward and into the cave. "Hands up!" she demanded, firmly. The thing was so unexpected in the security of their secret hiding-place protected by the rock alarm that, before they knew it, Elaine had them all lined up against the wall. Keeping them carefully covered, she moved over toward me. She picked up a knife that lay near-by and started to cut the ropes which held me. As she did so, one of the men, with an oath, leaped forward to rush her. But Elaine was not to be caught off her guard. Instantly she fired. The man staggered back, and fell. That cooled the ardor of the other three considerably, especially now as I was free, too. While she held them up still, with their hands in the air, I went through their pockets, taking out their weapons. Then, still keeping them covered, we backed out of the cave. Backward we made our way up the dangerous flight of steps again with guns levelled at the cave entrance, Elaine going up first. Once a head stuck itself out of the cave entrance. I fired instantly and it jerked itself back in again just in time. That was the only trouble we had, apparently. Cautiously and slowly we made our way toward the top of the cliff. . . . . . . . One look backward from his motor-boat was enough for Del Mar. He must evade that inquisitive naturalist. He turned to his man. "Get out that apparatus," he ordered. The man opened a locker and brought out the curious submarine rescue helmet and suit. Del Mar took them up and began to put the suit on, stooping down in the shelter of the boat so that his actions could not be seen by the naturalist in the pursuing boat. The naturalist was all this time peering ahead keenly at Del Mar's boat, trying to make it out. He bent over and adjusted the engine to get up more speed and the boat shot ahead faster. By this time, Del Mar had put on the submarine apparatus, all except the helmet, and was crouching low in the boat. Hastily, he rolled a piece of canvas into the semblance of a body, put his coat and hat on it and set it on the seat which he had occupied before. Just then Del Mar's boat ran around the promontory where Wu Fang had met the submarine that had brought Del Mar into the country and landed him so strangely. The boat slowed down under shelter of the rocks and Del Mar added a pair of heavy lead-soled shoes to his outfit in order to weight himself down. Finally he put on the helmet, let himself over the side of the boat, and disappeared into the water. His aide started the motor and the boat shot ahead again, with the dummy still occupying Del Mar's seat. As the boat swung out and made a wide sweeping curve away from the point at which Del Mar had gone overboard, the naturalist in the Dodge boat came around the promontory and saw it, changing his course accordingly, and gaining somewhat. . . . . . . . Del Mar sank, upright and rapidly, down in the shallow water to the bottom. Once having his feet on something approaching firm ground, he gazed about through the window-like eye of the helmet until he got his bearings. Then he began to walk heavily along the bottom of the harbor, over sand and rocks. It was a strange walk that he took, half stumbling, slowly and cumbersomely groping his way like a queer under-water animal. If any one could have seen him, he would have noted that Del Mar was going toward the base of a huge rocky cliff that jutted far out into the harbor, where the water was deep, a dangerous point, avoided by craft of all kinds. Far over his head the waves beat on the rocks angrily. But down there, concealed beneath the surface of the harbor, was a sort of huge arch of stone, through which a comparatively rapid current ran as the tide ebbed and flowed. Del Mar let himself be carried along with the current which was now running in and thus with comparative ease made his way, still groping, through the arch. Once under it and a few feet beyond, he deliberately kicked off the leaden-soled shoes and, thus lightened, rose rapidly to the surface of the water. As he bobbed up, a strange sight met his eyes--not strange however, to Del Mar. Above, the rocks formed a huge dome over the water which the tides forced in and out through the secret entrance through which he came. No other entrance, apparently, except that from the waters of the harbor led to this peculiar den. Lying quietly moored to the rocky piers lay three submarine boats. Further back, on a ledge of rocks, blasted out, stood a little building, a sort of office or headquarters. Near-by was a shed where were kept gas and oil, supplies and ammunition, in fact everything that a submarine might need. This was the reason for Del Mar's presence in the neighborhood. It was the secret submarine harbor of the foreign agents who were operating in America! Already a sentry, pacing up and down, had seen the bubbles in the water that indicated that some one had come through the archway and was down "below," as Del Mar and his men called it. Gazing down the sentry saw the queer helmeted figure float up from the bottom of the pool. He reached out and helped the figure clamber up out of the water to the ledge on which he stood. Del Mar saluted, and the sentry returned the secret salute, helping him remove the dripping helmet and suit. A moment later, in the queer little submarine office, Del Mar had evidently planned to take up the nefarious secret work on which he was engaged. Several men of a naval and military bearing were seated about a table, already, studying maps and plans and documents of all descriptions. They did not seem to belong to any nation in particular. In fact their uniforms, if such they might be called, were of a character to disguise their nationality. But that they were hostile to the country under which they literally had their hidden retreat, of that there could be no doubt. How high Del Mar stood in their counsels could have been seen at a glance from the instant deference exhibited at the mere mention of his name by the sentry who entered with the submarine suit while Del Mar got himself together after his remarkable trip. The men at the council table rose and saluted as Del Mar himself entered. He returned the salute and quietly made his way to the head of the table where he took a seat, naturally. "This is the area in which we must work first of all," he began, drawing toward him a book and opening it. "And we must strike quickly, for if they heed the advice in this book, it may be too late for us to take advantage of their foolish unpreparedness." It was a book entitled "Defenseless America", written by a great American inventor, Hudson Maxim. Del Mar turned the pages until he came to and pointed out a map. The others gathered about him, leaning forward eagerly as he talked to them. There, on the map, with a radius of some one hundred and seventy miles, was drawn a big segment of a circle, with Peekskill, New York, as a centre. "That is the heart of America," said Del Mar, earnestly. "It embraces New York, Boston, Philadelphia. But that is not the point. Here are the great majority of the gun and armor factories, the powder and cartridge works, together with the principal coal fields of Pennsylvania." He brought his fist down decisively on the table. "If we hold this section," he declared, "we practically hold America!" Eagerly the other emissaries listened as Del Mar laid before them the detailed facts which he was collecting, the greater mission than the mere capture of Kennedy's wireless torpedo which had brought him into the country. Detail after detail of their plans they discussed as they worked out the gigantic scheme. It was a war council of a secret advance guard of the enemies of America! . . . . . . . Meanwhile, Del Mar's man in his boat, cutting a wide circle and avoiding the Dodge boat carrying the naturalist, made his way across the harbor until he came to the shore. There he landed and proceeded up the beach to the foot of a rocky cliff, where he turned and followed a trail up it to the top. It was the same path already travelled by my captors with me and later followed by Elaine. As he came stealthily out from under cover, Del Mar's man gazed down the stairway. He drew back at what he saw. Slowly he pulled a gun from his pocket, watching down the steps with tense interest. There he could see Elaine and myself wearily climbing toward the top, our backs toward him, as we covered the men in the cave. So surprised was he at what he saw that he forgot that his boat below had been followed by the mysterious naturalist, who, the moment Del Mar's man had landed, put on the last burst of speed and ran the Dodge boat close to the spot where the aide had left Del Mar's. A glance into the boat sufficed to tell the naturalist that the figure in it was only a dummy. He did not pause, but followed the trail up the hill, until he was close after the emissary ahead, going more slowly. Only a few feet further along the cliff, the naturalist paused, too, keeping well under cover, for the man was now just ahead of him. He looked fixedly at him and saw him gaze down the cliff. Then he saw him slowly draw a gun. Who could be below? Quickly the naturalist's mind seemed to work. He crouched down, as if ready to spring. The emissary slowly raised his revolver and took careful aim at the backs of Elaine and myself, as we came up the steps. But before he could pull the trigger, the naturalist, more like one of the wild animals which he studied than like a human being, sprang from his concealment in the bushes and pounced on the man from behind, seizing him firmly. Over and over they rolled, struggling almost to the brink of the precipice. Elaine and I had got almost to the top of the flight of steps, when suddenly we heard a shout above us and sounds of a terrific struggle. We turned, to see two men, neither of whom we knew, fighting. One seemed to be a professor of natural history from his dress and general appearance. The other had a sinister nondescript look. Nearer and nearer the edge of the cliff they rolled. We crouched closer to the rocky wall, gazing up at the death grapple of the two. Who they were we did not know but that one was fighting for and the other against us we could readily see. The more vicious of the two seemed to be forcing the naturalist slowly back, when, with a superhuman effort, the naturalist braced himself. His foot was actually on a small ledge of rock directly at the edge of the cliff. He swung around quickly and struck the other man. The vicious looking man pitched headlong over the cliff. We shrank back closer to the rock as the man hurtled through the air only a few feet from us. Down below, we could hear him land with a sickening thud. Far over the edge Elaine leaned in a sort of fascination at the awful sight. For a moment, I thought the very imp of the perverse had got possession of her and that she herself would fall over. She brushed her hand unsteadily over her eyes and staggered. I caught her just in time. It was only an instant before the brave girl recovered control of herself. Then, together, we started again to climb up. As we did so the naturalist looked down and caught sight of us approaching. Hastily he hid in the bushes. We reached the top of the stairway and gazed about for the victor in the contest. To our surprise he was gone. "Come," I urged. "We had better get away, quickly." As Elaine and I disappeared, the naturalist slowly emerged again from the bushes and looked after us. Then he gave a hasty glance over the edge of the cliff at the man, twisted and motionless, far below. If we had looked back we might have seen the naturalist shake his head in a manner strangely reminiscent as he turned and gazed again after us. CHAPTER X THE CONSPIRATORS "You remember Lieutenant Woodward, the inventor of trodite?" I asked Elaine one day after I had been out for a ride through the country. "Very well indeed," she nodded with a look of wistfulness as the mention of his name recalled Kennedy. "Why?" "He's stationed at Fort Dale, not very far from here, at the entrance of the Sound," I answered. "Then let's have him over at my garden party to-night," she exclaimed, sitting down and writing. DEAR LIEUTENANT, I have just learned that you are stationed at Fort Dale and would like to have you meet some of my friends at a little garden party I am holding to-night. Sincerely, ELAINE DODGE. Thus it was that a few hours afterward, in the officers' quarters at the Fort, an orderly entered with the mail and handed a letter to Lieutenant Woodward. He opened it and read the invitation with pleasure. He had scarcely finished reading and was hastening to write a reply when the orderly entered again and saluted. "A Professor Arnold to see you, Lieutenant," he announced. "Professor Arnold?" repeated Woodward. "I don't know any Professor Arnold. Well, show him in, anyhow." The orderly ushered in a well-dressed man with a dark, heavy beard and large horn spectacles. Woodward eyed him curiously and a bit suspiciously, as the stranger seated himself and made a few remarks. The moment the orderly left the room, however, the professor lowered his voice to a whisper. Woodward listened in amazement, looked at him more closely, then laughed and shook hands cordially. The professor leaned over again. Whatever it was that he said, it made a great impression on the Lieutenant. "You know this fellow Del Mar?" asked Professor Arnold finally. "No," replied Woodward. "Well, he's hanging around Miss Dodge all the time," went on Arnold. "There's something queer about his presence here at this time." "I've an invitation to a garden party at her house to-night," remarked Woodward. "Accept," urged the professor, "and tell her you are bringing a friend." Woodward resumed writing and when he had finished handed the note to the stranger, who read: DEAR MISS DODGE, I shall be charmed to be with you to-night and with your permission will bring my friend, Professor Arnold. Truly yours, EDWARD WOODWARD. "Good," nodded the professor, handing the note back. Woodward summoned an orderly. "See that that is delivered at Dodge Hall to Miss Dodge herself as soon as possible," he directed, as the orderly took the note and saluted. Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I were in the garden when Lieut. Woodward's orderly rode up and delivered the letter. Elaine opened it and read. "That's all right," she thanked the orderly. "Oh, Walter, he's coming to the garden party, and is going to bring a friend of his, a Professor Arnold." We chatted a few moments about the party. "Oh," exclaimed Elaine suddenly, "I have an idea." "What is it?" we asked, smiling at her enthusiasm. "We'll have a fortune teller," she cried. "Aunt Josephine, you shall play the part." "All right, if you really want me," consented Aunt Josephine smiling indulgently as we urged her. . . . . . . . Down in the submarine harbor that afternoon, Del Mar and his men were seated about the conference table. "I've traced out the course and the landing points of the great Atlantic cable," he said. "We must cut it." Del Mar turned to one of the men. "Take these plans to the captain of the steamer and tell him to get ready," he went on. "Find out and send me word when the cutting can be done best." The man saluted and went out. Leaving the submarine harbor in the usual manner, he made his way to a dock on the shore around the promontory and near the village. Tied to it was a small tramp steamer. The man walked down the dock and climbed aboard the boat. There several rough looking sailors were lolling and standing about. The emissary selected the captain, a more than ordinarily tough looking individual. "Mr. Del Mar sends you the location of the Atlantic cable and the place where he thinks it best to pick it up and cut it," he said. The captain nodded. "I understand," he replied. "I'll send him word later when it can be done best." A few minutes after dispatching his messenger, Del Mar left the submarine harbor himself and entered his bungalow by way of the secret entrance. There he went immediately to his desk and picked up the mail that had accumulated in his absence. One letter he read: DEAR MR. DEL MAR, We shall be pleased to see you at a little garden party we are holding to-night. Sincerely, ELAINE DODGE. As he finished reading, he pushed the letter carelessly aside as though he had no time for such frivolity. Then an idea seemed to occur to him. He picked it up again and read it over. "I'll go," he said to himself, simply. . . . . . . . That night Dodge Hall was a blaze of lights and life, overflowing to the wide verandas and the garden. Guests in evening clothes were arriving from all parts of the summer colony and were being received by Elaine. Already some of them were dancing on the veranda. Among the late arrivals were Woodward and his friend, Professor Arnold. "I'm so glad to know that you are stationed at Fort Dale," greeted Elaine. "I hope it will be for all summer." "I can't say how long it will be, but I shall make every effort to make it all summer," he replied gallantly. "Let me present my friend, Professor Arnold." The professor bowed low and unprofessionally over Elaine's hand and a moment later followed Woodward out into the next room as the other guests arrived to be greeted by Elaine. For a moment, however, she looked after him curiously. Once she started to follow as though to speak to him. Just then, however, Del Mar entered. "Good evening," he interrupted, suavely. He stood for a moment with Elaine and talked. One doorway in the house was draped and a tent had been erected in the room. Over the door was a sign which read: "The past and the future are an open book to Ancient Anna." There Aunt Josephine held forth in a most effective disguise as a fortune teller. Aunt Josephine had always had a curious desire to play the old hag in amateur dramatics and now she had gratified her desire to the utmost. Probably none of the guests knew that Ancient Anna was in reality Elaine's guardian. Elaine being otherwise occupied, I had selected one of the prettiest of the girls and we were strolling through the house, seeking a quiet spot for a chat. "Why don't you have your fortune told by Ancient Anna?" laughed my companion as we approached the tent. "Do you tell a good fortune reasonably?" I joked, entering. "Only the true fortunes, young man," returned Ancient Anna severely, starting in to read my palm. "You are very much in love," she went on, "but the lady is not in this tent." Very much embarrassed, I pulled my hand away. "How shocking!" mocked my companion, making believe to be very much annoyed. "I don't think I'll have my fortune told," she decided as we left the room. We sauntered along to the veranda where another friend claimed my companion for a dance which she had promised. As I strolled on alone, Del Mar and Elaine were already finishing a dance. He left her a moment later and I hurried over, glad of the opportunity to see her at last. Del Mar made his way alone among the guests and passed Aunt Josephine disguised as the old hag seated before her tent. Just then a waiter came through with a tray of ices. As he passed, Del Mar stopped him, reached out and took an ice. Under the ice, as he had known, was a note. He took the note surreptitiously, turned and presented the ice to Ancient Anna with a bow. "Thank you, kind sir," she curtsied, taking it. Del Mar stepped aside and glanced at the little slip of paper. Then he crumpled it up and threw it aside, walking away. No sooner had he gone than Aunt Josephine reached out and picked up the paper. She straightened it and looked at it. There was nothing on the paper but a crude drawing of a sunrise on the ocean. "What's that?" asked Aunt Josephine, in surprise. Just then Elaine and Lieutenant Woodward came in and stopped before the tent. Aunt Josephine motioned to Elaine to come in and Elaine followed. Lieutenant Woodward started after her. "No, no, young man," laughed Ancient Anna, shaking her forefinger at him, "I don't want you. It's the pretty young lady I want." Woodward stood outside, though he did not know quite what it was all about. While he was standing there, Professor Arnold came up. He had not exactly made a hit with the guests. At least, he seemed to make little effort to do so. He and Woodward walked away, talking earnestly. In the tent Aunt Josephine handed Elaine the piece of paper she had picked up. "What does it mean?" asked Elaine, studying the curious drawing in surprise. "I'm sure I don't know," confessed Aunt Josephine. "Nor I." Meanwhile Lieutenant Woodward and his friend had moved to a corner of the veranda and stood looking intently into the moonlight. There was Del Mar deep in conversation with a man who had slipped out, at a quiet signal, from his hiding-place in the shrubbery. "That fellow is up to something, mark my words," muttered Arnold under his breath. "I'd like to make an arrest, but I've got to have some proof." They continued watching Del Mar but, so far at least, he did nothing that would have furnished them any evidence of anything. So the party went on, most merrily until, long after the guests had left, Elaine sat in her dressing-gown up in her room, about to retire. Her maid had left her and she picked up the slip of paper from her dresser, looking at it thoughtfully. "What can a crude drawing of a sunrise on the sea mean?" she asked herself. For a long time she studied the paper, thinking it over. At last an idea came to her. "I'll bet I have it," she exclaimed to herself. "Something is going to happen on the water at sunrise." She took a pretty little alarm clock from the table, set it, and placed it near her bed. Returning from the party to his library, Del Mar entered. Except for the moonlight streaming in through the windows the room was dark. He turned on the lights and crossed to the panel in the wall. As he touched a button the panel opened. Del Mar switched off the lights and went through the panel, closing it. Outside, at the other end of the passageway, was one of his men, waiting in the shadows as Del Mar came up. For a moment they talked. "I'll be there, at sunrise," agreed Del Mar, as the man left and he reentered the secret passage. While he was conferring, at the library window appeared a face. It was Professor Arnold's. Cautiously he opened the window and listened. Then he entered. First he went over to the door and set a chair under the knob. Next he drew an electric pocket bull's-eye and flashed it about the room. He glanced about and finally went over to Del Mar's desk where he examined a batch of letters, his back to the secret panel. Arnold was running rapidly through the papers on the desk, as he flashed his electric bull's-eye on them, when the panel in the wall opened slowly and Del Mar stepped into the room noiselessly. To his surprise he saw a round spot of light from an electric flashlight focussed on his desk. Some one was there! He drew a gun. Arnold started suddenly. He heard the cocking of a revolver. But he did not look around. He merely thought an instant, quicker than lightning, then pulled out a spool of black thread with one hand, while with the other he switched off the light, and dived down on his stomach on the floor in the shadow. "Who's that?" demanded Del Mar. "Confound it! I should have fired at sight." The room was so dark now that it was impossible to see Arnold. Del Mar gazed intently. Suddenly Arnold's electric torch glowed forth in a spot across the room. Del Mar blazed at it, firing every chamber of his revolver, then switched on the lights. No one was in the room. But the door was open. Del Mar gazed about, vexed, then ran to the open door. For a second or two he peered out in rage, finally turning back into the empty room. On the mantlepiece lay the torch of the intruder. It was one in which the connection is made by a ring falling on a piece of metal. The ring had been left up by Arnold. Connection had been made as he was leaving the room by pulling the thread which he had fastened to the ring. Del Mar followed the thread as it led around the room to the doorway. "Curse him!" swore Del Mar, smashing down the innocent torch on the floor in fury, as he rushed to the desk and saw his papers all disturbed. Outside, Arnold had made good his escape. He paused in the moonlight and listened. No one was pursuing. He drew out two or three of the letters which he had taken from Del Mar's desk, and hastily ran through them. "Not a thing in them," he exclaimed, tearing them up in disgust and hurrying away. At the first break of dawn the little alarm dock awakened Elaine. She started up and rubbed her eyes at the suddenness of the awakening, then quickly reached out and stopped the bell so that it would not disturb others in the house. She jumped out of bed hurriedly and dressed. Armed with a spy glass, Elaine let herself out of the house quietly. Directly to the shore she went, walking along the beach. Suddenly she paused. There were three men. Before she could level her glass at them, however, they disappeared. "That's strange," she said to herself, looking through the glass. "There's a steamer at the dock that seems to be getting ready for something. I wonder what it can be doing so early." She moved along in the direction of the dock. At the dock the disreputable steamer to which Del Mar had dispatched his emissary was still tied, the sailors now working under the gruff orders of the rough captain. About a capstan were wound the turns of a long wire rope at the end of which was a three-pronged drag-hook. "You see," the captain was explaining, "we'll lower this hook and drag it along the bottom. When it catches anything we'll just pull it up. I have the location of the cable. It ought to be easy to grapple." Already, on the shore, at an old deserted shack of a fisherman, two of Del Mar's men had been waiting since before sun-up, having come in a dirty, dingy fishing smack anchored offshore. "Is everything ready?" asked Del Mar, coming up. "Everything, sir," returned the two, following him along the shore. "Who's that?" cautioned one of the men, looking ahead. They hid hastily, for there was Elaine. She had seen the three and was about to level her glass in their direction as they hid. Finally she turned and discovered the steamer. As she moved toward it, Del Mar and the others came out from behind a rock and stole after her. Elaine wandered on until she came to the dock. No one paid any attention to her, apparently, and she made her way along the dock and even aboard the boat without being observed. No sooner had she got on the boat, however, than Del Mar and his men appeared on the dock and also boarded the steamer. The captain was still explaining to the men just how the drag-hook worked when Elaine came up quietly on the deck. She stood spellbound as she heard him outline the details of the plot. Scarcely knowing what she did, she crouched back of a deckhouse and listened. Behind her, Del Mar and his men came along, cat-like. A glance was sufficient to tell them that she had overheard what the captain was saying. "Confound that girl!" ground out Del Mar. "Will she always cross my path? We'll get her this time!" The men scattered as he directed them. Sneaking up quietly, they made a sudden rush and seized her. As she struggled and screamed, they dragged her off, thrusting her into the captain's cabin and locking the door. "Cast off!" ordered Del Mar. A few moments later, out in the harbor, Del Mar was busy directing the dragging for the Atlantic cable at a spot where it was known to run. They let the drag-hook down over the side and pulled it along slowly on the bottom. In the cabin, Elaine beat on the door and shouted in vain for help. I had decided to do some early morning fishing the day after the party, and knowing that Elaine and the others were usually late risers, I said nothing about it, determined to try my luck alone. So it happened that only a few minutes after Elaine let herself out quietly, I did the same, carrying my fishing-tackle. I made my way toward the shore, undecided whether to fish from a dock or boat. Finally I determined to do some casting from the shore. I had cast once or twice before I was aware that I was not alone in the immediate neighborhood. Some distance away I saw a little steamer at a wharf. A couple of men ran along the deck, apparently cautioning the captain against something. Then I saw them run to one side and drag out a girl, screaming and struggling as they hurried her below. I could scarcely believe my eyes. It was Elaine! Only a second I looked. They were certainly too many for me. I dropped my rod and line and ran toward the dock, however. As I came down it, I saw that I was too late. The little steamer had cast off and was now some distance from the dock. I looked about for a motor-boat in desperation--anything to follow them in. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a rowboat. I ran back along the dock as I had come and struck out down the shore. . . . . . . . Out at the parade grounds at Fort Dale, in spite of the early hour, there was some activity, for the army is composed of early risers. Lieutenant Woodward and Professor Arnold left the house in which the Lieutenant was quartered, where he had invited Arnold to spend the night. Already an orderly had brought around two horses. They mounted for an early morning ride through the country. Off they clattered, naturally bending their course toward the shore. They came soon to a point in the road where it emerged from the hills and gave them a panoramic view of the harbor and sound. "Wait a minute," called the professor. Woodward reined up and they gazed off over the water. "What's that--an oyster boat?" asked Woodward, looking in the direction Arnold indicated. "I don't think so, so early," replied Arnold, pulling out his pocket glass and looking carefully. Through it he could see that something like a hook was being cast over the steamer's side and drawn back again. "They're dragging for something," he remarked as they brought up an object dark and covered with seagrowth, then threw it overboard as though it was not what they wanted. "By George--the Atlantic cable lands here--they're going to cut it!" Woodward took the glasses himself and looked in in surprise. "That's right," he cried, his surprise changed to alarm in an instant. "Here, take the glass again and watch. I must get back to the Fort." He swung his horse about and galloped off, leaving Arnold sitting in the saddle gazing at the strange boat through his glass. By the time Woodward reached the parade ground again, a field-gun and its company were at drill. He dashed furiously across the field. "What's the trouble?" demanded the officer in charge of the gun. Woodward blurted out what he had just seen. "We must stop it--at any cost," he added, breathlessly. The officer turned to the company. A moment later the order to follow Woodward rang out, the horses were wheeled about, and off the party galloped. On they went, along the road which Woodward and Arnold had already traversed. Arnold was still gazing, impatiently now, through the glass. He could see the fore-deck of the ship where Del Mar, muffled up, and his men had succeeded in dragging the cable to the proper position on the deck. They laid it down and Del Mar was directing the preparations for cutting it. Arnold lowered his glass and looked about helplessly. Just then Lieutenant Woodward dashed up with the officer and company and the field-gun. They wheeled it about and began pointing it and finding the range. Would they never get it? Arnold was almost beside himself. One of Del Mar's men seized an axe and was about to deliver the fatal blow. He swung it and for a moment held it poised over his head. Suddenly a low, deep rumble of a reverberation echoed and reechoed from the hills over the water. The field-gun had bellowed defiance. A solid shot crashed through the cabin, smashing the door. Astounded, the men jumped back. As they did so, in their fear, the cable, released, slipped back over the rail in a great splash of safety into the water and sank. "The deuce take you--you fools," swore Del Mar, springing forward in rage, and looking furiously toward the shore. Two of the men had been hit by splinters. It was impossible to drag again. Besides, again the gun crew loaded and fired. The first shot had dismantled the doorway of the cabin. Elaine crouched fearfully in the furthest corner, not knowing what to expect next. Suddenly another shot tore through just beside the door, smashing the woodwork terrifically. She shrank back further, in fright. Anything was better than this hidden terror. Nerved up, she ran through the broken door. Arnold was gazing through his glass at the effect of the shots. He could now see Del Mar and the others leaping into a swift little motor-boat alongside the steamer which they had been using to help them in dragging for the cable. Just then he saw Elaine run, screaming, out from the cabin and leap overboard. "Stop!" shouted Arnold in a fever of excitement, lowering his glass. "There's a girl--by Jove--it's Miss Dodge!" "Impossible!" exclaimed Woodward. "I tell you, it is," reiterated Arnold, thrusting the glass into the Lieutenant's hand. The motor-boat had started when Del Mar saw Elaine in the water. "Look," he growled, pointing, "There's the Dodge girl." Elaine was swimming frantically away from the boat. "Get her," he ordered, shielding his face so that she could not see it. They turned the boat and headed toward her. She struck out harder than ever for the shore. On came the motor-boat. Arnold and Woodward looked at each other in despair. What could they do? . . . . . . . Somehow, by a sort of instinct, I suppose, I made my way as quickly as I could along the shore toward Fort Dale, thinking perhaps of Lieutenant Woodward. As I came upon the part of the grounds of the Fort that sloped down to the beach, I saw a group of young officers standing about a peculiar affair on the shore in the shallow water--half bird, half boat. As I came closer, I recognized it as a Thomas hydroaeroplane. It suggested an idea and I hurried, shouting. One of the men, seated in it, was evidently explaining its working to the others. "Wait," he said, as he saw me running down the shore, waving and shouting at them. "Let's see what this fellow wants." It was, as I soon learned, the famous Captain Burnside, of the United States Aerial Corps. Breathless, I told him what I had seen and that we were all friends of Woodward's. Burnside thought a moment, and quickly made up his mind. "Come--quick--jump up here with me," he called. Then to the other men, "I'll be back soon. Wait here. Let her go!" I had jumped up and they spun the propeller. The hydroaeroplane feathered along the water, throwing a cloud of white spray, then slowly rose in the air. The sensation of flying was delightful, as the fresh morning wind cut our faces. We seemed to be hardly moving. It was the earth or rather the water that rushed past under us. But I forgot all about my sensations in my anxiety for Elaine. As we rose we could see over the curve in the shore. "Look!" I exclaimed, straining my eyes. "She's overboard. There's a motor-boat after her. Faster--over that way!" "Yes, yes," shouted Burnside above the roar of the engine which almost made conversation impossible. He shifted the planes a bit and crowded on more speed. The men in the boat saw us. One figure, tall, muffled, had a familiar look, but I could not place it and in the excitement of the chase had no chance to try. But I could see that he saw us and was angry. Apparently the man gave orders to turn, for the boat swung around just as we swooped down and ran along the water. Elaine was exhausted. Would we be in time? We planed along the water, while the motor-boat sped off with its baffled passengers. Finally we stopped, in a cloud of spray. Together, Burnside and I reached down and caught Elaine, not a moment too soon, dragging her into the boat of the hydroaeroplane. If we had not had all we could do, we might have heard a shout of encouragement and relief from the hill where Woodward and Arnold and the rest were watching anxiously. I threw my coat about her, as the brave girl heroically clung to us, half conscious. "Oh--Walter," she murmured, "you were just in time." "I wish I could have been sooner," I apologized. "They--they didn't cut the cable--did they?" she asked, as we rose from the water again, bearing her now to safety. "I did my best." CHAPTER XI THE WIRELESS DETECTIVE Del Mar made his way cautiously along the bank of a little river at the mouth of which he left the boat after escaping from the little steamer. Quite evidently he was worried by the failure to cut the great Atlantic cable and he was eager to see whether any leak had occurred in the organization which, as secret foreign agent, he had so carefully built up in America. As he skirted the shore of the river, he came to a falls. Here he moved even more cautiously than before, looking about to make certain that no one had followed him. It was a beautiful sheet of water that tumbled with a roar over the ledge of rock, then raced away swiftly to the sea in a cloud of spray. Assured that he was alone, he approached a crevice in the rocks, near the falls. With another hasty look about, he reached in and pulled a lever. Instantly a most marvellous change took place, incredible almost beyond belief. The volume of water that came over the falls actually and rapidly decreased until it almost stopped, dripping slowly in a thin veil. There was the entrance of a cave--literally hidden behind the falls! Del Mar walked in. Inside was the entrance to another, inner cave, higher up in the sheer stone of the wall that the waters had eroded. From the floor to this entrance led a ladder. Del Mar climbed it, then stopped just inside the entrance to the inner cave. For a moment he paused. Then he pressed another lever. Almost immediately the thin trickle of water grew until at last the roaring falls completely covered the cave entrance. It was a clever concealment, contrived by damming the river above and arranging a new outlet controlled by flood-gates. There Del Mar stood, in the inner cave. A man sat at a table, a curious gear fastened over his head and covering his ears. Before him was a huge apparatus from which flared a big bluish-green spark, snapping and crackling above the thunder of the waves. From the apparatus ran wires apparently up through cables that penetrated the rocky roof of the cavern and the river above. It was Del Mar's secret wireless station, close to the hidden submarine harbor which had been established beneath the innocent rocks of the promontory up the coast. Far overhead, on the cliff over the falls, were the antennae of the wireless. "How is she working?" asked Del Mar. "Pretty well," answered the man. "No interference?" queried Del Mar, adjusting the apparatus. The man shook his head in the negative. "We must get a quenched spark apparatus," went on Del Mar, pleased that nothing was wrong here. "This rotary gap affair is out of date. By the way, I want you to be ready to send a message, to be relayed across to our people. I've got to consult the board below in the harbor, first, however. I'll send a messenger to you." "Very well, sir," returned the man, saluting as Del Mar went out. Out at Fort Dale, Lieutenant Woodward was still entertaining his new friend, Professor Arnold, and had introduced him to Colonel Swift, the commanding officer at the Fort. They were discussing the strange events of the early morning, when an orderly entered, saluted Colonel Swift and handed him a telegram. The Colonel tore it open and read it, his face growing grave. Then he handed it to Woodward, who read: WASHINGTON, D. C. Radio station using illegal wave length in your vicinity. Investigate and report. BRANDON, Radio Bureau. Professor Arnold shook his head slowly, as he handed the telegram back. "There's a wireless apparatus of my own on my yacht," he remarked slowly. "I have an instrument there which I think can help you greatly. Let's see what we can do." "All right," nodded Colonel Swift to Woodward. "Try." The two went out and a few minutes later, on the shore, jumped into Arnold's fast little motor-boat and sped out across the water until they swung around alongside the trim yacht which Arnold was using. It was a compact and comfortable little craft with lines that indicated both gracefulness and speed. On one of the masts, as they approached, Woodward noticed the wireless aerial. They climbed up the ladder over the side and made their way directly to the wireless room, where Arnold sat down and at once began to adjust the apparatus. Woodward seemed keenly interested in inspecting the plant which was of a curious type and not exactly like any that he had seen before. "Wireless apparatus," explained Arnold, still at work, "as you know, is divided into three parts, the source of power, 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. This is a very compact system with facilities for a quick change from one wave length to another. It has a spark gap, quenched type, break system relay--operator can hear any interference while transmitting--transformation by a single throw of a six-point switch which tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance." Woodward watched him keenly, following his explanation carefully, as Arnold concluded. "You might call it a radio detective," he added. Even the startling experience of the morning when she was carried off and finally jumped from the little tramp steamer that had attempted to cut the cable did not dampen Elaine's ardor. She missed the guiding hand of Kennedy, yet felt impelled to follow up and investigate the strange things that had been happening in the neighborhood of her summer home since his disappearance. I succeeded in getting her safely home after Burnside and I rescued her in the hydroaeroplane, but no sooner had she changed her clothes for dry ones than she disappeared herself. At least I could not find her, though, later, I found that she had stolen away to town and there had purchased a complete outfit of men's clothes from a second hand dealer. Cautiously, with the large bundle under her arm, she returned to Dodge Hall and almost sneaked into her own home and up-stairs to her room. She locked the door and hastily unwrapped the bundle taking out a tattered suit and the other things, holding them up and laughing gleefully as she took off her own pretty clothes and donned these hideous garments. Quickly she completed her change of costume and outward character. As she surveyed herself in the dainty mirror of her dressing-table she laughed again at the incongruity of her pretty boudoir and the rough men's clothes she was wearing. Deftly she arranged her hair so that her hat would cover it. She picked a black mustache from the table and stuck it on her soft upper lip. It tickled and she made a wry face over it. Then she hunted up a cigarette from the bundle which she had brought in, lighted it and stuck it in the corner of her mouth, letting it droop jauntily. It made her cough tremendously and she threw it away. Finally she went to the door and down-stairs. No one was about. She opened the door and gazed around. All was quiet. It was a new role for her, but, with a bold front, she went out and passed down to the gate of the grounds, pulling her hat down over her eyes and assuming a tough swagger. Only a few minutes before, down in the submarine harbor, the officers of the board of foreign agents had been grouped about Del Mar, who had entered and taken his place at their head, very angry over the failure to cut the cable. As they concluded their hasty conference, he wrote a message on a slip of paper. "Take this to our wireless station," he ordered, handing it to one of the men. The man took it, rose, and went to a wardrobe from which he extracted one of the submarine suits. With the message in his hand, he went out of the room, buckling on the suit. A few minutes later the messenger in the submarine suit bobbed up out of the water, near the promontory, and climbed slowly over the rocks toward a crevice, where he began to take off the diving outfit. Having finished, he hid the suit among the rocks and then went along to the little river, carefully skirting its banks into the ravine in which were the falls and the wireless cave. In her disguise, Elaine had made her way by a sort of instinct along the shore to the rocky promontory where we had discovered the message in the tin tube in the water. Something, she knew not what, was going on about there, and she reasoned that it was not all over yet. She was right. As she looked about keenly she did see something, and she hid among the rocks. It was a man, all dripping, in an outlandish helmet and suit. She saw him slink into a crevice and take off the suit, then, as he moved toward the river ravine, she stole up after him. Suddenly she stopped stark still, surprised, and stared. The man had actually gone up to the very waterfall. He had pressed what looked like a lever and the water over the falls seemed to stop. Then he walked directly through into a cave. In the greatest wonder, Elaine crept along toward the falls. Inside the cave Del Mar's emissary started to climb a ladder to an inner cave. As he reached the top, he glanced out and saw Elaine by the entrance. With an oath he jumped into the inner entrance. His hand reached eagerly for a lever in the rocks and as he found and held it, he peered out carefully. Elaine cautiously came from behind a rock where she had hidden herself and seeing no one apparently watching, now, advanced until she stood directly under the trickle of water which had once been the falls. She gazed into the cave, curiously uncertain whether she dared to go in alone or not. The emissary jerked fiercely at the lever as he saw Elaine. Above the falls a dam had been built and by a system of levers the gates could be operated so that the water could be thrown over the falls or diverted away, at will. As the man pressed the lever, the flood gates worked quickly. Elaine stood gazing eagerly into the blackness of the cave. Just then a great volume of water from above crashed down on her, with almost crushing weight. How she lived through it she never knew. But, fortunately, she had not gone quite far enough to get the full force of the water. Still, the terrific flood easily overcame her. She was swept, screaming, down the stream. . . . . . . . Rather alarmed at the strange disappearance of Elaine after I brought her home, I had started out along the road to the shore to look for her, thinking that she might perhaps have returned there. As I walked along a young tough--at least at the time I thought it was a young tough, so good was the disguise she had assumed and so well did she carry it off--slouched past me. What such a character could be doing in the neighborhood I could not see. But he was so noticeably tough that I turned and looked. He kept his eyes averted as if afraid of being recognized. "Great Caesar," I muttered to myself, "that's a roughneck. This place is sure getting to be a hang-out for gunmen." I shrugged my shoulders and continued my walk. It was no business of mine. Finding no trace of Elaine, I returned to the house. Aunt Josephine was in the library, alone. "Where's Elaine?" I asked anxiously. "I don't know," she replied. "I don't think she's at home." "Well, I can't find her anywhere," I frowned wandering out at a loss what to do, and thrusting my hands deep in my pockets as an aid to thought. Somehow, I felt, I didn't seem to get on well as a detective without Kennedy. Yet, so far, a kind providence seemed to have watched over us. Was it because we were children--or--I rejected that alternative. Walking along leisurely I made my way down to the shore. At a bridge that crossed a rather turbulent stream as it tumbled its way toward the sea, I paused and looked at the water reflectively. Suddenly my vagrant interest was aroused. Up the stream I saw some one struggling in the water and shouting for help as the current carried her along, screaming. It was Elaine. The hat and mustache of her disguise were gone and her beautiful Titian hair was spread out on the water as it carried her now this way, now that, while she struck out with all her strength to keep afloat. I did not stop to think how or why she was there. I swung over the bridge rail, stripping off my coat, ready to dive. On she came with the swift current to the bridge. As she approached I dived. It was not a minute too soon. In her struggles she had become thoroughly exhausted. She was a good swimmer but the fight with nature was unequal. I reached her in a second or so and took her hand. Half pulling, half shoving her, I struck out for the shore. We managed to make it together where the current was not quite so strong and climbed safely up a rock. Elaine sank down, choking and gasping, not unconscious but pretty much all in and exhausted. I looked at her in amazement. She was the tough character I had just seen. "Why, where in the world did you get those togs?" I queried. "Never mind my clothes, Walter," she gasped. "Take me home for some dry ones. I have a clue." She rose, determined to shake off the effects of her recent plunge and went toward the house. As I helped her she related breathlessly what she has just seen. Meanwhile, back of that wall of water, the wireless operator in the cave was sending the messages which Del Mar's emissary dictated to him, one after another. . . . . . . . With the high resistance receiving apparatus over his head, Arnold was listening to the wireless signals that came over his "radio detective" on the yacht, moving the slider back and forth on a sort of tuning coil, as he listened. Woodward stood close beside him. "As you know," Arnold remarked, "by the use of an aerial, messages may be easily received from any number of stations. Laws, rules, and regulations may be adopted by the government to shut out interlopers and to plug busybody ears, but the greater part of whatever is transmitted by the Hertzian waves can be snatched down by this wireless detective of mine. Here I can sit in my wireless room with this ear-phone clamped over my head drinking in news, plucking the secrets of others from the sky--in other words, this is eavesdropping by a wireless wire-tapper." "Are you getting anything now?" asked Woodward. Arnold nodded, as he seized a pencil and started to write. The lieutenant bent forward in tense interest. Finally Arnold read what he had written and with a peculiar, quiet smile handed it over. Woodward read. It was a senseless jumble of dots and dashes of the Morse code but, although he was familiar with the code, he could make nothing out of it. "It's the Morse code all right," he said, handing it back with a puzzled look, "but it doesn't make any sense." Arnold smiled again, took the paper, and without a word wrote on it some more. Then he handed it back to Woodward. "An old trick," he said. "Reverse the dots and dashes and see what you get." Woodward looked at it, as Arnold had reversed it and his face lighted up. "Harbor successfully mined," he quoted in surprise. "I'll show you another thing about this radio detective of mine," went on Arnold energetically. "It's not only a wave length measurer, but by a process of my own I can determine approximately the distance between the sending and the receiving points of a message." He attached another, smaller machine to the wireless detector. In the face was a moving finger which swung over a dial marked off in miles from one upward. As Arnold adjusted the new detector, the hand began to move slowly. Woodward looked eagerly. It did not move far, but came to rest above the figure "2." "Not so very far away, you see, Lieutenant," remarked Arnold, pointing at the dial face. He seized his glass and hurried to the deck, levelling it at the shore, leaning far over the rail in his eagerness. As he swept the shore, he stopped suddenly. There was a house-roof among the trees with a wireless aerial fastened to the chimney, but not quite concealed by the dense foliage. "Look," he cried to Woodward, with an exclamation of satisfaction, handing over the glass. Woodward looked. "A secret wireless station, all right," he agreed, lowering the glass after a long look. "We'd better get over there right away," planned Arnold, leading the way to the ladder over the side of the yacht and calling to the sailor who had managed the little motor-boat to follow him. Quickly they skimmed across to the shore. "I think we'd better send to the Fort for some men," considered Arnold as they landed. "We may need reinforcements before we get through." Woodward nodded and Arnold hastily wrote a note on a rather large scrap of paper which he happened to have in his pocket. "Take this to Colonel Swift at Fort Dale," he directed the sailor. "And hurry!" The sailor loped off, half on a run, as Arnold and Woodward left down the shore, proceeding carefully. At top speed, Arnold's sailor made his way to Fort Dale and was directed by the sentry to Colonel Swift who was standing before the headquarters with several officers. "A message from Lieutenant Woodward and Professor Arnold," he announced, approaching the commanding officer and handing him the note. Colonel Swift tore it open and read: Have located radio aerial in the woods along shore. Please send squad of men with bearer.--ARNOLD. "You just left them?" queried the Colonel. "Yes sir," replied the sailor. "We came ashore in his boat. I don't know exactly where they went but I know the direction and we can catch up with them easily if we hurry, sir." The colonel handed the note quickly to a cavalry officer beside him who read it, saluted at the orders that followed, turned and strode off, hastily stuffing the paper in his belt, as the sailor went, too. Meanwhile, Del Mar's valet was leaving the bungalow and walking down the road on an errand for his master. Up the road he heard the clatter of hoofs. He stepped back off the road and from his covert he could see a squad of cavalry headed by the captain and a sailor cantering past. The captain turned in the saddle to speak to the sailor, who rode like a horse marine, and as he did so, the turning of his body loosened a paper which he had stuffed quickly into his belt. It fell to the ground. In their hurry the troop, close behind, rode over it. But it did not escape the quick eye of Del Mar's valet. They had scarcely disappeared around a bend in the road when he stepped out and pounced on the paper, reading it eagerly. Every line of his face showed fear as he turned and ran back to the bungalow. "See what I found," he cried breathlessly bursting in on Del Mar who was seated at his desk, having returned from the harbor. Del Mar read it with a scowl of fury. Then he seized his hat, and a short hunter's axe, and disappeared through the panel into the subterranean passage which took him by the shortest cut through the very hill to the shore. Slowly Arnold and Woodward made their way along the shore, carefully searching for the spot where they had seen the house with the aerial. At last they came to a place where they could see the deserted house, far up on the side of a ravine above a river and a waterfalls. They dived into the thick underbrush for cover and went up the hill. Some distance off from the house, they parted the bushes and gazed off across an open space at the ramshackle building. As they looked they could see a man hurry across from the opposite direction and into the house. "As I live, I think that's Del Mar," muttered Arnold. Woodward nodded, doubtfully, though. In the house, Del Mar hurried to a wall where he found and pressed a concealed spring. A small cabinet in the plaster opened and he took out a little telephone which he rang and through which he spoke hastily. "Pull in the wires," he shouted. "We're discovered, I think." Down in the wireless station in the cave, the operator at his instrument heard the signal of the telephone and quickly answered it. "All right, sir," he returned with a look of great excitement and anxiety. "Cut the wires and I'll pull them in." Putting back the telephone, Del Mar ran to the window and looked out between the broken slats of the closed blinds. "Confound them!" he muttered angrily. He could see Arnold and Woodward cautiously approaching. A moment later he stepped back and pulled a silk mask over his upper face, leaving only his eyes visible. Then he seized his hunter's axe and dashed up the stairs. Through the scuttle of the roof he came, making his way over to the chimney to which the wireless antennae were fastened. Hastily he cut the wires which ran through the roof from the aerial. As he did so he saw them disappear through the roof. Below, in the cave, down in the ravine back of the falls, the operator was hastily hauling in the wire Del Mar had cut. Viciously next, Del Mar fell upon the wooden aerial itself, chopping it right and left with powerful blows. He broke it off and threw it over the roof. Below, Arnold and Woodward, taking advantage of every tree and shrub for concealment, had almost reached the house when the broken aerial fell with a bang almost on them. In surprise they dropped back of a tree and looked up. But from their position they could see nothing. Together they drew their guns and advanced more cautiously at the house. Del Mar made his way back quickly over the roof, back through the scuttle and down the stairs again. Should he go out? He looked out of the window. Then he went to the door. An instant he paused thinking and listening, his axe raised, ready for a blow. Arnold and Woodward, by this time, had reached the door which swung open on its rusty hinges. Woodward was about to go in when he felt a hand on his arm. "Wait," cautioned Arnold. He took off his hat and jammed it on the end of a stick. Slowly he shoved the door open, then thrust the hat and stick just a fraction of a foot forward. Del Mar, waiting, alert, saw the door open and a hat. He struck at it hard with the axe and merely the hat and stick fell to the floor. "Now, come on," shouted Arnold to Woodward. In the other hand, Del Mar held a chair. As Woodward dashed in with Arnold beside him, Del Mar shied the chair at their feet. Woodward fell over it in a heap and as he did so the delay was all that Del Mar had hoped to gain. Without a second's hesitation he dived through an open window, just as Arnold ran forward, avoiding Woodward and the chair. It was spectacular, but it worked. Arnold fired, but even that was not quick enough. He turned and with Woodward who had picked himself up in spite of his barked shins and they ran back through the door by which they had entered. Recovering himself, Del Mar dashed for the woods just as Arnold and Woodward ran around the side of the house, still blazing away after him, as they followed, rapidly gaining. Elaine changed her clothes quickly. Meanwhile she had ordered horses for both of us and a groom brought them around from the stables. It took me only a short time to jump into some dry things and I waited impatiently. She was ready very soon, however, and we mounted and cantered off, again in the direction of the shore where she had seen the remarkable waterfall, of which she had told me. We had not gone far when we heard sounds, as if an army were bearing down on us. "What's that?" I asked. Elaine turned and looked. It was a squad of cavalry. "Why, it's Lieutenant Woodward's friend, Captain Price," she exclaimed, waving to the captain at the head of the squad. A moment later Captain Price pulled up and bowed. Quickly we told him of what Elaine had just discovered. "That's strange," he said. "This man--" indicating the sailor--"has just told me that Lieutenant Woodward and Professor Arnold are investigating a wireless outfit over near there. Perhaps there's some connection." "May we join you?" she asked. "By all means," he returned. "I was about to suggest it myself." We fell in behind with the rest and were off again. Under the direction of the sailor we came at last to the ravine where we looked about searchingly for some trace of Arnold and Woodward. "What's that noise?" exclaimed one of the cavalrymen. We could hear shots, above us. "They may need us," cried Elaine, impatiently. It was impossible to ride up the sheer height above. "Dismount," ordered Captain Price. His men jumped down and we followed him. Elaine struggled up, now helped by me, now helping me. Further down the hill from the deserted house which we could see above us at the top was an underground passage which had been built to divert part of the water above the falls for power. Through it the water surged and over this boiling stream ran a board walk, the length of the tunnel. Into this tunnel we could see that a masked man had made his way. As he did so, he turned for just a moment and fired a volley of shots. Elaine screamed. There were Arnold and Woodward, his targets, coming on boldly, as yet unhit. They rushed in after him, in spite of his running fire, returning his shots and darting toward the tunnel entrance through which he still blazed back at them. From our end of the ravine, we could see precisely what was going on. "Come--the other end of the tunnel," shouted Price, who had evidently been over the ground and knew it. We made our way quickly to it and it seemed as if we had our man trapped, like a rat in a hole. In the tunnel the man was firing back at his pursuers as he ran along the board walk for our end. He looked up just in time as he approached us. There he could see Price and his cavalry waiting, cutting off retreat. We were too many for him. He turned and took a step back. There were Arnold and Woodward with levelled guns peering in as though they could not see very clearly. In a moment their eyes would become accustomed as his to the darkness. What should he do? There was not a second to waste. He looked down at the planks beneath him and the black water slipping past on its way to the power station. It was a desperate chance. But it was all that was left. He dropped down and let himself without even a splash into the water. Arnold and Woodward took a step into the darkness, scarcely knowing what to expect, their eyes a bit better accustomed to the dusk. But if they had been there an hour, in all probability they could not have seen what was at their very feet. Del Mar had sunk and was swimming under water in the swift black current sweeping under them. As they entered, he passed out, nerved up to desperation. Down the stream, just before it took its final plunge to the power wheel, Del Mar managed by a superhuman effort to reach out and grasp a wooden support of the flooring again and pull himself out of the stream. Smiling grimly to himself, he hurried up the bank. "Some one's coming," whispered Price. "Get ready." We levelled our guns. I was about to fire. "Look out! Don't shoot!" warned a voice sharply. It was Elaine. Her keen eyes and quick perception had recognized Arnold, leading Woodward. We lowered our guns. "Did you see a man, masked, come out here?" cried Woodward. "No--he must have gone your way," we called. "No, he couldn't." Arnold was eagerly questioning the captain as Elaine and I approached. "Dropped into the water--risked almost certain death," he muttered, half turning and seeing us. "I want to congratulate you on your nerve for going in there," began Elaine, advancing toward the professor. Apparently he neither heard nor saw us, for he turned as soon as he had finished with Price and went into the cave as though he were too busy to pay any attention to anything else. Elaine looked up at me, in blank astonishment. "What an impolite man," she murmured, gazing at the figure all stooped over as it disappeared in the darkness of the tunnel. CHAPTER XII THE DEATH CLOUD Off a lonely wharf in a deserted part of the coast some miles from the promontory which afforded Del Mar his secret submarine harbor, a ship was riding at anchor. On the wharf a group of men, husky lascars, were straining their eyes at the mysterious craft. "Here she comes," muttered one of the men, "at last." From the ship a large yawl had put out. As she approached the wharf it could be seen that she was loaded to the gunwales with cases and boxes. She drew up close to the wharf and the men fell to unloading her, lifting up the boxes as though they were weighted with feathers instead of metal and explosives. Down the shore, at the same time, behind a huge rock, crouched a rough looking tramp. His interest in the yawl and its cargo was even keener than that of the lascars. "Supplies," he muttered, moving back cautiously and up the bluff. "I wonder where they are taking them?" Marcus Del Mar had chosen an old and ruined hotel not far from the shore as his storehouse and arsenal. Already he was there, pacing up and down the rotted veranda which shook under his weight. "Come, hurry up," he called impatiently as the first of the men carrying a huge box on his back made his appearance up the hill. One after another they trooped in and Del Mar led them to the hotel, unlocking the door. Inside, the old hostelry was quite as ramshackle as outside. What had once been the dining-room now held nothing but a long, rickety table and several chairs. "Put them there," ordered Del Mar, directing the disposal of the cases. "Then you can begin work. I shall be back soon." He went out and as he did so, two men seized guns from a corner near-by and followed him. On the veranda he paused and turned to the men. "If any one approaches the house--any one, you understand--make him a prisoner and send for me," he ordered. "If he resists, shoot." "Yes, sir," they replied, moving over and stationing themselves one at each angle of the narrow paths that ran before the old house. Del Mar turned and plunged deliberately into the bushes, as if for a cross country walk, unobserved. Meanwhile, by another path up the bluff, the tramp had made his way parallel to the line taken by the men. He paused at the top of the bluff where some bushes overhung and parted them. "Their headquarters," he remarked to himself, under his breath. Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I were on the lawn that forenoon when a groom in resplendent livery came up to us. "Miss Elaine Dodge?" he bowed. Elaine took the note he offered and he departed with another bow. "Oh, isn't that delightful," she cried with pleasure, handing the note to me. I read it: "The Wilkeshire Country Club will be honored if Miss Dodge and her friends will join the paper chase this afternoon. L.H. Brown, Secretary." "I suppose a preparation for the fox or drag hunting season?" I queried. "Yes," she replied. "Will you go?" "I don't ride very well," I answered, "but I'll go." "Oh, and here's Mr. Del Mar," she added, turning. "You'll join us at the Wilkeshire hunt in a paper chase this afternoon, surely, Mr. Del Mar?" "Charmed, I'm sure," he agreed gracefully. For several minutes we chatted, planning, then he withdrew. "I shall meet you on the way to the Club," he promised. It was not long before Elaine was ready, and from the stable a groom led three of the best trained cross-country horses in the neighborhood, for old Taylor Dodge, Elaine's father, had been passionately fond of hunting, as had been both Elaine and Aunt Josephine. We met on the porch and a few minutes later mounted and cantered away. On the road Del Mar joined us and we galloped along to the Hunt Club, careful, however, to save the horses as much as possible for the dash over the fields. . . . . . . . For some time the uncouth tramp continued gazing fixedly out of the bushes at the deserted hotel. Suddenly, he heard a noise and dropped flat on the ground, looking keenly about. Through the trees he could see one of Del Mar's men stationed on sentry duty. He was leaning against a tree, on the alert. The tramp rose cautiously and moved off in another direction to that in which he had been making his way, endeavoring to flank the sentry. Further along, however, another of Del Mar's men was standing in the same attentive manner near a path that led from the woods. As the tramp approached, the sentry heard a crackle of the brush and stepped forward. Before the tramp knew it, he was covered by a rifle from the sentry in an unexpected quarter. Any one but the sentry, with half an eye, might have seen that the fear he showed was cleverly feigned. He threw his hands above his head even before he was ordered and in general was the most tractable captive imaginable. The sentry blew a whistle, whereat the other sentry ran in. "What shall we do with him," asked the captor. "Master's orders to take any one to the rendezvous," responded the other firmly, "and lock him up." Together they forced the tramp to march double quick toward the old hotel. One sentry dropped back at the door and the other drove the tramp before him into the hotel, avoiding the big room on the side where the men were at work and forcing him up-stairs to the attic which had once been the servant's quarters. There was no window in the room and it was empty. The only light came in through a skylight in the roof. The sentry thrust the tramp into this room and tried a door leading to the next room. It was locked. At the point of his gun the sentry frisked the tramp for weapons, but found none. As he did so the tramp trembled mightily. But no sooner had the sentry gone than the tramp smiled quietly to himself. He tried both doors. They were locked. Then he looked at the skylight and meditated. Down below, although he did not know it, in the bare dining-room which had been arranged into a sort of chemical laboratory, Del Mar's men were engaged in manufacturing gas bombs much like those used in the war in Europe. Before them was a formidable array of bottles and retorts. The containers for the bombs were large and very brittle globes of hard rubber. As the men made the gas and forced it under tremendous pressure into tubes, they protected themselves by wearing goggles for the eyes and large masks of cloth and saturated cotton over their mouths and noses. Satisfied with the safety of his captive, the sentry made his way down-stairs and out again to report to Del Mar. At the bungalow, Del Mar's valet was setting the library in order when he heard a signal in the secret passage. He pressed the button on the desk and opened the panel. From it the sentry entered. "Where is Mr. Del Mar?" he asked hurriedly, looking around. "We've been followed to the headquarters by a tramp whom I've captured, and I don't know what to do with him." "He is not here," answered the valet. "He has gone to the Country Club." "Confound it," returned the sentry, vexed at the enforced waste of time. "Do you think you can reach him?" "If I hurry, I may," nodded the valet. "Then do so," directed the sentry. He moved back into the panel and disappeared while the valet closed it. A moment later he, too, picked up his hat and hurried out. At the Wilkeshire Club a large number of hunters had arrived for the imitation meet. Elaine, Aunt Josephine, Del Mar and myself rode up and were greeted by them as the Master of Fox Hounds assembled us. Off a bit, a splendid pack of hounds was held by the huntsman while they debated whether to hold a paper chase or to try a drag hunt. "You start your cross-country riding early," commented Del Mar. "Yes," answered Elaine. "You see we can hardly wait until autumn and the weather is so fine and cool, we feel that we ought to get into trim during the summer. So we have paper chases and drag hunts as soon as we can, mainly to please the younger set." The chase was just about to start, when the valet came up. Del Mar caught his eye and excused himself to us. What he said, we could not hear, but Del Mar frowned, nodded and dismissed him. Just then the horn sounded and we went off, dashing across the road into a field in full chase after the hounds, taking the fences and settling down to a good half hour's run over the most beautiful country I have ever seen. The hounds had struck the trail, which of course, as was finally decided, was nothing but that laid by an anise-seed bag dragged over the ground. It was none the less, in fact perhaps more interesting for that. The huntsman winded his horn and mirthful shouts of "Gone away!" sounded in imitation of a real hunt. The blast of the horn once heard is never forgotten, thrilling the blood and urging one on. The M. F. H. seemed to be everywhere at once, restraining those who were too eager and saving the hounds often from being ridden down by those new to the hunt who pressed them. Elaine was one of the foremost. Her hunter was one carefully trained, and she knew all the tricks of the game. Somehow, I got separated, at first, from the rest and followed, until finally I caught up, and then kept behind one of the best riders. Del Mar also got separated, but, as I afterward learned, by intention, for he deliberately rode out of the course at the first opportunity he had and let Elaine and the rest of us pass without seeing him. Elaine's blood was up, but somehow, in spite of herself, she went astray, for the hounds had distanced the fleetest riders and she, in an attempt at a short cut over the country which she thought she knew so well, went a mile or so out of the way. She pulled up in a ravine and looked about. Intently she listened. There was no sign of the hunt. She was hot and tired and thirsty and, at a loss just to join the field again, she took this chance to dismount and drink from a clear stream fed by mountain springs. As she did so, floating over the peaceful woodland air came the faint strains of the huntsman's horn, far, far off. She looked about, straining her eyes and ears to catch the direction of sound. Just then her horse caught the winding of the horn. His ears went erect and without waiting he instantly galloped off, leaving her. Elaine called and ran after him, but it was too late. She stopped and looked dejectedly as he disappeared. Then she made her way up the side of the ravine, slowly. On she climbed until, to her surprise, she came to the ruins of an old hotel. She remembered, as a child, when it had been famous as a health resort, but it was all changed now--a wreck. She looked at it a moment, then, as she had nothing better to do, approached it. She advanced toward a window of the dining-room and looked in. . . . . . . . Del Mar waited only until the last straggler had passed. Then he dashed off as fast as his horse would carry him straight toward the deserted hotel which served him as headquarters for the supplies he was accumulating. As he rode up, one of his sentries appeared, as if from nowhere, and, seeing who it was, saluted. "Here, take care of this horse," ordered Del Mar, dismounting and turning the animal over to the man, who led him to the rear of the building as Del Mar entered the front door, after giving a secret signal. There were his men in goggles and masks at the work, which his knock had interrupted. "Give me a mask before I enter the room," he ordered of the man who had answered his signal. The man handed the mask and goggles to him, as well as a coat, which he put on quickly. Then he entered the room and looked at the rapid progress of the work. "Where's the prisoner?" asked Del Mar a moment later, satisfied at the progress of his men. "In the attic room," one of his lieutenants indicated. "I'd like to take a look at him," added Del Mar, just about to turn and leave the room. As he did so, he happened to glance at one of the windows. There, peering through the broken shutters, was a face--a girl's face--Elaine! "Just what I wanted guarded against," he cried angrily, pointing at the window. "Now--get her!" The men had sprung up at his alarm. They could all see her and with one accord dashed for the door. Elaine sprang back and they ran as they saw that she was warned. In genuine fear now she too ran from the window. But it was too late. For just then the sentry who had taken Del Mar's horse came from behind the building cutting off her retreat. He seized her just as the other men ran out. Elaine stared. She could make nothing of them. Even Del Mar, in his goggles and breathing mask was unrecognizable. "Take her inside," he ordered disguising his voice. Then to the sentry he added, "Get on guard again and don't let any one through." Elaine was hustled into the big deserted hallway of the hotel, just as the tramp had been. "You may go back to work," Del Mar signed to the other men, who went on, leaving one short but athletic looking fellow with Del Mar and Elaine. "Lock her up, Shorty," ordered Del Mar, "and bring the other prisoner to me down here." None too gently the man forced Elaine up-stairs ahead of him. . . . . . . . In the attic, the tramp, pacing up and down, heard footsteps approach on the stairs and enter the next room. Quickly he ran to the doorway and peered through the keyhole. There he could see Elaine and the small man enter. He locked the door to the hall, then quickly took a step toward the door into the tramp's room. There was just time enough for the tramp to see his approach. He ran swiftly and softly over to the further corner and dropped down as if sound asleep. The key turned in the lock and the small man entered, careful to lock the door to Elaine's room. He moved over to where the tramp was feigning sleep. "Get up," he growled, kicking him. The tramp sat up, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "Come now, be reasonable," demanded the man. "Follow me." He started toward the door into the hall. He never reached it. Scarcely was his hand on the knob when the tramp seized him and dragged him to the floor. One hand on the man's throat and his knees on his chest, the tramp tore off the breathing mask and goggles. Already he had the man trussed up and gagged. Quickly the tramp undressed the man and left him in his underclothes, still struggling to get loose, as he took Shorty's clothes, including the strange head-gear, and unlocked the door into the next room with the key he also took from him. Elaine was pacing anxiously up and down the little room into which she had been thrown, greatly frightened. Suddenly the door through which her captor had left opened hurriedly again. A most disreputable looking tramp entered and locked the door again. Elaine started back in fear. He motioned to her to be quiet. "You'll never get out alive," he whispered, speaking rapidly and thickly, as though to disguise his voice. "Here--take these clothes. Do just as I say. Put them on. Put on the mask and goggles. Cover up your hair. It is your only chance." He laid the clothes down and went out into the hallway. Outside he listened carefully at the head of the stairs and looked about expecting momentarily to be discovered. Elaine understood only that suddenly a friend in need had appeared. She changed her clothes quickly, finding fortunately that they fitted her pretty well. By pulling the hat over her hair and the goggles over her eyes and tying on the breathing mask, she made a very presentable man. Cautiously she pushed open the door into the hallway. There was the tramp. "What shall I do?" she asked. "Don't talk," he whispered close to her ear. "Go out--and if you meet any one, just salute and walk past." "Yes--yes, I understand," she nodded back, "and--thank you." He gave her no time to say more, even if it had been safe, but turned and locked the door of her room. Trying to keep the old stairway from creaking and betraying her, she went down. She managed to reach the lower hallway without seeing anybody or being discovered. Quietly she went to the door and out. She had not gone far when she met an armed man, the sentry, who had been concealed in the shrubbery. "Who goes there?" he challenged. Elaine did not betray herself by speaking, but merely saluted and passed on as fast as she could without exciting further suspicion. Nonplused, the man turned and watched her curiously as she moved away down the path. "Where's HE going?" the sentry muttered, still staring. Elaine in her eagerness was not looking as carefully where she was going as she was thinking about getting away in safety. Suddenly an overhanging branch of a tree caught her hat and before she knew it pulled it off her head. There was no concealing her golden hair now. "Stop!" shouted the sentry. Elaine did not pause, but dived into the bushes on the side of the path, just as the man fired and ran forward, still shouting for her to halt. She ran as fast as she could, pulling off the goggles and mask and looking back now and then in terror at her pursuer who was rapidly gaining on her. Before she could catch herself she missed her footing and slipped over the edge of a gorge. Down she went, with a rush. It was unfortunate, dangerous, but, after all, it was the only thing that saved her, at least for the time. Half falling, half sliding, scratching herself and tearing her clothes, she descended. The sentry checked himself just in time at the top of the gorge and leaned as far over the edge as he dared. He raised his gun again and fired. But Elaine's course was so hidden by the trees and so zigzag that he missed again. A moment he hesitated, then started and climbed down after her as fast as he could. At the bottom of the hill she picked herself up and dashed again into the woods, the sentry still after her and gaining again. At the same time, we who were still in the chase had circled about the country until we were very near where we started. Following the dogs over a rail fence, I drew up suddenly, hearing a scream. There was Elaine, on foot, running as if her life depended on it. I needed no second glance. Behind her was a man with a rifle, almost overtaking her. As luck would have it, the momentum of my horse carried me right at them. Careful to avoid Elaine, I rode square at the man, striking at him viciously with my riding crop before he knew what had struck him. The fellow dropped, stunned. I leaped from my horse and ran to her, just as the rest of the hunt came up. Eagerly questioning us, they gathered about. Having waited until he was sure that Elaine had got away safely, the old tramp slowly and carefully followed down the stairs of the ruined hotel. As he went down, he heard a shot from the woods. Could it be one of the sentries? He looked about keenly, hesitating just what to do. In an instant, down below, he heard the scurry of footsteps from the improvised laboratory and shouts. He turned and stealthily ran up-stairs, just as the door opened. The tramp had not been the only one who had been alarmed by the shot of the sentry. Del Mar was talking again to the men when it rang out. "What's that?" he exclaimed. "Another intruder?" The men stared at him blankly, while Del Mar dashed for the door, followed by them all. In the hall he issued his orders quickly. "Here, you fellows," he called dividing the men, "get outside and see what is doing. You other men follow me. I want you to see if everything's all right up above." Meanwhile the tramp had gained the upper hallway and dashed past the room which he occupied. Outside, in the hall, Del Mar and his men rushed up to the door of the room in which Elaine had been thrown. It was locked and they broke in. She was gone! On into the next room they dashed, bearing down this door also. There was Shorty, trussed up in his underclothes. They hastened to release him. "Where are they--where's the tramp?" demanded Del Mar angrily. "I think I heard some one on the roof," replied Shorty weakly. He was right. The tramp had managed to get through a scuttle on the roof. Then he climbed down to the edge and began to let himself hand over hand down the lightning rod. Reaching the ground safely, he scurried about to the back of the building. There, tied, was the horse which Del Mar had ridden to the hunt. He untied it, mounted and dashed off down the path through the woods, taking the shortest cut in the direction of Fort Dale. Dusty and flecked with foam, the tramp and his mount, a strange combination, were instantly challenged by the sentry at the Fort. "I must see Lieutenant Woodward immediately," urged the tramp. A heated argument followed until finally a corporal of the guards was called and led off the tramp toward the headquarters. It was only a few minutes before Woodward was convinced of the identity of the tramp with his friend, Professor Arnold. At the head of a squad of cavalry, Woodward and the tramp dashed off. Already on the qui vive, Elaine heard the sound of hoof-beats long before the rest of us crowded around her. For the moment we all stood ready to repel an attack from any quarter. But it was not meant for us. It was Woodward at the head of a score or so of cavalrymen. With him rode a tramp on a horse which was strangely familiar to me. "Oh," cried Elaine, "there's the man who saved me!" As they passed, the tramp paused a moment and looked at us sharply. Although he carefully avoided Elaine's eyes, I fancied that only when he saw that she was safe was he satisfied to gallop off and rejoin the cavalry. . . . . . . . Around the old hotel, in every direction, Del Mar's men were searching for the tramp and Elaine, while in the hotel another search was in progress. "Have you discovered anything?" asked Del Mar, entering. "No, sir," they reported. "Confound it!" swore Del Mar, going up-stairs again. Here also were men searching. "Find anything?" he asked briefly. "No luck," returned one. Del Mar went on up to the top floor and out through the open scuttle to the roof. "That's how he got away, all right," he muttered to himself, then looking up he exclaimed under his breath, as his eye caught something far off, "The deuce--what's that?" Leaning down to the scuttle, he called, "Jenkins--my field-glasses--quick!" One of his men handed them to him and he adjusted them, gazing off intently. There he could see what looked like a squad of cavalry galloping along headed by an officer and a rough looking individual. "Come--we must get ready for an attack!" he shouted diving down the scuttle again. In the laboratory dining-room, his men, recalled, hastily took his orders. Each of them seized one of the huge black rubber newly completed gas bombs and ran out, making for a grove near-by. Quickly as Del Mar had acted, it was not done so fast but that the troop of cavalry as they pulled up on the top of a hill and followed the directing finger of the tramp could see men running to the cover of the grove. "Forward!" shouted Woodward. As if all were one machine, the men and horses shot ahead, until they came to the grove about the old hotel. There they dismounted and spread out in a semi-circular order, advancing on the grove. As they did so, shots rang out from behind the trees. Del Mar's men, from the shelter were firing at them. But it seemed hopeless for the fugitives. "Ready!" ordered Del Mar as the cavalrymen advanced, relentless. Each of his men picked up one of the big black gas bombs and held it high up over his head. "Come on!" urged Woodward. His men broke into a charge on the grove. "Throw them!" ordered Del Mar. As far as he could hurl it, each of the men sent one of the black globes hurtling through the air. They fell almost simultaneously, a long line of them, each breaking into a thousand bits. Instantly dense, greenish-yellow fumes seemed to pour forth, enveloping everything. The wind which Del Mar had carefully noted when he chose the position in the grove, was blowing from his men toward the only position from which an attack could be made successfully. Against Woodward's men as they charged, it seemed as if a tremendous, slow-moving wall of vapor were advancing from the trees. It was only a moment before it completely wrapped them in its stifling, choking, suffocating embrace. Some fell, overcome. Others tried to run, clutching frantically at their throats and rubbing their eyes. "Get back--quick--till it rolls over," choked Woodward. Those who were able to do so, picked up their stupefied comrades and retreated, as best they could, stumbling blindly back from the fearful death cloud of chlorine. Meantime, under cover of this weird defence, Del Mar and his men, their own faces covered and unrecognizable in their breathing masks and goggles, dashed to one side, with a shout and disappeared walking and running behind and even through the safety of their impregnable gas barrier. More slowly we of the hunt had followed Woodward's cavalry until, some distance off, we stood, witnessing and wondering at the attack. To our utter amazement we saw them carrying off their wounded and stupefied men. We hurried forward and gathered about, offering whatever assistance we could to resuscitate them. As Elaine and I helped, we saw the unkempt figure of the tramp borne in and laid down. He was not completely overcome, having had presence of mind to tie a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Elaine hurried toward him with an exclamation of sympathy. Just recovering full consciousness, he heard her. With the greatest difficulty, he seemed to summon some reserve force not yet used. He struggled to his feet and staggered off, as though he would escape us. "What a strange old codger," mused Elaine, looking from me at the retreating figure. "He saved my life--yet he won't even let me thank him--or help him!" CHAPTER XIII THE SEARCHLIGHT GUN "I don't understand it," remarked Elaine one day as, with Aunt Josephine and myself, she was discussing the strange events that had occurred since the disappearance of Kennedy, "but, somehow, it is as if a strange Providence seems to be watching over us." "Nor do I," I agreed. "It does seem that, although we do not see it, a mysterious power for good is about us. It's uncanny." "A package for you, Miss Dodge," announced Marie, coming in with a small parcel which had been delivered by a messenger who did not wait for an answer. Elaine took it, looked at it, turned it over, and then looked at the written address again. "It's not the handwriting of any one which I recognize," she mused. "Now, I suppose I ought to be suspicious of it Yet, I'm going to open it." She did so. Inside, the paper wrapping covered a pasteboard box. She opened that. There lay a revolver, which she picked up and turned over. It was a curious looking weapon. "I never knew so much about firearms as I have learned in the past few weeks," remarked Elaine. "But what do you suppose this is--and who sent it to me--and why?" She held the gun up. From the barrel stuck out a little rolled-up piece of paper. "See," she cried, reading and handing the paper to me, "there it is again--that mysterious power." Aunt Josephine and I read the note: DEAR MISS DODGE: This weapon shoots exactly into the center of the light disc. Keep it by you.--A FRIEND. "Let me see it," I asked, taking the gun. Sure enough, along the barrel was a peculiar tube. "A searchlight gun," I exclaimed, puzzled, though still my suspicions were not entirely at rest. "Suppose it's sighted wrong," I could not help considering. "It might be a plant to save some one from being shot." "That's easily settled," returned Elaine. "Let's try it." "Oh, mercy no,--not here," remonstrated Aunt Josephine. "Why not--down cellar?" persisted Elaine. "It can't hurt anything there." "I think it would be a good plan," I agreed, "just to make sure that it is all right." Accordingly we three went down cellar. There, Elaine found the light switch and turned it. Eagerly I hunted about for a mark. There, in some rubbish that had not yet been carted away, was a small china plate. I set it up on a small shelf across the room and took the gun. But Elaine playfully wrenched it from my hand. "No," she insisted, "it was sent to me. Let me try it first." Reluctantly I consented. "Switch off the light, Walter, please," she directed, standing a few paces from the plate. I did so. In the darkness Elaine pointed the gun and pulled a little ratchet. Instantly a spot of light showed on the wall. She moved the revolver and the spot of light moved with it. As it rested on a little decorative figure in the center of the plate, she pulled the trigger. The gun exploded with a report, deafening, in the confined cellar. I switched on the light and we ran forward. There was the plate--smashed into a hundred bits. The bullet had struck exactly in the centre of the little bull's-eye of light. "Splendid," cried Elaine enthusiastically, as we looked at each other in surprise. Though none of us guessed it, half an hour before, in the seclusion of his yacht, Woodward's friend, Professor Arnold, had been standing with the long barrelled gun in his hand, adjusting the tube which ran beneath the barrel. In one hand he held the gun; in the other was a piece of paper. As he brought the paper before the muzzle and pressed a ratchet by gripping the revolver handle, a distinct light appeared on the paper, thrown out from the tube under the barrel. Having adjusted the tube and sighted it, Arnold wrote a hasty note on another piece of paper and inserted it into the barrel of the gun, with the end sticking out just a bit. Then he wrapped the whole thing up in a box, rang a bell, and handed the package to a servant with explicit instructions as to its delivery to the right person and only to that person. Down in the submarine harbor, Del Mar was in conference with his board of strategy and advice, laying the plan for the attack on America. "Ever since we have been at work," he remarked, "Elaine Dodge has been busy hindering and frustrating us. That girl must go!" Before him, on the table, he placed a square package. "It must stop," he added ominously, tapping the package. "But how?" asked one of the men. "We've done our best." "This is a bomb," replied Del Mar, continuing to tap the package. "When our man--let me see, X had better do it,--arrives, have him look in the secret cavern by the landing-place. There I will leave it. I want him to put it in her house to-night." He handed the bomb to one of his men who took it gingerly. Then with a few more words of admonition, he took up his diving helmet and left the headquarters, followed by the man. Several minutes later, Del Mar, alone, emerged from the water just outside the submarine harbor and took off his helmet. He made his way over the rocks, carrying the bomb, until he came to a little fissure in the rocks, like a cavern. There he hid the bomb carefully. Still carrying the helmet, he hurried along until he came to the cave entrance that led to the secret passage to the panel in his bungalow library. Up through the secret passage he went, reaching the panel and opening it by a spring. In the library Del Mar changed his wet clothes and hid them, then set to work on an accumulation of papers on his desk. . . . . . . . That afternoon, Elaine decided to go for a little ride through the country in her runabout. As she started to leave her room, dressed for the trip, it was as though a premonition of danger came to her. She paused, then turned back and took from the drawer the searchlight gun which had been sent to her. She slipped it into the pocket of her skirt and went out. Off she drove at a fast clip, thoroughly enjoying the ride until, near a bend in the road, as it swept down toward the shore, she stopped and got out, attracted by some wild flowers. They grew in such profusion that it seemed no time before she had a bunch of them. On she wandered, down to the rocks, watching the restless waters of the Sound. Finally she found herself walking alone along the shore, one arm full of flowers, while with her free hand she amused herself by skimming flat stones over the water. As she turned to pick up one, her eye caught something in the rocks and she stared at it. There in a crevice, as though it had been hidden, was a strange square package. She reached down and picked it up. What could it be? While she was examining it, back of her, another of those strange be-helmeted figures came up out of the water. It watched her for an instant, then sank back into the water again. Elaine, holding the package in her hand, walked up the shore, oblivious to the strange eye that had been fixed on her. "I must show this to Lieutenant Woodward," she said to herself. In the car she placed the package, then jumped in herself carefully and started off. A moment after she had gone, the diver reappeared, looking about cautiously. This time the coast was clear and he came all the way out, taking off his helmet and placed it in the secret hiding-place which Del Mar and his men used. Then, with another glance, now of anger, in the direction of Elaine, he hurried up the shore. Meanwhile, as fast as her light runabout would carry her, Elaine whizzed over to Fort Dale. As she entered the grounds, the sentry saluted her, though that part of the formalities of admission was purely perfunctory, for every one at the Fort knew her now. "Is Lieutenant Woodward in?" she inquired. "Yes ma'am," returned the sentry. "I will send for him." A corporal appeared and took a message for her to Woodward. It was only a few minutes before Lieutenant Woodward himself appeared. "What is the trouble, Miss Dodge?" he asked solicitously, noting the look on her face. "I don't know what it is," she replied dubiously. "I've found something among the rocks. Perhaps it is a bomb." Woodward looked at the package, studying it. "Professor Arnold is investigating this affair for us," he remarked. "Perhaps you'd better take the package to him on his yacht. I'm sorry I can't go with you, but just now I'm on duty." "That's a good idea," she agreed. "Only I'm sorry you can't go along with me." She started up the car and drove off as Woodward turned back to the Fort with a lingering look. Del Mar was hard at work in the library when, suddenly, he heard a sound at the panel. He reached over and pressed a button on his desk, and the panel opened. Through it came the diver still wearing his dripping suit and carrying the weird helmet under his arm. "That Dodge girl has crossed us again!" he exclaimed excitedly. "How?" demanded Del Mar, with an oath. "I saw her on the rocks just now. She happened to stumble on the bomb which you left there to be placed." "And then?" demanded Del Mar. "She took it with her in her car." "The deuce!" ejaculated the foreign agent, furiously. "You must get the men out and hunt the country thoroughly. She must not escape now at any cost." The diving man dove back into the panel to escape Del Mar's wrath, while Del Mar hurried out, leaving his valet in the library. Quickly, Del Mar made his way to a secret hiding-place in the hills back of the bay. There he found his picked band of men armed with rifles. As briefly as he could he told them of what had happened. "We must get her this time--dead or alive," he ordered. "Now scatter about the country. Keep in touch with each other and when you find her, close in on her at any cost." The men saluted and left in various directions to scour the country. Del Mar himself picked up a rifle and followed shortly, passing down a secret trail to the road where he had a car with a chauffeur waiting. Still carrying the rifle, he climbed in and the man shot the car along down the road. . . . . . . . On the top of a hill one of the men was posted as a sort of lookout. Gazing over the country carefully, his eye was finally arrested by something at which he stared eagerly. Far away, on the road, he could see a car in which was a girl, alone. Waving in the breeze was a red feather in her hat. He looked more sharply. It was Elaine Dodge. The man turned and waved a signal with a handkerchief to another man far off. Down the valley another of Del Mar's men was waiting and watching. As soon as he saw the signal, he waved back and ran along the road. As Del Mar whizzed along, he could see one of his men approaching over the road, waving to him. "Stop!" he ordered his driver. The man hurried forward. "I've got the signal," he panted. "They have seen her car over the hill." "Good," exclaimed Del Mar, pulling a black silk mask over his eyes. "Now, get off quickly. We've got to catch her." They sped away again in a cloud of dust. But even while Del Mar was speeding toward her, another of his men had discovered her presence, so vigilant were they. He had been keeping a sharp watch on the road, when he was suddenly all attention. He saw a car, through the foliage. Quickly, his rifle went to his shoulder. Through the sight he could just cover Elaine's head, for her hat, with a bright red feather in it, showed plainly just over the bushes. He aimed carefully and fired. I had been out for a tramp over the hills with no destination in particular. As I swung along the road, I heard the throbbing of a car coming up the hill, the cut-out open. I turned, for cars make walking on country roads somewhat hazardous nowadays. As I did so, some one in the car waved to me. I looked again. It was Elaine. "Where are you going?" she called. "Where are YOU going?" I returned, laughing. "I've just had a very queer experience--found something down on the rocks," she replied seriously, pointing to the square package on the floor of the car. "I took it to Lieutenant Woodward and he advised me to take it to Professor Arnold on his yacht. I think it is a bomb. I wish you'd go with me." Before I could answer, up the hill a rifle shot cracked. There was a whirr in the air and a bullet sang past us, cutting the red feather off Elaine's hat. "Duck!" I cried, jumping into the car, "And drive like the dickens!" She turned and we fairly ricocheted down that road back again. Behind us, a man, a stranger whom we did not pause to observe, rushed from the bushes and fired after us again. Suddenly another rifle shot cracked. It was from another car that had stealthily sneaked up on us--coming fast, recklessly. "There's her car," pointed one of the occupants to a man who was masked in black. "Yes," he nodded. "Give her a little more gas!"' "Crouch down," I muttered, "as low as you can." We did so, racing for life, the more powerful motor behind us overhauling us every instant. We were coming to a very narrow part of the road where it turned, on one side a sheer hill, on the other a stream several feet down. If we had an accident, I thought, it might be ticklish for us, supposing the square package really to be a bomb. What if it should go off? The idea suggested another, instantly. The car behind was only a few feet off. As we reached the narrow road by the stream, I rose up. As far as I could, back of me, I hurled the infernal machine. It fell. We received a shower of dirt and small stones, but the cover of the car protected us. Where the bomb landed, however, it cut a deep hole in the roadway. On came Del Mar's car, the driver frantically tugging at the emergency brake. But it was of no use. There was not room to turn aside. The car crashed into the hole, like a gigantic plow. It took one header over the side of the road and down several feet into the stream, just as the masked man and the driver jumped far ahead into the water. Safe now in our car which was slackening its terrific speed, I looked back. "They've been thrown!" I cried. "We're all right." On the edge of the water, just covered by some wreckage, the chauffeur lay motionless. The masked man crawled from under the wreckage and looked at him a moment. "Dead!" he exclaimed, still mechanically gripping a rifle in his hand. Angrily he raised it at us and fired. A moment later, some other men gathered from all directions about him, each armed. "Don't mind the wreck," he cried, exasperated. "Fire!" A volley was delivered at us. But the distance was now apparently too great. We were just congratulating ourselves on our escape, when a stray shot whizzed past, striking a piece directly out of the head of the steering-post, almost under Elaine's hands. Naturally she lost control, though fortunately we were not going so fast now. Crazily, our car swerved from side to side of the road, as she vainly tried to control both its speed and direction. On the very edge of the ditch, however, it stopped. We looked back. There we could see a group of men who seemed to spring out of the woods, as if from nowhere, at the sound of the shots. A shout went up at the sight of the bullet taking effect, and they ran forward at us. One of their number, I could see, masked, who had been in the wrecked car, stumbled forward weakly, until finally he sank down. A couple of the others ran to him. "Go on," he must have urged vehemently. "One of you is enough to stay with me. I'm going back to the submarine harbor. The rest--go on--report to me there." As the rest ran toward us, there was nothing for us to do but to abandon the car ourselves and run for it. We left the road and struck into the trackless woods, followed closely now by two of the men who had outdistanced the rest. Through the woods we fled, taking advantage of such shelter as we could find. "Look, here's a cave," cried Elaine, as we plunged, exhausted and about ready to drop, down into a ravine. We hurried in and the bushes swung over the cave entrance. Inside we stopped short and gazed about. It was dark and gloomy. We looked back. There was no hope there. They had been overtaking us. On down a passageway, we went. The two men who were pursuing us plunged down the ravine also. As ill-luck would have it, they saw the cave entrance and dashed in, then halted. Crouching in the shadow we could see their figures silhouetted in the dim light of the entrance of the cavern. One stopped at the entrance while the other advanced. He was a big fellow and powerfully built and the other fellow was equally burly. I made up my mind to fight to the last though I knew it was hopeless. It was dark. I could not even see the man advancing now. Quickly Elaine reached into her pocket and drew out something. "Here, Walter, take this," she cried. I seized the object. It was the searchlight gun. Hastily I aimed it, the spot of light glowing brightly. Indeed, I doubt whether I could have shot very accurately otherwise. As the man approached cautiously down the passageway the bright disc of light danced about until finally it fell full on his breast. I fired. The man fell forward instantly. Again I fired, this time at the man in the cave entrance. He jumped back, dropping his gun which exploded harmlessly. His hand was wounded. Quickly he drew back and disappeared among the trees. We waited in tense silence, and then cautiously looked out of the mouth of the cave. No one seemed to be about. "Come--let's make a dash for it," urged Elaine. We ran out and hurried on down the ravine, apparently not followed. Back among the trees, however, the man had picked up a rifle which he had hidden. While he was binding up his hand with a handkerchief, he saw us. Painfully he tried to aim his gun. But it was too heavy for his weakened arm and the pain was too great. He had to lower it. With a muttered imprecation, he followed us at a distance. Evidently, to us, we had eluded the pursuers, for no one seemed now to be following, at least as far as we could determine. We kept on, however, until we came to the water's edge. There, down the bay, we could see Professor Arnold's yacht. "Let us see Professor Arnold, anyhow," said Elaine, leading the way along the shore. We came at last, without being molested, to a little dock. A sailor was standing beside it and moored to it was a swift motor-boat. Out at anchor was the yacht. "You are Professor Arnold's man?" asked Elaine. "Yes'm," he replied, remembering her. "Is the Professor out on his boat?" we asked. He nodded. "Did you want to see him?" "Very much," answered Elaine. "I'll take you out," he offered. We jumped into the motor-boat, he started the engine and we planed out over the water. Though we did not see him, the man whom I had wounded was still watching us from the shore, noting every move. He had followed us at a distance across the woods and fields and down along the shore to the dock, had seen us talking to Arnold's man, and get into the boat. From the shore he continued to watch us skim across the bay and pull up alongside the yacht. As we climbed the ladder, he turned and hurried back the way he had come. . . . . . . . Elaine and I climbed aboard the yacht where we could see the Professor sitting in a wicker deck chair. "Why, how do you do?" he welcomed us, adjusting his glasses so that his eyes seemed, if anything, more opaque than before. I could not help thinking that, although he was glad to see us, there was a certain air of restraint about him. Quickly Elaine related the story of finding the bomb in the rocks and the peculiar events and our escape which followed. Once, at the mention of the searchlight gun, Professor Arnold raised his hand and coughed back of it. I felt sure that it was to hide an involuntary expression of satisfaction and that it must be he who had sent the gun to Elaine. He was listening attentively to her, while I stood by the rail, now and then looking out over the water. Far away I noted something moving over the surface, like a rod, followed by a thin wake of foam. "Look!" I exclaimed, "What's that?" Elaine turned to me, as Arnold seized his glasses. "Why, it seems to be moving directly at us," exclaimed Elaine. "By George, it's the periscope of a submarine," cried Arnold a moment later, lowering his glasses. He did not hesitate an instant. "Get the yacht under way," he ordered the captain, who immediately shouted his orders to the rest. Quickly the engine started and we plowed ahead, that ominous looking periscope following. In the submarine harbor to which he had been taken, Del Mar found that he had been pretty badly shaken up by the accident to his car. His clothes were torn and his face and body scratched. No bones were broken, however, though the shock had been great. Several of his men were endeavoring to fix him up in the little submarine office, but he was angry, very angry. At such a juncture, a man in a dripping diving-suit entered and pulled off his helmet, after what had evidently been a hasty trip from the land through the entrance and up again into the harbor. As he approached, Del Mar saw that the man's hand was bound up. "What's the matter?" demanded Del Mar. "How did you get that?" "That fellow Jameson and the girl did it," he replied, telling what had happened in the cave. "Some one must have given them one of those new searchlight guns." Del Mar, already ugly, was beside himself with rage now. "Where are they?" he asked. "I saw them go out to the yacht of that Professor Arnold." "He's the fellow that gave her the gun," almost hissed Del Mar. "On the yacht, are they?" An evil smile seemed to spread over his face. "Then we'll get them all, this time. Man the submarine--the Z99." All left the office on the run, hurrying around the ledge and down into the open hatch of the submarine. Del Mar came along a moment later, giving orders sharply and quickly. The hatch was closed and the vessel sealed. On all sides were electrical devices and machines to operate the craft and the torpedoes--an intricate system of things which it seemed as if no human mind could possibly understand. Del Mar threw on a switch. The submarine hummed and trembled. Slowly she sank in the harbor until she was at the level of the underwater entrance through the rocks. Carefully she was guided out through this entrance into the waters of the larger, real harbor. Del Mar took his place at the periscope, the eye of the submarine. Anxiously he turned it about and bent over the image which it projected. "There it is," he muttered, picking out Arnold's yacht and changing the course of the submarine so that it was headed directly at it, the planes turned so that they kept the boat just under the surface with only the periscope showing above. Forward, about the torpedo discharge tubes men were busy, testing the doors, and getting ready the big automobile torpedoes. "They must have seen us," muttered Del Mar. "They've started the yacht. But we can beat them, easily. Are you ready?" "Yes," called back the men forward, pushing a torpedo into the lock-like compartment from which it was launched. "Let it go, then," bellowed Del Mar. The torpedo shot out into the water, travelling under her own power, straight at the yacht. . . . . . . . Elaine and I looked back. The periscope was much nearer than before. "Can we outdistance the submarine?" I asked of Arnold. Arnold shook his head, his face grave. On came the thin line of foam. "I'm afraid we'll have to leave the yacht," he said warningly. "My little motor-boat is much faster." Arnold shouted his orders as he led us down the ladder to the motor-boat into which we jumped, followed by as many of the crew as could get in, while the others leaped into the water from the rail of the yacht and struck out for the shore which was not very distant. "What's that?" cried Elaine, horrified, pointing back. The water seemed to be all churned up. A long cigar-shaped affair was slipping along near enough to the surface so that we could just make it out--murderous, deadly, aimed right at the heart of the yacht. "A torpedo!" exclaimed Arnold. "Cast off!" We moved off from the yacht as swiftly as the speedy little open motor-boat would carry us, not a minute too soon. The torpedo struck the yacht almost exactly amidships. A huge column of water spurted up into the air as though a gigantic whale were blowing off. The yacht itself seemed lifted from the water and literally broken in half like a brittle rod of glass and dropped back into the water. Below in the submarine, Del Mar was still at the periscope directing things. "A hit!" he cried exultingly. "We got the whole bunch this time!" He turned to the men to congratulate them, a smile on his evil face. But as he looked again, he caught sight of our little motor-boat skimming safely away on the other side of the wreck. "The deuce!" he muttered. "Try another. Here's the direction." Furiously he swore as the men guided the submarine and loaded another torpedo into a tube. As the tube came into position, they let the torpedo go. An instant later it was hissing its way at us. "See, there's another!" I cried, catching sight of it. All looked. Sure enough, through the water could be seen another of those murderous messengers dashing at us. Arnold ran forward and seized the wheel himself, swinging the boat around hard to starboard and the land. We turned just in time. The torpedo, brainless but deadly, dashed past us harmlessly. As fast as we could now we made for the shore. No one could catch us with such a start, not even the swiftest torpedo. We had been rescued by Arnold's quick wit from a most desperate situation. Somewhere below the water, I could imagine a man consumed with fury over our escape, as the periscope disappeared and the submarine made off. We were safe. But, looking out over the water, we could not help shuddering at the perils beneath its apparently peaceful surface. CHAPTER XIV THE LIFE CHAIN Early one morning, a very handsome woman of the adventuress type arrived with several trunks at the big summer hotel, just outside the town, the St. Germain. Among the many fashionable people at the watering-place, however, she attracted no great attention and in the forenoon she quietly went out in her motor for a ride. It was Madame Larenz, one of Del Mar's secret agents who, up to this time, had been engaged in spying on wealthy and impressionable American manufacturers. Her airing brought her, finally, to the bungalow of Del Mar and there she was admitted in a manner that showed that Del Mar trusted her highly. "Now," he instructed, after a few minutes chat, "I want you to get acquainted with Miss Dodge. You know how to interest her. She's quite human. Pretty gowns appeal to her. Get her to the St. Germain. Then I'll tell you what to do." A few minutes later the woman left in her car, so rapidly driven that no one would recognize her. It was early in the afternoon that Aunt Josephine was sitting on the veranda, when an automobile drove up and a very stylishly gowned and bonnetted woman stepped out. "Good afternoon," she greeted Aunt Josephine ingratiatingly as she approached the house. "I am Madame Larenz of New York and Paris. Perhaps you have heard of my shops on Fifth Avenue and the Rue de la Paix." Aunt Josephine had heard the name, though she did not know that this woman had assumed it without being in any way connected with the places she mentioned. "I'm establishing a new sort of summer service at the better resorts," the woman explained. "You see, my people find it annoying to go into the city for gowns. So I am bringing the latest Paris models out to them. Is Miss Dodge at home?" "I think she is playing tennis," returned Aunt Josephine. "Oh, yes, I see her, thank you," the woman murmured, moving toward the tennis court, back of the house. Elaine and I had agreed to play a couple of games and were tossing rackets for position. "Very well," laughed Elaine, as she won the toss, "take the other court." It was a cool day and I felt in good spirits. Just to see whether I could do it still, I jumped over the net. Our game had scarcely started when we were interrupted by the approach of a stunning looking woman. "Miss Dodge?" she greeted. "Will you excuse me a moment?" Elaine paused in serving the ball and the woman handed her a card from her delicate gold mesh bag. It read simply: Mme. Larenz Paris Gowns Elaine looked at the card a moment while the woman repeated what she had already told Aunt Josephine. "You have them here, then?" queried Elaine, interested. "Yes, I have some very exclusive models which I am showing at my suite in the St. Germain." "Oh, how lovely," exclaimed Elaine. "I must see them." They talked a few minutes, while I waited patiently for Elaine to start the game again. That game, however, was destined never to be finished. More weighty matters were under discussion. I wondered what they were talking about and, suppressing a yawn, I walked toward them. As I approached, I heard scattered remarks about styles and dress fabrics. Elaine had completely forgotten tennis and me. She took a couple of steps away from the court with the woman, as I came up. "Aren't you going to play?" I asked. "I know you'll excuse me, Walter," smiled Elaine. "My frocks are all so frightfully out of date. And here's a chance to get new ones, very reasonably, too." They walked off and I could not help scowling at the visitor. On toward the house Elaine and Madame Larenz proceeded and around it to the front porch where Aunt Josephine was standing. "Just think, Auntie," cried Elaine, "real Paris gowns down here without the trouble of going to the city--and cheaply, too." Aunt Josephine was only mildly interested, but that did not seem to worry Madame Larenz. "I shall be glad to see you at three, Miss Dodge," she said as she got into her car again and drove off. By that time, I had caught up with Elaine again. "Just one game," I urged. "Please excuse me,--this time, Walter," she pleaded, laughing. "You don't know how sadly I'm in need of new frocks." It was no use of further urging her. Tennis was out of her mind for good that day. Accordingly, I mounted to my room and there quickly donned my riding clothes. When I came down, I found Aunt Josephine still on the veranda. In addition to my horse which I had telephoned for, Elaine's little runabout had been driven to the door. While I was talking to Aunt Josephine, Elaine came down-stairs and walked over to the car. "May I go with you?" I pleaded. "No, Walter," she replied laughing merrily. "You can't go. I want to try them on." Properly squelched, I retreated. Elaine drove away and a moment later, I mounted and cantered off leisurely. Near Del Mar's bungalow might have been seen again the mysterious naturalist, walking along the road with a butterfly net in his hand and what appeared to be a leather specimen case, perhaps six inches long, under his other arm. As Madame Larenz whizzed past in her car, he looked up keenly in spite of his seeming near-sightedness and huge smoked glasses. He watched her closely, noting the number of the car, then turned and followed it. Madame Larenz drew up, a second time, before Del Mar's. As she got out and entered, the naturalist, having quickened his pace, came up and watched her go in. Then, after taking in the situation for a moment, he made his way around the side of the bungalow. "Is Mr. Del Mar at home?" inquired Madame Larenz, as the valet ushered her into the library. "No ma'am," he returned. "Mr. Del Mar is out. But he left word that if you came before he got back, you were to leave word." The woman sat down at the desk and wrote hastily. When she had finished the short note, she read it over and folded it up. "Tell Mr. Del Mar I've left a note here on his desk," she said to the valet. A moment later she left the library, followed by the valet, who accompanied her to her car and assisted her in. "The hotel," she directed to her driver, as he started off, while the valet returned to the bungalow. Outside, the naturalist had come through the shrubbery and had been looking in at the library window, watching every move of Madame Larenz as she wrote. As she went out, he paused just a second to look about. Then he drew a long knife from his pocket, forced the window catch, and quickly climbed into the room. Directly to the desk he went and hurriedly ran over the papers on it. There was the note. He picked it up and read it eagerly. "My apartment--St. Germain--3 P. M. "LARENZ." For a moment he seemed to consider what to do. Then he replaced the note. Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps. It was the valet returning. Quickly the naturalist ran to the window and jumped out. A moment later, the valet entered the library again. "That's strange," he exclaimed under his breath, "I don't recall opening that window over there to-day." He looked puzzled. But as no one was about, he went over and shut it. Some distance down the road, the naturalist quietly emerged in safety from the bushes. With scarcely a moment's hesitation, his mind thoroughly made up to his course, he hurried along the road. Meanwhile, at the St. Germain, Madame Larenz entered and passed through the rotunda of the hotel, followed by many admiring glances of the men. Up in her room stood several large trunks, open. From them had been taken a number of gowns which were scattered about or hung up for exhibition. As she entered, quickly she selected one of the trunks whose contents were more smart than the rest and laid the gowns out most fetchingly about the room. In the office of the hotel a few moments later, the naturalist entered. He looked around curiously, then went to the desk and glanced over the register. At the name "Mme Larenz, Paris, Room 22," he paused. For some seconds he stood thinking. Then he deliberately walked over to a leather chair and took a prominent seat near-by in the lobby. He had discarded his net, but still had the case which now he had shoved into his pocket. From a table, he picked up a newspaper. It was not long before Del Mar pulled up before the hotel and entered in his usual swagger manner. He had returned to the bungalow, read the note and hurried over to the St. Germain. He crossed the lobby, back to the office. As he did so, the naturalist had his face hidden deeply in the open newspaper. But no sooner had Del Mar passed than the newspaper fell unappreciated and he gazed after him, as he left the lobby by the back way. It was only a few minutes after she had completed arranging her small stock so that it looked quite impressive, that Madame Larenz heard a knock at the door and recognized Del Mar's secret code. She opened the door and he strode in. "I got your note," he said briefly, coming directly to business and telling her just what he wanted done. "Let me see," he concluded, glancing at his watch. "It is after three now. She ought to be here any minute." Outside, Elaine drove up to the rather garish entrance of the St. Germain and one of the boys in uniform ran forward to open the door and take charge of the car. She, too, crossed the lobby without seeing the old naturalist, though nothing escaped him. As she passed, he started to rise and cross toward her, then appeared to change his mind. Elaine went on out through the back of the lobby, directed by a boy, and mounted a flight of stairs, in preference to taking the lift to the second, or sort of mezzanine floor. Down along the corridor she went, hunting for number twenty-two. At last she found it at the end, and knocked. Del Mar and Madame Larenz were still talking in low tones when they heard a light tap on the door. "There she is, now," whispered Larenz. "All right. Let her in," answered Del Mar, leaping quietly to a closet. "I'll hide here until I get the signal. Do just as I told you." Outside, at the same time, according to his carefully concocted plans, Del Mar's car had driven up and stopped close to the side of the hotel, which was on a slight hill that brought the street level here not so far below the second story windows. Three of his most trusted men were in the car. Madame Larenz opened the door. "Oh, I'm so glad you came," she rattled on to Elaine. "You see, I've got to get started. Not a customer yet. But if you'll only take a few gowns, other people will come to me. I'll let you have them cheaply, too. Just look at this one." She held up one filmy, creamy creation that looked like a delicate flower. "I'd like to try it on," cried Elaine, fingering it rapturously. "By all means," agreed Madame. "We are alone. Do so." With deft fingers, Larenz helped her take off her own very pretty dress. As Elaine slipped the soft gown over her head, with her head and arms engaged in its multitudinous folds, Madame Larenz, a powerful woman, seized her. Elaine was effectually gagged and bound in the gown itself. Instantly, Del Mar flung himself from the closet, disguising his voice. Together, they wrapped the dress about Elaine even more tightly to prevent her screaming. Madame 'Larenz seized a blanket and threw that over Elaine's head, also, while Del Mar ran to the window. There were his men in the car, waiting below. "Are you ready?" he called softly to them. They looked about carefully. There was no one on that side of the hotel just at the moment. "Ready," responded one. "Quick!" Together, Del Mar and Madame Larenz passed Elaine, ineffectually struggling, out of the window. The men seized her and placed her in the bottom of the car, which was covered. Then they shot away, taking a back road up the hill. Hurriedly the naturalist went through the lobby in the direction Elaine had gone, and a moment later reached the corridor above. Down it, he could hear some one coming out of room twenty-two. He slid into an angle and hid. It was Del Mar and the woman he had seen at the bungalow. They passed by without discovering him, nor could he make out anything that they said. What mischief was afoot? Where was Elaine? He ran to the door and tried it. It was locked. Quickly, he took from his pocket a skeleton key and unlocked it. There was Elaine's hat and dress lying in a heap on the bed. But she was not there. He was now thoroughly alarmed. She could not have passed him in the hall. Therefore she must have gone or been taken out through the window. That would never have been voluntary, especially leaving her things there. The window was still open. He ran to it. One glance out was enough. He leaped to the ground. Sure enough, there were automobile tracks in the dust. "Del Mar's car," he muttered to himself, studying them. He fairly ran around the side of the hotel. There he came suddenly upon Elaine's car standing alone, and recognized it. There was no time for delay. He jumped into it, and let the swift little racer out as he turned and gathered momentum to shoot up the hill on high speed. Meanwhile, I had been jogging along through the country, lonely and disconsolate. I don't know how it happened, but I suppose it was by some subconscious desire. At any rate I found myself at the road that came out across one leading to the St. Germain and it occurred to me that Elaine might by this time have purchased enough frocks to clothe her for a year. At any rate I quickened my pace in the hope of seeing her. Suddenly, my horse shied and a familiar little car flashed past me. But the driver was not familiar. It was Elaine's roadster. In it was a stranger--a man who looked like a "bugologist," as nearly as I can describe him. Was he running off with her car while she was waiting inside the hotel? I galloped after him. Del Mar's automobile, with Elaine bound and gagged in it, drove rapidly by back and unfrequented ways into the country until at last it pulled up before an empty two-story house in a sort of grove of trees. The men leaped out, lifted Elaine, and carried her bodily into the house, taking her up-stairs and into an upper room. She had fainted when they laid her down and loosened the dress from about her face so that she could breathe. There they left her, on the floor, her hands and feet bound, and went out. How long she lay there, she never knew, but at last the air revived her and she regained consciousness and sat up. Her muscles were sore and her head ached. But she set her teeth and began struggling with the cords that bound her, managing at last to pull the dress over herself at least. In Elaine's car, the naturalist drove slowly at times, following the tracks of the automobile ahead. At last, however, he came to a place where he saw that the tracks went up a lonely side road. To approach in a car was to warn whoever was there. He ran the cat up alongside the road in the bushes and jumped out leaving it and following the tracks up the side roadway. As he approached a single deserted house, he left even the narrow road altogether and plunged into the woods, careful to proceed noiselessly. Through the bushes, near the house, he peered. There he could see one of Del Mar's men in the doorway, apparently talking to others behind him. Stealthily the naturalist crept around, still hiding, until he was closer to the house on the other side. At last he worked his way around to the rear door. He tried it. It was bolted and even the skeleton key was unavailing to slide the bolt. Seconds were precious. Quickly, he went to the corner of the house. There was a water-leader. He began to climb it, risking its precarious support. On the roof at last, the naturalist crawled along, looking for some way of getting into the house. But he could not seem to find any. Carefully, he crawled to the edge of the roof and looked over. Below, he could hear sounds, but could make nothing of them. From his pocket, he took the leather case and opened it. There was a peculiar arrangement, like some of the collapsible arms on which telephone instruments are often fastened to a desk or wall, capable of being collapsed into small space or of being extended for some distance. On the thing was arranged a system of mirrors, which the naturalist adjusted. It was a pocket periscope. He thrust the thing over the edge of the roof and down, and looked through it. Below, he could see into the room from which came the peculiar sounds. He looked anxiously. There he could see Elaine endeavoring still to loosen the cords and unable to do so. Only for a moment he looked. Then he folded up the pocket periscope into the case and shoved it back into his pocket. Quickly he crossed the roof again, and slid back down the rain-pipe. At the door stood three of Del Mar's men waiting for Del Mar who had told them he would follow immediately. The naturalist had by this time reached the ground and was going along carefully back of the house. He drew his revolver and, pointing it down, fired. Then he dodged back of an extension and disappeared for the moment. Instantly, the three men sprang up and ran toward the spot where it seemed the shot had been fired. There was no one about the side of the house. But the wind had carried the smoke into some bushes beside the grove and they crashed into the bushes, beating about. At the same time, the naturalist, having first waited until he saw which way the men were going, dashed about the house in the opposite direction. Then he slipped, unopposed and unobserved, in through the open front door, up the stairs and along to the room into which he had just been looking. He unlocked the door, and entered. Elaine was still struggling with the cords when she caught sight of the stranger. "Not a word," he cautioned under his breath. She was indeed too frightened to cry out. Quickly, he loosened her, still holding his finger to his lips to enjoin silence. "Follow me," he whispered. She obeyed mechanically, and they went out into the hall. On down-stairs went the naturalist, Elaine still keeping close after him. He looked out through the front door, then drew back. Quickly he went through the lower hall until he came to the back door in the kitchen, Elaine following. He unbolted the door and opened it. "Run," he said, simply, pointing out of the door. "They're coming back the other way. I'll hold them." She needed no further urging, but darted from the house as he closed the door after her. . . . . . . . It was just at this point that Del Mar came riding along the main road on horseback. He pulled up suddenly as he saw a car run in alongside the road. "That's Elaine's runabout," he muttered, as he dismounted and tied his horse. "How came it here?" He approached the car, much worried by its unaccountable presence there instead of before the St. Germain. Then he drew his gun and hurried up the side road. He heard a shot and quickened his pace. In the woods unexpectedly he came upon his three men still beating about, searching with drawn revolvers for the person who had fired the shot. "Well?" he demanded sharply, "what's all this?" "Some one fired a shot," they explained, somewhat crestfallen. "It was a trick, you fools," he answered testily. "Get back to your prisoner." Without a word they turned and hurried toward the house, Del Mar following. "You two go in," he ordered the foremost. "I'll go around the house with Patrick." As Del Mar and the other man ran around the corner, they could just catch a fleeting glimpse on some one disappearing among the trees. It was Elaine. The man hurried forward, blazing away with his gun. Running, breathless, Elaine heard the shot behind her which Del Mar's man had fired in his eagerness. The bullet struck a tree near her with a "ping!" She glanced back and saw the man. But she did not stop. Instead, she redoubled her efforts, running zigzag in among the trees where they were thickest. Del Mar, a little bit behind his man where she could not recognize him, urged the man on, following carefully. On fled Elaine, her heart beating fast. Suddenly she stopped and almost cried out in vexation. A stream blocked her retreat, a stream, swift and deep. She looked back, terrified. Her pursuers were coming ahead fast now in her direction. Wildly she gazed around. There was a canoe on the bank. In an instant she jumped in, untied it, and seized the paddle. Off she went, striking for the opposite shore. But the current was racing swiftly, and she was already tired and exhausted. She could scarcely make any headway at all in the fierce eddies. But at least, she thought hurriedly, she was getting further and further away from them down-stream. Up above, Del Mar and his man came to the edge of the water. There they stood for a moment looking down. "There she is," pointed the man. Del Mar raised his revolver and fired. Suddenly a bullet struck Elaine's paddle and broke it. Clutching the useless splintered shaft, she was now at the mercy of the current, swept along like a piece of driftwood. She looked about frantically. What was that roaring noise? It was the waterfalls ahead! . . . . . . . In the meantime, Del Mar's other two men had entered the house and had run up-stairs, knowing well his wrath if anything had happened. As they did so, the naturalist poked his head cautiously out of the kitchen where he had been hiding, and saw them. Then he followed noiselessly, his revolver ready. Headlong they ran into the room where they had left Elaine. She was gone! Before they could turn, the naturalist locked the door, turned and took the steps down, two at a time. Then he ran out of the front door and into the woods at an angle to the direction taken by Elaine, turning and going down hill, where a rapid, swollen stream curved about through a gorge. As he reached the stream, he heard a shot above, and a scream. He looked up. There was Elaine, swept down toward him. Below he knew the stream tumbled over a tall cataract into the gorge below. What could he do? A sudden crackling of the twigs caused him to turn and catch sight of me, just coming up. For, as best I could on horseback, I had followed Elaine's car until at last I saw that it had been abandoned. Thoroughly alarmed, I rode on, past a deserted house until suddenly I heard a shot and a scream. It seemed to come from below me and I leaped off my horse, making for it as fast as I could, racing toward a stream whose roar I could hear. There on the bank I came upon a queer old codger, looking about wildly. Was he the automobile thief? I ran forward, ready to seize him. But as I did so, he whirled about and with a strength remarkable in one so old seized my own wrist before I could get his. "Look!" he cried simply, pointing up the stream. I did. A girl in a canoe was coming down toward the falls, screaming, her paddle broken and useless. My heart leaped into my mouth. It was Elaine! "Come," he panted eagerly to me. "I can save her. You must do just as I say." He pointed to an overhanging rock near-by and we ran to it. By this time Elaine was almost upon us, each second getting nearer the veritable maelstrom above the falls. From the rock overhung also a tree at the very edge of the water. There was nothing to do but obey him. Above, though we did not see them, Del Mar and his man were gloating over the result of their work. But they were gloating too soon. We came to the rock and the tree. "Here," cried the new-found friend, "I'll get hold of the tree and then hold you." Instantly he threw himself on his stomach, hooking his leg about the tree trunk. I crawled out over the ledge of slippery rock to the very edge and looked over. It was the only chance. The old naturalist seized my legs in his hands. I slid down the rock, letting myself go. Literally, his presence of mind had invented what was really a life chain, a human rope. On came the canoe, Elaine in it as white as death, crying out and trying to stop or guide it as, nearer and nearer through the smooth-worn walls of the chasm, it whirled to the falls. With a grip of steel, the naturalist held to the tree which swayed and bent, while also he held me, as if in a vise, head down. On came Elaine--directly at us. She stood up and balanced herself, a dangerous feat in a canoe at any time, but doubly so in those dark, swirling, treacherous waters. "Steady!" I encouraged. "Grab my arms!" As the canoe reached us, she gave a little jump and seized my forearms. Her hands slipped, but I grasped her own arms, and we held each other. The momentum of her body was great. For an instant I thought we were all going over. But the naturalist held his grip and slowly began to pull himself and us up the slippery rock. A second later the canoe crashed over the falls in a cloud of spray and pounding water. As we reached the bank above the rock, I almost lifted Elaine and set her down, trembling and gasping for breath. Before either of us knew it the queer old fellow had plunged into the bushes and was gone without another word. "Walter," she cried, "call him back, I must tell him how much I owe him--my life!" But he had disappeared, absolutely. We shouted after him. It was of no use. "Well, what do you think of that?" cried Elaine. "He saved my life--then didn't wait even to be thanked." Who was he? We looked at each other a moment. But neither of us spoke what was in our hearts. CHAPTER XV THE FLASH Alone in the doorway before his rude shack on the shore of the promontory sat an old fisherman, gazing out fixedly at the harbor as though deeply concerned over the weather, which, as usual, was unseasonable. Suddenly he started and would have disappeared into his hut but for the fact that, although he could not himself be seen, he had already seen the intruder. It was a trooper from Fort Dale. He galloped up and, as though obeying to the letter his instructions, deliberately dropped an envelope at the feet of the fisherman. Then, without a word, he galloped away again. The fisherman picked up the envelope and opened it quickly. Inside was a photograph and a note. He read: FORT DALE PROFESSOR ARNOLD, J. Smith, clerk in the War Department, has disappeared. We are not sure, but fear that he has a copy of the new Sandy Hook Defense Plans. It is believed he is headed your way. He walks with a slight limp. Look out for him. LIEUTENANT WOODWARD. For a long time the fisherman appeared to study the face on the photograph until he had it indelibly implanted in his memory, as if by some system such as that of the immortal Bertillon and his clever "portrait parle," or spoken picture, for scientific identification and apprehension. It was not a pleasant face and there were features that were not easily forgotten. Finally he turned and entered his hut. Hastily he took off his stained reefer. From a wooden chest he drew another outfit of clothes. The transformation was complete. When he issued forth from his hut again, it was no longer the aged disciple of Izaac Walton. He was now a trim chauffeur, bearded and goggled. . . . . . . . In the library of his bungalow, Del Mar was pacing up and down, now and then scowling to himself, as though there flashed over his mind stray recollections of how some of his most cherished plans were miscarrying. Still, on the whole, he had nothing to complain of. For, a moment later the valet entered with a telegram for which he had evidently been waiting. Del Mar seized it eagerly and tore open the yellow envelope. On the blank was printed in the usual way the following non-committal message: WASHINGTON, D. C., August 12, 1915. MR. DEL MAR, What you request is coming. Answer to sign of the ring.--SMITH. "Good," muttered Del Mar as he finished reading. "Strange, what a little gold will do--when you know how to dispose of it." He smiled cynically to himself at the sentiment. . . . . . . . At the little railroad station, they were quite proud of the fact that at least two of the four hacks had been replaced already by taxicabs. It was, then, with some surprise and not a little open jealousy that they saw a new taxicab drive up and take its stand by the platform. If the chauffeur, transformed from the lonely fisherman, had expected a cordial reception, he might better have stayed before his hut, for the glances the other drivers gave him were as black and lowering as the clouds he had been looking at. The new chauffeur got off his seat. Instead of trying to brazen it out, he walked over to the others who were standing in a group waiting for the approaching train whose whistle had already sounded. "I'm not going to locate here permanently," he said, pulling out a roll of bills as he spoke. "Leave any fare I claim to me," he added, passing a bill of a good denomination to each of the four jehus. They looked at him curiously. But what business of theirs was it? The money felt good. "All right, bo," they agreed. Thundering down the platform came the afternoon train, a great event in the town life. As the baggage was being tossed off, the passengers alighted and the five hackmen swarmed at them. "Keb, sir, kerridge. Taxi, lady!" From the Pullman alighted a widow, in deep mourning. As she got off and moved down the platform, it was apparent that she walked with a pronounced limp. At the end of the platform, the chauffeurs were still calling, while the newcomer looked over the crowd hastily. Suddenly he caught sight of the face of the widow. He stepped forward, as she approached. The others held back as they had agreed and paid no attention. It was like forcing a card. He held the door open and she entered the cab, unsuspecting. "Mr. Del Mar's," she directed, simply. As the new taxicab driver cranked his engine and climbed into the seat, he was careful to let no action of his, however small, betray the intense satisfaction he felt at the working of his scheme. He pulled away from the station. On through the pretty country roads the chauffeur drove the heavily veiled widow until at last they came to Del Mar's bungalow. At the gate he stopped and ran around to open the door to assist his fare to alight. "Wait for me," she said, without paying him yet. "I shall not be long and I want to be driven back to the station to catch the four twenty-nine to New York." As she limped up the gravel walk, he watched her closely. She went to the door and rang the bell, and the valet admitted her. Del Mar was still sitting, thinking, in the library. "Mr. Del Mar?" she inquired. The voice was not exactly soft, and Del Mar eyed her suspiciously. Was this the person he expected, or a "plant?" "Yes," he answered, guardedly, "I am Mr. Del Mar. And you?" The widow, too, evidently wished to make no mistake. As she spoke, she raised her hand. By that simple action she displayed a curious and conspicuous seal ring on her finger. It was the sign of the ring for which Del Mar had been waiting. He extended his own left hand. On the ring finger was another ring, but not similar. As he did so, the widow took the ring from her own finger and placed it on the little finger of Del Mar. "Good!" he exclaimed. Every action of the sign of the ring had been carried out. The woman raised her thick veil, disclosing the face of--a man! It was the same face, also, that had appeared in the photograph sent to the old fisherman by Woodward. Awkwardly, the man searched in the front of his shirtwaist and drew forth a paper which Del Mar almost seized in his eagerness. It was a pen and ink copy of a Government map, showing a huge spit of sand in the sea before a harbor, Sandy Hook and New York. On it were indicated all the defenses, the positions of guns, everything. Together, Del Mar and Smith bent over it, while the renegade clerk explained each mark on the traitorous map. They were too occupied to see a face flattened against the pane of a window near-by. The chauffeur had no intention of remaining inactive outside while he knew that something that interested him was transpiring inside. He had crept up by the side of the house to the window. But he could see little and hear nothing. A moment he strained every sense. It was no use. He must devise some other way. How could he get into that room? Slowly he returned to his car, thinking it over. There he stood for a moment revolving in his mind what to do. He looked up the road. An idea came to him. There he saw a little runabout approaching rapidly. Quickly he went around to the front of his car and lifted up the hood. Then he bent over and pretended to be tinkering with his engine. As the car was about to pass he deliberately stepped back, apparently not seeing the runabout, and was struck and knocked down. The runabout stopped, the emergency brakes biting hard. . . . . . . . Elaine had asked me to go shopping in the village with her that afternoon. While I waited for her in her little car, she came down at last, carrying a little handbag. We drove off a moment later. It was a delightful ride, not too warm, but sunny. Without realizing it, we found ourselves on the road that led past Del Mar's. As we approached, I saw that there was a taxicab standing in front of the gate. The hood was lifted and the driver was apparently tinkering with his engine. "Let's not stop," said Elaine, who had by this time a peculiar aversion to the man. As we passed the driver, apparently not seeing us, stepped out and, before we could turn out, we had knocked him down. We stopped and ran back. There he lay on the road, seemingly unconscious. We lifted him up and I looked toward Del Mar's house. "Help!" I shouted at the top of my voice. The valet came to the door. Hearing me, the valet ran out down the walk. "All right," he cried. "I'll be there in a minute." With his help I picked up the taxicab chauffeur and we carried him into the house. Del Mar was talking with a person who looked like a widow, when they heard our approach up the walk carrying the injured man. So engrossed had they been in discerning what the stolen document contained that, as we finally entered, the widow had only time to drop her veil and conceal her identity as the renegade Smith. Del Mar still held the plan in his hand. The valet and I entered with Elaine and we placed the chauffeur on a couch near Del Mar's desk. I remember that there was this strange woman all in black, heavily veiled, in the room at the time. "I think we ought to telephone for a doctor," said Elaine placing her hand-bag on the desk and excitedly telling Del Mar how we had accidentally knocked the man down. "Call up my doctor, Henry," said Del Mar, hastily thrusting the plan into a book lying on the desk. We gathered about the man, trying to revive him. "Have you a little stimulant?" I asked, turning from him. Del Mar moved toward a cellarette built into the wall. We were all watching him, our backs to the chauffeur, when suddenly he must have regained consciousness very much. Like a flash his hand shot out. He seized the plan from between the leaves of the book. He had not time to get away with it himself. Perhaps he might be searched. He opened Elaine's bag, and thrust it in. The valet by this time had finished telephoning and spoke to Del Mar. "The doctor will be here shortly, Miss Dodge," said Del Mar. "You need not wait, if you don't care to. I'll take care of him." "Oh, thank you--ever so much," she murmured. "Of course it wasn't our fault, but I feel sorry for the poor fellow. Tell the doctor to send me the bill." She and Del Mar shook hands. I thought he held her hand perhaps a little longer and a little tighter than usual. At any rate Elaine seemed to think so. "Why, what a curious ring, Mr. Del Mar," she said, finally releasing her own hand from his grasp. Then she looked quickly at the woman, half joking, as if the ring had something to do with the strange woman. She looked back at the ring. Del Mar smiled, shook his head and laughed easily. Then Elaine picked up her bag and we went out. A moment later we climbed back into the car and were off again. . . . . . . . Having left us at the door, Del Mar hurried back to the library. He went straight to the desk and picked up the book, eager now to make sure of the safety of the plan. It was gone! "Did you, Smith--" he began hastily, then checked himself, knowing that the clerk had not taken the plan. Del Mar walked over to the couch and stood a moment looking at the chauffeur. "I wonder who he is," he said to himself. "I don't recall ever seeing him at the station or in the village." He leaned over closer. "The deuce!" he exclaimed, "that's a fake beard the fellow has on." Del Mar made a lunge for it. As he did so, the chauffeur leaped to his feet and drew a gun. "Hands up!" he shouted. "And the first man that moves is a dead one!" Before the secret agent knew it, both he and Smith were covered. The chauffeur took a step toward Smith and unceremoniously jerked off the widow's weeds, as well as the wig. At that very moment one of Del Mar's men came up to the secret panel that opened from the underground passageway into his library. He was about to open it when he heard a sound on the other side that startled him. He listened a moment, then slid it just a short distance and looked in. There he saw a chauffeur holding up Del Mar and Smith. Having pulled the disguise from Smith, he went next around Del Mar and took his gun from his pocket, then passed his hands over the folds of Smith's dress, but found no weapon. He stepped back away from them. At that point the man quietly slid the panel all the way open and silently stepped into the room, behind the chauffeur. Cautiously he began sneaking up on him. As he did so, Del Mar and Smith watched, fascinated. Somehow their faces must have betrayed that something was wrong. For, as the newcomer leaped at him, the chauffeur turned suddenly and fired. The shot wounded the man. It was a signal for a free-for-all fight. Del Mar and Smith leaped at the intruder. Over and over they rolled, breaking furniture, overturning and smashing bric-a-brac. Del Mar's revolver was knocked out of the chauffeur's hand. With a blow of a chair, the chauffeur laid out Smith, entangled in his unfamiliar garments, shook himself loose from the two others, and made a rush at the door. Del Mar paused only long enough to pick up the revolver from the floor. Instantly he fired at the retreating form. But the chauffeur had passed out and banged shut the door. Down the walk he sped and out to the gate, into his car, the engine of which he had left running. Hard after him came Del Mar and the rest, joined now by Henry, the valet. One shot was left in the chauffeur's revolver and he blazed away as he leaped into the car. "He's got me," groaned Smith as he stumbled and fell forward. On kept Del Mar and the others. They caught up with the car just as it was starting. But the chauffeur knocked the gun from Del Mar's hand before he could get a good aim and fire, at the same time bowling over the man who had come through the panel. Off the car went, now rapidly gaining speed. Del Mar had just time to swing on the rear of it. Around the rapidly-driven car, he climbed, hanging on for dear life, over the mud-guard and toward the running-board. On sped the car, swaying crazily back and forth, Del Mar crouched on the running-board and working his way slowly and perilously to the front seat. The chauffeur felt the weight of some one on that side. Just as he turned to see what it was, Del Mar leaped at him. Still holding the wheel, the chauffeur fought him off with his free hand, Del Mar holding on to some spare tires with one hand, also. Handicapped by having the steering-wheel to manage, nevertheless the chauffeur seemed quite well able to give a good account of himself. . . . . . . . Somehow, Elaine and I must have been hoodooed that day. We had not been gone five minutes from Del Mar's after the accident to the chauffeur, when we heard a mysterious knock in the engine. "More engine trouble," I sighed. "Pull up along the road and I'll see if I can fix it." We stopped and both got out. There was no fake about this trouble or about the dirt and grease I acquired on my hands and face, tinkering with that motor. For, regardless of my immaculate flannels, I had to set to work. A huge spot of grease spattered on me. Elaine laughed outright. "Here, let me powder your nose, Walter," she cried undismayed at our trouble, gayly opening her bag. "Well--of all things--what's this, and where did it come from?" I turned from the engine and looked. She was holding some kind of plan or document in her hand. In blank surprise she examined it. It looked like a fort or a series of forts. But I was sure at a glance that it was not Fort Dale. "What do you think it is, Walter?" she asked, handing it to me. I took it and examined it carefully. Incredible as it seemed, I figured out quickly that it must be nothing short of a plan of the new defenses at Sandy Hook. "I don't know what it all means," I said. "But I do know that we won't get any dinner till I get this engine running again." I fell to work again, eager to get away with our dangerous prize, Elaine now and then advising me. Finally I turned the engine over. For a wonder it ran smoothly. "Well, that's all right, at last," I sighed, wiping the grease off my hands on a piece of waste. "What's the matter now?" exclaimed Elaine, turning quickly and looking up the road along which we had just come. There, lurching along at full speed was a car. Two men were actually fighting on the front of it regardless of speed and safety. As it neared us, I saw it was the taxicab that had been standing before Del Mar's. I looked closer at it. To my utter amazement, who should be driving it but the very chauffeur whom we had left at Del Mar's only a few minutes before, apparently unconscious. He could not have been hurt very badly, for he was not only able to drive but was fighting off a man clinging on the running-board. On rushed the car, directly at us. Just as it passed us, the chauffeur seemed to summon all his strength. He struck a powerful blow at the man, recoiled and straightened out his car just in time. The man fell, literally at our feet. It was Del Mar himself! On sped the taxicab. Bruised though he must have been by the fall, Del Mar nevertheless raised himself by the elbow and fired every chamber of his revolver as fast as he could pump the bullets. I must say that I admired the man's pluck. Elaine and I hurried over to him. I still had in my hand the queer paper which she had found so strangely in her hand-bag. "Why, what's all this about?" I asked eagerly. Before I could raise him up, Del Mar had regained his feet. "Just a plain crook, who attacked me," he muttered, brushing off his clothes to cover up the quick recognition of what it was that I was holding in my hand, for he had seen the plan immediately. "Can't we drive you back?" asked Elaine, quite forgetting our fears of Del Mar in the ugly predicament in which he just had been. "We've had trouble but I guess we can get you back." "Thank you," he said, forcing a smile. "I think anything would be an improvement on my ride here and I'm sure you can do more than you claim." He climbed up and sat on the floor of the roadster, his feet outside, and we drove off. At last we pulled up at Dodge Hall again. "Won't you come in?" asked Elaine as we got out. "Thank you, I believe I will for a few minutes," consented Del Mar, concealing his real eagerness to follow me. "I'm all shaken up." As we entered the living-room, I was thinking about the map. I opened a table drawer, hastily took the plan from my pocket and locked it in the drawer. Elaine, meanwhile, was standing with Del Mar who was talking, but in reality watching me closely. A smile of satisfaction seemed to flit over his face as he saw what I had done and now knew where the paper was. I turned to him. "How are you now?" I asked. "Oh, I'm much better--all right," he answered. Then he looked at his watch. "I've a very important appointment. If you'll excuse me, I'll walk over to my place. Thank you again, Miss Dodge, ever so kindly." He bowed low and was gone. . . . . . . . Down the road past where we had turned, before a pretty little shingle house, the taxicab chauffeur stopped. One of the bullets had taken effect on him and his shoulder was bleeding. But the worst, as he seemed to think it, was that another shot had given him a flat tire. He jumped out and looked up the road whence he had come. No one was following. Still, he was worried. He went around to look at the tire. But he was too weak now from loss of blood. It had been nerve and reserve force that had carried him through. Now that the strain was off, he felt the reaction to the full. Just then the doctor and his driver, whom the valet had already summoned to Del Mar's, came speeding down the road. The doctor saw the chauffeur fall in a half faint, stopped his car and ran to him. The chauffeur had kept up as long as he could. He had now sunk down beside his machine in the road. A moment later they picked him up and carried him into the house. There was no acting about his hurts now. In the house they laid the man down on a couch and the doctor made a hasty examination. "How is he?" asked one of the kind Samaritans. "The wound is not dangerous," replied the physician, "but he's lost a lot of blood. He cannot be moved for some time yet." . . . . . . . We talked about nothing else at Dodge Hall after dressing for dinner but the strange events over at Del Mar's and what had followed. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that we would never be left over night in peaceful possession of the plan which both Elaine and I decided ought on the following day to be sent to Washington. Accordingly I cudgelled my brain for some method of protecting both ourselves and it. The only thing I could think of was a scheme once adopted by Kennedy in another case. How I longed for him. But I had to do my best alone. I had a small quick shutter camera that had belonged to Craig and just as we were about to retire, I brought it into the living-room with a package I had had sent up from the village. "What are you going to do?" asked Elaine curiously. I assumed an air of mystery but did not say, for I was not sure but that even now some one was eavesdropping. It was not late, but the country air made us all sleepy and Aunt Josephine, looking at the clock, soon announced that she was going to retire. She had no sooner said good-night than Elaine began again to question me. But I had determined not to tell her what I was doing, for if my imitation of Kennedy failed, I knew that she would laugh at me. "Oh, very well," she said finally in pique, "then, if you're going to be so secret about it, you can sit up alone--there!" She flounced off to bed. Sure as I could be at last that I was alone, I opened the package. There were the tools that I had ordered, a coil of wire and some dry cells. Then I went to the table, unlocked the drawer and put the plan in my pocket. I had determined that whether the idea worked or not, no one was to get the plan except by overcoming me. Although I was no expert at wiring, I started to make the connections under the table with the drawer, not a very difficult thing to do as long as it was to be only temporary and for the night. From the table I ran the wires along the edge of the carpet until I came to the book-case. There, masked by the books, I placed the little quick shutter camera, and at a distance also concealed the flash-light pan. Next I aimed the camera carefully and focussed it on a point above the drawer on the writing-table where any one would be likely to stand if he attempted to open it. Then I connected the shutter of the camera and a little spark coil in the flash-pan with the wires, using an apparatus to work the shutter such as I recalled having seen Craig use. Finally I covered the sparking device with the flash-light powder, gave a last look about and snapped off the light. Up in my bedroom, I must say I felt like "some" detective and I could not help slapping myself on the chest for the ingenuity with which I had duplicated Craig. Then I lay down on the bed with my clothes on and picked up a book, determined to keep awake to see if anything happened. It was a good book, but I was tired and in spite of myself I nodded over it, and then dropped it. . . . . . . . In his bungalow, now that Smith had gone back again to New York and Washington, Del Mar was preparing to keep the important engagement he had told us about, another of his nefarious nocturnal expeditions. He drew a cap on his head, well over his ears and forehead. His eyes and face he concealed as well as he could with a mask to be put on later. To his equipment he added a gun. Then with a hasty word or two to his valet, he went out. By back ways so that even in the glare of automobile headlights he would not be recognized, he made his way to Dodge Hall. As he saw the house looming up in the moonlight he put on his mask and approached cautiously. Gaining the house, he opened a window, noiselessly turning the catch as deftly as a house-breaker, and climbed into the living-room. A moment he looked around, then tiptoed over to the table. He looked at it to be sure that it was the right one and the right drawer. Then he bent down to force the drawer open. "Pouf!" a blinding flash came and a little metallic click of the shutter, followed by a cloud of smoke. As quick as it happened, there went through Del Mar's head, the explanation. It was a concealed camera. He sprang back, clapping his hands over his face. Out of range for a moment, he stood gazing about the room, trying to locate the thing. Suddenly he heard footsteps. He dived through the window that he had opened, just as some one ran in and switched on the lights. . . . . . . . Half asleep, I heard a muffled explosion, as if of a flash-light. I started up and listened. Surely some one was moving about down-stairs. I pulled my gun from my pocket and ran out of the room. Down the steps I flung myself, two at a time. In the living-room, I switched on the lights in time to see some one disappear through an open window. I ran to the window and looked out. There was a man, half doubled up, running around the side of the house and into a clump of bushes, then apparently lost. I shot out of the window and called. My only answer was an imprecation and return volley that shattered the glass above my head. I ducked hastily and fell flat on the floor, for in the light streaming out, I must have been a good mark. I was not the only one who heard the noise. The shots quickly awakened Elaine and she leaped out of bed and put on her kimono. Then she lighted the lights and ran down-stairs. The intruder had disappeared by this time and I had got up and was peering out of the window as she came breathlessly into the living-room. "What's the matter, Walter?" she asked. "Some one broke into the house after those plans," I replied. "He escaped, but I got his picture, I think, by this device of Kennedy's. Let's go into a dark room and develop it." There was no use trying to follow the man further. To Elaine's inquiry of what I meant, I replied by merely going over to the spot where I had hidden the camera and disconnecting it. We went up-stairs where I had rigged up an impromptu dark room for my amateur photographic work some days before. Elaine watched me closely. At last I found that I had developed something. As I drew the film through the hypo tray and picked it up, I held it to the red light. Elaine leaned over and looked at the film with me. There was a picture of a masked man, his cap down, in a startled attitude, his hands clapped to his face, completely hiding what the mask and cap did not hide. "Well, I'll be blowed!" I cried in chagrin at the outcome of what I thought had been my cleverest coup. A little exclamation of astonishment escaped Elaine. I turned to her. "What is it?" I asked. "The ring!" she cried. I looked again more closely. On the little finger of the left hand was a peculiar ring. Once seen, I think it was not readily forgotten. "The ring!" she repeated excitedly. "Don't you remember--that ring? I saw it on Mr. Del Mar's hand--at his house--this afternoon!" I could only stare. At last we had a real clue! In his bungalow, Del Mar at that moment threw down his hat and tore off his mask furiously. What had he done? For a long time he sat there, his chin on his hand, gazing fixedly before him, planning to protect himself and revenge. CHAPTER XVI THE DISAPPEARING HELMETS It was early the following morning that, very excited, Elaine and I showed Aunt Josephine the photograph which we had snapped and developed by using Kennedy's trick method. "But who is it?" asked Aunt Josephine examining the print carefully and seeing nothing but a face masked and with a pair of hands before it, a seal ring on the little finger of one hand. "Oh, I forgot that you hadn't seen the ring before," explained Elaine. "Why, we knew him at once, in spite of everything, by that seal ring--Mr. Del Mar!" "Mr. Del Mar?" repeated Aunt Josephine, looking from one to the other of us, incredulous. "I saw the ring at his own bungalow and on his own finger," reiterated Elaine positively. "But what are you going to do, now?" asked Aunt Josephine. "Have him arrested, of course," Elaine replied. Still talking over the strange experience of the night before, we went out on the veranda. "Well, of all the nerve!" exclaimed Elaine, catching sight of a man coming up the gravel walk. "If that isn't Henry, Mr. Del Mar's valet!" The valet advanced as though nothing had happened and, indeed, I suppose that as far as he knew nothing had happened or was known to us. He bowed and handed Elaine a note which she tore open quickly and read. "Would you go?" she asked, handing the note over to me. It read: DEAR MISS DODGE, If you and Mr. Jameson will call on me to-day, I will have something of interest to tell you concerning my investigations in the case of the disappearance of Craig Kennedy. Sincerely, M. DEL MAR. "Yes," I asserted, "I would go." "Tell Mr. Del Mar we shall see him as soon as possible," nodded Elaine to the valet who bowed and left quickly. "What is it?" inquired Aunt Josephine, rejoining us. "A note from Mr. Del Mar," replied Elaine showing it to her. "Well," queried Aunt Josephine, "what are you going to do?" "We're going, of course," cried Elaine. "You're not," blurted out Aunt Josephine. "Why, just think. He's sure to do something." But Elaine and I had made up our minds. "I know it," I interjected. "He's sure to try something that will show his hand--and then I've got him." Perhaps I threw out my chest a little more than was necessary, but then I figured that Elaine with her usual intuition had for once agreed with me and that it must be all right. I drew my gun and twirled the cylinder about as I spoke. Indeed I felt, since the success of the snapshot episode, that I was a match for several Del Mar's. "Yes, Walter is right," agreed Elaine. Aunt Josephine continued to shake her head sagely in protest. But Elaine waved all her protestations aside and ran into the house to get ready for the visit. Half an hour later, two saddle horses were brought around to the front of Dodge Hall and Elaine and I sallied forth. Aunt Josephine was still protesting against our going to Del Mar's, but we had made up our minds to carry the thing through. "You know," she insisted, "that Mr. Kennedy is not around to protect you two children. Something will surely happen to you if you don't keep out of this affair." "Oh, Auntie," laughed Elaine, a bit nervously, however, "don't be a kill-joy. Suppose Craig isn't about? Who's going to do this, if Walter and I don't?" In spite of all, we mounted and rode away. . . . . . . . Del Mar, still continuing his nefarious work of mining American harbors and bridges, had arrived at a scheme as soon as he returned from the attempt to get back from us the Sandy Hook plans. Smith, who had stolen the plans from the War Department, was still at the bungalow. Early in the morning, Del Mar had seated himself at his desk and wrote a letter. "Here, Henry," he directed his valet, "take this to Miss Dodge." As the valet went out, he wrote another note. "Read that," he said, handing it over to Smith. "It's a message I want you to take to headquarters right away." It was worded cryptically: A. A. L. N. Y. Closely watched. Must act soon or all will be discovered.--M. Smith read the note, nodded, and put it into his pocket, as he started to the door. "No, no," shouted Del Mar, calling him back. "This thing means that you'll have to be careful in your getaway. You'd better go out through my secret passage," he added, pointing to the panel in the library wall. He pressed the button on the desk and Smith left through the hidden passage. Down it he groped and at the other end emerged. Seeing no one around, he made his way to the road. There seemed to be no one who looked at all suspicious on the road, either, and Smith congratulated himself on his easy escape. On a bridge over a creek, however, as Smith approached, was one inoffensive-looking person who might have been a minister or a professor. He was leaning on the rail in deep thought, gazing at the creek that ran beneath him, and now and then flashing a sharp glance about. Suddenly he saw something approaching. Instantly he dodged to the farther end of the bridge and took refuge behind a tree. Smith walked on over the bridge, oblivious to the fact that he was watched. No sooner had he disappeared than the inquisitive stranger emerged again from behind the tree. It was the mysterious Professor Arnold who many times had shown a peculiar interest in the welfare of Elaine and myself. Evidently he had recognized Del Mar's messenger, for after watching him a moment he turned and followed. At the railroad station, just before the train for New York pulled in, the waiting crowd was increased by one stranger. Smith had come in and taken his place unostentatiously among them. But if he thought he was to be lost in the little crowd, he was much mistaken. Arnold had followed, but not so quickly that he had not had time to pick up the two policemen that the town boasted, both of whom were down at the station at the time. "There he is," indicated Arnold, "the fellow with the slight limp. Bring him to my room in the St. Germain Hotel." "All right, sir," replied the officers, edging their way to the platform as Arnold retreated back of the station and disappeared up the street. Just then the train pulled into the station and the passengers crowded forward to mount the steps. Smith was just about to push his way on with them, when the officers elbowed through the crowd. "You're wanted," hissed one of them, seizing his shoulder. But Smith, in spite of his deformity, was not one to submit to arrest without a struggle. He fought them off and broke away, running toward the baggage-room. As he rushed in, they followed. One of them was gaining on him and took a flying football tackle. The other almost fell over the twisted mass of arms and legs. The struggle now was short and sharp and ended in the officers slipping the bracelets over the wrists of Smith. While the passengers and bystanders crowded about to watch the excitement, they led him off quickly. . . . . . . . In his rooms at the St. Germain, cluttered with test tubes and other paraphernalia which indicated his scientific tendencies, Professor Arnold entered and threw off his hat, lighting a cigarette and waiting impatiently. He had not as long to wait as he had expected. A knock sounded at the door and he opened it. There was Smith handcuffed and forced in by the two policemen. "Good work," commended Arnold, at once setting to work to search the prisoner who fumed but could not resist. "What have we here?" drawled Arnold in mock courtesy and surprise as he found and drew forth from Smith's pocket a bundle of papers, which he hastily ran through. "Ah!" he muttered, coming to Del Mar's note, which he opened and read. "What's this? 'A. A. L. N. Y. Closely watched. Must act soon or all will be discovered. M.' Now, what's all that?" Arnold pondered the text deeply. "You may take him away, now," he concluded, glancing up from the note to the officers. "Thank you." "All right, sir," they returned, prodding Smith along out. Still studying the note, Arnold sat down at the desk. Thoughtfully he picked up a pencil. Under the letters A. A. L. he slowly wrote "Anti-American League" and under the initial M the name, "Martin." "Now is the time, if ever, to use that new telaphotograph instrument which I have installed for the War Department in Washington and carry around with me," he said to himself, rising and going to a closet. He took out a large instrument composed of innumerable coils and a queer battery of selenium cells. It was the receiver of the new instrument by which a photograph could be sent over a telegraph wire. Down-stairs, in the telegraph room of the hotel, Arnold secured the services of one of the operators. Evidently by the way they obeyed him they had received orders from the company regarding him, and knew him well there. "I wish you'd send this message right away to Washington," he said, handing in a blank he had already written. The clerk checked it over: U. S. WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, D. C. Wire me immediately photograph and personal history of Martin arrested two years ago as head of Anti-American League.--ARNOLD. As the message was ticked off, Arnold attached his receiving telaphotograph instrument to another wire. It was a matter scarcely of seconds before a message was flashed back to Arnold from Washington: Martin escaped from Fort Leavenworth six months ago. Thought to be in Europe. Photograph follows. EDWARDS. "Very well," nodded Arnold with satisfaction. "I think I know what is going on here now. Let us wait for the photograph." He went over to the new selenium telaphotograph and began adjusting it. Far away, in Washington, in a room in the War Department where Arnold had already installed his system for the secret government service, a clerk was also working over the sending part of the apparatus. No sooner had the clerk finished his preparations and placed a photograph in the transmitter than the buzzing of the receiver which Arnold had installed announced to him that the marvellous transmission of a picture over a wire, one of the very newest triumphs of science, was in progress. In the little telegraph office of the St. Germain, the clerks and operators crowded about Arnold, watching breathlessly. "By Jove, it works!" cried one, no longer sceptical. Slowly a print was being evolved before their eyes as if by a spirit hand. Arnold watched the synchronizer apparatus carefully as, point after point, the picture developed. He bent over closely, his attention devoted to every part of the complicated apparatus. At last the transmission of the photograph was completed and the machine came to rest. Arnold almost tore the print from the receiver and held it up to examine it. A smile of intense satisfaction crossed his face. "At last!" he muttered. There was a photograph of the man who had been identified with the arch conspirators of two years before, Martin. Only, now he had changed his name and appeared in a new role. It was Marcus Del Mar! . . . . . . . Already, in the library of his bungalow, Del Mar had summoned one of his trusted men and was talking to him, when Henry, the valet, reentered after his trip to see us. "They're coming as soon as they can," he reported. Del Mar smiled a cynical smile. "Good," he exclaimed triumphantly, then, looking about at the electric fixtures, added to the man, "Let us see where to install the thing." He walked over to the door and put his hand on the knob, then pointed back at the fixtures. "That's the idea," he cried. "You can run the line from the brackets to this door-knob and the mat. How's that?" "Very clever," flattered the man, putting on a heavy pair of rubber gloves. Taking a pair of pliers and other tools from a closet in the library, he began removing the electric fixture from the wall. As Del Mar directed, the man ran a wire from the fixture along the moulding, and down the side of a door, where he made a connection. In the meantime Del Mar brought out a wire mat and laid it in front of the door where any one who entered or left would be sure to step on it. The various connections made, the man placed a switch in the concealment of a heavily-curtained window and replaced everything as he found it. Thus it was that Elaine and I came at last to Del Mar's bungalow, I must admit, with some misgivings. But I had gone too far to draw back now and Elaine was more eager even than I was. We dismounted, tethered our horses and went toward the house, where I rang the bell. Preparations for our reception had just been completed and Del Mar was issuing his final instructions to his man, when the valet, Henry, ran in hastily. "They're here, sir, now," he announced excitedly. "All right, I'm ready," nodded Del Mar, turning to his man again and indicating a place back of the folds of the heavy curtains by the window. "You get back there by that switch. Don't move--don't even breathe. Now, Henry, let them in." As his valet withdrew Del Mar gazed about his library to make sure that everything was all right. Just then the valet reappeared and ushered us in. "Good morning," greeted Del Mar pleasantly. "I see that you got my note and I'm glad you were so prompt. Won't you be seated?" Both Elaine and I were endeavoring to appear at ease. But there was a decided tension in the atmosphere. We sat down, however. Del Mar did not seem to notice anything wrong. "I've something at last to report to you about Kennedy," he said a moment later, clearing his throat. . . . . . . . Aunt Josephine turned from us as Elaine and I rode off on our horses from Dodge Hall considerably worried. Then an idea seemed to occur to her and she walked determinedly into the house. "Jennings," she called to the butler, "have the limousine brought around from the garage immediately." "Yes, ma'am," acquiesced the faithful Jennings, hurrying out. It was only a few minutes later that the car pulled around before the door. Aunt Josephine bustled out and entered. "Fort Dale," she directed the driver, greatly agitated. "Ask for Lieutenant Woodward." Out at Fort Dale, Woodward was much astonished when an orderly announced that Aunt Josephine was waiting in her car to see him on very urgent business. He ordered that she be admitted at once. "I hope there's nothing wrong?" he inquired anxiously, as he noted the excitement and the worried look on her face. "I--I'm afraid there may be," she replied, sitting down and explaining what Elaine and I had just done. The Lieutenant listened gravely. "And," she concluded, "they wouldn't listen to me, Lieutenant. Can't you follow them and keep them out of trouble?" Woodward who had been listening to her attentively jumped up as she concluded. "Yes," he cried sympathetically, "I can. I'll go myself with some of the men from the post. If they get into any scrape, I'll rescue them." Almost before she could thank him, Woodward had hurried from his office, followed by her. On the parade grounds were some men. Quickly he issued his orders and a number of them sprang up as he detailed them off for the duty. It was only a moment before they returned, armed. An instant later three large touring cars from the Fort swept up before the office of Woodward. Into them the armed men piled. "Hurry--to the Del Mar bungalow," ordered the Lieutenant, jumping up with the driver of the first car. "We must see that nothing happens to Miss Dodge and Mr. Jameson." They shot away in a cloud of dust, followed hard by the other two cars, dashing at a breakneck speed over the good roads. In the narrow, wooded roadway near Del Mar's, Woodward halted his car and the soldiers all jumped out and gathered about him as hastily he issued his directions. "Surround the house, first," he ordered. "Then arrest any one who goes in or out." They scattered, forming a wide circle. As soon as word was passed that the circle was completed, they advanced cautiously at a signal from Woodward, taking advantage of every concealment. . . . . . . . Around in the kitchen back of Del Mar's, Henry, the valet, had retired to visit one of the maids. He was about to leave when he happened to look out of the window. "What's that?" he muttered to himself. He stepped back and peered cautiously through the window again. There he could see a soldier, moving stealthily behind a bush. He drew back further and thought a minute. He must not alarm us. Then he wrote a few words on a piece of paper and tore it so that he could hold it in his palm. Next he hurried from the kitchen and entered the study. Del Mar had scarcely begun to outline to us a long and circumstantial pseudo-investigation into what he was pleased to hint had been the death of Kennedy, when we were interrupted again by the entrance of his valet. "Excuse me, sir," apologized Henry, as Del Mar frowned, then noted that something was wrong. As the valet said the words, he managed surreptitiously to hand to Del Mar the paper which he had written, now folded up into a very small space. I had turned from Del Mar when the valet entered, apparently to speak to Elaine, but in reality to throw them off their guard. Under that cover I was able to watch the precious pair from the tail of my eye, I saw Del Mar nod to the valet as though he understood that some warning was about to be conveyed. Although nothing was said, Del Mar was indicating by dumb show orders of some kind. I had no idea what it was all about but I stood ready to whip out my gun on the slightest suspicious move from either. "I hope you'll pardon me, Miss Dodge," Del Mar deprecated, as the valet retreated toward the door to the kitchen and pantry. "But, you see, I have to be housekeeper here, too, it seems." Actually, though he was talking to us, it was in a way that enabled him by palming something in his hand, I fancied, to look at it. It was, though I did not know it, the hastily scrawled warning of the valet. It must have been hard to read, for I managed by a quick shift at last to catch just a fleeting glimpse that it was a piece of paper he held in his hand. What was it, I asked myself, that he should be so secret about it? Clearly, I reasoned, it must be something that was of interest to Elaine and myself. If I must act ever, I concluded, now was the time to do so. Suddenly I reached out and snatched the note from his hand. But before I could read it Del Mar had sprung to his feet. At the same instant a man leaped out from behind the curtains. But I was on my guard. Already I had drawn my revolver and had them all covered before they could make another move. "Back into that corner--by the window--all of you," I ordered, thinking thus to get them together, more easily covered. Then, handing the note, with my other hand, to Elaine, I said to her, "See what it says--quick." Eagerly she took it and read aloud, "House surrounded by soldiers." "Woodward," I cried. Still keeping them covered, I smiled quietly to myself and took one step after another slowly to the door. Elaine followed. I reached the door and I remember that I had to step on a metal mat to do so. I put my hand behind me and grasped the knob about to open the door. As I did so, the man who had jumped from behind the curtain suddenly threw down his upraised hands. Before I could fire, instantaneously in fact, I felt a thrill as though a million needles had been thrust into all parts of my body at once paralyzing every muscle and nerve. The gun fell from my nerveless hand, clattering to the floor. The man had thrown an electric switch which had completed a circuit from the metal mat to the door-knob through my body and then to the light and power current of high power. There I was, held a prisoner, by the electric current! At the same instant, also, Del Mar with an oath leaped forward and seized Elaine by the arms. I struggled with the door-knob but I could no more let go than I could move my feet off that mat. It was torture. "Henry!" called Del Mar to the valet. "Yes, sir." "Open the cabinet. Give me the helmets and the suits." The valet did so, bringing out a number of queer looking head-pieces with a single weird eye of glass in the front, as well as rubber suits of an outlandish design. While he was doing so, Del Mar stuffed a handkerchief into Elaine's mouth to keep her quiet. By this time, Del Mar, as well as the man from behind the curtains and the valet were provided with suits, and one at a time holding Elaine, the others put them on. Del Mar moved toward Elaine, holding an extra helmet. He strapped it on her, then started to force her into a suit. I struggled still, but in vain, to free myself from the door-knob and mat. It was more than I could stand, and I sank down, half conscious. I revived only long enough to see that Del Mar had forced one of the suits on Elaine finally. Then he pressed a button hidden on the side of his desk and a secret panel in the wall opened. Picking up Elaine he and the others hurried through into what looked like a dark passage and the panel closed. They were gone. I put forth all my remaining strength in one last desperate struggle. Somehow, I managed to kick the wire mat from under my feet, breaking the contact. I staggered toward the panel, but fell to the floor, unconscious. . . . . . . . Outside, the iron ring, as Woodward had planned it, of soldiers were looking about, alert for any noise or movement. Suddenly, two of them who had been watching the grounds attentively signalled to each other that they saw something. From the shrubbery emerged a most curious and uncouth figure, all in rags, with long, unkempt hair and beard, sallow complexion, and carrying a long staff. It might have been a tramp or a hermit, perhaps, who was making his way toward the house. The two soldiers stole up noiselessly, close to him. Almost before he knew it, the hermit felt himself seized from behind by four powerful arms. Escape was impossible. "Let me go," he pleaded. "Can't you see I'm harming no one?" But the captors were obdurate. "Tell it to the Lieutenant," they rejoined grimly forcing him to go before them by twisting his arms, "Our orders were to seize any one entering or leaving." Protests were in vain. The hermit was forced to go before Lieutenant Woodward who was just in the rear directing the advance. "Well," demanded Woodward, "what's your business?" For an instant the hermit stood mute. What should he do? He has reason to know that the situation must be urgent. Slowly he raised his beard so that Woodward could see not only that it was false but what his features looked like. "Arnold!" gasped Woodward, startled. "What brings you here? Elaine and Jameson are in the house. We have it surrounded." Half an hour before, in the St. Germain, Arnold had no sooner received the telaphotograph than he hurried up to his room. From a closet he had produced another of his numerous disguises and quickly put it on. With scant white locks falling over his shoulders and long scraggly beard, he had made himself into a veritable wild man. Then he had put on the finishing touches and had made his way toward Del Mar's. A look of intense anxiety now flashed over Arnold's face as he heard Woodward's words. "But," he cried, "there is an underground passage from the house to the shore." "The deuce!" muttered Woodward, more alarmed now than ever. "Come, men,--to the house," he shouted out his orders as they passed them around the line. "Arnold, lead the way!" Together the soldier and the strange figure rushed to the front door of the bungalow. All was still inside. Heavy as it was, they broke it down and burst in. "Walter, there's Walter!" cried Woodward as he saw me lying on the floor of the study when they ran in. They hurried to me and as quickly as they could started to bring me around. "Where's Elaine?" asked the strange figure of the hermit. Weakly, I was able only to point to the panel. But it was enough. The soldiers understood. They dashed for it, looking for a button or an opening. Finding neither, they started to bang on it and batter it in with the butts of their guns. It was only seconds before it was splintered to kindling. There was the passage. Instantly, Woodward, the hermit, and the rest plunged into it utterly regardless of danger. On through the tunnel they went until at last they came, unmolested, to the end. There they paused to look about. The hermit pointed to the ground. Clearly there were footprints, leading to the shore. They followed them on down to the beach. "Look!" pointed the hermit. Off in the water they could now see the most curious sights. Four strangely helmeted creatures were wading out, each like a huge octopus-head, without tentacles. Only a few seconds before, Del Mar and his companions, carrying Elaine had emerged from the secret entrance of the tunnel and had dashed for the shore of the promontory. Stopping only an instant to consider what was to be done, Del Mar had seen some one else emerge from the tunnel. "Come--we must get down there quickly," he shouted, hurriedly issuing orders, as all three, carrying Elaine, waded out into the water. At sight of the strange figures the soldiers raised their guns and a volley of shot rang out. "Stop!" shouted the hermit, his hair streaming wildly as he ran before the guns and threw up as many as he could grasp with his outstretched arms. "Do you want to kill her?" "Her?" repeated Woodward. All stood there, wonderingly, gazing at the queer creatures. What did it mean? Slowly, they disappeared--literally under the water. They were gone--with Elaine! CHAPTER XVII THE TRIUMPH OF ELAINE Half carrying, half forcing Elaine down into the water, Del Mar and his two men, all four of the party clad in the outlandish submarine suits, bore the poor girl literally along the bottom of the bay until they reached a point which they knew to be directly under the entrance to the secret submarine harbor. Del Mar's mind was working feverishly. Though he now had in his power the girl he both loved and also feared as the stumbling-block in the execution of his nefarious plans against America, he realized that in getting her he had been forced to betray the precious secret of the harbor itself. At the point where he knew that the harbor was above him, hidden safely beneath the promontory, he took from under his arm a float which he released. Upward it shot through the water. Above, in the harbor, a number of his men were either on guard or lounging about. "A signal from the chief," cried a sentry, pointing to the float as it bobbed up. "Kick off the lead shoes," signalled Del Mar to the others, under the water. They did so and rose slowly to the surface, carrying Elaine up with them. The men at the surface were waiting for them and helped to pull Del Mar and his companions out of the water. "Come into the office, right away," beckoned Del Mar anxiously, removing his helmet and leading the way. In the office, the others removed their helmets, while Del Mar took the head-gear off Elaine. She stared about her bewildered. "Where am I?" she demanded. "A woman!" exclaimed the men in the harbor in surprise. "Never mind where you are," growled Del Mar, plainly worried. Then to the men, he added, "We can't stay any longer. The harbor is discovered. Get ready to leave immediately." Murmurs of anger and anxiety rose from the men as Del Mar related briefly between orders what had just happened. Immediately there was a general scramble to make ready for the escape. In the corner of the office, Elaine, again in her skirt and shirtwaist which the diving-suit had protected, sat open-eyed watching the preparations of the men for the hasty departure. Some had been detailed to get the rifles which they handed around to those as yet unarmed. Del Mar took one as well as a cartridge belt. "Guard her," he shouted to one man indicating Elaine, "and if she gets away this time, I'll shoot you." Then he led the others down the ledge until he came to a submarine boat. The rest followed, still making preparations for a hasty flight. . . . . . . . Woodward along with Professor Arnold, in his disguise as a hermit, stood for a moment surrounded by the soldiers, after the disappearance of Elaine and Del Mar in the water. "I see it all, now," cried the hermit, "the submarine, the strange disappearances, the messages in the water. They have a secret harbor under those cliffs, with an entrance beneath the water line." Hastily he wrote a note on a piece of paper. "Send one of your men to my headquarters with that," he said, handing it to Woodward to read: RODGERS,--Send new submarine telescope by bearer. You will find it in case No. 17, closet No. 3.--ARNOLD. "Right away," nodded Woodward, comprehending and calling a soldier whom he dispatched immediately with hurried instructions. The soldier saluted and left almost on a run. Then Woodward turned and with Arnold lead the men up the shore, still conferring on the best means of attacking the harbor. On a wharf along the shore Woodward, Arnold and the soldiers gathered, waiting for the telescope. Already Woodward had had a fast launch brought up, ready for use. . . . . . . . When Woodward, Arnold and the attacking party had discovered me unconscious in Del Mar's study, there had been no time to wait for me to regain full consciousness. They had placed me on a couch and run into the secret passageway after Elaine. Now, however, I slowly regained my senses and, looking about, vaguely began to realize what had happened. My first impulse was to search the study, looking in all the closets and table drawers. In a corner was a large chest, I opened it. Inside were several of the queer helmets and suits which I had seen Del Mar use and one of which he had placed on Elaine. For some moments I examined them curiously, wondering what their use could be. Somehow it seemed to me, if Del Mar had used them in the escape, we should need them in the pursuit. Then my eye fell on the broken panel. I entered it and groped cautiously down the passageway. At the end I gazed about, trying to discover which way they had all gone. At last, down on the shore, before a wharf I could see Woodward, the strange old hermit and the rest. I ran toward them, calling. . . . . . . . By this time the soldier who had been sent for the submarine telescope arrived at last, with the telescope in sections in several long cases. "Good!" exclaimed the old hermit, almost seizing the package which the soldier handed him. He unwrapped it and joined the various sections together. It was, as I have said, a submarine telescope, but after a design entirely new, differing from the ordinary submarine telescope. It had an arm bent at right angles, with prismatic mirrors so that it was not only possible to see the bottom of the sea but by an adjustment also to see at right angles, or, as it were, around a corner. It was while he was joining this contrivance together that I came up from the end of the secret passage down to the wharf. "Why, here's Jameson," greeted Woodward. "I'm glad you're so much better." "Where's Elaine?" I interrupted breathlessly. They began to tell me. "Aren't you going to follow?" I cried. "Follow? How can we follow?" Excitedly I told of my discovery of the helmets. "Just the thing!" exclaimed the hermit. "Send some one back to get them." Woodward quickly detached several soldiers to go with me and I hurried back to the bungalow, while others carried the submarine telescope to the boat. It was only a few minutes later that in Del Mar's own car, I drove up to the wharf again and we unloaded the curious submarine helmets and suits. Quickly Woodward posted several of his men to act as sentries on the beach, then with the rest we climbed into the launch and slipped off down the shore. The launch which Woodward had commandeered moved along in the general direction which they had seen Del Mar and his men take with Elaine. With the telescope over the side, we cruised about slowly in a circle, Arnold gazing through the eyepiece. All of us were by this time in the diving-suits which I had brought from Del Mar's, except that we had not yet strapped on the helmets. Suddenly Arnold raised his hand and signalled to stop the launch. "Look!" he cried, indicating the eyepiece of the submarine telescope which he had let down over the side. Woodward gazed into the eyepiece and then I did, also. There we could see the side of a submerged submarine a short distance away, through the cave-like entrance of what appeared to be a great under-water harbor. "What shall we do?" queried Woodward. "Attack it now before they are prepared," replied the hermit decisively. "Put on the helmets." All of us except those who were running the launch buckled on the head-pieces, wrapping our guns in waterproof covers which we had found with the suits. As soon as we had finished, one after another, we let ourselves over the side of the boat and sank to the bottom. On the bottom we gathered and slowly, in the heavy unaccustomed helmets and cumbersome suits, we made our way in a body through the entrance of the harbor. Upward through the archway we went, clinging to rocks, anything, but always upward. As we emerged a shot rang out. One of our men threw up his arms and fell back into the water. On we pressed. . . . . . . . Elaine sat in a corner of the office, mute, while the man who was guarding her, heavily armed, paced up and down. Suddenly an overwhelming desire came over her to attempt an escape. But no sooner had she made a motion as though to run through the door than the man seized her and drove her back to her corner. "Take your positions here," ordered Del Mar to several of the men. "If you see anybody come up through the water, these hand grenades ought to settle them." Along the ledge the men were stationed each with a pile of the grenades before him. "See!" cried one of them from the ledge as he caught sight of one of our helmets appearing. The others crouched and stared. Del Mar himself hurried forward and gazed in the direction the man indicated. There they could see Woodward, Arnold and the rest of us just beginning to climb up out of the water. Del Mar aimed and fired. One of the men had thrown up his arms with a cry and fallen back into the water. Invaders seemed to swarm up now in every direction from the water. On the semi-circular ledge about one side of the harbor, Del Mar's men were now ranged in close order near a submarine, whose hatch was open to receive them, ready to repel the attack and if necessary retreat into the under-sea boat. They fired sharply at the figures that rose from the water. Many of the men fell back, hit, but, in turn, a large number managed to gain a foothold on the ledge. Led by Woodward and Arnold, they formed quickly and stripped off the waterproof coverings of their weapons, returning the fire sharply. Things were more equal now. Several of Del Mar's men had fallen. The smoke of battle filled the narrow harbor. In the office Elaine listened keenly to the shots. What did it all mean? Clearly it could be nothing less than assistance coming. The man on guard heard also and his uncontrollable curiosity took him to the door. As he gazed out Elaine saw her chance. She made a rush at him and seized him, wresting the rifle from his hands before he knew it. She sprang back just as he drew his revolver and fired at her. The shot just narrowly missed her, but she did not lose her presence of mind. She fired the rifle in turn and the man fell. A little shudder ran over her. She had killed a man! But the firing outside grew fiercer. She had no time to think. She stepped over the body, her face averted, and ran out. There she could see Del Mar and his men. Many of them by this time had been killed or wounded. "We can't beat them; they are too many for us," muttered Del Mar. "We'll have to get away if we can. Into the submarine!" he ordered. Hastily they began to pile into the open hatch. Just as Del Mar started to follow them, he caught sight of Elaine running out of the office. Almost in one leap he was at her side. Before she could raise her rifle and fire he had seized it. She managed, however, to push him off and get away from him. She looked about for some weapon. There on the ledge lay one of the hand grenades. She picked it up and hurled it at him, but he dodged and it missed him. On it flew, landing close to the submarine. As it exploded, another of Del Mar's men toppled over into the water. Between volleys, Woodward, Arnold and the rest pulled off their helmets. "Elaine!" cried Arnold, catching sight of her in the hands of Del Mar. Quickly, at the head of such men as he could muster, the hermit led a charge. In the submarine the last man was waiting for Del Mar. As the hermit ran forward with several soldiers between Del Mar and the submarine, it was evident that Del Mar would be cut off. The man at the hatch climbed down into the boat. It was useless to wait. He banged shut and clamped the hatch. Slowly the submarine began to sink. Del Mar by this time had overcome Elaine and started to run toward the submarine with her. But then he stopped short. There was a queer figure of a hermit leading some soldiers. He was cut off. "Back into the office!" he growled, dragging Elaine. He banged shut the door just as the hermit and the soldiers made a rush at him. On the door they battered. But it was in vain. The door was locked. In the office Del Mar hastily went to a corner, after barring the door, and lifted a trap-door in the floor, known only to himself. Elaine did not move or make any attempt to escape, for Del Mar in addition to having a vicious looking automatic in his hand kept a watchful eye on her. Outside the office, the soldiers, led by the hermit and Woodward continued to batter at the door. "Now--go down that stairway--ahead of me," ordered Del Mar. Elaine obeyed tensely, and he followed into his emergency exit, closing the trap. "Beat harder, men," urged the hermit, as the soldiers battered at the door. They redoubled their efforts and the door bent and swayed. At last it fell in under the sheer weight of the blows. "By George--he's gone--with Elaine," cried the hermit, looking at the empty office. Feverishly they hunted about for a means of escape but could find none. "Pound the floor and walls with the butts of your guns," ordered Arnold. "There must be some place that is hollow." They did so, going over all inch by inch. Meanwhile, through the passage, along a rocky stairway, Del Mar continued to drive Elaine before him, up and ever up to the level of the land. At last Elaine, followed by Del Mar, emerged from the rocky passage in a cleft in the cliffs, far above the promontory. "Go on!" he ordered, forcing her to go ahead of him. They came finally to a small hut on a cliff overlooking the real harbor. "Enter!" demanded Del Mar. Still meekly, she obeyed. Del Mar seized her and before she knew it had her bound and gagged. Down in the little office our men continued to search for the secret exit. "Here's a place that gives an echo," shouted one of them. As he found the secret trap and threw it open, the hermit stripped off the cumbersome diving-suit and jumped in, followed by Woodward, myself and the soldiers. Upward we climbed until at last we came to the opening. There we paused and looked about. Where was Del Mar? Where was Elaine? We could see no trace of them. Finally, however, Arnold discovered the trail in the grass and we followed him, slowly picking up the tracks. . . . . . . . Knowing that the submarine would cruise about and wait for him, Del Mar decided to leave Elaine in the hut while he went out and searched for a boat in which to look for the submarine. Coming out of the hut, he gazed about and moved off cautiously. Stealthily he went down to the shore and there looked up and down intently. A short distance away from him was a pier in the process of construction. Men were unloading spiles from a cable car that ran out on the pier on a little construction railway, as well as other material with which to fill in the pier. At the end of the dock lay a power-boat, moored, evidently belonging to some one interested in the work on the pier. The workmen had just finished unloading a car full and were climbing back on the empty car, which looked as if it had once been a trolley. As Del Mar looked over the scene of activity, he caught sight of the powerboat. "Just what I want," he muttered to himself. "I must get Elaine. I can get away in that." The workmen signalled to the engineer above and the car ran up the wharf and up an incline at the shore-end. The moment the car disappeared, Del Mar hurried away in the direction he had come. At the top of the grade, he noticed, was a donkey engine which operated the cable that drew the car up from the dock, and at the top of the incline was a huge pile of material. The car had been drawn up to the top of the grade by this time. There the engineer who operated the engine stopped it. Just then the whistle blew for the noon hour. The men quit work and went to get their dinner pails, while the engineer started to draw the fire. Beside the engine, he began to chop some wood, while the car was held at the top of the grade by the cable. . . . . . . . In our pursuit we came at last in sight of a lonely hut. Evidently that must be a rendezvous of Del Mar. But was he there? Was Elaine there? We must see first. While we were looking about and debating what was the best thing to do, who should appear hurrying up the hill but Del Mar himself, going toward the hut. As we caught sight of him, Arnold sprang forward. Woodward and I, followed by the soldiers also jumped out. Del Mar turned and ran down the hill again with us after him, in full cry. While we had been waiting, some of the soldiers had deployed down the hill and now, hearing our shouts, turned, and came up again. Beside his engine, we could see an engineer chopping wood. He paused now in his chopping and was gazing out over the bay. Suddenly he had seen something out in the water that had attracted his attention and was staring at it. There it moved, nothing less than a half-submerged submarine. As the engineer gazed off at it, Del Mar came up, unseen, behind him and stood there, also watching the submarine, fascinated. Just then behind him Del Mar heard us pursuing. He looked about as we ran toward him and saw that we had formed a wide circle, with the men down the hill, that almost completely surrounded him. There was no chance for escape. It was hopeless. But it was not Del Mar's nature to give up. He gave one last glance about. There was the trolley car that had been converted into a cable way. It offered just one chance in a thousand. Suddenly his face assumed an air of desperate determination. He sprang toward the engineer and grappled with him, seeking to wrest the axe from his hand. Every second counted. Our circle was now narrowing down and closing in on him. Del Mar managed to knock out the engineer, taken by surprise, just as our men fired a volley. In the struggle, Del Mar was unharmed. Instead he just managed to get the axe. An instant later a leap landed him on the cable car. With a blow of the axe he cut the cable. The car began to move slowly down the hill on the grade. Some of the men were down below in its path. But the onrushing cable car was too much for them. They could only leap aside to save themselves. On down the incline, gathering momentum every second, the car dashed, Del Mar swaying crazily but keeping his footing. We followed as fast as we could, but it was useless. Out on the wharf it sped at a terrific pace. At the end it literally catapulted itself into the water, crashing from the end of the pier. As it did so, Del Mar gave a flying leap out into the harbor, struck the water with a clean dive and disappeared. On down the hill we hurried. There in the water was Del Mar swimming rapidly. Almost before we knew it, we saw him raise his hand and signal, shouting. There only a few yards away was the periscope of a submarine. As we watched, we could see that it had seen him, had turned in his direction. Would they get him? We watched, fascinated. Some of our men fired, as accurately as they could at a figure bobbing so uncertainly on the water. Meanwhile the submarine approached closer and rose a bit so that the hatchway cleared the waves. It opened. One of the foreign agents assisted Del Mar in. He had escaped at last! . . . . . . . It was most heart-breaking to have had Del Mar so nearly in our grasp and then to have lost him. We looked from one to another, in despair. Only Arnold, in his disguise as a hermit, seemed undiscouraged. Suddenly he turned to Woodward. "What time is it?" he asked eagerly. "A little past noon." "The Kennedy wireless torpedo!" he exclaimed. "It arrived to-day. Burnside is trying it out." Suddenly there flashed over me the recollection of the marvellous invention that Kennedy had made for the Government just before his disappearance, as well as the memory of the experience I had had once with the intrepid Burnside. Woodward's face showed a ray of interest and hope in the overwhelming gloom that had settled on us all. "You and Jameson go to Fort Dale, quick," directed Arnold eagerly. "I'm not fit. Get Burnside. Have him bring the torpedo in the air-boat." We needed no further urging. It was a slender chance. But I reflected that the submarine could not run through the bay totally submerged. It must have its periscope in view. We hurried away, leaving Arnold, who slowly mounted the hill again. How we did it, I don't know, but we managed to get to the Fort in record time. There near the aeroplane hangar, sure enough, was Burnside with some other men adjusting the first real wireless Kennedy torpedo, the last word in scientific warfare, making an aerial torpedo-boat. We ran up to the hangar calling to Burnside excitedly. It was only a moment later, that he began to issue orders in his sharp staccato. His men swarmed forward and took the torpedo from the spot where they had been examining it, adjusting it now beneath the hydroaeroplane. "Jameson, you come with me," he asked. "You went before." We rose quickly from the surface and planed along out over the harbor. Far off we could see the ripple from the periscope of the submarine that was bearing Del Mar away. Would Kennedy's invention for which Del Mar had dared so much in the first place prove his final undoing? We sped ahead. Down below in the submersible Del Mar was giving hasty orders to his men, to dip down as soon as all the shipping and the sand bars were cleared. I strained my eyes through the glasses reporting feverishly to Burnside what I saw so that he could steer his course. "There it is," I urged. "Keep on--just to the left." "I see it," returned Burnside a moment later catching with his naked eye the thin line of foam on the water left by the periscope. "Would you mind getting that torpedo ready?" he continued. "I'll tell you just what to do. They'll try to duck as soon as they see us, but it won't be any use. They can't get totally submerged fast enough." Following Burnside's directions I adjusted the firing apparatus of the torpedo. "Let it go!" shouted Burnside. I did so, as he volplaned down almost to the water. The torpedo fell, sank, bobbed up, then ran along just tinder the surface. Already I was somewhat familiar with the wireless device that controlled it, so that while Burnside steadied the aircraft I could direct it, as he coached me. The submarine saw it coming now. But it was too late. It could not turn; it could not submerge in time. A terrific explosion followed as the torpedo came in contact with the boat, throwing a column of water high in the air. A yawning hole was blown in the very side of the submarine. One could see the water rush in. Inside, Del Mar and his men were now panic-stricken. Some of them desperately tried to plug the hole. But it was hopeless. Others fell, fainting, from the poisonous gases that were developed. Of them all, Del Mar's was the only cool head. He realized that all was over. There was nothing left to do but what other submarine heroes had done in better causes. He seized a piece of paper and hastily wrote: Tell my emperor I failed only because Craig Kennedy was against me.--DEL MAR. He had barely time to place the message in a metal float near-by. Down the submarine, now full of water, sank. With his last strength he flung the message clear of the wreckage as it settled on the mud on the bottom of the bay. Burnside and I could but stare in grim satisfaction at the end of the enemy of ourselves and our country. . . . . . . . Up the hillside plodded Professor Arnold still in his wild disguise as the hermit. Now and then he turned and cast an anxious glance out over the bay at the fast disappearing periscope of the submarine. Once he paused. That was when he saw the hydroaeroplane with Burnside and myself carrying the wireless torpedo. Again he paused as he plodded up, this time with a gasp, of extreme satisfaction. He has seen the water-spout and heard the explosion that marked the debacle of Del Mar. The torpedo had worked. The most dangerous foreign agent of the coalition of America's enemies was dead, and his secrets had gone with him to the bottom of the sea. Perhaps no one would ever know what the nation had been spared. He did not pause long, now. More eagerly he plodded up the hill, until he came to the hut. He pushed open the door. There lay Elaine, still bound. Quickly he cut the cords and tore the gag from her mouth. As he did so, his own beard fell off. He was no longer the hermit. Nor was he what I myself had thought him, Arnold. "Craig!" cried Elaine in eager surprise. Kennedy said not a word as he grasped her two hands. "And you were always around us, protecting Walter and me," she half laughed, half cried hysterically. "I knew it--I knew it!" Kennedy said nothing. His heart was too happy. "Yes," he said simply, as he gazed deeply into her great eyes, "my work on the case is done." THE END