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."
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?
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—hisisthe 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.
"Isn't there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? Youmustcome 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! Youmustcome 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 onlydosomething—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.
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 wassomebout, 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—"
"Iwilltalk," 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.
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.