XV
THE VAMPIRE
As we sped out to the little mill-town on the last train, after Kennedyhad insisted on taking us all to a quiet little restaurant, he placedus so that Miss Winslow was furthest from him and her father nearest. Icould hear now and then scraps of their conversation as he resumed hisquestioning, and knew that Mr. Winslow was proving to be a goodobserver.
"Cushing used to hire a young fellow of some scientific experience,named Strong," said Mr. Winslow as he endeavoured to piece the factstogether as logically as it was possible to do. "Strong used to openhis laboratory for him in the morning, clean up the dirty apparatus,and often assist him in some of his experiments. This morning whenStrong approached the laboratory at the usual time he was surprised tosee that though it was broad daylight there was a light burning. He wasalarmed and before going in looked through the window. The sight thathe saw froze him. There lay Cushing on a workbench and beside him andaround him pools of coagulating blood. The door was not locked, as wefound afterward, but the young man did not stop to enter. He ran to meand, fortunately, I met him at our door. I went back.
"We opened the unlocked door. The first thing, as I recall it, thatgreeted me was an unmistakable odour of oranges. It was a verypenetrating and very peculiar odour. I didn't understand it, for thereseemed to be something else in it besides the orange smell. However, Isoon found out what it was, or at least Strong did. I don't knowwhether you know anything about it, but it seems that when you meltreal rubber in the effort to reduce it to carbon and hydrogen, you geta liquid substance which is known as isoprene. Well, isoprene,according to Strong, gives out an odour something like ether. Cushing,or some one else, had apparently been heating isoprene. As soon asStrong mentioned the smell of ether I recognised that that was whatmade the smell of oranges so peculiar.
"However, that's not the point. There lay Cushing on his back on theworkbench, just as Strong had said. I bent over him, and in his arm,which was bare, I saw a little gash made by some sharp instrument andlaying bare an artery, I think, which was cut. Long spurts of bloodcovered the floor for some distance around and from the veins in hisarm, which had also been severed, a long stream of blood led to ahollow in the cement floor where it had collected. I believe that hebled to death."
"And the motive for such a terrible crime?" queried Craig.
Mr. Winslow shook his head helplessly. "I suppose there are plenty ofmotives," he answered slowly, "as many motives as there are biginvestments in rubber-producing ventures in Goodyear."
"But have you any idea who would go so far to protect his investmentsas to kill?" persisted Kennedy.
Mr. Winslow made no reply. "Who," asked Kennedy, "was chieflyinterested in the rubber works where Cushing was formerly employed?"
"The president of the company is the Mr. Borland whom I mentioned,"replied Mr. Winslow. "He is a man of about forty, I should say, and isreputed to own a majority of the--"
"Oh, father," interrupted Miss Winslow, who had caught the drift of theconversation in spite of the pains that had been taken to keep it awayfrom her, "Mr. Borland would never dream of such a thing. It is wrongeven to think of it."
"I didn't say that he would, my dear," corrected Mr. Winslow gently."Professor Kennedy asked me who was chiefly interested in the rubberworks and Mr. Borland owns a majority of the stock." He leaned over andwhispered to Kennedy, "Borland is a visitor at our home, and betweenyou and me, he thinks a great deal of Ruth."
I looked quickly at Kennedy, but he was absorbed in looking out of thecar window at the landscape which he did not and could not see.
"You said there were others who had an interest in outside companies,"cross-questioned Kennedy. "I take it that you mean companies dealing incrude rubber, the raw material, people with investments in plantationsand concessions, perhaps. Who are they? Who were the men who went onthat expedition to the Congo with Borland which you mentioned?"
"Of course, there was Borland himself," answered Winslow. "Then therewas a young chemist named Lathrop, a very clever and ambitious fellowwho succeeded Cushing when he resigned from the works, and Dr. Harris,who was persuaded to go because of his friendship for Borland. Afterthey took up the concession I believe all of them put money into it,though how much I can't say."
I was curious to ask whether there were any other visitors at theWinslow house who might be rivals for Ruth's affections, but there wasno opportunity.
Nothing more was said until we arrived at Goodyear.
We found the body of Cushing lying in a modest little mortuary chapelof an undertaking establishment on the main street. Kennedy at oncebegan his investigation by discovering what seemed to have escapedothers. About the throat were light discolourations that showed thatthe young inventor had been choked by a man with a powerful grasp,although the fact that the marks had escaped observation led quiteobviously to the conclusion that he had not met his death in that way,and that the marks probably played only a minor part in the tragedy.
Kennedy passed over the doubtful evidence of strangulation for the moreprofitable examination of the little gash in the wrist.
"The radial artery has been cut," he mused.
A low exclamation from him brought us all bending over him as hestooped and examined the cold form. He was holding in the palm of hishand a little piece of something that shone like silver. It was in theform of a minute hollow cylinder with two grooves on it, a cylinder sotiny that it would scarcely have slipped over the point of a pencil.
"Where did you find it?" I asked eagerly.
He pointed to the wound. "Sticking in the severed end of a piece ofvein," he replied, half to himself, "cuffed over the end of the radialartery which had been severed, and done so neatly as to be practicallyhidden. It was done so cleverly that the inner linings of the vein andartery, the endothelium as it is called, were in complete contact witheach other."
As I looked at the little silver thing and at Kennedy's face, whichbetrayed nothing, I felt that here indeed was a mystery. What newscientific engine of death was that little hollow cylinder?
"Next I should like to visit the laboratory," he remarked simply.
Fortunately, the laboratory had been shut and nothing had beendisturbed except by the undertaker and his men who had carried the bodyaway. Strong had left word that he had gone to Boston, where, in a safedeposit box, was a sealed envelope in which Cushing kept a copy of thecombination of his safe, which had died with him. There was, therefore,no hope of seeing the assistant until the morning.
Kennedy found plenty to occupy his time in his minute investigation ofthe laboratory. There, for instance, was the pool of blood leading backby a thin dark stream to the workbench and its terrible figure, which Icould almost picture to myself lying there through the silent hours ofthe night before, with its life blood slowly oozing away, unconscious,powerless to save itself. There were spurts of arterial blood on thefloor and on the nearby laboratory furniture, and beside the workbenchanother smaller and isolated pool of blood.
On a table in a corner by the window stood a microscope which Cushingevidently used, and near it a box of fresh sterilised slides. Kennedy,who had been casting his eye carefully about taking in the wholelaboratory, seemed delighted to find the slides. He opened the box andgingerly took out some of the little oblong pieces of glass, on each ofwhich he dropped a couple of minute drops of blood from the arterialspurts and the venous pools on the floor.
Near the workbench were circular marks, much as if some jars had beenset down there. We were watching him, almost in awe at the matter offact manner in which, he was proceeding in what to us was nothing but ahopeless enigma, when I saw him stoop and pick up a few little brokenpieces of glass. There seemed to be blood spots on the glass, as onother things, but particularly interesting to him.
A moment later I saw that he was holding in his hand what wereapparently the remains of a little broken vial which he had fittedtogether from the pieces. Evidently it had been used and dropped inhaste.
"A vial for a local anesthetic," he remarked. "This is the sort ofthing that might be injected into an arm or leg and deaden the pain ofa cut, but that is all. It wouldn't affect the consciousness or preventany one from resisting a murderer to the last. I doubt if that hadanything directly to do with his death, or perhaps even that this isCushing's blood on it."
Unlike Winslow I had seen Kennedy in action so many times that I knewit was useless to speculate. But I was fascinated, for the deeper wegot into the case, the more unusual and inexplicable it seemed. I gavethat end of it up, but the fact that Strong had gone to secure thecombination of the safe suggested to me to examine that article. Therewas certainly no evidence of robbery or even of an attempt at robberythere.
"Was any doctor called?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes," he replied. "Though I knew it was of no use I called in Dr.Howe, who lives up the street from the laboratory. I should have calledDr. Harris, who used to be my own physician, but since his return fromAfrica with the Borland expedition, he has not been in very good healthand has practically given up his practice. Dr. Howe is the bestpractising physician in town, I think."
"We shall call on him to-morrow," said Craig, snapping his watch, whichalready marked far after midnight. Dr. Howe proved, the next day, to bean athletic-looking man, and I could not help noticing and admiring hispowerful frame and his hearty handshake, as he greeted us when wedropped into his office with a card from Winslow.
The doctor's theory was that Cushing had committed suicide.
"But why should a young man who had invented a new method ofpolymerising isoprene, who was going to become wealthy, and was engagedto a beautiful young girl, commit suicide?"
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. It was evident that he, too,belonged to the "natural rubber set" which dominated Goodyear.
"I haven't looked into the case very deeply, but I'm not so sure thathe had the secret, are you?"
Kennedy smiled. "That is what I'd like to know. I suppose that anexpert like Mr. Borland could tell me, perhaps?"
"I should think so."
"Where is his office?" asked Craig. "Could you point it out to me fromthe window?"
Kennedy was standing by one of the windows of the doctor's office, andas he spoke he turned and drew a little field glass from his pocket."Which end of the rubber works is it?"
Dr. Howe tried to direct him but Kennedy appeared unwarrantably obtuse,requiring the doctor to raise the window, and it was some momentsbefore he got his glasses on the right spot.
Kennedy and I thanked the doctor for his courtesy and left the office.
We went at once to the office of Dr. Harris, to whom Winslow had alsogiven us cards. We found him an anaemic man, half asleep. Kennedytentatively suggested the murder of Cushing.
"Well, if you ask me my opinion," snapped out the doctor, "although Iwasn't called into the case, from what I hear, I'd say that he wasmurdered."
"Some seem to think it was suicide," prompted Kennedy.
"People who have brilliant prospects and are engaged to pretty girlsdon't usually die of their own accord," rasped Harris.
"So you think he really did have the secret of artificial rubber?"asked Craig.
"Not artificial rubber. Synthetic rubber. It was the real thing, Ibelieve."
"Did Mr. Borland and his new chemist Lathrop believe it, too?"
"I can't say. But I should surely advise you to see them." The doctor'sface was twitching nervously.
"Where is Borland's office?" repeated Kennedy, again taking from hispocket the field glass and adjusting it carefully by the window.
"Over there," directed Harris, indicating the corner of the works towhich we had already been directed.
Kennedy had stepped closer to the window before him and I stood besidehim looking out also.
"The cut was a very peculiar one," remarked Kennedy, still adjustingthe glasses. "An artery and a vein had been placed together so that theendothelium, or inner lining of each, was in contact with the other,giving a continuous serous surface. Which window did you say wasBorland's? I wish you'd step to the other window and raise it, so thatI can be sure. I don't want to go wandering all over the works lookingfor him."
"Yes," the doctor said as he went, leaving him standing beside thewindow from which he had been directing us, "yes, you surely should seeMr. Borland. And don't forget that young chemist of his, Lathrop,either, If I can be of any more help to you, come back again."
It was a long walk through the village and factory yards to the officeof Lewis Borland, but we were amply repaid by finding him in and readyto see us. Borland was a typical Yankee, tall, thin, evidentlypredisposed to indigestion, a man of tremendous mental and nervousenergy and with a hidden wiry strength.
"Mr. Borland," introduced Kennedy, changing his tactics and adopting anew role, "I've come down to you as an authority on rubber to ask youwhat your opinion is regarding the invention of a townsman of yoursnamed Cushing."
"Cushing?" repeated Borland in some surprise. "Why--"
"Yes," interrupted Kennedy, "I understand all about it. I had heard ofhis invention in New York and would have put some money into it if Icould have been convinced. I was to see him to-day, but of course, asyou were going to say, his death prevents it. Still, I should like toknow what you think about it."
"Well," Borland added, jerking out his words nervously, as seemed to behis habit, "Cushing was a bright young fellow. He used to work for meuntil he began to know too much about the rubber business."
"Do you know anything about his scheme?" insinuated Kennedy.
"Very little, except that it was not patented yet, I believe, though hetold every one that the patent was applied for and he expected to get abasic patent in some way without any interference."
"Well," drawled Kennedy, affecting as nearly as possible the air of apromoter, "if I could get his assistant, or some one who had authorityto be present, would you, as a practical rubber man, go over to hislaboratory with me? I'd join you in making an offer to his estate forthe rights to the process, if it seemed any good."
"You're a cool one," ejaculated Borland, with a peculiar avaricioustwinkle in the corners of his eyes. "His body is scarcely cold and yetyou come around proposing to buy out his invention and--and, of allpersons, you come to me."
"To you?" inquired Kennedy blandly.
"Yes, to me. Don't you know that synthetic rubber would ruin thebusiness system that I have built up here?"
Still Craig persisted and argued.
"Young man," said Borland rising at length as if an idea had struckhim, "I like your nerve. Yes, I will go. I'll show you that I don'tfear any competition from rubber made out of fusel oil or any other oldkind of oil." He rang a bell and a boy answered. "Call Lathrop," heordered.
The young chemist, Lathrop, proved to be a bright and active man of thenew school, though a good deal of a rubber stamp. Whenever it wascompatible with science and art, he readily assented to everyproposition that his employer laid down.
Kennedy had already telephoned to the Winslows and Miss Winslow hadanswered that Strong had returned from Boston. After a littleparleying, the second visit to the laboratory was arranged and MissWinslow was allowed to be present with her father, after Kennedy hadbeen assured by Strong that the gruesome relics of the tragedy would becleared away.
It was in the forenoon that we arrived with Borland and Lathrop. Icould not help noticing the cordial manner with which Borland greetedMiss Winslow. There was something obtrusive even in his sympathy.Strong, whom we met now for the first time, seemed rather suspicious ofthe presence of Borland and his chemist, but made an effort to talkfreely without telling too much.
"Of course you know," commenced Strong after proper urging, "that ithas long been the desire of chemists to synthesise rubber by a methodthat will make possible its cheap production on a large scale. In ageneral way I know what Mr. Cushing had done, but there are parts ofthe process which are covered in the patents applied for, of which I amnot at liberty to speak ye
t."
"Where are the papers in the case, the documents showing theapplication for the patent, for instance?" asked Kennedy.
"In the safe, sir," replied Strong.
Strong set to work on the combination which he had obtained from thesafe deposit vault. I could see that Borland and Miss Winslow weretalking in a low tone.
"Are you sure that it is a fact?" I overheard him ask, though I had noidea what they were talking about.
"As sure as I am that the Borland Rubber Works are a fact," she replied.
Craig also seemed to have overheard, for he turned quickly. Borland hadtaken out his penknife and was moistening the blade carefully preparingto cut into a piece Of the synthetic rubber. In spite of his expressedscepticism, I could see that he was eager to learn what the product wasreally like.
Strong, meanwhile, had opened the safe and was going over the papers. Alow exclamation from him brought us around the little pile ofdocuments. He was holding a will in which nearly everything belongingto Cushing was left to Miss Winslow.
Not a word was said, although I noticed that Kennedy moved quickly toher side, fearing that the shock of the discovery might have a badeffect on her, but she took it with remarkable calmness. It wasapparent that Cushing had taken the step of his own accord and had saidnothing to her about it.
"What does anything amount to?" she said tremulously at last. "Thedream is dead without him in it."
"Come," urged Kennedy gently. "This is enough for to-day."
An hour later we were speeding back to New York. Kennedy had noapparatus to work with out at Goodyear and could not improvise it.Winslow agreed to keep us in touch with any new developments during thefew hours that Craig felt it was necessary to leave the scene of action.
Back again in New York, Craig took a cab directly for his laboratory,leaving me marooned with instructions not to bother him for severalhours. I employed the time in a little sleuthing on my own account,endeavouring to look up the records of those involved in the case. Idid not discover much, except an interview that had been given at thetime of the return of his expedition by Borland to the Star, in whichhe gave a graphic description of the dangers from disease that they hadencountered.
I mention it because, though it did not impress me much when I read it,it at once leaped into my mind when the interminable hours were overand I rejoined Kennedy. He was bending over a new microscope.
"This is a rubber age, Walter," he began, "and the stories of men whohave been interested in rubber often sound like fiction."
He slipped a slide under the microscope, looked at it and then motionedto me to do the same. "Here is a very peculiar culture which I havefound in some of that blood," he commented. "The germs are much largerthan bacteria and they can be seen with a comparatively low powermicroscope swiftly darting between the blood cells, brushing themaside, but not penetrating them as some parasites, like that ofmalaria, do. Besides, spectroscope tests show the presence of a ratherwell-known chemical in that blood."
"A poisoning, then?" I ventured. "Perhaps he suffered from the diseasethat many rubber workers get from the bisulphide of carbon. He musthave done a good deal of vulcanising of his own rubber, you know."
"No," smiled Craig enigmatically, "it wasn't that. It was an arsenicderivative. Here's another thing. You remember the field glass I used?"
He had picked it up from the table and was pointing at a little hole inthe side, that had escaped my notice before. "This is what you mightcall a right-angled camera. I point the glass out of the window andwhile you think I am looking through it I am really focusing it on youand taking your picture standing there beside me and out of my apparentline of vision. It would deceive the most wary."
Just then a long-distance call from Winslow told us that Borland hadbeen to call on Miss Ruth and, in as kindly a way as could be, hadoffered her half a million dollars for her rights in the new patent. Atonce it flashed over me that he was trying to get control of andsuppress the invention in the interests of his own company, a thingthat has been done hundreds of times. Or could it all have been part ofa conspiracy? And if it was his conspiracy, would he succeed intempting his friend, Miss Winslow, to fall in with this glitteringoffer?
Kennedy evidently thought, also, that the time for action had come, forwithout a word he set to work packing his apparatus and we were againheaded for Goodyear.