THE SOLAR PLEXUS
It was after the dinner hour that we found ourselves at the Country Club
again. Wyndham had not come back from the city, but Allison was there
and had gathered together all the Club help so that Kennedy might
question them.
He did question them down in the locker-room, I thought perhaps for the
moral effect. The chef, whom I had suspected of knowing something, was
there, but proved to be unenlightening. In fact, no one seemed to have
anything to contribute. Quite the contrary. They could not even suggest
a way in which the trunk might have been taken from the steward's room.
"That's not very difficult," smiled Kennedy, as one after another the
servants asserted that it would be impossible to get it around the turns
in the stairs without making a noise. "Where was Benson's room?"
The chef led the way to the door, that by which we had gone out before
when we had seen the rubbish barrels.
"Up there," he pointed, "on the third floor."
There was no fire escape, nor were there any outside balconies, and I
wondered how Craig would account for it.
"Someone might have lowered the trunk from the window by a rope, might
they not?" he asked simply.
"Yes," returned the chef, unconvinced. "But his door was locked and he
had his keys in his pocket. How about that?"
"It doesn't follow that he was killed in his room, does it?" asked
Craig. "In fact it is altogether impossible that he could have been.
Suppose he was killed outside. Might not someone have taken the keys
from his pocket, gone up to the room without making any noise and let
the trunk down here by a rope? Then if he had dropped the rope, locked
the door, and returned the keys to Benson's pockets--how about that?"
It was so simple and feasible that no one could deny it. Yet I could not
see that it furthered us in solving the greater mystery.
We went up to the steward's room and searched his belongings, without
finding anything that merited even that expenditure of time.
However, Craig was confident now, although he did not say much, and by a
late train we returned to the city in preference to using Mrs. Ferris's
car.
All the next day, Kennedy was engaged, either in his laboratory or on an
errand that took him downtown during most of the middle of the day.
When he returned, I could tell by the look on his face that his quest,
whatever it had been, had been successful.
"I found Wyndham--had a long talk with him," was all he would say in
answer to my questions, before he went back to whatever he was studying
at the laboratory.
I had made some inquiries myself in the meantime, especially about
Wyndham. As nearly as I could make out, the young men at Briar Lake
were afflicted with a disease which is very prevalent--the desire to get
rich quick. In that respect Fraser Ferris was no better than the rest.
Nor was Irving Evans. Allan Wyndham had been a plunger almost from
boyhood, and only the tight rein that his conservative father held over
him had checked him. Sometimes the young men succeeded, and that had
served only to whet their appetites for more easy money. But more often
they had failed. In most cases, it seemed, Dean Allison's firm had been
the brokers through whom they dealt, particularly Wyndham.
In fact, with more time on my hands during the day than I knew what to
do with, in the absence of Kennedy I had evolved several very pretty
little theories of the case which involved the recouping of dissipated
fortunes by marriage with the popular young heiress.
It was late in the afternoon that the telephone rang, and, as Craig was
busy, I answered it.
"Oh, Mr. Jameson," I heard Mrs. Ferris's voice calling over long
distance from Briar Lake anxiously, "is Mr. Kennedy there? Please let me
speak to him."
I hastened to hand over the receiver to Kennedy and waited impatiently
until he finished.
"A special grand jury has been empanelled for ten o'clock tomorrow
morning," he said as he turned from the wire and faced me, "and unless
we can do something immediately, they are sure to find an indictment."
Kennedy scowled and shook his head. "It looks to me as if someone were
mighty anxious to railroad young Ferris along," he remarked, hurrying
across to the laboratory table, where he had been at work, and flinging
off his stained smock.
"Well, are you ready for them?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied quickly. "Call up and find out about the trains to
Briar Lake, Walter."
I found that we could easily get a train that would have us at the
Country Club not later than eight o'clock, and as I turned to tell
Kennedy, I saw him carefully packing into a case a peculiar shaped flask
which he had been using in some of his experiments. Outside it had a
felt jacket, and as we hurried over to the station Kennedy carried it
carefully in the case by a handle.
The ride out to Briar Lake seemed interminable, but it was better than
going up in a car at night, and Mrs. Ferris met us anxiously at the
station.
Thus, early in the evening, in the little reception room of the Country
Club, there gathered a large party, not the largest it had seen, but
certainly the most interested. In fact no one, except young Ferris, had
any legitimate reason for staying away.
"Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced
us, having whispered to me that he wanted me to take a position near the
door and stay there, no matter what happened. "But," he added, "science
opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in
the world.
"Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps
many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But today the
assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray
expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to
face damning, dispassionate scientific facts.
"And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal
zeal, brings facts to clear an innocent man protesting his innocence,
but condemned by circumstantial evidence."
For a moment he paused, and when he began again it was evident that he
was going straight to the point at issue in the case.
"Various theories have been confidently proposed in this unfortunate
affair which resulted in the death of Irving Evans," he proceeded. "One
thing I want clear at the start. The fact is, and I am not running
counter to it, that we have what might very well be called two brains.
One is in the head, does the thinking. The other is a sort of abdominal
brain, controls nutrition and a host of other functions, automatically.
It is the solar plexus--the epigastric, sympathetic nervous system.
"It is true that the knot of life is situated at the base of the cranial
brain. One jab of a needle and it might be quickly extinguished. Yet
derangement of the so-called abdominal brain destroys life as
effectually, though perhaps not so quickly. A shock to the abdominal
brain of young Evans has been administered--in a most remarkable
manner."
I could see Mrs. Ferris watching him with staring eyes, for Kennedy was
doing just what many a lawyer does--stating first the bad side of one's
case, and seeming to establish the contention of the opposite side.
"It was an unfortunate blow," he admitted, "perhaps even dangerous. But
it was not deadly. What happened downstairs in the gymnasium must be
taken into account with what happened afterwards in the locker and both
considered in the light of the death of the steward, Benson, later.
"The mark on the stomach of Irving Evans was due to something else than
the blow. Everyone has noticed that. It was a peculiar mark and no mere
blow could have produced it.
"Weird in conception, horribly cunning in its execution was this attempt
at murder," he added, taking from the case the peculiar flask which I
had seen him pack up.
He held it up so that we could see. It was evidently composed of two
flasks, one inside the other, the outer encased in felt, as I had seen,
the inner coated with quicksilver and a space between the two. Inside
was a peculiar liquid which had a bluish tinge, but was odorless. From
the surface a thin vapor seemed to rise.
It was not corked, but from the neck he pulled out a light cotton
stopper. As he agitated the liquid slightly, it had the appearance of
boiling. He turned over the bottle and spilled some of it on the floor.
It evaporated instantly, like water on a hot stove.
Then he took from his pocket a small tin cup and poured out into it some
of the liquid, letting it stand a few moments, smoking.
He poured back the liquid into the flask and dropped the cup on the
hardwood floor. It shattered as if it had been composed of glass.
One of the men in the front row moved forward to pick up the pieces.
"Just a minute," interfered Kennedy. "If you think anything of your
fingers, let that be. In the rubbish, just outside the locker-room,
yesterday, I discovered the remains of a thermos bottle and of a metal
cup like this which I have dropped on the floor. I have examined the
cup, or rather the pieces.
"These two murders were committed by one of the least known
agencies--freezing, by liquid air."
I could hear a gasp from the auditors and I knew that someone's heart
must be icy at the discovery of the portentous secret.
"I have some liquid air in this Dewar flask," continued Kennedy. "That
is what liquid air is usually kept in. But it may be kept in an ordinary
thermos bottle quite well, also.
"If I should drop just a minute bit on my hand, it would probably boil
away without hurting me, for it evaporates so quickly that it forms a
layer or film of air which prevents contact of the terribly cold liquid
air and the skin. I might thrust my finger in it for a few seconds and
it would not hurt me. But if I kept it there my finger would become
brittle and actually break off, so terrible is the cold of one hundred
and ninety degrees below zero, Centigrade. It produces an instantaneous
frost bite, numbing so quickly that it often is hardly felt. Placed on
the surface of flesh this way, it changes it to a pearly-white, solid
surface. The thawing, however, is intensely painful, giving first a
burning sensation, then a stinging, flushed feeling, exactly as Irving
Evans described what he felt. The part affected swells and a crust forms
which it takes weeks to heal, supposing the part affected is small.
"Someone, in that locker-room," continued Craig, "placed a piece of
cotton soaked in liquid air on the stomach of the unconscious boy.
Instantly, before anyone noticed it, it froze through to the solar
plexus. Ultimately that was bound to kill him. And who would bear the
blame? Why, Fraser Ferris, of course. The accident in the bout afforded
an opportunity to use the stuff which the criminal in his wildest dreams
could not have bettered."
"How about Benson, the steward?" spoke up a voice.
We turned. It was the Coroner, loath even yet to give up the official
theory.
"That was a pure accident," returned Kennedy. "The club, as you know, is
a temperance club. But the members, or at least some of them, keep
drinks in their lockers. The steward, Benson, knew this. It has been
shown that Benson had been in town that evening, had imbibed
considerably.
"He had observed one of the members of the club take from his locker
something which he thought was to revive young Evans. What more natural,
then, than for him to visit that locker when he returned from town, open
it?
"He found a thermos bottle. Instead of the regular cork, it had a light
cotton stopper. In his muddled state, the steward did not stop to
think--even if he had, he would have seen no reason for carefully
corking something that was not designed to keep in a thermos bottle.
"But instead of whiskey, the bottle contained what had not yet
evaporated of the liquid air. You may not know it, but liquid air can be
easily preserved in open vessels with a stopper which allows the
passage of the evaporated air. However paradoxical it may seem, it
cannot be kept in closed vessels, for enormous pressures are at once
brought into play.
"Benson opened the bottle and poured out some of the contents in the
metal cup-cap of the bottle. He raised it to his lips--swallowed it--or
that much of it that did not paralyze him. It expanded, boiled,
exploded--producing the ghastly wound by almost literally blowing him
up.
"The owner of the liquid air, who must have had it there waiting a
chance to use it, was probably waiting up in the club rooms now, for a
chance to get rid of it as evidence. He must have heard a noise down in
the locker-room. What if he had been observed and someone were down
there investigating?
"He hurried down there. To his horror, in the darkness, he found Benson,
already dead, the locker open, the thermos bottle broken and the cup
smashed.
"It was a terrible clew. He must get that body away from the
locker-room. He could throw the bottle out; no one could suspect
anything when the air had evaporated, as it soon would, now. But the
body--that was different. The method he employed in getting rid of the
body, I think you all must already know."
I had been watching Wyndham's face keenly. As Craig proceeded, I fancied
that I saw in it a look of startled surprise.
"_Was_ it one of Anita Allison's many admirers who did this thing?"
Craig asked suddenly.
I turned from Wyndham to Craig, wondering. What did he mean? Everyone
had accepted that theory of the case so far. No one had questioned it.
But, with his words, it suddenly dawned on me that it was by no means
the only theory.
Before Craig could go on, there came a startled cry from one of the
ladies.
"Oh--he did it--he did it!"
Anita Allison had fainted.
Dean Allison was at his sister's side in a moment.
"Here--let me get her out into the fresh air," he cried.
Wyndham had started up at the words and the two men were facing each
other over the girl who had already discovered the secret, but had kept
it locked in her breast.
"Walter--lock that door," rang out Craig's voice mercilessly.
I backed up, my whole weight against it, and turned the key.
"I know the gossip of Wall Street now," shot out Kennedy hurriedly,
facing the crowd who were all on their feet. "Today I have visited a
number of speculative young gentlemen of Briar Lake, including Mr.
Wyndham.
"The truth is that Miss Allison's fortune was gone--dissipated in an
unsuccessful bear raid on the market in which others have shared--and
lost.
"If she had married, it meant an accounting and surrendering of her full
control of her fortune. You have done this dastardly crime, Dean
Allison, to keep your sister in ignorance of the loss and to save your
own miserable reputation!"