faintest shade of trepidation. "My servant will give you the book,"
he said to Craig. "Pay him."
It seemed that we had suddenly been looked upon with disfavour, and
I half suspected he thought we were spies of the police, who had
recently received numerous complaints of the financial activities
of the fortune tellers, who worked in close harmony with certain
bucket-shop operators in fleecing the credulous of their money by
inspired investment advice. At any rate, the attendant quickly
opened a door into the darkness. Treading cautiously I followed
Craig. The door closed behind us. I clenched my fists, not knowing
what to expect.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy. "He passed us out into an alley.
There is the street not twenty feet away. The Pandit is a clever
one, all right."
It was now too late to see any of the other clairvoyants on our
list, so that with this unceremonious dismissal we decided to
conclude our investigations for the night.
The next morning we wended our way up into the Bronx, where one of
the mystics had ensconced himself rather out of the beaten track of
police protection, or persecution, one could not say which. I was
wondering what sort of vagary would come next. It proved to be
"Swami, the greatest clairvoyant, psychic palmist, and Yogi mediator
of them all." He also stood alone in his power, for he asserted:
Names friends, enemies, rivals, tells whom and when you will
marry, advises you upon love, courtship, marriage, business,
speculation, transactions of every nature. If you are worried,
perplexed, or in trouble come to this wonderful man. He reads
your life like an open book; he overcomes evil influences,
reunites the separated, causes speedy and happy marriage with
the one of your choice, tells how to influence any one you
desire, tells whether wife or sweetheart is true or false.
Love, friendship, and influence of others obtained and a
greater share of happiness in life secured. The key to success
is that marvellous, subtle, unseen power that opens to your
vision the greatest secrets of life. It gives you power which
enables you to control the minds of men and women.
The Swami engaged to explain the "wonderful Karmic law," and by his
method one could develop a wonderful magnetic personality by which
he could win anything the human heart desired. It was therefore
with great anticipation that we sought out the wonderful Swami and,
falling into the spirit of his advertisement, posed as "come-ons"
and pleaded to obtain this wonderful magnetism and a knowledge of
the Karmic law - at a ridiculously low figure, considering its
inestimable advantages to one engaged in the pursuit of criminal
science. Naturally the Swami was pleased at two such early callers,
and his narrow, half-bald head, long slim nose, sharp grey eyes,
and sallow, unwholesome complexion showed his pleasure in every
line and feature.
Rubbing his hands together as he motioned us into the next room,
the Swami seated us on a circular divan with piles of cushions upon
it. There were clusters of flowers in vases about the room, which
gave it the odour of the renewed vitality of the year.
A lackey entered with a silver tray of cups of coffee and a silver
jar in the centre. Talking slowly and earnestly about the "great
Karmic law," the Swami bade us drink the coffee, which was of a
vile, muddy, Turkish variety. Then from the jar he took a box of
rock crystal containing a sort of greenish compound which he kneaded
into a little gum - gum tragacanth, I afterward learned, - and
bade us taste. It was not at all unpleasant to the taste, and as
nothing happened, except the suave droning of the mystic before us,
we ate several of the gum pellets.
I am at a loss to describe adequately just the sensations that I
soon experienced. It was as if puffs of hot and cold air were
alternately blown on my spine, and I felt a twitching of my neck,
legs, and arms. Then came a subtle warmth. The whole thing seemed
droll; the noise of the Swami's voice was most harmonious. His
and Kennedy's faces seemed transformed. They were human faces,
but each had a sort of animal likeness back of it, as Lavater has
said. The Swami seemed to me to be the fox, Kennedy the owl. I
looked in the glass, and I was the eagle. I laughed outright.
It was sensuous in the extreme. The beautiful paintings on the
walls at once became clothed in flesh and blood. A picture of a
lady hanging near me caught my eye. The countenance really smiled
and laughed and varied from moment to moment. Her figure became
rounded and living and seemed to stir in the frame. The face was
beautiful but ghastly. I seemed to be borne along on a sea of
pleasure by currents of voluptuous happiness.
The Swami was affected by a profound politeness. As he rose and
walked about the room, still talking, he salaamed and bowed. When=20
I spoke it sounded like a gun, with an echo long afterward
rumbling in my brain. Thoughts came to me like fury, bewildering,
sometimes as points of light in the most exquisite fireworks.
Objects were clothed in most fantastic garbs. I looked at my two
animal companions. I seemed to read their thoughts. I felt
strange affinities with them, even with the Swami. Yet it was all
by the psychological law of the association of ideas, though I was
no longer master but the servant of those ideas.
As for Kennedy, the stuff seemed to affect him much differently
than it did myself. Indeed, it seemed to rouse in him something
vicious. The more I smiled and the more the Swami salaamed,
the more violent I could see Craig getting, whereas I was lost in
a maze of dreams that I would not have stopped if I could. Seconds
seemed to be years; minutes ages. Things at only a short distance
looked much as they do when looked at through the inverted end of
a telescope. Yet it all carried with it an agreeable exhilaration
which I can only describe as the heightened sense one feels on the
first spring day of the year.
At last the continued plying of the drug seemed to be too much for
Kennedy. The Swami had made a profound salaam. In an instant
Kennedy had seized with both hands the long flowing hair at the
back of the Swami's bald forehead, and he tugged until the mystic
yelled with pain and the tears stood in his eyes.
With a leap I roused myself from the train of dreams and flung
myself between them. At the sound of my voice and the pressure
of my grasp, Craig sullenly and slowly relaxed his grip. A
vacant look seemed to steal into his face, and seizing his hat,
which lay on a near-by stool, he stalked out in silence, and I
followed.
Neither of us spoke for a moment after we had reached the street,
but out of the corner of my eye I could see that Kennedy's body was
convulsed as if with suppressed emotion.
"Do you feel better in the air?" I asked anxiously, yet somewhat
vexed and feeling a sort of lassitude and half regret at the
reality of life and not of the dreams.
It seemed as if he could restrain himself no longer. He burst out
into a hearty laugh. "I was just watching the look of disgust on
your face," he said as he opened his hand and showed me three or
four of the gum lozenges that he had palmed instead of swallowing.
"Ha, ha! I wonder what the Swami thinks of his earnest effort to
expound the Karmic law."
It was beyond me. With the Swami's concoction still shooting
thoughts like sky rockets through my brain I gave it up and allowed
Kennedy to engineer our next excursion into the occult.
One more seer remained to be visited. This one professed to "hold
your life mirror" and by his "magnetic monochrome," whatever that
might be, he would "impart to you an attractive personality, mastery
of being, for creation and control of life conditions."
He described himself as the "Guru," and, among other things, he
professed to be a sun-worshipper. At any rate, the room into which
we were admitted was decorated with the four-spoked wheel, or wheel
and cross, the winged circle, and the winged orb. The Guru himself
was a swarthy individual with a purple turban wound around his head.
In his inner room were many statuettes, photographs of other Gurus
of the faith, and on each of the four walls were mysterious symbols
in plaster representing a snake curved in a circle, swallowing his
tail, a five-pointed star, and in the centre another winged sphere.
Craig asked the Guru to explain the symbols, to which he replied
with a smile: "The snake represents eternity, the star involution
and evolution of the soul, while the winged sphere - eh, well, that
represents something else. Do you come to learn of the faith?"
At this gentle hint Craig replied that he did, and the utmost
amicability was restored by the purchase of the Green Book of the
Guru, which seemed to deal with everything under the sun, and
particularly the revival of ancient Asiatic fire-worship with many
forms and ceremonies, together with posturing and breathing that
rivalled the "turkey trot," the "bunny hug," and the "grizzly bear."
The book, as we turned, over its pages, gave directions for preparing
everything from food to love-philtres and the elixir of life. One
very interesting chapter was devoted to " electric marriage," which
seemed to come to those only who, after searching patiently, at last
found perfect mates. Another of the Guru's tenets seemed to be
purification by eliminating all false modesty, bathing in the sun,
and while bathing engaging in any occupation which kept the mind
agreeably occupied. On the first page was the satisfying legend,
"There is nothing in the world that a disciple can give to pay the
debt to the Guru who has taught him one truth."
As we talked, it seemed quite possible to me that the Guru might
exert a very powerful hypnotic influence over his disciples or those
who came to seek his advice. Besides this indefinable hypnotic
influence, I also noted the more material lock on the door to the
inner sanctuary.
"Yes," the Guru was saying to Kennedy, "I can secure you one of
the love-pills from India, but it will cost you - er - ten dollars."
I think he hesitated, to see how much the traffic would bear, from
one to one hundred, and compromised with only one zero after the
unit. Kennedy appeared satisfied, and the Guru departed with
alacrity to secure the specially imported pellet.
In a corner was a sort of dressing-table on which lay a comb and
brush. Kennedy seemed much interested in the table and was examining
it when the Guru returned. Just as the door opened he managed to
slip the brush into his pocket and appear interested in the mystic
symbols on the wall opposite.
"If that doesn't work," remarked the Guru in remarkably good English,
"let me know, and you must try one of my charm bottles. But the
love-pills are fine. Good-day."
Outside Craig looked at me quizzically "You wouldn't believe it,
Walter, would you?" he said. "Here in this twentieth century in New
York, and in fact in every large city of the world - love-philtres,
love-pills, and all the rest of it. And it is not among the
ignorant that these things are found, either. You remember we saw
automobiles waiting before some of the places."
"I suspect that all who visit the fakirs are not so gullible, after
all," I replied sententiously.
"Perhaps not. I think I shall have something interesting to say
to-night as a result of our visits, at least."
During the remainder of the day Kennedy was closely confined in his
laboratory with his microscopes, slides, chemicals, test-tubes, and
other apparatus. As for myself, I put in the time speculating
which of the fakirs had been in some mysterious way connected with
the case and in what manner. Many were the theories which I had
formed and the situations I conjured up, and in nearly all I had
one central figure, the young man whose escapades had been the talk
of even the fast set of a fast society.
That night Kennedy, with the assistance of First Deputy O'Connor,
who was not averse to taking any action within the law toward the
soothsayers, assembled a curiously cosmopolitan crowd in his
laboratory. Besides the Gilberts were Dudley Lawton and his father,
Hata, the Pandit, the Swami, and the Guru - the latter four persons
in high dudgeon at being deprived of the lucrative profits of a
Sunday night.
Kennedy began slowly) leading gradually up to his point: "A new
means of bringing criminals to justice has been lately studied by
one of the greatest scientific detectives of crime in the world,
the man to whom we are indebted for our most complete systems of
identification and apprehension." Craig paused and fingered the
microscope before him thoughtfully. "Human hair," he resumed,
"has recently been the study of that untiring criminal scientist,
M. Bertillon. He has drawn up a full, classified, and graduated
table of all the known colours of the human hair, a complete
palette, so to speak, of samples gathered in every quarter of
the globe. Henceforth burglars, who already wear gloves or paint
their fingers with a rubber composition for fear of leaving
finger-prints, will have to wear close-fitting caps or keep their
heads shaved. Thus he has hit upon a new method of identification
of those sought by the police. For instance, from time to time
the question arises whether hair is human or animal. In such
cases the microscope tells the answer truthfully.
"For a long time I have been studying hair, taking advantage of
those excellent researches by M. Bertillon. Human hair is fairly
uniform, tapering gradually. Under the microscope it is practically
always possible to distinguish human hair from animal. I shall not
go into the distinctions, but I may add that it is also possible
to determine very quickly the difference between all hair, human or
animal, and cotton with its corkscrew-like twists, linen with its
jointed structure, and silk, which is long, smooth, and cylindrical."
Again Kennedy paused as if to emphasise this preface. "I have
here," he continued, "a sample of hair." He had picked up a
microscope slide that was lying on the table. It certainly did
not look very thrilling - a mere piece of glass, that was all. But
on the glass was what appeared to be merely a faint line. "This
slide," he said, holding it up, "has what must prove an unescapable
clue to the identity of the man responsible for the disappearance
of Miss Gilbert. I shall not tell you yet who he is, for the
simple reason that, though I could make a shrewd guess, I do not
yet know what the verdict of science is, and in science we do not
guess where we can prove.
"You will undoubtedly remember that when Miss Gilbert's body was
discovered, it bore no evidence of suicide, but on the contrary the
marks of violence. Her fists were clenched, as if she had struggled
with all her power against a force that had been too much for her.
I examined her hands, expecting to find some evidence of a weapon
she had used to defend herself. Instead, I found what was more
valuable. Here on this slide are several hairs that I found tightly
grasped in her rigid hands."
I could not help recalling Kennedy's remark earlier in the case
- that=20it hung on slender threads. Yet how strong might not those
threads prove!
"There was also in her pocketbook a newspaper clipping bearing the
advertisements of several clairvoyants," he went on. "Mr. Jameson
and myself had already discovered what the police had failed to
find, that on the morning of the day on which she disappeared Miss
Gilbert had made three distinct efforts, probably, to secure books
on clairvoyance. Accordingly, Mr. Jameson and myself have visited
several of the fortune-tellers and practitioners of the occult
sciences in which we had reason to believe Miss Gilbert was
interested. They all, by the way, make a specialty of giving advice
in money matters and solving the problems of lovers. I suspect that
at times Mr. Jameson has thought that I was demented, but I had to
resort to many and various expedients to collect the specimens of
hair which I wanted. From the police, who used Mr. Lawton's valet,
I received some hair from his head. Here is another specimen from
each of the advertisers, Hata, the Swami, the Pandit, and the Guru.
There is just one of these specimens which corresponds in every
particular of colour, thickness, and texture with the hair found
so tightly grasped in Miss Gilbert's hand."
As Craig said this I could feel a sort of gasp of astonishment from
our little audience. Still he was not quite ready to make his
disclosure.
"Lest I should be prejudiced," he pursued evenly, "by my own rather
strong convictions, and in order that I might examine the samples
without fear or favour, I had one of my students at the laboratory
take the marked hairs, mount them, number them, and put in numbered
envelopes the names of the persons who furnished them. But before
I open the envelope numbered the same as the slide which contains
the hair which corresponds precisely with that hair found in Miss
Gilbert's hand - and it is slide No. 2 - " said Kennedy, picking
out the slide with his finger and moving it on the table with as
much coolness as if he were moving a chessman on a board instead of
playing in the terrible game of human life, "before I read the name
I have still one more damning fact to disclose."
Craig now had us on edge with excitement, a situation which I
sometimes thought he enjoyed more keenly than any other in his
relentless tracing down of a criminal.
"What was it that caused Miss Gilbert's death?" asked Kennedy. "The
coroner's physician did not seem to be thoroughly satisfied with the
theory of physical violence alone. Nor did I. Some one, I believe,
exerted a peculiar force in order to get her into his power. What
was that force? At first I thought it might have been the hackneyed
knock-out drops, but tests by the coroner's physician eliminated
that. Then I thought it might be one of the alkaloids, such as
morphine, cocaine, and others. But it was not any of the usual
things that was used to entice her away from her family and friends.
>From tests that I have, made I have discovered the one fact necessary
to complete my case, the drug used to lure her and against which she
fought in deadly struggle."
He placed a test tube in a rack before us. "This tube," he
continued, "contains one of the most singular and, among us, least
known of the five common narcotics of the world - tobacco, opium,
coca, betel nut, and hemp. It can be smoked, chewed, used as a
drink, or taken as a confection. In the form of a powder it is
used by the narghile smoker. As a liquid it can be taken as an
oily fluid or in alcohol. Taken in any of these forms, it literally
makes the nerves walk, dance, and run. It heightens the feelings
and sensibilities to distraction, producing what is really hysteria.
If the weather is clear, this drug will make life gorgeous; if it
rains, tragic. Slight vexation becomes deadly revenge; courage
becomes rashness; fear, abject terror; and gentle affection or even
a passing liking is transformed into passionate love. It is the
drug derived from the Indian hemp, scientifically named Cannabis
Indica, better known as hashish, or bhang, or a dozen other names
in the East. Its chief characteristic is that it has a profound
effect on the passions. Thus, under its influence, natives of the
East become greatly exhilarated, then debased, and finally violent,
rushing forth on the streets with the cry, 'Amok, amok,' - ' Kill,
kill ' - as we say, 'running amuck.' An overdose of this drug often
causes insanity, while in small quantities our doctors use it as a
medicine. Any one who has read the brilliant Theophile Gautier's
'Club des Hachichens' or Bayard Taylor's experience at Damascus
knows something of the effect of hashish, however.
"In reconstructing the story of Georgette Gilbert, as best I can,
I believe that she was lured to the den of one of the numerous
cults practised in New York, lured by advertisements offering advice
in hidden love affairs. Led on by her love for a man whom she could
not and would not put out of her life, and by her affection for her
parents, she was frantic. This place offered hope, and to it she
went in all innocence, not knowing that it was only the open door
to a life such as the most lurid disorderly resorts of the
metropolis could scarcely match. There her credulity was preyed
upon, and she was tricked into taking this drug, which itself has
such marked and perverting effect. But, though she must have been
given a great deal of the drug, she did not yield, as many of the
sophisticated do. She struggled frantically, futilely. Will and
reason were not conquered, though they sat unsteadily on their
thrones. The wisp of hair so tightly clasped in her dead hand shows
that she fought bitterly to the end."
Kennedy was leaning forward earnestly, glaring at each of us in turn.
Lawton was twisting uneasily in his chair, and I could see that his
fists were doubled up and that he was holding himself in leash as if
waiting for something, eyeing us all keenly. The Swami was seized
with a violent fit of trembling, and the other fakirs were staring
in amazement.
Quickly I stepped between Dudley Lawton and Kennedy, but as I did
so, he leaped behind me, and before I could turn he was grappling
wildly with some one on the floor.
"It's all right, Walter," cried Kennedy, tearing open the envelope
on the table. "Lawton has guessed right. The hair was the Swami's.
Georgette Gilbert was one victim who fought and rescued herself from
a slavery worse than death. And there is one mystic who could not
foresee arrest and the death house at Sing Sing in his horoscope."
VIII
THE FORGER
We were lunching with Stevenson Williams, a friend of Kennedy's, at
the Insurance Club, one of the many new downtown luncheon clubs,
where the noon hour is so conveniently combined with business.
"There isn't much that you can't insure against nowadays," remarked
Williams when the luncheon had progressed far enough to warrant a
tentative reference to the obvious fact that he had had a purpose
in inviting us to the club. "Take my own company, for example, the
Continental Surety. We have lately undertaken to write forgery
insurance."
"Forgery insurance?" repeated Kennedy. "Well, I should think you'd
be doing a ripping business - putting up the premium rate about
every day in this epidemic of forgery that seems to be sweeping over
the country."
Williams, who was one of the officers of the company, smiled somewhat
wearily, I thought. "We are," he replied drily. "That was precisely
what I wanted to see you about."
"What? The premiums or the epidemic?"
"Well - er - both, perhaps. I needn't say much about the epidemic,
as you call it. To you I can admit it; to the newspapers, never.
Still, I suppose you know that it is variously estimated that the
forgers of the country are getting away with from ten to fifteen
million dollars a year. It is just one case that I was thinking
about - one on which the regular detective agencies we employ seem
to have failed utterly so far. It involves pretty nearly one of
those fifteen millions."
"What? One case? A million dollars?" gasped Kennedy, gazing
fixedly at Williams as if he found it difficult to believe.
"Exactly," replied Williams imperturbably, "though it was not done
all at one fell swoop, of course, but gradually, covering a period
of some months. You have doubtless heard of the By-Products
Company of Chicago?"
Craig nodded.
"Well, it is their case," pursued Williams, losing his quiet manner
and now hurrying ahead almost breathlessly. "You know they own a
bank out there also, called the By-Products Bank. That's how we
come to figure in the case, by having insured their bank against
forgery. Of course our liability runs up only to $50,000. But the
loss to the company as well as to its bank through this affair will
reach the figure I have named. They will have to stand the balance
beyond our liability and, well, fifty thousand is not a small sum
for us to lose, either. We can't afford to lose it without a fight."
"Of course not. But you must have some suspicions, some clues. You
must have taken some action in tracing the thing out, whatever is
back of it."