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 therisqué. 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 wasyouroperative?"
Kennedy nodded. "I want to see him, now, if I can," he said simply.
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 themêléeand now conveyed back to her in the handshake.
"MeetSylvaniaQuarantine 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 theStar. 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 theSylvania. 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 theSylvania.
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 theSylvania, 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 theSylvania, 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?
"Youmustfind 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 theSylvania, 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.
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 theSylvania, 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.
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, "thedämmerschlaf. 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 thedämmerschlaf; 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 deliberatelymurderedher?"
"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.