CHAPTER XVIII
THE TOXIN OF FATIGUE
He gave me no time for questions, and I had no ability to reconstruct myown theory of the case as we hustled into our clothes to catch the earlymorning train.
"Broadhurst is at the Idlewild Hotel," Kennedy said, as we left theapartment, "and I think we can make it quicker by railway than bymotor."
The turfman met us at the station.
"Tell me just what happened," asked Kennedy.
"No one seems to understand just what it was," Broadhurst explained,"but, as nearly as I remember, Murchie was the lion of the Idlewildgrillroom all the evening. He had 'come back.' Once, I recall, he waspaged, and the boy told him someone was waiting outside. He went out,and returned, considerably flushed and excited.
"'By George,' he said, 'a man never raises his head above the crowd butthat there's somebody there to take a crack at it! There must have beensome crank outside, for before I could get a look in the dark, I wasseized. I managed to get away. I got a little scratch with a knife or apin, though,' he said, dabbing at a cut on his neck."
"What then?" prompted Kennedy.
"None of us paid much attention to it," resumed Broadhurst, "until justas another toast was proposed to Lady Lee and someone suggested thatMurchie respond to it, we turned to find him huddled up in his chair,absolutely unconscious. The house physician could find nothing wrongapparently--in fact, said it was entirely a case of heart failure. Idon't think any of us would question his opinion if it had not been forMurchie's peculiar actions when he came back to the room that time."
Murchie's body had been removed to the local undertaking establishment.As Broadhurst drove up there and we entered, Kennedy seemed interestedonly in the little jab and a sort of swelling upon the neck of the deadman. Quickly he made a little incision beside it, and about ten or adozen drops of what looked like blood-serum oozed out on a piece ofgauze which Craig held.
As we turned to leave the undertaker's, a striking, dark-haired girl,with the color gone from her cheeks, hurried past us and fell on herknees beside Murchie's body. It was the woman who had congratulated himthe day before, the woman of the panel--Amelie Guernsey.
I had not noticed, up to this point, another woman who was standingapart in the crowd, but now I happened to catch her eye. It was thewoman whose picture with the two children hung in Murchie's apartment.Kennedy drew me back into the crowd, and there we watched the strangetragedy of the wife that was and the wife that was to have been.
Craig hurried back to the city after that, and, as we pushed our way upthe ramp from the station, he looked hastily at his watch.
"Walter," he said, "I want you to locate Cecilie Safford and let meknow at the laboratory the moment you find her. And perhaps it would bewell to start at the police station."
It seemed to me as though the girl whom we had found so easily theevening before had now utterly disappeared. At the police station shehad not been held, but had given an address which had proved fictitious.At the cabaret saloon no one had seen her since the incident of thefight.
As I left the place, I ran into Donovan, of the Tenderloin squad, andput the case to him. He merely laughed.
"Of course I could find her any time I wanted to," he said. "I knew thatwas a fake address."
He gave me the real address, and I hurried to the nearest telephone tocall up Craig.
"Have Donovan bring her over here as soon as he can find her," he calledback.
When I arrived at the laboratory, I found Kennedy engrossed in histests.
"Have you found anything definite?" I asked anxiously.
He nodded, but would say nothing.
"I've telephoned Broadhurst," he remarked, a moment later. "You rememberthat the former Mrs. Murchie was at Belmore Inn. I have asked him tostop and get her on the way down here in the car with McGee, and to getAmelie Guernsey at the Idlewild, too." He continued to work. "And, ohyes," he added: "I have asked Inspector O'Connor to take up anotherline, too."
It was a strange gathering that assembled that forenoon. Donovan arrivedsoon after I did, and with him, sure enough, was Cecilie Safford. A fewmoments later Broadhurst's car swung up to the door, and Broadhurstentered, accompanied by Amelie Guernsey. McGee followed, with the formerMrs. Murchie.
"I don't want another job like that," whispered Broadhurst to Kennedy."I'm nearly frozen. Neither of those women has spoken a word since westarted."
"You can hardly blame them," returned Kennedy.
Mrs. Murchie was still a handsome woman. She now carried herself with anair of assumed dignity. Amelie Guernsey had regained her color in theexcitement of the ride and was, if anything, more beautiful than ever.But, as Broadhurst intimated, one could almost feel the frigidity of theatmosphere as the three women who had played such dramatic parts inMurchie's life sat there, trying to watch and, at the same time, avoideach other's gaze.
The suspense was relieved when O'Connor came in in a department car.With him were the young man who had been seated with Cecilie at thetable the night of the fight and also the gunman.
"The magistrate in the night court settled the case that night,"informed O'Connor, under his breath, laying down two slips of paperbefore Kennedy, "but I have their pedigrees. That fellow's name isRonald Mawson," he said, pointing to Cecilie's companion, thenindicating the gunman, "That's Frank Giani--Frank the Wop."
I watched Mawson and Cecilie closely, but could discover nothing. Theyscarcely looked at each other.
McGee, however, glared at both Mawson and the gunman, though none ofthem said a word.
"They used to be out there as stable-boys at Broadhurst's," I heardO'Connor continue, in a whisper. "I think they had a run-in and werefired. Each says the other got him in wrong."
A moment later Kennedy began:
"When you came to my laboratory the other day, Mr. Broadhurst," he said,"you remarked that perhaps this case might be a little out of my line,but that I might find it sufficiently interesting. I can assure you thatI have not only found it interesting, but astounding. I have seldom hadthe privilege of unraveling a mystery which was so cleverly rigged andin which there are so many cross-currents of human passion."
"Then you think Lady Lee was doped?" asked Broadhurst.
"Doped?" interjected McGee quickly. "Why, Mr. Broadhurst, you rememberwhat the veterinary said. He couldn't find any signs of heroin or anyother dope they use."
"That's the devilish ingenuity of it all," shot out Kennedy suddenly,holding up a little beaker in which there was some colorless fluid. "Iam merely going to show you now what can be done by the use of one ofthe latest discoveries of physiological chemistry."
He took a syringe and, drawing back the plunger, filled it with theliquid. With a slight jab of cocaine to make the little operationabsolutely painless, he injected the fluid into the livelier of our twoguinea-pigs.
"While you and Murchie were absent the first day that I went out to yourstable, I succeeded in drawing off some of the blood of Lady Lee," Craigresumed, talking to Broadhurst. "Here, in my laboratory, I have studiedit. Lady Lee, that day, had had no more than the ordinary amount ofexercise, yet she was completely fagged."
By this time the little guinea-pig had become more and more listless andwas now curled up in a corner sound asleep.
"I have had to work very hurriedly this morning," Craig continued, "butit has only been covering ground over which I have already gone. I wasalready studying a peculiar toxin. And from the fluid I obtained fromMurchie's body, I have been able to calculate that a deadly dose of thatsame powerful poison killed him."
Kennedy plunged directly from this startling revelation into his proof.
"Perhaps you have heard of the famous German scientist, Weichardt, ofBerlin," he resumed, "and his remarkable investigations into the toxinof fatigue. Scientists define fatigue as the more or less complete lossof the power of muscles to respond to stimulation due to their normalactivity. An interval of rest is usually enough to bring about theirreturn to some
degree of power. But for complete return to normalcondition, a long interval may be necessary.
"As the result of chemical changes which occur in a muscle fromcontraction, certain substances are formed which depress or inhibit thepower of contraction. Extracts made from the fatigued muscles of onefrog, for instance, when injected into the circulation of another frogbring on an appearance of fatigue in the latter. Extracts fromunfatigued muscles give no such results. More than that, the productionof this toxin of fatigue by the exercise of one set of muscles, such asthose of the legs in walking, greatly diminishes the amount of workobtainable from other unused muscles, such as those of the arms."
Kennedy went on, looking at the sleeping guinea-pig rather than at us:
"Weichardt has isolated from fatigued muscles a true toxin of a chemicaland physical nature, like the bacterial toxins, which, when introducedinto the blood, gives rise to the phenomena of fatigue. This is thetoxin of fatigue--kenotoxin. Those who have studied the subject havefound at least three fatigue substances--free sarcolactic acid, carbondioxide, and monopotassium phosphate, which is so powerful that, afterthe injection of one-fifteenth of a gram, the poisoned muscle showssigns of fatigue and is scarcely able to lift a weight easily lifted innormal conditions. Other fatigue products may be discovered; but, ifpresent in large quantity or in small quantity for a long time, each ofthe substances I have named will cause depression or fatigue of muscles.
"Further than that," continued Kennedy, "the depressing influence ofthese substances on what is known as striated muscle--heart muscle--iswell known. The physician at the Idlewild might very well have mistakenthe cause of the relaxation of Murchie's heart. For German investigatorshave also found that the toxin of fatigue, when injected into thecirculation of a fresh animal, may not only bring on fatigue but mayeven cause death--as it did finally here." Kennedy paused. "Lady Lee,"he said, looking from one to the other of his audience keenly, "LadyLee was the first victim of the fiendish cunning of this--"
A shrill voice interrupted.
"But Lady Lee won the race!"
It was McGee, the jockey. Kennedy looked at him a moment, then tappedanother beaker on the table before him.
"Weichardt has also obtained, by the usual methods," he replied, "anantitoxin with the power of neutralizing the fatigue properties of thetoxin. You thought Lady Lee was not friendly with strangers that morningat the track. She was not, when the stranger jabbed a needle into herneck and pumped an extra large dose of the antitoxin of fatigue into herjust in time to neutralize, before the race, the long series ofinjections of fatigue toxin."
Kennedy was now traveling rapidly toward the point which he had in view.He drew from his pocket the little bottle which he had picked up thatnight in the cabaret saloon.
"One word more," he said, as he held up the bottle and faced CecilieSafford, who was now trembling like a leaf ready to fall: "If one withshattered nerves were unable to sleep, can you imagine what would be amost ideal sedative--especially if to take almost any other drug wouldbe merely to substitute that habit for another?"
He waited a moment, then answered his own question.
"Naturally," he proceeded, "it might be, theoretically at least, a smalldose of those products of fatigue by which nature herself brings onsleep. I am not going into the theory of the thing. The fact that youhad such a thing is all that interests me."
I watched the girl's eyes as they were riveted on Kennedy. She seemed tobe fascinated, horrified.
"This bottle contains a weak solution of the toxin of fatigue,"persisted Kennedy.
I thought she would break down, but, by a mighty effort, she kept hercomposure and said nothing.
"Someone was trying to discredit and ruin Murchie by making the horseshe trained lose races--somebody whose life and happiness Murchie himselfhad already ruined.
"That person," pursued Kennedy relentlessly, "was defeated in theattempt to discredit Murchie when, by my injection of the antitoxin,Lady Lee finally did win. In that person's mind, Murchie, not the horse,had won.
"The wild excitement over Murchie's vindication drove that person todesperation. There was only one more road to revenge. It was to waituntil Murchie himself could be easily overpowered, when an overwhelmingdose of this fatigue toxin could be shot into him--the weapon that hadfailed on the horses turned on himself. Besides, no one--not even themost expert physician or chemist--would ever suspect that Murchie'sdeath was not natural."
"That--that bottle is mine--mine!" shouted a wild voice interrupting. "Itook it--I used it--I--"
"Just a moment, Miss Safford," entreated Kennedy. "That person," herapped out sharply, picking up the pedigrees O'Connor had handed him,"that person gave the toxin to a poor dope fiend as a sleeping-potion inone strength, gave it to Lady Lee in still another strength, and toMurchie in its most fatal strength. It was the poor and unknownpharmacist described in this pedigree whose dream of happiness Murchieshattered when he captivated Cecilie Safford--her deserted lover, RonaldMawson."