almost grinned.
Nor did I imagine that he did. Shattuck had made himself particularly
obnoxious to Doyle and I fancied that Doyle would take a particular
pleasure in this errand, especially as it might lead to the
humiliation, or worse, of Shattuck.
"You, Leslie, as a doctor, I think would be the best to go after Doctor
Lathrop," ordered Kennedy. "And all of you are to remember you are not
to talk of the case, but merely to compel the attendance of the persons
you are sent after. If they refuse or resist, you know where to get the
authority to coerce them. But I don't think any of them will. It would
look badly."
As we parted, I jumped into a taxicab. I felt sure now that something
must break. In spite of all the discouragements, I saw that Kennedy had
been biding his time. He had seemed to be quite willing to wait, much
more so than either Doyle or Leslie. I had realized some time before
what his game was. Anything might have happened to unmask some one.
The death of Vina was that thing. Now was the time to follow up his
surprise attack.
While we were gone, Craig hurried to the laboratory and there completed
some simple preparations for our reception. From his cabinet he took
and adjusted several little instruments, with an attachment that could
be placed about the wrist, like a cuff or strap. These cuffs were
hollow and from each ran a tube attached to an indicator. Both the
hollow cuffs and the tubes were filled with a colored liquid which
registered on a scale on the indicator part. But I anticipate my story.
I found my end of the duty far from pleasant, although under other
circumstances, suspicion or not of Honora, I should have enjoyed an
opportunity to meet her.
In spite of her feeling against Vina, the first news as I broke it to
her came as a shock which she could not conceal. Yet, I felt, it would
have taken more than even the practised eye of Kennedy to determine
just what underlay her feelings in the matter.
When, however, I informed her that my orders were to take her to
the laboratory, she demurred vigorously. It was more by threat than
anything else that I managed to get her to go. She finally assented,
nervously. Her whole attitude was one of not knowing what to expect
this time.
In silence I escorted her in the taxicab to the laboratory, arriving
there last of all, due to the cajolery I had been compelled to use to
avoid forcing the issue.
Leslie and Lathrop were waiting already. As we entered, Honora bowed
to Doctor Lathrop, who returned the bow courteously. Clearly, I
thought, this is merely the relation of physician and patient. Doyle
had returned, but McCabe was not with him. Shattuck had almost fought
against coming, but only a direct threat of arrest on the part of Doyle
had succeeded with him. Doyle was correspondingly watchful of his prey.
Shattuck bowed to Honora, and I saw that she returned the bow, a slight
flush spread over her face. What was it--fear for him or of him?
Perhaps Shattuck misinterpreted the action. At any rate, he seemed not
content with a mere bow. He stepped forward.
"I hope, Honora," he remarked, in a low voice, but not so low that I
could not catch it, "that you will not think this unpleasantness is in
any way due to anything I've done."
For a moment Honora stared at Shattuck, then at Doyle, and finally at
Kennedy.
"Not at all," she murmured. "It seems that I no longer have anything
whatever to say about my own actions."
She said it with a sarcasm that was cutting, and at the same time with
a keen observation of the rest of us. It was as though she were trying
to read our minds. Kennedy, at least, gave her no chance.
As she entered, he greeted her blandly, and one would never have known
from the look on his face or from his manner that it was he who had
ordered them all assembled in his laboratory. He was the coolest of us
all.
"I am going to try a little affair here that may or may not yield some
results," he remarked, picking up one of the cuff attachments that lay
before him on the table. "It is a simple enough thing. You merely slip
this cuff over the wrist--so," he illustrated.
He drew the thing off again and turned to me. "I'm going to put the
first one on you, Walter," he remarked. "You will be my 'control' in
the experiment, as we call it."
Carefully he adjusted the thing on my wrist, and as he did so I
realized that his purpose had been rather to get them familiar with
what he was going to do than for any reason directed at me as a
control. I watched the liquid in the indicator pulsing minutely as he
finished.
Next he had turned and adjusted one after another of the instruments
on the others, first Honora, then Shattuck, and finally Lathrop. When
he came to Leslie and Doyle he paused and finally decided that as a
"control" I was sufficient.
It was interesting to see how each of them took it. Honora accepted it
with her previous passivity. Naturally Shattuck rebelled and it was
only after a lengthy argument in which Doyle moved over ominously that
he accepted. Lathrop viewed it, naturally, with the interest of a man
of science.
"Of course, as you all realize," remarked Craig, as he finished
adjusting the instruments, whatever they were, "there have been many
very strange ramifications to this case. It began in tragedy and it
seems to continue in tragedy. Crime is like the train of powder. When
the match is touched to it the fire runs along rapidly until it reaches
the magazine--which it will explode unless the fire is stamped out at
some point along the line."
As he said it he glanced about at the faces before him, as though to
see what each indicated. Even Doctor Lathrop, in spite of the suicide
of his wife, showed no emotion.
"There is no use for me to rehearse the strange circumstances that root
back into the past," Craig continued. "They are well known in general
to all of you--the society gossip, the scandals that have been repeated
widely. Motives enough for everybody have appeared in this case as I
have delved into it. What we want now is _facts_."
He paused and leaned forward earnestly.
"It has always been a theorem with me that one might reason out by
all sorts of logical means that a certain person could not have done
a certain act at a certain time and place. And yet, when it has been
reasoned out perfectly to the satisfaction of the reasoner--you may
find that the person actually did it. Therefore, I am a sort of modern
Gradgrind. What I want is facts--facts--facts."
As he finished he turned toward the table. Nor did he seem disposed to
add anything immediately. Still, we could see what he was doing and
such was the attention riveted on him that I am sure none of us missed
a movement of his.
Casually he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew forth the
peculiar bean which I had picked up on the floor of Wilford's office.
He stood there for a moment, as though absent-mindedly toying with it,
his back toward us.
I glanced about. The action was not lost on any of them, but I watched
the face of Honora more especially. She started forward, then caught
herself. For the moment I thought she might have fainted. But she did
not.
"What's the idea, Kennedy?" burst out Shattuck, impatiently, observing.
"Is it just some little theatricals--or is it a little Spanish
Inquisition stuff?"
"Just a moment, Shattuck," interrupted Doyle, who needed not very much
provocation to boil over. "Mrs. Wilford," he shot out, suddenly, before
she had recovered her composure, "you have not been frank, either with
the police or with Mr. Kennedy. Some one besides you and your husband
was in that office that night."
"I--in the office?" she repeated, blankly.
"Yes--in the office. We know there was a woman there."
"I was not there," she asserted, positively.
"Some one besides you and your husband--a man--was there," reiterated
Doyle, ignoring her denial.
Kennedy was still half turned away. Nor did he show any disposition
to interrupt Doyle. I looked at Doyle, wondering why Kennedy did not
interrupt the detective's third degree.
Remorselessly Doyle pressed home his questioning.
"We know much more than you think, Mrs. Wilford," exclaimed Doyle,
menacingly. "We have not been idle. There are more sources of
information open to the police than maids that earn their pay from
their mistresses," he hinted, darkly.
"Celeste told the truth," returned Honora, quietly. "Surely you have
had chance enough to have found out about me from her, if there had
been anything to find out."
Doyle was not to be placated by a soft answer.
"There were other people about that office that night," he added,
confidently. "Mr. Wilford was not the only tenant in that building.
Much can be overheard in the stillness after business hours. Don't
forget that. Why did you tell him to give her up--that she never had
loved him, did not, and never could love him?"
Honora flushed slightly at the reference implied by Doyle to Vina. She
seemed about to reply hotly, then checked herself. She looked about the
room as though seeking help from some one, but not finding it.
"If you were really there," interrupted Kennedy, quietly, for the first
time, "tell."
I saw Shattuck scowl blackly at Kennedy for lending the weight of his
support even thus mildly to Doyle's bulldozing. Almost I hated Craig
for doing it, myself. Honora's friendlessness appealed to me as it had
often before. However, I reasoned, sentiment is a dangerous thing in a
murder case.
"It is your duty to tell," urged Kennedy. "It is ours to find out. As
Doyle says, we have found out much. _Some one_--two people--were in
that office, besides your husband!"
There was silence.
"A man was there--came later--at the time when the murder must have
been committed!"
An instant she faltered and gazed wildly from one to the other of us
beside her.
The strain was too great. It was as though something snapped under it.
"No!" she cried, half sobbing, half defiant. "There was no one in that
office! I--"
It was too much for Shattuck.
Out of the corner of my eye I had seen his glance riveted on Kennedy's
hands as Craig twirled the Calabar bean nonchalantly.
He turned suddenly and looked at Honora--then strode a step forward.
"Professor Kennedy," he exclaimed, in a husky voice, "she was not
there. It was I who was in the office. I will tell all!"
XIX
THE LIE-DETECTOR
I do not know whether Kennedy was as startled as I at the unexpected
confession of Shattuck. At any rate, his face did not betray it.
It was Honora, however, whom I watched most closely. Her color came and
went. One moment she seemed as pale as death; the next her face was
flushed and burning. Yet she said nothing, though I knew she could have
shrieked.
What did it mean? Had she told the truth? Or had she confessed to
something, in the hope of saving him?
For the moment Shattuck was the calmest in the room, as generally
happens in a crisis of this nature with the principal actor in the
scene.
"Let me tell you exactly what happened," he began, deliberately,
avoiding as much as possible the mocking gaze of Doyle, who seemed
delighted at the course of events.
Shattuck paused and cleared his throat, as though to gain time to think
out the correct order of events.
"I came to the office," he continued, slowly. "It was quite late, but
I found Vail Wilford there and alone," he emphasized the word. "As
I entered, he was sitting at his desk. He turned and spoke to me. I
don't recall just what it was that he said, but that doesn't make any
difference now.
"I had thought the whole thing out before. I knew perfectly what I was
there for. The situation--the wide scandal between himself and Vina
Lathrop--had become intolerable. As for me, I may as well confess that
the growing unhappiness of Mrs. Wilford preyed on my mind--until I was
almost mad."
I heard Honora take a sharp breath, as though to control her feelings.
She was leaning forward now, her cheeks burning, her eyes fixed on
the face of the man who was speaking. With every word, I could see
her emotions rising higher. Never had I dreamed that it was in this
woman to show such depth of feeling. It was as though she were passing
through some transformation which she herself did not understand, but
which was changing her own soul and making a new creature of her.
"I cannot recall just what passed between us," went on Shattuck, as
though eager to hasten on and have it over with. "It was about his
wife and what I thought his duties were. Every moment I could see
that he was growing more and more angry--which was what I intended.
Finally he rose, threatening. Wilford was a powerful man and no mean
antagonist--but I had come prepared. I had my gun at his breast before
he knew it. I forced him back into his chair.
"'Honora is being driven mad by the way things are going,' I remember I
shouted at him. 'One or the other of us must get out of her life.'
"I could have shot him as he sat there, facing me before his desk--but
I did not."
Shattuck was talking calmly now, and earnestly, though underneath there
was a depth of passion.
"Then what?" demanded Doyle, as though fearful that something might
even yet arise to stop the story.
"I took one of those things, those beans that Kennedy has been talking
about," he answered, pointing at the bean Kennedy was still holding in
his hand.
"Where did you get it?"
"In Africa, of course," he hastened. "Where else?"
"Have you any more?" demanded Doyle.
"Yes--I think so," came back quickly. "I may have used the last one,
though--or rather two, that is. You see, I must have dropped one and
lost it. Then I must have forgotten about it in the excitement--that
one Kennedy has."
"I see," nodded Doyle. "Always there is some loophole you people leave
open, some place where the cleverest of you fall down and get caught."
Shattuck suppressed a quick retort that was on his lips.
"As I faced him," he went on, "I told him that I would not kill him
outright. I would give him an equal chance. I am a sportsman. I told
him what the thing was, of the duels I had seen in Africa, of the
chance that each took. At the very point of the gun I forced him to
take the bean that was lying on the desk and cut it in half with my
knife. Then I took back the knife and pointed to the two parts that lay
on the desk before him.
"'Choose!' I ordered."
"But the glasses," interrupted Doyle, before he could check himself.
"You forgot about the two glasses on the desk."
"Oh yes--the glasses--on the desk. There were two glasses--I got two
glasses. I filled them with water. I placed one before him, the other
before myself. 'Choose!' I ordered him, pointing to the halves of the
bean before him.
"One thing I can say. Vail Wilford was not yellow. He saw that I had
him--that there was no escape. He looked from the gun to me, then at
the halves of the bean. Outside there was silence. No place, you know,
is more deserted than down-town late at night after business hours. If
he shouted, he knew that I would fire--also if he moved. I gave him
sixty seconds to choose which half he would take. At the point of the
gun he chose.
"'Now,' I said to him, taking the remaining half myself, 'put it in
your mouth, chew it, swallow it. If you spit out so much as a fragment
I will fire instantly.'
"And I give him credit. He was a sportsman and a gentleman through it
all. I watched him chew it, and when he started I reached over and
took my half. I began to chew that, myself. Then, together, we drank
the water from the glasses, so that we would have to swallow the parts
of the bean. Though I had him in my power, I did not take advantage of
him."
Honora gasped at the picture Shattuck was drawing. The recital was
deeply affecting to her. I saw her leaning forward, and her rapidly
rising and falling breast told the suppressed emotion under which she
labored.
"All right," hurried Doyle, to whom the dramatic quality of the tale
had little appeal. "But what about the note? You forget to tell us
about the suicide note."
"Oh yes," exclaimed Shattuck, "so I did--about the note. I made him
write it before we ate the bean--while I had him covered. I made him
sit down at his own typewriter and I dictated it to him--one for
myself, the other for him--to be used in case either survived."
"You made him write one for you?"
"Yes."
"What did you do with it?"
"I destroyed it afterward--of course."
Doyle was forced to accept the answer.
"And you were alone?"
"Absolutely alone with him. Let me tell it--listen to me--will you? We
ate the halves of the bean. I still kept the gun on him. I was taking
no chances. The minutes passed as I stood over him--five--ten.
"On which of us would the thing take effect first? It was a terrible
wait. I will admit it. But it was the ordeal. We were just primitive
men. Besides," he added, still keeping his glance from the face of
Honora, who was leaning forward, her lustrous eyes trying to catch his,
"I was playing for a big stake--it was death or what is really more
than life to me."
He paused just a fraction of a second, but only a fraction, as though
he himself were afraid of an interruption.
"At last I saw that his heart and lungs were beginning to be affected.
His eyes were narrowed, the pupils to a pin-point--am I right about
that, Professor? Never mind. In myself I waited for the same symptoms
to appear. And I began to feel them, too. I was dizzy--with a burning
thirst--but--alive! Still, I kept the gun leveled at him--the best I
could, for my hand shook.
"He did not know that, could not see it. Consciousness was fast going
from him. But I was determined. I _would_ live. I saw that I might have
the--the woman--I would give my life for. Perhaps it was will-power
that saved me. But--they cannot say I did not give him a fair chance
for the woman and the life that he did not deserve!"
Breathlessly now we were all listening. Honora was trembling. Doctor
Lathrop bent forward, nervously pulling his beard, his eyes riveted on
the speaker. Only Doyle seemed to take the thing as a matter of course.
"And Honora Wilford?" Doyle interjected. "What was she doing at--"
"No--no--no, she was not there, I tell you. No one but Wilford and I
was there!"
Shattuck had burst forth with the first words in quick staccato,
slowing up the assertion until at the end he was speaking slowly and
warily. I had an impression that he was not so certain of himself that
he could trust himself to get excited.
Once I caught sight of Kennedy. He was saying nothing at all. But he
was not idle. Taking advantage of the rapt attention of the little
audience, he had stolen softly behind them. I saw him looking carefully
at the various indicators of the arrangements on the wrists and noting
them carefully.
Was Shattuck telling the truth about what happened--or was he coloring
it to save himself?
"But about the atropin--in one glass and nothing in the other?" shot
out Kennedy, suddenly.
It was as though a bombshell had exploded.
"Oh yes--yes," he faltered, "the atropin--of course, of course. In his
glass, also, I--I--"
Shattuck stopped. What was the matter? Did he realize that he was
getting hopelessly tangled?
"It is a pretty story, this, about your duel, as you call it,"
interrupted Doyle. "But it was not atropin that killed him. It was
physostigmine. Atropin is the antidote. Didn't you know that, when you
planned this ordeal you speak about? Besides, the traces of atropin
were not in the glass that was found nearest the body. They were in
the other."
For a moment Shattuck stared helplessly. Was he, after all, just a
murderer? Had he framed this duel by poison, preparing safety for
himself, death for Wilford?
"Come now, Shattuck," exclaimed Doyle, adopting that confidential
manner that worked so well often with underworld characters, but seemed
so out of place here, "did you--honestly--fight such a duel? Didn't you
really force Mr. Wilford to eat that bean? And weren't you protecting
yourself? Aren't there motives enough that we know for you to have
wanted him out of the way?"
Before Shattuck could reply, there was a sudden exclamation from some
one beside me. A figure in a filmy dress darted between Doyle and
Shattuck.
"No--no--wait!"
We were all on our feet in an instant at this sudden interruption at
such a tense moment.
It was Honora, no longer the stately creature of dignity we had seen,
no longer the passive person submitting to the tests of Kennedy's
psychology, suppressing the emotions that lay in her heart. Her whole
being seemed to be transformed. It was as though a new spirit had been
instilled suddenly into her. She faced us, and as I looked into her
burning eyes I saw that what had been the mere statue of a woman, as we
had first known her, had become a throbbing soul of life and passion.
Shattuck saw the change. In spite of the terrible situation, his face
kindled. It was worth it, if only for the brief moments, to feel that
he had aroused in her that which he saw.
"Wait," she repeated, "let me tell."
Doyle was about to interrupt, but Kennedy, who had not for a moment,
even at this crisis, forgotten to glance quickly at one of the
instrument dials after another, pulled him back and silenced him
without a spoken word.
"You say there was a woman there?" she swept on, taking up the story,
as though seizing it from Shattuck. "There _was_ a woman there. It was
I. I was with him."
The thing came as another thunderbolt, as it were, before the
reverberation of the first had ceased echoing.
Not one of us but realized what it meant. Honora had cast reputation,
all, to the winds, to save him!
She looked about at us, and never have I seen a woman more appealing,
not even in any of the great moments of great cases in court which it
has been my fortune to have witnessed and to have written. Cynic though
I am, and knowing, as I thought at the moment, the purpose of it all,
to save the man she loved, I could not resist the appeal. Nor was it
directed at me. So marvelous was she that she took in the whole group,
at once appealing to each, as if a sudden power had become hers.
Quickly she poured forth her story, as though she, too, feared
interruption.
"It is all true--all that he has told," she cried. "I saw it
all--heard it. But there is more--more that he will not tell. He has
not told the whole story. Listen."
It seemed as if she realized for the first time the power of an
emotional woman. And her very instinct told her how to play upon us.
"I knew the Calabar bean," she explained. "I need not tell Professor
Kennedy that. Of course, as he knows, I had seen them in my father's
laboratory, at his shop. And so, when I knew what it was that was
taking place--what was I to do?"
She paused, as though her intuition told her that the playing up of
a dramatic moment would cover a multitude of questions that might
otherwise come awkwardly flocking and demanding an answer as to much
that she had not explained.
"Should I scream out for help? He might have fired the gun. Besides--"
She stopped again and dropped her gaze. "There was my reputation," she
added.
Doyle smiled cynically. She saw it. There was nothing, no slightest
facial change that she missed.
"What do I care--for anything--now?" she defied, directing the remark
full at Doyle, who winced.
Shattuck's face was a study as she poured forth her story. There was
admiration in every line of it--and surprise. I was convinced that she
had swept him off his feet as she had all of us. What did it mean?
"What was I to do?" she repeated, gazing about wildly. "It came to me
in a flash, an inspiration," she raced on, "the atropin--belladonna.
I remembered it from the old days when I was little more than a
school-girl, in the store."
Involuntarily she reached for her chatelaine, but did not open it, as
she illustrated.
"I had my belladonna bottle with me."
Rapt, now, we watched and listened.
"There were only a few drops left in the bottle, I knew. I never
carried much--nor used it often."
She paused and clasped her hands as though in an agony of recollection.
Was she telling the truth--or was she really a great actress who had
just found herself?
"I tried to run between them--I pleaded--my name--my honor--everything.
They would not listen."
She stopped just long enough to allow our own now supersensitive minds
to reconstruct the scene already described by Shattuck between the two
men.
"But I managed to get between them and the glasses on the desk. I held
the bottle, in one hand behind me--so."