concealing nothing she was measuring her words carefully in order not
to give a false impression.
"What does Dudley Lawton say about the newspapers bringing his name
into the case?" asked Kennedy, addressing Mr. Gilbert.
"Nothing," replied he. "He denies that he has even spoken to her for
nearly a year. Apparently he has no interest in the case. And yet I
cannot quite believe that Lawton is as uninterested as he seems. I know
that he has often spoken about her to members of the Cosmos Club where
he lives, and that he reads practically everything that the newspapers
print about the case."
"But you have no reason to think that there has ever been any secret
communication between them? Miss Georgette left no letters or anything
that would indicate that her former infatuation survived?"
"None whatever," repeated Mr. Gilbert emphatically. "We have gone over
her personal effects very carefully, and I can't say they furnish a
clue. In fact, there were very few letters. She rarely kept a letter.
Whether it was merely from habit or for some purpose, I can't say."
"Besides her liking for Dudley Lawton and her rather romantic nature,
there are no other things in her life that would cause a desire for
freedom?" asked Kennedy, much as a doctor might test the nerves of a
patient. "She had no hobbies?"
"Beyond the reading of some books which her mother and I did not
altogether approve of, I should say no--no hobbies."
"So far, I suppose, it is true that neither you nor the police have
received even a hint as to where she went after leaving the book-store?"
"Not a hint. She dropped out as completely as if the earth had
swallowed her."
"Mrs. Gilbert," said Kennedy, as our visitors rose to go, "you may rest
assured that if it is humanly possible to find your daughter I shall
leave no stone unturned until I have probed to the bottom of this
mystery. I have seldom had a case that hung on more slender threads,
yet if I can weave other threads to support it I feel that we shall
soon find that the mystery is not so baffling as the Missing Persons
Squad has found it so far."
Scarcely had the Gilberts left when Kennedy put on his hat, remarking:
"We'll at least get our walk, if not the show. Let's stroll around to
the Cosmos Club. Perhaps we may catch Lawton in."
Luckily we chanced to find him there in the reading-room. Lawton was,
as Mrs. Gilbert had said, a type that is common enough in New York and
is very fascinating to many girls. In fact, he was one of those fellows
whose sins are readily forgiven because they are always interesting.
Not a few men secretly admire though publicly execrate the Lawton type.
I say we chanced to find him in. That was about all we found. Our
interview was most unsatisfactory. For my part, I could not determine
whether he was merely anxious to avoid any notoriety in connection with
the case or whether he was concealing something that might compromise
himself.
"Really, gentlemen," he drawled, puffing languidly on a cigarette and
turning slowly toward the window to watch the passing throng under the
lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be of any
assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaintance Miss
Gilbert and I had drifted entirely apart--entirely apart--owing to
circumstances over which I, at least, had no control."
"I thought perhaps you might have heard from her or about her, through
some mutual friend," remarked Kennedy, carefully concealing under his
nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind--a belief that, after
all, the old attachment had not been so dead as the Gilberts had
fancied.
"No, not a breath, either before this sad occurrence or, of course,
after. Believe me, if I could add one fact that would simplify the
search for Georgette--ah, Miss Gilbert--ah--I would do so in a moment,"
replied Lawton quickly, as if desirous of getting rid of us as soon as
possible. Then perhaps as if regretting the brusqueness with which he
had tried to end the interview, he added, "Don't misunderstand me. The
moment you have discovered anything that points to her whereabouts, let
me know immediately. You can count on me--provided you don't get me
into the papers. Good-night, gentlemen. I wish you the best of success."
"Do you think he could have kept up the acquaintance secretly?" I asked
Craig as we walked up the avenue after this baffling interview. "Could
he have cast her off when he found that in spite of her parents'
protests she was still in his power?"
"It's impossible to say what a man of Dudley Lawton's type could do,"
mused Kennedy, "for the simple reason that he himself doesn't know
until he has to do it. Until we have more facts, anything is both
possible and probable."
There was nothing more that could be done that night, though after our
walk we sat up for an hour or two discussing probabilities. It did not
take me long to reach the end of my imagination and give up the case,
but Kennedy continued to revolve the matter in his mind, looking at it
from every angle and calling upon all the vast store of information
that he had treasured up in that marvellous brain of his, ready to be
called on almost as if his mind were card-indexed.
"Murders, suicides, robberies, and burglaries are, after all, pretty
easily explained," he remarked, after a long period of silence on my
part, "but the sudden disappearance of people out of the crowded city
into nowhere is something that is much harder to explain. And it isn't
so difficult to disappear as some people imagine, either. You remember
the case of the celebrated Arctic explorer whose picture had been
published scores of times in every illustrated paper. He had no trouble
in disappearing and then reappearing later, when he got ready.
"Yet experience has taught me that there is always a reason for
disappearances. It is our next duty to discover that reason. Still, it
won't do to say that disappearances are not mysterious. Disappearances
except for money troubles are all mysterious. The first thing in such a
case is to discover whether the person has any hobbies or habits or
fads. That is what I tried to find out from the Gilberts. I can't tell
yet whether I succeeded."
Kennedy took a pencil and hastily jotted down something on a piece of
paper which he tossed over to me. It read:
1. Love, family trouble.
2. A romantic disposition.
3. Temporary insanity, self-destruction.
4. Criminal assault.
5. Aphasia.
6. Kidnapping.
"Those are the reasons why people disappear, eliminating criminals and
those who have financial difficulties. Dream on that and see if you can
work out the answer in your subliminal consciousness. Good-night."
Needless to say, I was no further advanced in the morning than at
midnight, but Kennedy seemed to have evolved at least a tentative
programme. It started with a visit to the public library, where he
carefully went over the ground already gone over by the police. Finding
nothing, he concluded that Miss Gilbert had not found what she wanted
at the library and had continued the quest, even as he was continuing
the quest of herself.
His next step was to visit the department-store. The purchase had been
an inconsequential affair of half a dozen handkerchiefs, to be sent
home. This certainly did not look like a premeditated disappearance;
but Craig was proceeding on the assumption that this purchase indicated
nothing except that there had been a sale of handkerchiefs which had
caught her eye. Having stopped at the library first and a book-shop
afterward, he assumed that she had also visited the book-department of
the store. But here again nobody seemed to recall her or that she had
asked for anything in particular.
Our last hope was the book-shop. We paused for a moment to look at the
display in the window, but only for a moment, for Craig quickly pulled
me along inside. In the window was a display of books bearing the sign:
BOOKS ON NEW THOUGHT, OCCULTISM, CLAIRVOYANCE, MESMERISM
Instead of attempting to go over the ground already traversed by the
police, who had interrogated the numerous clerks without discovering
which one, if any, had waited on Miss Gilbert, Kennedy asked at once to
see the record of sales of the morning on which she had disappeared.
Running his eye quickly down the record, he picked out a work on
clairvoyance and asked to see the young woman who had made the sale.
The clerk was, however, unable to recall to whom she had sold the book,
though she finally admitted that she thought it might have been a young
woman who had some difficulty in making up her mind just which one of
the numerous volumes she wanted. She could not say whether the picture
Kennedy showed her of Miss Gilbert was that of her customer, nor was
she sure that the customer was not escorted by some one. Altogether it
was nearly as hazy as our interview with Lawton.
"Still," remarked Kennedy cheerfully, "it may furnish a clue, after
all. The clerk at least was not positive that it was NOT Miss Gilbert
to whom she sold the book. Since we are down in this neighbourhood, let
us drop in and see Mr. Gilbert again. Perhaps something may have
happened since last night."
Mr. Gilbert was in the dry-goods business in a loft building in the new
dry-goods section on Fourth Avenue. One could almost feel that a
tragedy had invaded even his place of business. As we entered, we could
see groups of clerks, evidently discussing the case. It was no wonder,
I felt, for the head of the firm was almost frantic, and beside the
loss of his only daughter the loss of his business would count as
nothing, at least until the keen edge of his grief was worn off.
"Mr. Gilbert is out," replied his secretary, in answer to our inquiry.
"Haven't you heard? They have just discovered the body of his daughter
in a lonely spot in the Croton Aqueduct. The report came in from the
police just a few minutes ago. It is thought that she was murdered in
the city and carried there in an automobile."
The news came with a stinging shock. I felt that, after all, we were
too late. In another hour the extras would be out, and the news would
be spread broadcast. The affair would be in the hands of the amateur
detectives, and there was no telling how many promising clues might be
lost.
"Dead!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he jammed his hat on his head and bolted
for the door. "Hurry, Walter. We must get there before the coroner
makes his examination."
I don't know how we managed to do it, but by dint of subway, elevated,
and taxicab we arrived on the scene of the tragedy not very long after
the coroner. Mr. Gilbert was there, silent, and looking as if he had
aged many years since the night before; his hand shook and he could
merely nod recognition to us.
Already the body had been carried to a rough shanty in the
neighbourhood, and the coroner was questioning those who had made the
discovery, a party of Italian labourers on the water improvement near
by. They were a vicious looking crew, but they could tell nothing
beyond the fact that one of them had discovered the body in a thicket
where it could not possibly have lain longer than overnight. There was
no reason, as yet, to suspect any of them, and indeed, as a much
travelled automobile road ran within a few feet of the thicket, there
was every reason to believe that the murder, if murder it was, had been
committed elsewhere and that the perpetrator had taken this means of
getting rid of his unfortunate victim.
Drawn and contorted were the features of the poor girl, as if she had
died in great physical agony or after a terrific struggle. Indeed,
marks of violence on her delicate throat and neck showed only too
plainly that she had been choked.
As Kennedy bent over the form of the once lovely Georgette, he noted
the clenched hands. Then he looked at them more closely. I was standing
a little behind him, for though Craig and I had been through many
thrilling adventures, the death of a human being, especially of a girl
like Miss Gilbert, filled me with horror and revulsion. I could see,
however, that he had noted something unusual. He pulled out a little
pocket magnifying glass and made an even more minute examination of the
hands. At last he rose and faced us, almost as if in triumph. I could
not see what he had discovered--at least it did not seem to be anything
tangible, like a weapon.
Quickly he opened the pocketbook which she had carried. It seemed to be
empty, and he was about to shut it when something white, sticking in
one corner, caught his eye. Craig pulled out a clipping from a
newspaper, and we crowded about him to look at it. It was a large
clipping from the section of one of the metropolitan journals which
carries a host of such advertisements as "spirit medium," "psychic
palmist," "yogi mediator," "magnetic influences," "crystal gazer,"
"astrologer," "trance medium," and the like. At once I thought of the
sallow, somewhat mystic countenance of Dudley, and the idea flashed,
half-formed, in my mind that somehow this clue, together with the
purchase of the book on clairvoyance, might prove the final link
necessary.
But the first problem in Kennedy's mind was to keep in touch with what
the authorities were doing. That kept us busy for several hours, during
which Craig was in close consultation with the coroner's physician. The
physician was of the opinion that Miss Gilbert had been drugged as well
as strangled, and for many hours, down in his laboratory, his chemists
were engaged in trying to discover from tests of her blood whether the
theory was true. One after another the ordinary poisons were
eliminated, until it began to look hopeless.
So far Kennedy had been only an interested spectator, but as the
different tests failed, he had become more and more keenly alive. At
last it seemed as if he could wait no longer.
"Might I try one or two reactions with that sample?" he asked of the
physician who handed him the test tube in silence.
For a moment or two Craig thoughtfully regarded it, while with one hand
he fingered the bottles of ether, alcohol, distilled water, and the
many reagents standing before him. He picked up one and poured a little
liquid into the test tube. Then, removing the precipitate that was
formed, he tried to dissolve it in water. Not succeeding, he tried the
ether and then the alcohol. Both were successful.
"What is it?" we asked as he held the tube up critically to the light.
"I can't be sure yet," he answered slowly. "I thought at first that it
was some alkaloid. I'll have to make further tests before I can be
positive just what it is. If I may retain this sample I think that with
other clues that I have discovered I may be able to tell you something
definite soon."
The coroner's physician willingly assented, and Craig quickly
dispatched the tube, carefully sealed, to his laboratory.
"That part of our investigation will keep," he remarked as we left the
coroner's office. "To-night I think we had better resume the search
which was so unexpectedly interrupted this morning. I suppose you have
concluded, Walter, that we can be reasonably sure that the trail leads
back through the fortune-tellers and soothsayers of New York,--which
one, it would be difficult to say. The obvious thing, therefore, is to
consult them all. I think you will enjoy that part of it, with your
newspaperman's liking for the bizarre."
The fact was that it did appeal to me, though at the moment I was
endeavouring to formulate a theory in which Dudley Lawton and an
accomplice would account for the facts.
It was early in the evening as we started out on our tour of the
clairvoyants of New York. The first whom Kennedy selected from the
advertisements in the clipping described himself as "Hata, the Veiled
Prophet, born with a double veil, educated in occult mysteries and
Hindu philosophy in Egypt and India." Like all of them his
advertisement dwelt much on love and money:
The great questions of life are quickly solved, failure
turned to success, sorrow to joy, the separated are brought
together, foes made friends. Truths are laid bare to his
mysterious mind. He gives you power to attract and control
those whom you may desire, tells you of living or dead, your
secret troubles, the cause and remedy. Advice on all affairs
of life, love, courtship, marriage, business, speculations,
investments. Overcomes rivals, enemies, and all evil influences.
Will tell you how to attract, control, and change the
thought, intentions, actions, or character of any one you
desire.
Hata was a modest adept who professed to be able to explain the whole
ten stages of Yoga. He had established himself on a street near Times
Square, just off Broadway, and there we found several automobiles and
taxicabs standing at the curb, a mute testimony to the wealth of at
least some of his clientele.
A solemn-faced coloured man ushered us into a front parlour and asked
if we had come to see the professor. Kennedy answered that we had.
"Will you please write your names and addresses on the outside sheet of
this pad, then tear it off and keep it?" asked the attendant. "We ask
all visitors to do that simply as a guarantee of good faith. Then if
you will write under it what you wish to find out from the professor I
think it will help you concentrate. But don't write while I am in the
room, and don't let me see the writing."
"A pretty cheap trick," exclaimed Craig when the attendant had gone.
"That's how he tells the gullible their names before they tell him.
I've a good notion to tear off two sheets. The second is chemically
prepared, with paraffin, I think. By dusting it over with powdered
charcoal you can bring out what was written on the first sheet over it.
Oh, well, let's let him get something across, anyway. Here goes, our
names and addresses, and underneath I'll write, 'What has become of
Georgette Gilbert?'"
Perhaps five minutes later the negro took the pad, the top sheet having
been torn off and placed in Kennedy's pocket. He also took a small fee
of two dollars. A few minutes later we were ushered into the awful
presence of the "Veiled Prophet," a tall, ferret-eyed man in a robe
that looked suspiciously like a brocaded dressing-gown much too large
for him.
Sure enough, he addressed us solemnly by name and proceeded directly to
tell us why we had come.
"Let us look into the crystal of the past, present, and future and read
what it has to reveal," he added solemnly, darkening the room, which
was already only dimly lighted. Then Hata, the crystal-gazer, solemnly
seated himself in a chair. Before him, in his hands, reposing on a bag
of satin, lay a huge oval piece of glass. He threw forward his head and
riveted his eyes on the milky depths of the crystal. In a moment he
began to talk, first ramblingly, then coherently.
"I see a man, a dark man," he began. "He is talking earnestly to a
young girl. She is trying to avoid him. Ah--he seizes her by both arms.
They struggle. He has his hand at her throat. He is choking her."
I was thinking of the newspaper descriptions of Lawton, which the fakir
had undoubtedly read, but Kennedy was leaning forward over the
crystal-gazer, not watching the crystal at all, nor with his eyes on
the clairvoyant's face.
"Her tongue is protruding from her mouth, her eyes are bulging---"
"Yes, yes," urged Kennedy. "Go on."
"She falls. He strikes her. He flees. He goes to---"
Kennedy laid his hand ever so lightly on the arm of the clairvoyant,
then quickly withdrew it.
"I cannot see where he goes. It is dark, dark. You will have to come
back to-morrow when the vision is stronger."
The thing stung me by its crudity. Kennedy, however, seemed elated by
our experience as we gained the street.
"Craig," I remonstrated, "you don't mean to say you attach any
importance to vapourings like that? Why, there wasn't a thing the
fellow couldn't have imagined from the newspapers, even the clumsy
description of Dudley Lawton."
"We'll see," he replied cheerfully, as we stopped under a light to read
the address of the next seer, who happened to be in the same block.
It proved to be the psychic palmist who called himself "the Pandit." He
also was "born with a strange and remarkable power--not meant to
gratify the idle curious, but to direct, advise, and help men and
women"--at the usual low fee. He said in print that he gave instant
relief to those who had trouble in love, and also positively guaranteed
to tell your name and the object of your visit. He added:
Love, courtship, marriage. What is more beautiful than
the true unblemished love of one person for another? What
is sweeter, better, or more to be desired than perfect harmony
and happiness? If you want to win the esteem, love, and
everlasting affection of another, see the Pandit, the greatest
living master of the occult science.
Inasmuch as this seer fell into a passion at the other incompetent
soothsayers in the next column (and almost next door) it seemed as if
we must surely get something for our money from the Pandit.
Like Hata, the Pandit lived in a large brownstone house. The man who
admitted us led us into a parlour where several people were seated
about as if waiting for some one. The pad and writing process was
repeated with little variation. Since we were the latest comers we had
to wait some time before we were ushered into the presence of the
Pandit, who was clad in a green silk robe.
The room was large and had very small windows of stained glass. At one
end of the room was an altar on which burned several candles which gave
out an incense. The atmosphere of the room was heavy with a fragrance
that seemed to combine cologne with chloroform.
The Pandit waved a wand, muttering strange sounds as he did so, for in
addition to his palmistry, which he seemed not disposed to exhibit that
night, he dealt in mysteries beyond human ken. A voice, quite evidently
from a phonograph buried in the depths of the altar, answered in an
unknown language which sounded much like "Al-ya wa-aa haal-ya waa-ha."
Across the dim room flashed a pale blue light with a crackling noise,
the visible rays from a Crookes tube, I verily believe. The Pandit,
however, said it was the soul of a saint passing through. Then he
produced two silken robes, one red, which he placed on Kennedy's
shoulders, and one violet, which he threw over me.
From the air proceeded strange sounds of weird music and words. The
Pandit seemed to fall asleep, muttering. Apparently, however, Kennedy
and I were bad subjects, for after some minutes of this he gave it up,
saying that the spirits had no revelation to make to-night in the
matter in which we had called. Inasmuch as we had not written on the
pad just what that matter was, I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised
when the Pandit laid off his robe and said unctuously, "But if you will
call to-morrow and concentrate, I am sure that I can secure a message
that will be helpful about your little matter."
Kennedy promised to call, but still he lingered. The Pandit, anxious to
get rid of us, moved toward the door. Kennedy sidled over toward the
green robe which the Pandit had laid on a chair.
"Might I have some of your writings to look over in the meantime?"
asked Craig as if to gain time.
"Yes, but they will cost you three dollars a copy--the price I charge
all my students," answered the Pandit with just a trace of a gleam of
satisfaction at having at last made an impression.
He turned and entered a cabinet to secure the mystic literature. The
moment he had disappeared Kennedy seized the opportunity he had been
waiting for. He picked up the green robe and examined the collar and
neck very carefully under the least dim of the lights in the room. He
seemed to find what he wished, yet he continued to examine the robe
until the sound of returning footsteps warned him to lay it down again.
He had not been quite quick enough. The Pandit eyed us suspiciously,
then he rang a bell. The attendant appeared instantly, noiselessly.
"Show these men into the library," he commanded with just the faintest
shade of trepidation. "My servant will give you the book," he said to
Craig. "Pay him."