THE X-RAY DETECTIVE
"I want to consult you, Professor Kennedy, about a most baffling case of
sudden death under suspicious circumstances. Blythe is my name--Dr.
Blythe."
Our visitor spoke deliberately, without the least perturbation of
manner, yet one could see that he was a physician who only as a last
resort would appeal to outside aid.
"What is the case, Doctor?" queried Craig.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "It is of a very pretty young art
student, Rhoda Fleming, who returned to New York from France shortly
after the outbreak of the war and opened a studio in the New Studio
Apartments on Park Avenue, not far from my office," began Dr. Blythe,
pausing as if to set down accurately every feature of the "case history"
of a patient.
"Yes," prompted Craig.
"About a week ago," the Doctor resumed, "I was called to attend Miss
Fleming. I think the call came from her maid, Leila, but I am not sure.
She had suddenly been taken ill about an hour after dinner. She was
cyanotic, had a rapid pulse, and nausea. By means of stimulants I
succeeded in bringing her around, however, and she recovered. It looked
like acute gastritis.
"But last night, at about the same time, I was called again to see the
same girl. She was in an even more serious condition, with all the
former symptoms magnified, unconscious, and suffering severe pains in
the abdominal region. Her temperature was 103. Apparently there had been
too great a delay, for she died in spite of everything I could do
without regaining consciousness."
Kennedy regarded the Doctor's face pointedly. "Did the necropsy show
that she was--er--"
"No," interrupted the Doctor, catching his glance. "She was not about to
become a mother. And I doubt the suicide theory, too." He paused and
then after a moment's consideration, added deliberately, "When she
recovered from the first attack she seemed to have a horror of death and
could offer no explanation of her sudden illness."
"But what other reason could there have been for her condition?"
persisted Kennedy, determined to glean all he could of the Doctor's
personal impressions.
Dr. Blythe hesitated again, as if considering a point in medical ethics,
then suddenly seemed to allow himself to grow confidential. "I'm very
much interested in art myself, Professor," he explained. "I suppose you
have heard of the famous 'Fete du Printemps,' by Watteau?"
Kennedy nodded vaguely.
"The original, you know," Dr. Blythe went on hurriedly, "hung in the
chateau of the Comtesse de la Fontaine in the Forest of Compiegne, and
was immensely valuable--oh--worth probably a hundred thousand dollars or
more."
A moment later Dr. Blythe leaned over with ill-suppressed excitement.
"After I brought her around the first time she confided to me that it
had been entrusted to her by the Comtesse for safe-keeping during the
war, that she had taken it first to London, but fearing it would not be
safe even there, had brought it to New York."
"H'm," mused Kennedy, "that is indeed strange. What's your theory,
then,--foul play?"
Dr. Blythe looked from Kennedy to me, then said slowly, "Yes--but we
can't find a trace of poison. Dr. Leslie--the Coroner--I believe you
know him--and I can find nothing, in fact. It is most incomprehensible."
I noticed that Kennedy was watching Dr. Blythe rather keenly and,
somehow, I fell to trying to fathom both his story and himself, without,
I confess, any result.
"I should like to look her apartment over," remarked Craig with
alacrity, needing no second invitation to take up a mystery that already
promised many surprises.
The New Studio Apartments were in a huge twelve-story ornate Renaissance
affair on upper Park Avenue, an example of the rapidly increasing
co-operative idea which the impractical artistic temperament has proved
soundly practical.
It was really a studio building, too, designed for those artists who
preferred luxury and convenience to the more romantic atmosphere of the
"Alley"--which is the way the initiated refer to the mews back of
Washington Square, known as Macdougal's Alley, famous in fact and
fiction.
Rhoda Fleming's was a most attractively arranged suite, with a large
studio commanding the north light and having a ceiling twice as high as
the ordinary room, which allowed of the other rooms being, as it were,
on two floors, since their ceilings were of ordinary height. On every
side, as we entered, we could see works of art in tasteful profusion.
Since the removal of the body of the beautiful but unfortunate young art
student, no one had been left there, except the maid, Leila. Leila was
herself a very pretty girl, one of those who need neither fine clothes
nor expensive jewels to attract attention. In fact she had neither. I
noticed that she was neatly and tastefully dressed, however, and wore a
plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand. She seemed to be
heartbroken over the death of her mistress, but how much of it was
genuine, I could not say, though I am frank to admit that even before I
saw her I had determined that she was worth watching.
"Show me just how you discovered Miss Fleming," asked Kennedy of Dr.
Blythe, getting down to work immediately.
"Why," he replied, "when I got here she was lying half across that
divan, as if she had fallen there, fainting. Each time a little table
had been set for a light dinner and the dinner had been eaten. The
remains were on the table. And," Blythe added significantly, "each time
there was a place set for another person. That person was gone."
Kennedy had turned inquiringly to Leila.
"I was engaged only for the day," she answered modestly. "Evenings when
Mademoiselle had a little party she would often pay me extra to come
back again and clean up. She liked to prepare little chafing-dish
dinners--but disliked the cleaning."
Dr. Blythe nodded significantly, as though that accounted for the reason
why it had seemed to be Leila who had called him in both times.
Kennedy and I had found the little pantry closet in the kitchenette
where the maid kept the few housekeeping utensils. He took a hasty
inventory of the slender stock, among which, for some reason, I noted a
bottle of a well-known brand of meat sauce, one of those dark-colored
appetizers, with a heavy, burnt-grain odor.
Craig's next move was to ransack the little escritoire in the corner of
the studio room itself. That was the work of but a few moments and
resulted in his finding a packet of letters in the single drawer.
He glanced over them hastily. Several of an intimately personal nature
were signed, "Arnold Faber." Faber, I knew, was a young art collector,
very wealthy and something more than a mere dilettante. Other letters
were of business dealings with well-known Fifth Avenue art galleries of
Pierre Jacot & Cie., quite natural in view of Miss Fleming's long
residence in France.
The letters had scarcely been replaced when the door of the studio
opened and I caught sight of a tastefully gowned young woman, quite
apparently a foreigner acclimated to New York.
"Oh, I beg pardon," she apologized. "I heard voices and thought perhaps
it was some of Rhoda's relatives from the West and that I could do
something."
"Good-evening, Miss Tourville," greeted Dr. Blythe, who was evidently
well-known to this colony of artists. A moment later he introduced us,
"This, by the way, is Miss Rita Tourville, an intimate friend of Miss
Fleming, who has the studio above."
We bowed, exchanged the conventional remarks that such a tragedy made
necessary, and Rita Tourville excused herself. Somehow or other,
however, I could not resist the impression that she had come in
purposely to see what was going on.
On our way out, after promising Dr. Blythe to meet him later in the
night at the office of the Coroner, Kennedy, instead of going directly
to the street, descended to the basement of the apartment and sought the
janitor, who lived there.
"I'd like very much to see the rubbish that has come down from Miss
Fleming's apartment," he asked, slipping into the janitor's hand a large
silver coin.
"It's all mixed up with rubbish from all the apartments on that side of
the house," replied the janitor, indicating a bulging burlap bag.
"Miss Tourville's, also?" queries Craig.
The janitor nodded assent.
Kennedy surely obtained his money's worth of junk as the janitor spread
the contents of the bag on the cellar floor. With his walking stick he
pawed over it minutely, now and then stooping to examine something more
or less carefully. He had gone through somewhat more than half of the
rubbish that had come from the apartments when he came upon what looked
like the broken remains of a little one-ounce dark-colored, labelless
bottle.
Kennedy picked it up and sniffed at it. He said nothing, but I saw his
brow knit with thought. A moment later he wrapped it in a piece of
tissue paper, thanked the janitor, and we mounted the cellar steps to
the street.
"I think I'll try to see Faber tonight," he remarked as we walked down
the avenue. "It will do no harm at any rate."
Fortunately, we found the young millionaire art connoisseur at home, in
a big house which he had inherited from his father, on Madison Avenue,
in the Murray Hill section.
"The death of Miss Fleming has completely upset me," he confessed after
we had introduced ourselves without telling too much. "You see, I was
quite well acquainted with her."
Kennedy said nothing, but I could feel that he was longing to ask
questions leading up to whether Faber had been the mysterious diner in
the Fleming Studio the night before.
"I suppose you are acquainted with Watteau's 'Fete du Printemps'?" shot
out Craig, after a few inconsequential questions, watching Faber's face
furtively.
"Indeed I am," replied the young man, apparently not disconcerted in the
least.
The fact was that he seemed quite willing, even eager to discuss the
painting. I could not make it out, unless it might be that any subject
was less painful than the sudden death of Miss Fleming.
"Yes," he continued voluntarily, "I suppose you know it represents a
group of dancers. The central figure of the group, as everyone believes,
is reputed to be the passionate and jealous Madame de Montespan, whom
the beautiful Madame de Maintenon replaced in the affections of Louis
XIV.
"Why, no one thinks of Watteau, with his delightful daintiness and many
graceful figures on such masterfully disposed backgrounds as a portrait
painter. But the Fete shows, I have always contended, that he drew on
many real faces for his characters. Yes, he could paint portraits, too,
wonderfully minute and exact little miniatures."
Faber had risen as he discoursed. "I have a copy of it," he added,
leading the way into his own private gallery, while Craig and I followed
him without comment.
We gazed long and intently at the face of the central figure. Small
though it was, it was a study in itself, a puzzle, distracting,
enigmatical. There was a hard, cruel sensuousness about the beautiful
mouth which the painter seemed to have captured and fixed beneath the
very oils. Masked cleverly in the painted penetrating dark eyes was a
sort of cunning which, combined with the ravishing curves of the cheeks
and chin, transfixed the observer.
Something in the face reminded me of a face I had once seen. It was not
exactly Rita's face, but it had a certain quality that recalled it. I
fancied that there was in both the living and the painted face a
jealousy that would brook no rivalry, that would dare all for the object
of its love.
Faber saw that we had caught the spirit of the portrait, and seemed
highly gratified.
"What crimes a man might commit under the spell of a woman like that!"
exclaimed Craig, noticing his gratification. "By the way, do you know
that Miss Fleming was said to have had the original--and that it is
gone?"
Faber looked from one to the other of us without moving a muscle of his
face.
"Why, yes," he replied steadily. I could not make out whether he had
expected and been prepared for the question or not. At any rate he
added, half serious, half smiling, "Even for her portrait someone was
ready to risk even life and honor to kidnap her!"
Evidently in his ardor he personified the picture, felt that the thief
must have been moved by what the psychologists call "an imperative idea"
for the mere possession of such a treasure.
"Still," Craig remarked dryly, "the wanderings of the lost Duchess by
Gainsborough for a quarter of a century stuffed into a tin tube, to say
nothing of the final sordid ending of the capture of Mona Lisa, might
argue a devotion among art thieves a bit short of infatuation. I think
we'll find this lady, too, to be held for ransom, not for love."
Faber said nothing. He was evidently waiting for Kennedy to proceed.
"I may photograph your copy of the Fete?" queried Craig finally, "so as
to use it in identifying the real one?"
"Surely," replied the collector. "I have no objection. If I should
happen to be out when you came, I'll leave word with my man to let you
go ahead."
Just then the telephone rang and Faber reached for it before we could
thank him and say good-night.
"Hello--oh, Miss Tourville, how do you do? Why--er--yes--yes, I'm
listening."
They chatted for several minutes, Faber answering mostly in
monosyllables. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought the
conversation, at least at his end of the line, constrained. As he hung
up the receiver, I fancied, too, that Faber seemed to look on us with a
sort of suspicion. What was his connection with Rita, I wondered? What
had Rita told him?
A moment later we had said good-by and had gained the street, Kennedy
still making no comment on the case.
"There's nothing more that we can do tonight," remarked Craig, looking
at his watch finally as we walked along. "Let us go over to the City
Laboratory and see Dr. Leslie, as I promised Blythe."