THE FOX HUNT
The next day was that of the hunt and we motored out to the North Shore
Hunt Club. It was a splendid day and the ride was just enough to put an
edge on the meet that was to follow.
We pulled up at last before the rambling colonial building which the
Hunt Club boasted as its home. Mrs. Brackett was waiting for us already
with horses from the Brackett stables.
"I'm so glad you came," she greeted us aside. "Gloria is here--under
protest. That young man over there, talking to her, is Ritter Smith.
'Rhine' Brown, as they call him, was about a moment ago--oh, yes, there
he is, coming over on that chestnut mare to talk to them. I wanted you
to see them here. After the hunt, if you care to, I think you might go
over to the Cabaret Rouge out here. You might find out something."
She was evidently quite proud of her handsome daughter and that anything
should come up to smirch her name cut her deeply.
The Hunt Club was a swagger organization, even in these degenerate days
when farmers will not tolerate broken fences and trampled crops, and
when democratic ideas interfere sadly with the follies of the rich. In a
cap with a big peak, a scarlet hunting coat and white breeches with top
boots, Brackett himself made a striking figure of M. F. H.
There were thirty or forty in the field, the men in silk hats. For the
most part one could not see that the men treated Gloria much
differently. But it was evident that the women did. In fact the coldness
even extended to her mother, who would literally have been frozen out if
it had not been for her quasi-official position. I could see now that it
was also a fight for Mrs. Brackett's social life.
As we watched Gloria, we could see that Franconi was hovering around,
unsuccessfully trying to get an opportunity to say a word to her alone.
Just before we were off a telegram came to her, which she read and
hastily stuffed into a pocket of her riding habit.
But that was all that happened and I fell to studying the various types
of human nature, from the beginner who rode very hard and very badly and
made himself generally odious to the M. F. H., to the old seasoned
hunter who talked of the old days of real foxes and how he used to know
all the short cuts to the coverts.
It was a keen, crisp day. Already a man had been over the field pulling
along the ground a little bag of aniseed, and now the hunt was about to
start.
Noses down, sterns feathering zigzag over the ground, sniffing earth and
leaves and grass, the hounds were brought up. One seemed to get a good
whiff of the trail and lifted his head with a half yelp, half whine,
high pitched, frenzied, never-to-be-forgotten. Others joined in the
music. "Gone away!" sounded a huntsman as if there were a real fox. We
were off after them. Drag hounds, however, for the most part run mute
and very fast, so that that picturesque feature was missing. But the
light soil and rail fences of Long Island were ideal for drag hunting.
Nor was it so easy as it seemed to follow. Also there was the spice of
danger, risk to the hunters, the horses and the dogs.
We went for four or five miles. Then there was a check for the
stragglers to come up. Some had fresh mounts, and all of us were glad of
the breathing space while the M. F. H. "held" the hounds.
While we waited we saw that Mrs. Brackett was riding about quickly, as
if something were on her mind. A moment she stopped to speak to her
husband, then galloped over to us.
Her face was almost white. "Gloria hasn't come up with the rest!" she
exclaimed breathlessly.
Already Brackett had told those about him and all was confusion. It was
only a moment when the members of the hunt were scouring the country
over which we had passed, with something really definite to find.
Kennedy did not pause. "Come on, Walter," he shouted, striking out down
the road, with me hard after him.
We pulled up before a road-house of remarkable quaintness and luxury of
appointment, one of the hundreds about New York which the automobile has
recreated. Before it swung the weathered sign: Cabaret Rouge.
To our hurried inquiries the manager admitted that Du Mond had been
there, but alone, and had left, also alone. Gloria had not come there.
A moment later sounds of hoofs on the hard road interrupted us and
Ritter Smith dashed up.
"Just overtook a farmer down the road," he panted. "Says he saw an
automobile waiting at the stone bridge and later it passed him with a
girl and a man in it. He couldn't recognize them. The top was up and
they went so fast."
Together we retraced the way to the stone bridge. Sure enough, there on
the side of the road were marks where a car had pulled up. The grass
about was trampled and as we searched Kennedy reached down and picked up
something white. At least it had been white. But now it was spotted with
fresh blood, as though someone had tried to stop a nose-bleed.
He looked at it more closely. In the corner was embroidered a little
"G."
Evidently there had been a struggle and a car had whizzed off. Gloria
was gone. But with whom? Had the message which we had seen her read at
the start been from Du Mond? Was the plan to elope and so avoid his
wife? Then why the struggle?
Absolutely nothing more developed from the search. An alarm was at once
sent out and the police all over the country notified. There was nothing
to do now but wait. Mrs. Brackett was frantic. But it was not now the
scandal that worried her. It was Gloria's safety.
That night, in the laboratory, Kennedy took the handkerchief and with
the blood on it made a most peculiar test before a strange-looking
little instrument.
It seemed to consist of a little cylinder of glass immersed in water
kept at the temperature of the body. Between two minute wire pincers or
serres, in the cylinder, was a very small piece of some tissue. To the
lower serre was attached a thread. The upper one was attached to a sort
of lever ending in a pen that moved over a ruled card.
"Every emotion," remarked Kennedy as he watched the movement of the pen
in fine zigzag lines over the card, "produces its physiological effect.
Fear, rage, pain, hunger are primitive experiences, the most powerful
that determine the actions of man. I suppose you have heard of the
recent studies of Dr. Walter Cannon of Harvard of the group of
remarkable alterations in bodily economy under emotion?"
I nodded and Kennedy resumed. "On the surface one may see the effect of
blood vessels contracting, in pallor; one may see cold sweat, or the
saliva stop when the tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth, or one may
see the pupils dilate, hairs raise, respiration become quick, or the
beating of the heart, or trembling of the muscles, notably the lips. But
one cannot see such evidences of emotion if he is not present at the
time. How can we reconstruct them?"
He paused a moment, then resumed. "There are organs hidden deep in the
body which do not reveal so easily the emotions. But the effect often
outlasts the actual emotion. There are special methods by which one can
study the feelings. That is what I have been doing here."
"But how can you?" I queried.
"There is what is called the sympathetic nervous system," he explained.
"Above the kidney there are also glands called the suprarenal which
excrete a substance known as adrenin. In extraordinarily small amounts
adrenin affects this sympathetic system. In emotions of various kinds a
reflex action is sent to the suprarenal glands which causes a pouring
into the blood of adrenin.
"On the handkerchief of Gloria Brackett I obtained plenty of
comparatively fresh blood. Here in this machine I have between these two
pincers a minute segment of rabbit intestine."
He withdrew the solution from the cylinder with a pipette, then
introduced some more of the dissolved blood from the handkerchief. The
first effect was a strong contraction of the rabbit intestine, then in a
minute or so the contractions became fairly even with the base line on
the card.
"Such tissue," he remarked, "is noticeably affected by even one part in
over a million of adrenin. See. Here, by the writing lever, the
rhythmical contractions are recorded. Such a strip of tissue will live
for hours, will contract and relax beautifully with a regular rhythm
which, as you see, can be graphically recorded. This is my adrenin
test."
Carefully he withdrew the ruled paper with its tracings.
"It's a very simple test after all," he said, laying beside this tracing
another which he had made previously. "There you see the difference
between what I may call 'quiet blood' and 'excited blood.'"
I looked at the two sets of tracings. Though they were markedly
different, I did not, of course, understand what they meant. "What do
they show to an expert?" I asked, perplexed.
"Fear," he answered laconically. "Gloria Brackett did not go
voluntarily. She did not elope. She was forced to go!"
"Attacked and carried off?" I queried.
"I did not say that," he replied. "Perhaps our original theory that her
nose was bleeding may be correct. It might have started in the
excitement, the anger and fear at what happened, whatever it was.
Certainly the amount of adrenin in her blood shows that she was laboring
under strong enough emotion."
Our telephone rang insistently and Kennedy answered it. As he talked,
although I could hear only one side of the conversation, I knew that the
message was from Chase and that he had found something important about
the missing necklace.
"What was it?" I asked eagerly as he hung up the receiver.
"Chase has traced the necklace," he reported; "that is, he has
discovered the separate stones, unset, pawned in several shops. The
tickets were issued to a girl whose description exactly fits Gloria
Brackett."
I could only stare at him. What we had all feared had actually taken
place. Gloria must have taken the necklace herself. Though we had feared
it and tried to discount it, nevertheless the certainty came as a shock.
"Why should she have taken it?" I considered.
"For many possible reasons," returned Kennedy. "You saw the life she was
leading. Her own income probably went to keeping those harpies going.
Besides, her mother had cut her allowance. She may have needed money
very badly."
"Perhaps they had run her into debt," I agreed, though the thought was
disagreeable.
"How about that other little woman we saw?" suggested Kennedy. "You
remember how Gloria seemed to stand in fear of Du Mond? Who knows but
that he made her get it to save her reputation? A girl in Gloria's
position might do many foolish things. But to be named as co-respondent,
that would be fatal."
There was not much comfort to be had by either alternative, and we sat
for a moment regarding each other in silence.
Suddenly the door opened. Mrs. Brackett entered. Never have I seen a
greater contrast in so short a time than that between the striking
society matron who first called on us and the broken woman now before
us. She was a pathetic figure as Kennedy placed an easy chair for her.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Kennedy. "Have you heard anything new?"
She did not answer directly, but silently handed him a yellow slip of
paper. On a telegraph blank were written simply the words, "Don't try to
follow me. I've gone to be a war nurse. When I make good I will let you
know. Gloria."
We looked at each other in blank amazement. That was hardly an easy way
to trace her. How could one ever find out now where she was, in the
present state of affairs abroad, even supposing it were not a ruse to
cover up something?
Somehow I felt that the message did not tell the story. Where was Du
Mond? Had he fled, too,--perhaps forced her to go with him when Mrs. Du
Mond appeared? The message did not explain the struggle and the fear.
"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Mrs. Brackett, all thought of her former
pride gone, as she actually held out her hands imploringly and almost
fell on her knees, "can't you find her--can't you _do_ something?"
"Have you a photograph of Gloria?" he asked hurriedly.
"Yes," she cried eagerly, reaching into her mesh bag and drawing one
out. "I carry it with me always. Why?"
"Come," exclaimed Kennedy, seizing it. "It occurs to me that it is now
or never that this device of Franconi's must prove that it is some good.
If she really went, she wasted no time. There's just a bare chance that
the telephote has been placed on some of these vessels that are carrying
munitions abroad. Franconi says that he has developed it for its war
value."
As fast as Mrs. Brackett's chauffeur could drive us, we motored down to
South Side Beach and sought out the little workshop directly on the
ocean where Franconi had told us that we should always be welcome.
He was not there, but an assistant was. Kennedy showed him the card that
Franconi had given us.
"Show me how the machine works," he asked, while Mrs. Brackett and I
waited aside, scarcely able to curb our impatience.
"Well," began the assistant, "this is a screen of very minute and
sensitive selenium cells. I don't know how to describe the process
better than to say that the tones of sound, the human voice, have
hundreds of gradations which are transmitted, as you know, by wireless,
now. Gradations of light, which are all that are necessary to produce
the illusion of a picture, are far simpler than those of sound. Here, in
this projector--"
"That is the transmitting part of the apparatus?" interrupted Kennedy
brusquely. "That holder?"
"Yes. You see there are hundreds of alternating conductors and
insulators, all synchronized with hundreds of similar receivers at
the--"
"Let me see you try this photograph," interrupted Kennedy again, handing
over the picture of Gloria which Mrs. Brackett had given him. "Signor
Franconi told me he had the telephote on several outgoing liners. Let me
see if you can transmit it. Is there any way of sending a wireless
message from this place?"
The assistant had shoved the photograph into the holder from which each
section was projected on the selenium cell screen.
"I have a fairly powerful plant here," he replied.
Quickly Kennedy wrote out a message, briefly describing the reason why
the picture was transmitted and asking that any station on shipboard
that received it would have a careful search made of the passengers for
any young woman, no matter what name was assumed, who might resemble the
photograph.
Though nothing could be expected immediately at best, it was at least
some satisfaction to know that through the invisible air waves,
wirelessly, the only means now of identifying Gloria was being flashed
far and wide to all the big ships within a day's distance or less on
which Franconi had established his system as a test.
The telephote had finished its work. Now there was nothing to do but
wait. It was a slender thread on which hung the hope of success.
While we waited, Mrs. Brackett was eating her heart out with anxiety.
Kennedy took the occasion to call up the New York police on long
distance. They had no clew to Gloria. Nor had they been able to find a
trace of Du Mond. Mrs. Du Mond also had disappeared. At the Cabaret
Rouge, Bernice Bentley had been held and put through a third degree,
without disclosing a thing, if indeed she knew anything. I wondered
whether, at such a crisis, Du Mond, too, might not have taken the
opportunity to flee the country.
We had almost given up hope, when suddenly a little buzzer on the
telephote warned the operator that something was coming over it.
"The _Monfalcone_," he remarked, interpreting the source of the
impulses.
"We gathered breathlessly about the complicated instrument as, on a
receiving screen composed of innumerable pencils of light polarized and
acting on a set of mirrors, each corresponding to the cells of the
selenium screen and tuned to them, as it were, a thin film or veil
seemed gradually to clear up, as the telephote slowly got itself into
equilibrium at both ends of the air line. Gradually the face of a girl
appeared.
"Gloria!" gasped Mrs. Brackett in a tone that sounded as if ten years
had been added to her life.
"Wait," cautioned the operator. "There is a written message to follow."
On the same screen now came in letters that Mrs. Brackett in her joy
recognized the message: "I couldn't help it. I was blackmailed into
taking the necklace. Even at the hunt I received another demand. I did
not mean to go, but I was carried off by force before I could pay the
second demand. Now I'm glad of it. Forgive us. Gloria."
"Us?" repeated Mrs. Brackett, not comprehending.
"Look--another picture," pointed Kennedy.
We bent over as the face of a man seemed to dissolve more clearly in
place of the writing.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Brackett fervently, reading the face by a
sort of intuition before it cleared enough for us to recognize. "He has
saved her from herself!"
It was Franconi!
Slowly it faded and in its place appeared another written message.
"Recalled to Italy for war service. I took her with me by force. It was
the only way. Civil ceremony in New York yesterday. Religious will
follow at Rome."