THE MURDER SYNDICATE.
"See here, Sturgis; this won't do. I forbade you to do a stroke of work
to-day, or even to leave your bed; and here you are scribbling away
just as though nothing had happened. I tell you when a man has had the
narrow squeak you have, there has been a tremendous strain upon his
heart, and it is positively dangerous----"
"Don't scold, old man; I have never in my life been better than I feel
to-day. And besides, this work could not be postponed----"
"Oh, pshaw! That is what nine out of every ten patients say to their
physician. They are modestly convinced that the world must needs come
to a standstill if they cannot accomplish their tiny mite of work. What
do you suppose the world would have done had you and Sprague remained
in Murdock's death chamber yesterday? I'll tell you. The _Tempest_
would have printed two eulogistic obituary notices; and then the world
would have hobbled on, just as though the greatest detective of the age
and the modern Raphael had not been snuffed out of existence."
Doctor Thurston, who had assumed his frown of professional severity,
proceeded to feel the reporter's pulse.
"Well, you are in luck; better than you deserve. Almost any other man
would have been laid up for a week by the experience you have been
through. And here you have the face to recover without the assistance
of the medical profession, and in spite of your insolent disregard of
my express orders to leave work alone for the present. Now, there is
Sprague----"
"Ah, what of Sprague?" asked the reporter, anxiously.
"Sprague has had a close call. But he is safe now. If tender and
intelligent nursing count for anything, he will probably be up in a day
or two."
"Miss Murdock?----"
"Yes. She has a professional nurse to help her; but she has insisted
on taking charge of the case herself. And an excellent nurse she is,
too, and a charming girl into the bargain,--and what is more, a noble
woman."
"Does she know of her father's death?"
"I broke the news to her as gently as possible. She took it much more
calmly than I supposed she would. There evidently was but little
sympathy between her and her father."
"On her side, at any rate."
"Yes. Her first act on learning of her father's crimes was to send for
a lawyer. She refuses to touch a cent of his money, and has instructed
her attorney to make such restitutions as may be possible and to turn
over the rest to charitable institutions. This leaves her almost
penniless; for the property she held in her own right from her mother's
estate amounts to very little. Fortunately, Sprague is rich enough for
both. What are you doing there, if I may ask?"
Doctor Thurston pointed to a bundle which lay upon the table.
"That is Murdock's autobiography--a legacy to me. The package was found
near his valise in the death chamber. He had addressed it to me at the
last minute."
"Did it help you in your account of the Knickerbocker bank case for the
_Tempest_?"
"A little; but naturally, Murdock's account of that crime was not
complete. The entire journal, however, is of absorbing interest. It is
a pity that it cannot be published."
"Why cannot it be published?"
"It would be dangerous to the welfare of society. Murdock was an
extraordinary genius in his line; there is marvelous originality and
ingenuity in his work. His crimes, numbered by the hundred, were all
of capital importance in their results; all deep-laid and skilfully
executed. It is hardly likely that such another consummate artist in
crime will exist once a century. To publish the details of his schemes
would be to put a formidable weapon in the hands of the vulgar herd of
ordinary criminals, who lack the imagination of this brilliant villain.
"I tell you, Thurston," continued Sturgis, with what seemed very like
enthusiastic conviction, "this man was the originator of almost every
unsolved mystery which has nonplussed the police during the last
fifteen years. He had his agents in every important center throughout
the country; agents working under potent incentives, and yet working
in the dark, for few of them have ever known who held the mysterious
power which directed their every move. Murder has been done wholesale:
and so quietly and mysteriously has the work been accomplished, that,
in all but this last case, the detectives have found no clue whatever
which might lead to an explanation of the sudden and unaccountable
disappearance of wealthy men, whose bodies, shipped to the Manhattan
Chemical Company by Murdock's agents, were quietly and systematically
made away with in the chemist's laboratory."
"He was the fiend incarnate!" exclaimed the physician.
"Well," said Sturgis, after a moment of thoughtful silence, "at any
rate, he was not wantonly cruel. He was heartless; he was pitiless;
but his cruelty was always a means to an end, however selfish and
illegitimate that end might be. His cruelty is that, in a measure, of
every human being destroying life that he may live and trampling upon
his fellow men that he may be comfortable. Between Murdock and the rest
of us there was a difference of degree, certainly, but was there a
difference of kind?"
"There is one thing which I cannot yet understand," said Thurston,
"and that is, why Murdock should have pushed his audacity to the point
of defying you to ferret out the mystery of this crime, when he might
perhaps have avoided all risk of detection by holding his tongue."
"No man is perfect," answered Sturgis, sententiously, "not even an
accomplished villain like Murdock, fortunately for the rest of mankind.
Every human being has his weak points. Murdock had two:--his vanity and
his love for his daughter. They were the only traits which connected
him with the human family. To them he owes his undoing."