IV
THE BEAUTY SHOP
It was only after a few hours that Kennedy thought it wise to try toquestion the poor girl at the hospital. Her story was simple enough initself, but it certainly complicated matters considerably withoutthrowing much light on the case. She had been busy because her day wasfull, and she had yet to dress the hair of Miss Blaisdell for her playthat night. Several times she had been interrupted by impatientmessages from the actress in her little dressing-booth, and one of thegirls had already demolished the previous hair-dressing in order tosave time. Once Agnes had run down for a few seconds to reassure herthat she would be through in time.
She had found the actress reading a newspaper, and when Kennedyquestioned her she remembered seeing a note lying on the dresser."Agnes," Miss Blaisdell had said, "will you go into the writing-roomand bring me some paper, a pen, and ink? I don't want to go in therethis way. There's a dear good girl." Agnes had gone, though it wasdecidedly no part of her duty as one of the highest paid employes ofthe Novella. But they all envied the popular actress, and were ready todo anything for her. The next thing she remembered was finishing thecoiffure she was working on and going to Miss Blaisdell. There lay thebeautiful actress. The light in the corridor had not been lighted yet,and it was dark. Her lips and mouth seemed literally to shine. Agnescalled her, but she did not move; she touched her, but she was cold.Then she screamed and fled. That was the last she remembered.
"The little writing-room," reasoned Kennedy as we left the poor littlehair-dresser quite exhausted by her narrative, "was next to the sanctumof Millefleur, where they found that bottle of ether phosphore and theoil of turpentine. Some one who knew of that note or perhaps wrote itmust have reasoned that an answer would be written immediately. Thatperson figured that the note would be the next thing written and thatthe top envelope of the pile would be used. That person knew of thedeadly qualities of too much phosphorised ether, and painted the gummedflap of the envelope with several grains of it. The reasoning heldgood, for Agnes took the top envelope with its poisoned flap to MissBlaisdell. No, there was no chance about that. It was all clever, quickreasoning."
"But," I objected, "how about the oil of turpentine?"
"Simply to remove the traces of the poison. I think you will see whythat was attempted before we get through."
Kennedy would say no more, but I was content because I could see thathe was now ready to put his theories, whatever they were, to the finaltest. He spent the rest of the day working at the hospital with Dr.Barron, adjusting a very delicate piece of apparatus down in a specialroom, in the basement. I saw it, but I had no idea what it was or whatits use might be.
Close to the wall was a stereopticon which shot a beam of light througha tube to which I heard them refer as a galvanometer, about three feetdistant. In front of this beam whirled a five-spindled wheel, governedby a chronometer which erred only a second a day. Between the poles ofthe galvanometer was stretched a slender thread of fused quartz platedwith silver, only one one-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter, sotenuous that it could not be seen except in a bright light. It was athread so slender that it might have been spun by a microscopic spider.
Three feet farther away was a camera with a moving film of sensitisedmaterial, the turning of which was regulated by a little flywheel. Thebeam of light focused on the thread in the galvanometer passed to thephotographic film, intercepted only by the five spindles of the wheel,which turned once a second, thus marking the picture off into exactfifths of a second. The vibrations of the microscopic quartz threadwere enormously magnified on the sensitive film by a lens and resultedin producing a long zig-zag, wavy line. The whole was shielded by awooden hood which permitted no light, except the slender ray, to strikeit. The film revolved slowly across the field, its speed regulated bythe flywheel, and all moved by an electric motor.
I was quite surprised, then, when Kennedy told me that the final testswhich he was arranging were not to be held at the hospital at all, butin his laboratory, the scene of so many of his scientific triumphs overthe cleverest of criminals.
While he and Dr. Barren were still fussing with the machine hedespatched me on the rather ticklish errand of gathering together allthose who had been at the Novella at the time and might possibly proveimportant in the case.
My first visit was to Hugh Dayton, whom I found in his bachelorapartment on Madison Avenue, apparently waiting for me. One ofO'Connor's men had already warned him that any attempt to evade puttingin an appearance when he was wanted would be of no avail. He had beenshadowed from the moment that it was learned that he was a patient ofMillefleur's and had been at the Novella that fatal afternoon. Heseemed to realise that escape was impossible. Dayton was one of thosetypical young fellows, tall, with sloping shoulders and a carefullyacquired English manner, whom one sees in scores on Fifth Avenue latein the afternoon. His face, which on the stage was forceful andattractive, was not prepossessing at close range. Indeed it showed tooevident marks of excesses, both physical and moral, and his hand wasnone too steady. Still, he was an interesting personality, if notengaging.
I was also charged with delivering a note to Burke Collins at hisoffice. The purport of it was, I knew, a request couched in languagethat veiled a summons that Mrs. Collins was of great importance ingetting at the truth, and that if he needed an excuse himself for beingpresent it was suggested that he appear as protecting his wife'sinterests as a lawyer. Kennedy had added that I might tell him orallythat he would pass over the scandal as lightly as possible and sparethe feelings of both as much as he could. I was rather relieved whenthis mission was accomplished, for I had expected Collins to demurviolently.
Those who gathered that night, sitting expectantly in the littlearmchairs which Kennedy's students used during his lectures, includednearly every one who could cast any light on what had happened at theNovella. Professor and Madame Millefleur were brought up from the houseof detention, to which both O'Connor and Dr. Leslie had insisted thatthey be sent. Millefleur was still bewailing the fate of the Novella,and Madame had begun to show evidences of lack of the constantbeautification which she was always preaching as of the utmostimportance to her patrons. Agnes was so far recovered as to be able tobe present, though I noticed that she avoided the Millefleurs and satas far from them as possible.
Burke Collins and Mrs. Collins arrived together. I had expected thatthere would be an icy coolness if not positive enmity between them.They were not exactly cordial, though somehow I seemed to feel that nowthat the cause of estrangement was removed a tactful mutual friendmight have brought about a reconciliation. Hugh Dayton swaggered in,his nervousness gone or at least controlled. I passed behind him once,and the odour that smote my olfactory sense told me too plainly that hehad fortified himself with a stimulant on his way from the apartment tothe laboratory. Of course O'Connor and Dr. Leslie were there, though inthe background.
It was a silent gathering, and Kennedy did not attempt to relieve thetension even by small talk as he wrapped the forearms of each of uswith cloths steeped in a solution of salt. Upon these cloths he placedlittle plates of German silver to which were attached wires which ledback of a screen. At last he was ready to begin.
"The long history of science," he began as he emerged from behind thescreen, "is filled with instances of phenomena, noted at first only fortheir beauty or mystery, which have been later proved to be of greatpractical value to mankind. A new example is the striking phenomenon ofluminescence. Phosphorus, discovered centuries ago, was first merely acuriosity. Now it is used for many practical things, and one of thelatest uses is as a medicine. It is a constituent of the body, and manydoctors believe that the lack of it causes, and that its presence willcure, many ills. But it is a virulent and toxic drug, and no physicianexcept one who knows his business thoroughly should presume to handleit. Whoever made a practice of using it at the Novella did not know hisbusiness, or he would have used it in pills instead of in the nauseousliquid. It is not with phosphorised ether as a medicine
that we have todeal in this case. It is with the stuff as a poison, a poisonadministered by a demon."
Craig shot the word out so that it had its full effect on his littleaudience. Then he paused, lowered his voice, and resumed on a newsubject.
"Up in the Washington Heights Hospital," he went on, "is an apparatuswhich records the secrets of the human heart. That is no figure ofspeech, but a cold scientific fact. This machine records everyvariation of the pulsations of the heart with such exquisite accuracythat it gives Dr. Barron, who is up there now, not merely a diagram ofthe throbbing organ of each of you seated here in my laboratory a mileaway, but a sort of moving-picture of the emotions by which each hearthere is swayed. Not only can Dr. Barron diagnose disease, but he candetect love, hate, fear, joy, anger, and remorse. This machine is knownas the Einthoven 'string galvanometer,' invented by that famous Dutchphysiologist of Leyden."
There was a perceptible movement in our little audience at the thoughtthat the little wires that ran back of the screen from the arms of eachwere connected with this uncanny instrument so far away.
"It is all done by the electric current that the heart itselfgenerates," pursued Kennedy, hammering home the new and startling idea."That current is one of the feeblest known to science, for the dynamothat generates it is no ponderous thing of copper wire and steelcastings. It is just the heart itself. The heart sends over the wireits own telltale record to the machine which registers it. The thingtakes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe andstudy animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth ofa volt of electricity at each beat. It would take over two hundredthousand men to light one of these incandescent lamps, two million ormore to run a trolley-car. Yet just that slight little current isenough to sway the gossamer strand of quartz fibre up there at what wecall the 'heart station.' So fine is this machine that thepulse-tracings produced by the sphygmograph, which I have used in othercases up to this time, are clumsy and inexact."
Again he paused as if to let the fear of discovery sink deep into theminds of all of us.
"This current, as I have said, passes from each one of you in turn overa wire and vibrates a fine quartz fibre up there in unison with eachheart here. It is one of the most delicate bits of mechanism ever made,beside which the hairspring of a watch is coarse. Each of you in turn,is being subjected to this test. More than that, the record up thereshows not only the beats of the heart but the successive waves ofemotion that vary the form of those beats. Every normal individualgives what we call an 'electro-cardiogram,' which follows a certaintype. The photographic film on which this is being recorded is ruled sothat at the heart station Dr. Barron can read it. There are five wavesto each heart-beat, which he letters P, Q, R, S, and T, two below andthree above a base line on the film. They have all been found torepresent a contraction of a certain portion of the heart. Any changeof the height, width, or time of any one of those lines shows thatthere is some defect or change in the contraction of that part of theheart. Thus Dr. Barron, who has studied this thing carefully, can tellinfallibly not only disease but emotion."
It seemed as if no one dared look at his neighbour, as if all weretrying vainly to control the beating of their own hearts.
"Now," concluded Kennedy solemnly as if to force the last secret fromthe wildly beating heart of some one in the room, "it is my belief thatthe person who had access to the operating-room of the Novella was aperson whose nerves were run down, and in addition to any othertreatment that person was familiar with the ether phosphore. Thisperson knew Miss Blaisdell well, saw her there, knew she was there forthe purpose of frustrating that person's own dearest hopes. That personwrote her the note, and knowing that she would ask for paper and anenvelope in order to answer it, poisoned the flap of the envelope.Phosphorus is a remedy for hysteria, vexatious emotions, want ofsympathy, disappointed and concealed affections--but not in thequantities that this person lavished on that flap. Whoever it was, notlife, but death, and a ghastly death, was uppermost in that person'sthoughts."
Agnes screamed. "I saw him take something and rub it on her lips, andthe brightness went away. I--I didn't mean to tell, but, God help me, Imust."
"Saw whom?" demanded Kennedy, fixing her eye as he had when he hadcalled her back from aphasia.
"Him--Millefleur--Miller," she sobbed, shrinking back as if the veryconfession appalled her.
"Yes," added Kennedy coolly, "Miller did try to remove the traces ofthe poison after he discovered it, in order to protect himself and thereputation of the Novella."
The telephone bell tinkled. Craig seized the receiver.
"Yes, Barron, this is Kennedy. You received the impulses all right?Good. And have you had time to study the records? Yes? What's that?Number seven? All right. I'll see you very soon and go over the recordsagain with you. Good-bye."
"One word more," he continued, now facing us. "The normal heart tracesits throbs in regular rhythm. The diseased or overwrought heart throbsin degrees of irregularity that vary according to the trouble thataffects it, both organic and emotional. The expert like Barron can tellwhat each wave means, just as he can tell what the lines in a spectrummean. He can see the invisible, hear the inaudible, feel theintangible, with mathematical precision. Barron has now read theelectro-cardiograms. Each is a picture of the beating of the heart thatmade it, and each smallest variation has a meaning to him. Everypassion, every emotion, every disease, is recorded with inexorabletruth. The person with murder in his heart cannot hide it from thestring galvanometer, nor can that person who wrote the false note inwhich the very lines of the letters betray a diseased heart hide thatdisease. The doctor tells me that that person was number--"
Mrs. Collins had risen wildly and was standing before us with blazingeyes. "Yes," she cried, pressing her hands on her breast as if it wereabout to burst and tell the secret before her lips could frame thewords, "yes, I killed her, and I would follow her to the end of theearth if I had not succeeded. She was there, the woman who had stolenfrom me what was more than life itself. Yes, I wrote the note, Ipoisoned the envelope. I killed her."
All the intense hatred that she had felt for that other woman in thedays that she had vainly striven to equal her in beauty and win backher husband's love broke forth. She was wonderful, magnificent, in herfury. She was passion personified; she was fate, retribution.
Collins looked at his wife, and even he felt the spell. It was notcrime that she had done; it was elemental justice.
For a moment she stood, silent, facing Kennedy. Then the colour slowlyfaded from her cheeks. She reeled.
Collins caught her and imprinted a kiss, the kiss that for years shehad longed and striven for again. She looked rather than spokeforgiveness as he held her and showered them on her.
"Before Heaven," I heard him whisper into her ear, "with all my poweras a lawyer I will free you from this."
Gently Dr. Leslie pushed him aside and felt her pulse as she droppedlimply into the only easy chair in the laboratory.
"O'Connor," he said at length, "all the evidence that we really havehangs on an invisible thread of quartz a mile away. If ProfessorKennedy agrees, let us forget what has happened here to-night. I willdirect my jury to bring in a verdict of suicide. Collins, take goodcare of her." He leaned over and whispered so she could not hear. "Iwouldn't promise her six weeks otherwise."
I could not help feeling deeply moved as the newly reunited Collinsesleft the laboratory together. Even the bluff deputy, O'Connor, wastouched by it and under the circumstances did what seemed to him hishigher duty with a tact of which I had believed him scarcely capable.Whatever the ethics of the case, he left it entirely to Dr. Leslie'scoroner's jury to determine.
Burke Collins was already making hasty preparations for the care of hiswife so that she might have the best medical attention to prolong herlife for the few weeks or months before nature exacted the penaltywhich was denied the law.
"That's a marvellous piece of apparatus," I remarked, standing over theconnections
with the string galvanometer, after all had gone. "Justsuppose the case had fallen into the hands of some of theseold-fashioned detectives--"
"I hate post-mortems--on my own cases," interrupted Kennedy brusquely."To-morrow will be time enough to clear up this mess. Meanwhile, let usget this thing out of our minds."
He clapped his hat on his head decisively and deliberately walked outof the laboratory, starting off at a brisk pace in the moonlight acrossthe campus to the avenue where now the only sound was the noisy rattleof an occasional trolley car.
How long we walked I do not know. But I do know that for genuinerelaxation after a long period of keen mental stress, there is nothinglike physical exercise. We turned into our apartment, roused the sleepyhall-boy, and rode up.
"I suppose people think I never rest," remarked Kennedy, carefullyavoiding any reference to the exciting events of the past two days."But I do. Like every one else, I have to. When I am working hard on acase--well, I have my own violent reaction against it--more work of adifferent kind. Others choose white lights, red wines and blue feelingsafterwards. But I find, when I reach that state, that the bestanti-toxin is something that will chase the last case from your brainby getting you in trim for the next unexpected event."
He had sunk into an easy chair where he was running over in his mindhis own plans for the morrow.
"Just now I must recuperate by doing no work at all," he went on slowlyundressing. "That walk was just what I needed. When the fever ofdissipation comes on again, I'll call on you. You won't miss anything,Walter."
Like the famous Finnegan, however, he was on again and gone again inthe morning. This time I had no misgivings, although I should haveliked to accompany him, for on the library table he had scrawled alittle note, "Studying East Side to-day. Will keep in touch with you.Craig." My daily task of transcribing my notes was completed and Ithought I would run down to the Star to let the editor know how I wasgetting along on my assignment.
I had scarcely entered the door when the office boy thrust a messageinto my hand. It stopped me even before I had a chance to get as far asmy own desk. It was from Kennedy at the laboratory and bore a timestamp that showed that it must have been received only a few minutesbefore I came in.
"Meet me at the Grand Central," it read, "immediately."
Without going further into the office, I turned and dropped down in theelevator to the subway. As quickly as an express could take me, Ihurried up to the new station.
"Where away?" I asked breathlessly, as Craig met me at the entrancethrough which he had reasoned I would come. "The coast or Down East?"
"Woodrock," he replied quickly, taking my arm and dragging me down aramp to the train that was just leaving for that fashionable suburb.
"Well," I queried eagerly, as the train started. "Why all this secrecy?"
"I had a caller this afternoon," he began, running his eye over theother passengers to see if we were observed. "She is going back on thistrain. I am not to recognise her at the station, but you and I are towalk to the end of the platform and enter a limousine bearing thatnumber."
He produced a card on the back of which was written a number in sixfigures. Mechanically I glanced at the name as he handed the card tome. Craig was watching intently the expression on my face as I read,"Miss Yvonne Brixton."
"Since when were you admitted into society?" I gasped, still staring atthe name of the daughter of the millionaire banker, John Brixton.
"She came to tell me that her father is in a virtual state of siege, asit were, up there in his own house," explained Kennedy in an undertone,"so much so that, apparently, she is the only person he felt he daredtrust with a message to summon me. Practically everything he says ordoes is spied on; he can't even telephone without what he says beingknown."
"Siege?" I repeated incredulously. "Impossible. Why, only this morningI was reading about his negotiations with a foreign syndicate ofbankers from southeastern Europe for a ten-million-dollar loan torelieve the money stringency there. Surely there must be some mistakein all this. In fact, as I recall it, one of the foreign bankers who istrying to interest him is that Count Wachtmann who, everybody says, isengaged to Miss Brixton, and is staying at the house at Woodrock.Craig, are you sure nobody is hoaxing you?"
"Read that," he replied laconically, handing me a piece of thinletter-paper such as is often used for foreign correspondence. "Suchletters have been coming to Mr. Brixton, I understand, every day."
The letter was in a cramped foreign scrawl:
JOHN BRIXTON, Woodrock, New York.
American dollars must not endanger the peace of Europe. Be warned in time. In the name of liberty and progress we have raised the standard of conflict without truce or quarter against reaction. If you and the American bankers associated with you take up these bonds you will never live to receive the first payment of interest.
THE RED BROTHERHOOD OF THE BALKANS.
I looked up inquiringly. "What is the Red Brotherhood?" I asked.
"As nearly as I can make out," replied Kennedy, "it seems to be a sortof international secret society. I believe it preaches the gospel ofterror and violence in the cause of liberty and union of some of thepeoples of southeastern Europe. Anyhow, it keeps its secrets well. Theidentity of the members is a mystery, as well as the source of itsfunds, which, it is said, are immense."
"And they operate so secretly that Brixton can trust no one about him?"I asked.
"I believe he is ill," explained Craig. "At any rate, he evidentlysuspects almost every one about him except his daughter. As nearly as Icould gather, however, he does not suspect Wachtmann himself. MissBrixton seemed to think that there were some enemies of the Count atwork. Her father is a secretive man. Even to her, the only message hewould entrust was that he wanted to see me immediately."
At Woodrock we took our time in getting off the train. Miss Brixton, atall, dark-haired, athletic girl just out of college, had preceded us,and as her own car shot out from the station platform we leisurelywalked down and entered another bearing the number she had givenKennedy.
We seemed to be expected at the house. Hardly had we been admittedthrough the door from the porte-cochere, than we were led through ahall to a library at the side of the house. From the library we enteredanother door, then down a flight of steps which must have brought usbelow an open courtyard on the outside, under a rim of the terrace infront of the house for a short distance to a point where we descendedthree more steps.
At the head of these three steps was a great steel and iron door withheavy bolts and a combination lock of a character ordinarily found onlyon a safe in a banking institution.
The door was opened, and we descended the steps, going a little fartherin the same direction away from the side of the house. Then we turnedat a right angle facing toward the back of the house but well to oneside of it. It must have been, I figured out later, underneath the opencourtyard. A few steps farther brought us to a fair-sized, vaulted room.