THE LEAD-LINED VAT.
Sprague seated himself upon the long pine box; and Sturgis, dropping
into the only chair, began his narrative. As he talked, he carelessly
whittled the cover of the wooden box with the knife which he still
held in his hand. He began with an account of his investigation at the
Knickerbocker bank, and explained the result of his observations and
inferences down to the time of his visit to Murdock's house, omitting,
however, to mention any of the names of the actors in the reconstructed
drama.
"So you see," he concluded, "we have established the identity of the
body in the cab, and of the young man who disappeared after the cab
was upset. But one of the most salient features of the case, from the
start, was the fact that neither of these two men had derived much,
if any, pecuniary profit from his crime. The bookkeeper, as we have
seen, was a mere catspaw in the control of the accountant, and his
posthumous confession has given us the explanation of the power exerted
over him by his accomplice. It was not so easy to establish the motive
which controlled the actions of the accountant, who was himself only a
tool in the hands of a higher intelligence. The _deus ex machinâ_ of
this crime is a man of genius who has hardly appeared upon the scene
at all, but whose traces I have found at every turn. He was the brains
of the whole scheme; the other men in his hands were mere puppets.
Through the accountant, this master spirit managed the bookkeeper;
and the accountant himself was controlled by him more directly, but
no less surely. If he held the former through his fear of exposure
and consequent ruin, he influenced the latter through even more
potent motives. He is the father of a beautiful girl, whom he did not
scruple to use as a decoy. The price agreed upon for the accountant's
assistance was the hand of this daughter, for whom the young man had
doubtless conceived a passionate love. Whether or not the leader would
have had the power to carry out his part of the contract matters
little; for it is highly probable that he never had the slightest
intention of so doing. He evidently realized very early in the game
that the bookkeeper could not long escape the clutches of the law. But
as he had taken every precaution to prevent him from knowing anything
of his very existence, the fate of the unfortunate bookkeeper would
have mattered little to this heartless villain, had not the probability
remained that, when brought to bay, the bookkeeper would denounce
the accountant's connection with the crime. This would have been
extremely awkward, since the accountant was very likely in possession
of some dangerous secrets. The safest way out of the difficulty was
to quietly suppress the now useless bookkeeper. This plan was decided
upon, and would doubtless have been carried into execution, had not
fate otherwise decreed. After the bookkeeper's death, under the
circumstances which I have related, it became quite probable that
the accountant's connection with the case would be discovered; for
luck had been against him from the start, and he became more and more
entangled in the chain of circumstantial evidence of whose existence
his leader was soon fully aware. In the first place, the accountant was
wounded; and thus not only partially disabled, but also,--what is far
worse,--conspicuously marked. A man who carries his arm in a sling can
hardly fail to attract attention, especially when this distinguishing
mark is accompanied by another equally glaring one in the form of a
head of brilliant red hair----"
"Hold on, Sturgis!" interrupted Sprague, who had been listening with
growing interest; "don't you know the accountant's name?"
"Yes," replied the reporter; "his name is Thomas Chatham."
"Thomas Chatham!" exclaimed Sprague, as the image of the miserable
young man came to his mind.
"Yes," replied Sturgis, answering his thought, "the man you met only a
few hours ago."
There was a brief silence, broken at last by Sprague, who asked:
"Has he escaped?"
Sturgis hesitated.
"That depends upon how we look at it," he said gravely at length; "he
has paid the penalty of his crimes."
"What do you mean?"
"He is dead," answered the reporter.
"Dead? But I tell you I saw him----"
"I know; but he has died since."
"Suicide?"
"No;" the reporter's voice sank to a whisper; "murder!"
"Murder?" repeated the artist, startled. "But how do you know that?"
"This lump of lead tells the story," said Sturgis, holding up the
shapeless piece of metal which he had taken out of the vat.
"What is it? A bullet?"
"Yes; the bullet which Chatham carried in his arm from the time that
he was wounded by Arbogast, the bullet which has enabled me to trace
him step by step, from his flight from the overturned cab, to Doctor
Thurston's, and finally to his death in this very room; the bullet
whose peculiar shape is recorded in this shadow picture taken by
Thurston by means of the Roentgen rays."
So saying, he handed Sprague the photograph. But the artist had ceased
to listen.
"In this very room?" he mused aloud, looking about him with awe.
"Yes. The story is simple enough. The man whose instrument Chatham was,
is not one who would care to be lumbered up with tools, which become
positively dangerous as soon as they cease to be useful. This man,
totally unhampered by pity, gratitude or fear, determined to destroy
the accountant, whose discovery might have imperilled his own welfare.
What mattered a human life or two, when weighed against the possible
loss of his own life or liberty, or of his high social standing and his
enormous wealth; for this man is both renowned and rich, and he appears
to have brought wholesale murder to a science."
"Do you mean to say that wholesale murder can be indulged in with
impunity in a city like New York, at the end of the nineteenth
century?" asked Sprague aghast.
"Yes; when it is done in the systematic and scientific manner that
has been employed here. For this murderer is the most remarkable
criminal of modern times. He has not been satisfied with killing his
victims; he has succeeded in completely wiping them out of existence.
Criminals have often attempted to destroy the bodies of their victims,
but they have never before succeeded as this man has. He is a chemist
of remarkable talent, and he has discovered a compound in which bone
as well as human tissue is rapidly and totally dissolved. There it is
in yonder tank. See how completely the liquid has destroyed the bone
handle of this knife."
Sturgis, after showing the damaged knife to his companion, resumed his
whittling upon the cover of the box on which the artist was seated.
"Chatham's body has been dissolved in that tank within a very short
time. It has entirely disappeared; this flattened bullet alone is left,
lead being one of the few substances which are not soluble in the
contents of that tank. Fortunately he overlooked that fact. Genius has
its lapses."
Presently Sprague ventured to say:
"If numerous crimes have been committed here, as you intimate, I do
not understand how it is that suspicion has never rested on this house
before."
"The author of these crimes has taken every precaution to render the
chance of discovery quite remote. His dwelling-house on one street, and
the bogus Chemical Company on the other, are in communication through
this underground passage, while apparently having no connection with
each other. Moreover, he is too shrewd to make frequent use of this
death chamber. That does well enough as a last resort, when he is
obliged to commit the murders with his own hands; but I suspect that
this man has other agents like Chatham, who do the dirty work for him
and then quietly ship the bodies here for annihilation, as it was
intended should be done with Arbogast's. Ah! yes; I thought so. You are
sitting upon one of these bodies now."
Sprague started to his feet; and, following the direction in which
Sturgis was pointing with his open knife, he vaguely discerned, through
the opening which the reporter had whittled, a small surface of what
had once been the features of a human being.
After gazing for some minutes in horror-stricken silence at the
distorted face, the artist asked in a low voice:
"How did Chatham meet his death?"
"I don't know yet," answered Sturgis gravely; "this man is no ordinary
criminal. His work is clean and leaves no blood-stains and no disorder
to tell of its accomplishment. He takes life with his own hands only
when he is forced to do so; but, when he does, his method is masterly.
It was easier to make away with Chatham than to pay him the price
agreed upon for his complicity in the Knickerbocker bank embezzlement;
and so his life was taken. I hope to discover how before I leave here."
Sprague started as the reporter ceased speaking.
"The price of his complicity?" he exclaimed, laying his hand upon
Sturgis's arm, and looking earnestly into his eyes.
"Yes," replied the reporter, steadily meeting his friend's gaze, "his
daughter's hand."
Sprague looked away from the honest eyes of the reporter, as if he
dreaded to read in them the answer to his next question.
"Who is this fiend incarnate, who is willing to traffic in his own
flesh and blood, and with whom murder is a science?"
"The man who is capable of these crimes, and of any others which might
serve to remove an obstacle from his way, is----"
The reporter did not finish his sentence. He suddenly grasped his
companion by the arm and stood transfixed, his eyes dilated, his neck
craned in a listening attitude, every muscle tense like those of a wild
animal in ambush, about to spring upon its approaching prey.
Presently a click was heard as though a bolt had been shot from its
socket.
"Draw your revolver!" Sturgis whispered hoarsely to his companion.
"Quick!----Look there!"
At the same time he drew his own weapon and pointed in the direction of
the door at the head of the stairs. The door opened, and a man entered,
quietly smoking a cigar.
"Doctor Murdock!" exclaimed Sprague with horror.
Murdock, still holding the door ajar, eyed the two men for an instant,
his impassive face betraying not the slightest sign of emotion; Then,
taking his cigar from his lips:
"Ah, gentlemen," he drawled in his ironical way, "I am delighted to
see you. I trust you will make yourselves perfectly at home for a few
minutes. I shall return directly. You can continue to work out your
little problem in the meantime, Mr. Sturgis."
With these words he calmly turned to leave the room.
"Stop!" shouted Sturgis, levelling his revolver at Murdock's head;
"stand where you are or I fire!"
The reporter's shot rang out almost before he had finished his
sentence; but Murdock, unscathed, passed out of the room, closing the
door behind him.
Sprague, dazed by the rapidity with which this scene had been acted,
stood rooted to the spot, without having made any attempt to use the
revolver which he had drawn at Sturgis's bidding.
The reporter sprang up the stairs and threw his weight against the
door. But it was doubtless intended to withstand great shocks, for it
remained unshaken.
"Check!" came the sound of a mocking voice from the other side of the
door.
Then, rushing down the stairs again, Sturgis shouted to his companion:
"Come quick! We must get out of here!"
And he led the way through the subterranean passage toward the cellar
of the Manhattan Chemical Company.