THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY
We had by this time swung around to the side of the houseboat. I
realized as we mounted the ladder that the marine gasoline engine had
materially changed the old-time houseboat from a mere scow or barge
with a low flat house on it, moored in a bay or river, and only with
difficulty and expense towed from one place to another. Now the
houseboat was really a fair-sized yacht.
The _Lucie_ was built high in order to give plenty of accommodation for
the living quarters. The staterooms, dining rooms and saloon were
really rooms, with seven or eight feet of head room, and furnished just
as one would find in a tasteful and expensive house.
Down in the hull, of course, was the gasoline motor which drove the
propeller, so that when the owner wanted a change of scene all that was
necessary was to get up anchor, start the motor and navigate the
yacht-houseboat to some other harbor.
Edwards himself met us on the deck. He was a tall man, with a red face,
a man of action, of outdoor life, apparently a hard worker and a hard
player. It was quite evident that he had been waiting for the return of
Waldon anxiously.
“You find us considerably upset, Professor Kennedy,” he greeted Craig,
as his brother-in-law introduced us.
Edwards turned and led the way toward the saloon. As he entered and
bade us be seated in the costly cushioned wicker chairs I noticed how
sumptuously it was furnished, and particularly its mechanical piano,
its phonograph and the splendid hardwood floor which seemed to invite
one to dance in the cool breeze that floated across from one set of
open windows to the other. And yet in spite of everything, there was
that indefinable air of something lacking, as in a house from which the
woman is gone.
“You were not here last night, I understand,” remarked Kennedy, taking
in the room at a glance.
“Unfortunately, no,” replied Edwards, “Business has kept me with my
nose pretty close to the grindstone this summer. Waldon called me up in
the middle of the night, however, and I started down in my car, which
enabled me to get here before the first train. I haven’t been able to
do a thing since I got here except just wait—wait—wait. I confess that
I don’t know what else to do. Waldon seemed to think we ought to have
some one down here—and I guess he was right. Anyhow, I’m glad to see
you.”
I watched Edwards keenly. For the first time I realized that I had
neglected to ask Waldon whether he had seen the unfinished letter. The
question was unnecessary. It was evident that he had not.
“Let me see, Waldon, if I’ve got this thing straight,” Edwards went on,
pacing restlessly up and down the saloon. “Correct me if I haven’t.
Last night, as I understand it, there was a sort of little family party
here, you and Miss Verrall and your mother from the _Nautilus_, and
Mrs. Edwards and Dr. Jermyn.”
“Yes,” replied Waldon with, I thought, a touch of defiance at the words
“family party.” He paused as if he would have added that the _Nautilus_
would have been more congenial, anyhow, then added, “We danced a little
bit, all except Lucie. She said she wasn’t feeling any too well.”
Edwards had paused by the door. “If you’ll excuse me a minute,” he
said, “I’ll call Jermyn and Mrs. Edwards’ maid, Juanita. You ought to
go over the whole thing immediately, Professor Kennedy.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about the letter to him?” asked Kennedy
under his breath.
“What was the use?” returned Waldon. “I didn’t know how he’d take it.
Besides, I wanted your advice on the whole thing. Do you want to show
it to him?”
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” ruminated Kennedy. “It may be possible to
clear the thing up without involving anybody’s name. At any rate, some
one is coming down the passage this way.”
Edwards entered with Dr. Jermyn, a clean-shaven man, youthful in
appearance, yet approaching middle age. I had heard of him before. He
had studied several years abroad and had gained considerable reputation
since his return to America.
Dr. Jermyn shook hands with us cordially enough, made some passing
comment on the tragedy, and stood evidently waiting for us to disclose
our hands.
“You have been Mrs. Edwards’ physician for some time, I believe?”
queried Kennedy, fencing for an opening.
“Only since her marriage,” replied the doctor briefly.
“She hadn’t been feeling well for several days, had she?” ventured
Kennedy again.
“No,” replied Dr. Jermyn quickly. “I doubt whether I can add much to
what you already know. I suppose Mr. Waldon has told you about her
illness. The fact is, I suppose her maid Juanita will be able to tell
you really more than I can.”
I could not help feeling that Dr. Jermyn showed a great deal of
reluctance in talking.
“You have been with her several days, though, haven’t you?”
“Four days, I think. She was complaining of feeling nervous and
telegraphed me to come down here. I came prepared to stay over night,
but Mr. Edwards happened to run down that day, too, and he asked me if
I wouldn’t remain longer. My practice in the summer is such that I can
easily leave it with my assistant in the city, so I agreed. Really,
that is about all I can say. I don’t know yet what was the matter with
Mrs. Edwards, aside from the nervousness which seemed to be of some
time standing.”
He stood facing us, thoughtfully stroking his chin, as a very pretty
and petite maid nervously entered and stood facing us in the doorway.
“Come in, Juanita,” encouraged Edwards. “I want you to tell these
gentlemen just what you told me about discovering that Madame had
gone—and anything else that you may recall now.”
“It was Juanita who discovered that Madame was gone, you know,” put in
Waldon.
“How did you discover it?” prompted Craig.
“It was very hot,” replied the maid, “and often on hot nights I would
come in and fan Madame since she was so wakeful. Last night I went to
the door and knocked. There was no reply. I called to her, ‘Madame,
madame.’ Still there was no answer. The worst I supposed was that she
had fainted. I continued to call.”
“The door was locked?” inquired Kennedy.
“Yes, sir. My call aroused the others on the boat. Dr. Jermyn came and
he broke open the door with his shoulder. But the room was empty.
Madame was gone.”
“How about the windows?” asked Kennedy.
“Open. They were always open these nights. Sometimes Madame would sit
by the window when there was not much breeze.”
“I should like to see the room,” remarked Craig, with an inquiring
glance at Edwards.
“Certainly,” he answered, leading the way down a corridor.
Mrs. Edwards’ room was on the starboard side, with wide windows instead
of portholes. It was furnished magnificently and there was little about
it that suggested the nautical, except the view from the window.
“The bed had not been slept in,” Edwards remarked as we looked about
curiously.
Kennedy walked over quickly to the wide series of windows before which
was a leather-cushioned window seat almost level with the window,
several feet above the level of the water. It was by this window,
evidently, that Juanita meant that Mrs. Edwards often sat. It was a
delightful position, but I could readily see that it would be
comparatively easy for anyone accidentally or purposely to fall.
“I think myself,” Waldon remarked to Kennedy, “that it must have been
from the open window that she made her way to the outside. It seems
that all agree that the door was locked, while the window was wide
open.”
“There had been no sound—no cry to alarm you?” shot out Kennedy
suddenly to Juanita.
“No, sir, nothing. I could not sleep myself, and I thought of Madame.”
“You heard nothing?” he asked of Dr. Jermyn.
“Nothing until I heard the maid call,” he replied briefly.
Mentally I ran over again Kennedy’s first list of possibilities—taken
off by another boat, accident, drugs, suicide, murder.
Was there, I asked myself, sufficient reason for suicide? The letter
seemed to me to show too proud a spirit for that. In fact the last
sentence seemed to show that she was contemplating the surest method of
revenge, rather than surrender. As for accident, why should a person
fall overboard from a large houseboat into a perfectly calm harbor?
Then, too, there had been no outcry. Somehow, I could not seem to fit
any of the theories in with the facts. Evidently it was like many
another case, one in which we, as yet, had insufficient data for a
conclusion.
Suddenly I recalled the theory that Waldon himself had advanced
regarding the wireless, either from the boat itself or from the
wireless station. For the moment, at least, it seemed plausible that
she might have been seated at the window, that she might have been
affected by escaped wireless, or by electrolysis. I knew that some
physicians had described a disease which they attributed to wireless, a
sort of anemia with a marked diminution in the number of red corpuscles
in the blood, due partly to the over etherization of the air by reason
of the alternating currents used to generate the waves.
“I should like now to inspect the little wireless plant you have here
on the _Lucie_,” remarked Kennedy. “I noticed the mast as we were
approaching a few minutes ago.”
I had turned at the sound of his voice in time to catch Edwards and Dr.
Jermyn eyeing each other furtively. Did they know about the letter,
after all, I wondered? Was each in doubt about just how much the other
knew?
There was no time to pursue these speculations. “Certainly,” agreed Mr.
Edwards promptly, leading the way.
Kennedy seemed keenly interested in inspecting the little wireless
plant, which was of a curious type and not exactly like any that I had
seen before.
“Wireless apparatus,” he remarked, as he looked it over, “is divided
into three parts, the source of power whether battery or dynamo, the
making and sending of wireless waves, including the key, spark,
condenser and tuning coil, and the receiving apparatus, head
telephones, antennae, ground and detector.”
Pedersen, the engineer, came in while we were looking the plant over,
but seemed uncommunicative to all Kennedy’s efforts to engage him in
conversation.
“I see,” remarked Kennedy, “that it is a very compact system with
facilities for a quick change from one wave length to another.”
“Yes,” grunted Pedersen, as averse to talking, evidently, as others on
the _Lucie_.
“Spark gap, quenched type,” I heard Kennedy mutter almost to himself,
with a view to showing Pedersen that he knew something about it. “Break
system relay—operator can overhear any interference while
transmitting—transformation by a single throw of a six-point switch
which tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance. Very
clever—very efficient. By the way, Pedersen, are you the only person
aboard who can operate this?”
“How should I know?” he answered almost surlily.
“You ought to know, if anybody,” answered Kennedy unruffled. “I know
that it has been operated within the past few days.”
Pedersen shrugged his shoulders. “You might ask the others aboard,” was
all he said. “Mr. Edwards pays me to operate it only for himself, when
he has no other operator.”
Kennedy did not pursue the subject, evidently from fear of saying too
much just at present.
“I wonder if there is anyone else who could have operated it,” said
Waldon, as we mounted again to the deck.
“I don’t know,” replied Kennedy, pausing on the way up. “You haven’t a
wireless on the _Nautilus_, have you?”
Waldon shook his head. “Never had any particular use for it myself,” he
answered.
“You say that Miss Verrall and her mother have gone back to the city?”
pursued Kennedy, taking care that as before the others were out of
earshot.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to stay with you tonight, then,” decided Kennedy. “Might we
go over with you now? There doesn’t seem to be anything more I can do
here, unless we get some news about Mrs. Edwards.”
Waldon seemed only too glad to agree, and no one on the _Lucie_
insisted on our staying.
We arrived at the _Nautilus_ a few minutes later, and while we were
lunching Kennedy dispatched the tender to the Marconi station with a
note.
It was early in the afternoon when the tender returned with several
packages and coils of wire. Kennedy immediately set to work on the
_Nautilus_ stretching out some of the wire.
“What is it you are planning?” asked Waldon, to whom every action of
Kennedy seemed to be a mystery of the highest interest.
“Improvising my own wireless,” he replied, not averse to talking to the
young man to whom he seemed to have taken a fancy. “For short
distances, you know, it isn’t necessary to construct an aërial pole or
even to use outside wires to receive messages. All that is needed is to
use just a few wires stretched inside a room. The rest is just the
apparatus.”
I was quite as much interested as Waldon. “In wireless,” he went on,
“the signals are not sent in one direction, but in all, so that a
person within range of the ethereal disturbance can get them if only he
has the necessary receiving apparatus. This apparatus need not be so
elaborate and expensive as used to be thought needful if a sensitive
detector is employed, and I have sent over to the station for a new
piece of apparatus which I knew they had in almost any Marconi station.
Why, I’ve got wireless signals using only twelve feet of number
eighteen copper wire stretched across a room and grounded with a water
pipe. You might even use a wire mattress on an iron bedstead.”
“Can’t they find out by—er, interference?” I asked, repeating the term
I had so often heard.
Kennedy laughed. “No, not for radio apparatus which merely receives
radiograms and is not equipped for sending. I am setting up only one
side of a wireless outfit here. All I want to do is to hear what is
being said. I don’t care about saying anything.”
He unwrapped another package which had been loaned to him by the radio
station and we watched him curiously as he tested it and set it up.
Some parts of it I recognized such as the very sensitive microphone,
and another part I could have sworn was a phonograph cylinder, though
Craig was so busy testing his apparatus that now we could not ask
questions.
It was late in the afternoon when he finished, and we had just time to
run up to the dock at Seaville and stop off at the _Lucie_ to see if
anything had happened in the intervening hours before dinner. There was
nothing, except that I found time to file a message to the _Star_ and
meet several fellow newspaper men who had been sent down by other
papers on the chance of picking up a good story.
We had the _Nautilus_ to ourselves, and as she was a very comfortable
little craft, we really had a very congenial time, a plunge over her
side, a good dinner, and then a long talk out on deck under the stars,
in which we went over every phase of the case. As we discussed it,
Waldon followed keenly, and it was quite evident from his remarks that
he had come to the conclusion that Dr. Jermyn at least knew more than
he had told about the case.
Still, the day wore away with no solution yet of the mystery.