Three hours later Carpentaria, whose thoughts had been bent upon some
solution of the problem set by Juliette’s strange and incomprehensible
love affair with Josephus Ilam, was obliged to devote his brains to
other and not less disturbing matters. He received in his study, for the
second time that day, young Rivers, the newly-admitted doctor who had
been officially attached to the City of Pleasure. A medical cabinet and
a pharmacy had been judged quite indispensable to the smooth running
of the City, and the foresight which had provided them was entirely
justified by the numerous small accidents, faintings, and indispositions
that marked the opening day, when more than three hundred persons
had patronized the pharmacy, and more than twenty had received the
attentions of the ardent young doctor.
Carpentaria had first met young Rivers when this youth was walking
Bart’s, and the accession of Rivers to the brilliant and brilliantly
remunerated position of physician and surgeon-in-ordinary to the City of
Pleasure was due to Carpentaria’s influence. Rivers was grateful, very
grateful. Moreover, he liked Carpentaria, thought him, in fact, the most
wonderful man, except Lord Lister, that he had ever met.
“Well,” said the fair youth of twenty-five, when Carpentaria had shut
the study-door, “I’ve made the analysis. It comes out to just about what
I expected.”
“Prussic acid?”
“Not exactly prussic acid. A soluble cyanide--cyanide of potassium. Have
you by any chance got a photographic bureau concealed somewhere in the
show?”
“Why, of course,” said Carpentaria. “Didn’t you know? It’s next door
to the lecture-hall.”
“Then the cyanide of potassium was probably got from there. It’s used by
photographers. Better make inquiries.”
“We will,” Carpentaria agreed. “And do you mean to say cyanide of
potassium will kill like that? How much prussic acid does it contain?”
“Scarcely any. Not two per cent.--not one per cent.”
“And poor Beppo was dead in a minute.”
“My dear Mr. Carpentaria,” said Rivers excitedly. “The strongest
solution of prussic acid known to commerce only contains four per cent,
of pure acid. And in the anhydrous state----”
“Anhydrous?”
“That means without water. In the anhydrous state,” Rivers proceeded
enthusiastically, “two grains will kill a man in a second of time. Like
that! It’s an amazing poison!”
Carpentaria shuddered.
“By the way,” he said, as if casually, “I’ve got a corpse I want you to
look at.”
“A corpse?”
“Keep calm, my young friend,” Carpentaria enjoined him. And he told
him the history of the drunken man. “Naturally all this is strictly
confidential,” he concluded.
“I should think so,” said Rivers, aghast. “Can you not see that you have
got yourself into a dreadful mess? You are an accessory after the
fact. You have been guilty of a gross illegality. I don’t know what the
penalty is; I’m not very well up in medical jurisprudence; but I know
it’s something pretty stiff. Why, you might be accused of the murder.”
“Yes, I am aware of all that,” answered Carpentaria. “But I was very
curious; and I didn’t want any police meddling here.”
“You are going just the way to bring them here.”
“Not at all. When you have made your examination I shall simply put the
body where I found it. No one will be the wiser.”
“And theft?”
“Then--we shall see. It will depend on your examination.”
“But, really, Mr. Carpentaria, I cannot lend myself-----”
“Not to oblige me?”
Carpentaria smiled an engaging smile, and they descended together to the
outhouse.
The outhouse was not more than eleven feet square, and the barrow with
its burden was stretched across it diagonally, so that when the two men
were inside, the place was full and the door would scarcely close. A
small window gave light.
Rivers gently pulled the black cloth aside.
“This is just such black cloth as photographers use,” he remarked.
“So it is,” said Carpentaria.
The eyes of the corpse were closed; he might have been a man asleep,
this strange relic from which a soul had flown and which would soon
resolve itself into its original dust.
“Poor fellow,” thought Carpentaria. “Once he lived, and had interests,
and probably passions, and thought himself of some importance in the
universe.”
The spectacle saddened Carpentaria, whereas the young doctor was not at
all saddened, he was merely intensely interested.
“A blow on the head among other things,” he observed, indicating to
Carpentaria the top of the skull which showed an abrasion together with
an extravasation of blood, now clotted.
“Would that do it?” queried Carpentaria.
“Don’t know. Might. By Jove, the rigor is extraordinarily acute.”
“Rigor?”
7.8
“The stiffness that follows death. Great Scott!”
The doctor assumed an upright position, and stared, first at the corpse
and then at Carpentaria.
“Great Scott!” he repeated.
“What’s up?”
The doctor made no reply, but tried to lift the left arm of the body. He
could not, without raising the entire body.
“This is most interesting,” he said.
“What is?”
Again Rivers did not answer. Instead, he took his watch from his pocket,
and put it suddenly against the ear of the corpse.
The corpse twitched; its head moved slightly; the eyelid lifted the
eighth of an inch.
“See that? You’re lucky! And so’s he!” said the doctor. “It’s catalepsy!
that’s all--A sudden slight noise at the ear itself will often produce a
change of position in catalepsy.”
“Then he’s not dead!” exclaimed Carpentaria.
“Dead? He’s no more dead than you are! It’s just catalepsy, induced
probably by that blow. But he must have been very excited previously,
and, no doubt, suffering from melancholia too. My dear Mr. Carpentaria,
there is only one absolutely reliable symptom of death, and that
is--putrefaction. Death is imitated by various diseases. But there are
not many that will imitate the coldness of death as catalepsy will. Feel
that hand; it’s like ice.”
“And how long will he remain in this condition?” asked Carpentaria, full
of joy and relief.
“Till you go and bring me some snuff. Snuff is the best thing in these
cases.”
“And he’ll be perfectly well again?”
“Yes, in a day or two.”
“He’ll remember--things?”
“Of course he will! Shall I go for that snuff, or will you?”
“I will run,” said Carpentaria, and he ran.