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 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
it 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
knockout 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."