THE TOXIN OF FATIGUE
He gave me no time for questions, and I had no ability to reconstruct my
own theory of the case as we hustled into our clothes to catch the early
morning train.
"Broadhurst is at the Idlewild Hotel," Kennedy said, as we left the
apartment, "and I think we can make it quicker by railway than by
motor."
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 Idlewild
grillroom all the evening. He had 'come back.' Once, I recall, he was
paged, 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 but
that there's somebody there to take a crack at it! There must have been
some crank outside, for before I could get a look in the dark, I was
seized. I managed to get away. I got a little scratch with a knife or a
pin, 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 just
as another toast was proposed to Lady Lee and someone suggested that
Murchie respond to it, we turned to find him huddled up in his chair,
absolutely unconscious. The house physician could find nothing wrong
apparently--in fact, said it was entirely a case of heart failure. I
don't think any of us would question his opinion if it had not been for
Murchie'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 interested
only in the little jab and a sort of swelling upon the neck of the dead
man. Quickly he made a little incision beside it, and about ten or a
dozen drops of what looked like blood-serum oozed out on a piece of
gauze 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 her
knees beside Murchie's body. It was the woman who had congratulated him
the day before, the woman of the panel--Amelie Guernsey.
I had not noticed, up to this point, another woman who was standing
apart in the crowd, but now I happened to catch her eye. It was the
woman whose picture with the two children hung in Murchie's apartment.
Kennedy drew me back into the crowd, and there we watched the strange
tragedy 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 up
the ramp from the station, he looked hastily at his watch.
"Walter," he said, "I want you to locate Cecilie Safford and let me
know at the laboratory the moment you find her. And perhaps it would be
well to start at the police station."
It seemed to me as though the girl whom we had found so easily the
evening before had now utterly disappeared. At the police station she
had 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 the
fight.
As I left the place, I ran into Donovan, of the Tenderloin squad, and
put the case to him. He merely laughed.
"Of course I could find her any time I wanted to," he said. "I knew that
was a fake address."
He gave me the real address, and I hurried to the nearest telephone to
call up Craig.
"Have Donovan bring her over here as soon as he can find her," he called
back.
When I arrived at the laboratory, I found Kennedy engrossed in his
tests.
"Have you found anything definite?" I asked anxiously.
He nodded, but would say nothing.
"I've telephoned Broadhurst," he remarked, a moment later. "You remember
that the former Mrs. Murchie was at Belmore Inn. I have asked him to
stop and get her on the way down here in the car with McGee, and to get
Amelie Guernsey at the Idlewild, too." He continued to work. "And, oh
yes," he added: "I have asked Inspector O'Connor to take up another
line, too."
It was a strange gathering that assembled that forenoon. Donovan arrived
soon after I did, and with him, sure enough, was Cecilie Safford. A few
moments later Broadhurst's car swung up to the door, and Broadhurst
entered, accompanied by Amelie Guernsey. McGee followed, with the former
Mrs. 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 we
started."
"You can hardly blame them," returned Kennedy.
Mrs. Murchie was still a handsome woman. She now carried herself with an
air of assumed dignity. Amelie Guernsey had regained her color in the
excitement of the ride and was, if anything, more beautiful than ever.
But, as Broadhurst intimated, one could almost feel the frigidity of the
atmosphere as the three women who had played such dramatic parts in
Murchie's life sat there, trying to watch and, at the same time, avoid
each 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 the
table 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 paper
before Kennedy, "but I have their pedigrees. That fellow's name is
Ronald Mawson," he said, pointing to Cecilie's companion, then
indicating the gunman, "That's Frank Giani--Frank the Wop."
I watched Mawson and Cecilie closely, but could discover nothing. They
scarcely looked at each other.
McGee, however, glared at both Mawson and the gunman, though none of
them said a word.
"They used to be out there as stable-boys at Broadhurst's," I heard
O'Connor continue, in a whisper. "I think they had a run-in and were
fired. 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 that
I have not only found it interesting, but astounding. I have seldom had
the privilege of unraveling a mystery which was so cleverly rigged and
in 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 remember
what the veterinary said. He couldn't find any signs of heroin or any
other 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. "I
am merely going to show you now what can be done by the use of one of
the latest discoveries of physiological chemistry."
He took a syringe and, drawing back the plunger, filled it with the
liquid. With a slight jab of cocaine to make the little operation
absolutely painless, he injected the fluid into the livelier of our two
guinea-pigs.
"While you and Murchie were absent the first day that I went out to your
stable, I succeeded in drawing off some of the blood of Lady Lee," Craig
resumed, talking to Broadhurst. "Here, in my laboratory, I have studied
it. Lady Lee, that day, had had no more than the ordinary amount of
exercise, yet she was completely fagged."
By this time the little guinea-pig had become more and more listless and
was now curled up in a corner sound asleep.
"I have had to work very hurriedly this morning," Craig continued, "but
it has only been covering ground over which I have already gone. I was
already studying a peculiar toxin. And from the fluid I obtained from
Murchie's body, I have been able to calculate that a deadly dose of that
same powerful poison killed him."
Kennedy plunged directly from this startling revelation into his proof.
"Perhaps you have heard of the famous German scientist, Weichardt, of
Berlin," he resumed, "and his remarkable investigations into the toxin
of fatigue. Scientists define fatigue as the more or less complete loss
of the power of muscles to respond to stimulation due to their normal
activity. An interval of rest is usually enough to bring about their
return to some degree of power. But for complete return to normal
condition, a long interval may be necessary.
"As the result of chemical changes which occur in a muscle from
contraction, certain substances are formed which depress or inhibit the
power of contraction. Extracts made from the fatigued muscles of one
frog, for instance, when injected into the circulation of another frog
bring on an appearance of fatigue in the latter. Extracts from
unfatigued muscles give no such results. More than that, the production
of this toxin of fatigue by the exercise of one set of muscles, such as
those of the legs in walking, greatly diminishes the amount of work
obtainable 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 chemical
and physical nature, like the bacterial toxins, which, when introduced
into the blood, gives rise to the phenomena of fatigue. This is the
toxin of fatigue--kenotoxin. Those who have studied the subject have
found at least three fatigue substances--free sarcolactic acid, carbon
dioxide, and monopotassium phosphate, which is so powerful that, after
the injection of one-fifteenth of a gram, the poisoned muscle shows
signs of fatigue and is scarcely able to lift a weight easily lifted in
normal conditions. Other fatigue products may be discovered; but, if
present in large quantity or in small quantity for a long time, each of
the substances I have named will cause depression or fatigue of muscles.
"Further than that," continued Kennedy, "the depressing influence of
these substances on what is known as striated muscle--heart muscle--is
well known. The physician at the Idlewild might very well have mistaken
the cause of the relaxation of Murchie's heart. For German investigators
have also found that the toxin of fatigue, when injected into the
circulation of a fresh animal, may not only bring on fatigue but may
even cause death--as it did finally here." Kennedy paused. "Lady Lee,"
he said, looking from one to the other of his audience keenly, "Lady
Lee 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 tapped
another beaker on the table before him.
"Weichardt has also obtained, by the usual methods," he replied, "an
antitoxin with the power of neutralizing the fatigue properties of the
toxin. You thought Lady Lee was not friendly with strangers that morning
at the track. She was not, when the stranger jabbed a needle into her
neck and pumped an extra large dose of the antitoxin of fatigue into her
just in time to neutralize, before the race, the long series of
injections 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 that
night in the cabaret saloon.
"One word more," he said, as he held up the bottle and faced Cecilie
Safford, who was now trembling like a leaf ready to fall: "If one with
shattered nerves were unable to sleep, can you imagine what would be a
most ideal sedative--especially if to take almost any other drug would
be 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 small
dose of those products of fatigue by which nature herself brings on
sleep. I am not going into the theory of the thing. The fact that you
had such a thing is all that interests me."
I watched the girl's eyes as they were riveted on Kennedy. She seemed to
be 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 her
composure and said nothing.
"Someone was trying to discredit and ruin Murchie by making the horses
he trained lose races--somebody whose life and happiness Murchie himself
had already ruined.
"That person," pursued Kennedy relentlessly, "was defeated in the
attempt 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 to
desperation. There was only one more road to revenge. It was to wait
until Murchie himself could be easily overpowered, when an overwhelming
dose of this fatigue toxin could be shot into him--the weapon that had
failed on the horses turned on himself. Besides, no one--not even the
most expert physician or chemist--would ever suspect that Murchie's
death was not natural."
"That--that bottle is mine--mine!" shouted a wild voice interrupting. "I
took it--I used it--I--"
"Just a moment, Miss Safford," entreated Kennedy. "That person," he
rapped 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 in
one strength, gave it to Lady Lee in still another strength, and to
Murchie in its most fatal strength. It was the poor and unknown
pharmacist described in this pedigree whose dream of happiness Murchie
shattered when he captivated Cecilie Safford--her deserted lover, Ronald
Mawson."