“If it is possible I wish you would stay and hear my story. I am told
that you and Professor Kennedy always work together.”
It was my turn to be embarrassed by the compliment.
“Mrs. Fletcher, of Great Neck,” she explained, “has told me. I believe
Professor Kennedy performed a great service for the Fletchers, though I
do not know what it was. At any rate, I have come to you with my case,
in which I have small hope of obtaining assistance unless you can help
me. If Professor Kennedy cannot solve it, well, I'm afraid nobody can.”
She paused a moment, then added, “No doubt you have read of the death of
my guardian the other day.”
Of course we had. Who did not know that “Jim” Bisbee, the southern
California oil-magnate, had died suddenly of typhoid fever at the
private hospital of Dr. Bell, where he had been taken from his
magnificent apartment on Riverside Drive? Kennedy and I had discussed
it at the time. We had commented on the artificiality of the twentieth
century. No longer did people have homes; they had apartments, I had
said. They didn't fall ill in the good old-fashioned way any more,
either in fact, they even hired special rooms to die in. They hired
halls for funeral services. It was a wonder that they didn't hire
graves. It was all part of our twentieth century break-up of tradition.
Indeed we did know about the death of Jim Bisbee. But there was nothing
mysterious about it. It was just typical in all its surroundings of the
first decade of the twentieth century in a great, artificial city--a
lonely death of a great man surrounded by all that money could buy.
We had read of his ward, too, the beautiful Miss Eveline Bisbee, a
distant relation. As under the heat of the room and her excitement, she
raised her veil, we were very much interested in her. At least, I am
sure that even Kennedy had by this time completely forgotten the lecture
on toxins.
“There is something about my guardian's death,” she began in a low and
tremulous voice, “that I am sure will bear investigating. It may be only
a woman's foolish fears, but--I haven't told this to a soul till now,
except Mrs. Fletcher. My guardian had, as you perhaps know, spent his
summer at his country place at Bisbee Hall, New Jersey, from which he
returned rather suddenly about a week ago. Our friends thought it merely
a strange whim that he should return to the city before the summer was
fairly over, but it was not. The day before he returned, his gardener
fell sick of typhoid. That decided Mr. Bisbee to return to the city on
the following day. Imagine his consternation to find his valet stricken
the very next morning. Of course they motored to New York immediately,
then he wired to me at Newport, and together we opened his apartment at
the Louis Quinze.
“But that was not to be the end of it. One after another, the servants
at Bisbee Hall were taken with the disease until five of them were down.
Then came the last blow--Mr. Bisbee fell a victim in New York. So far
I have been spared. But who knows how much longer it will last? I have
been so frightened that I haven't eaten a meal in the apartment since I
came back. When I am hungry I simply steal out to a hotel--a different
one every time. I never drink any water except that which I have
surreptitiously boiled in my own room over a gas-stove. Disinfectants
and germicides have been used by the gallon, and still I don't feel
safe. Even the health authorities don't remove my fears. With my
guardian's death I had begun to feel that possibly it was over. But no.
This morning another servant who came up from the hall last week was
taken sick, and the doctor pronounces that typhoid, too. Will I be the
next? Is it just a foolish fear? Why does it pursue us to New York? Why
didn't it stop at Bisbee Hall?”
I don't think I ever saw a living creature more overcome by horror, by
an invisible, deadly fear. That was why it was doubly horrible in a girl
so attractive as Eveline Bisbee. As I listened I felt how terrible it
must be to be pursued by such a fear. What must it be to be dogged by
a disease as relentlessly as the typhoid had dogged her? If it had been
some great, but visible, tangible peril how gladly I could have faced it
merely for the smile of a woman like this. But it was a peril that
only knowledge and patience could meet. Instinctively I turned toward
Kennedy, my own mind being an absolute blank.
“Is there anyone you suspect of being the cause of such an epidemic?” he
asked. “I may as well tell you right now that I have already formed
two theories--one perfectly natural, the other diabolical. Tell me
everything.”
“Well, I had expected to receive a fortune of one million dollars, free
and clear, by his will and this morning I am informed by his lawyer,
James Denny, that a new will had been made. It is still one million. But
the remainder, instead of going to a number of charities in which he was
known to be interested, goes to form a trust fund for the Bisbee School
of Mechanical Arts, of which Mr. Denny is the sole trustee. Of course,
I do not know much about my guardian's interests while he was alive, but
it strikes me as strange that he should have changed so radically, and,
besides, the new will is so worded that if I die without children
my million also goes to this school--location unnamed. I can't help
wondering about it all.”
“Why should you wonder--at least what other reasons have you for
wondering?”
“Oh, I can't express them. Maybe after all it's only a woman's silly
intuition. But often I have thought in the past few days about this
illness of my guardian. It was so queer. He was always so careful. And
you know the rich don't often have typhoid.”
“You have no reason to suppose that it was not typhoid fever of which he
died?”
She hesitated. “No,” she replied, “but if you had known Mr. Bisbee
you would think it strange, too. He had a horror of infectious and
contagious diseases. His apartment and his country home were models. No
sanitarium could have been more punctilious. He lived what one of his
friends called an antiseptic life. Maybe I am foolish, but it keeps
getting closer and closer to me now, and--well, I wish you'd look into
the case. Please set my mind at rest and assure me that nothing is
wrong, that it is all natural.”
“I will help you, Miss Bisbee. To-morrow night I want to take a trip
quietly to Bisbee Hall. You will see that it is all right, that I have
the proper letters so I can investigate thoroughly.”
I shall never forget the mute and eloquent thanks with which she said
good night after Kennedy's promise.
Kennedy sat with his eyes shaded under his hand for fully an hour after
she had left. Then he suddenly jumped up. “Walter,” he said, “let us go
over to Dr. Bell's. I know the head nurse there. We may possibly learn
something.”
As we sat in the waiting-room with its thick Oriental rugs and handsome
mahogany furniture, I found myself going back to our conversation of
the early evening. “By Jove, Kennedy, you were right,” I exclaimed. “If
there is anything in this germ-plot idea of hers it is indeed the height
of the dramatic--it is diabolical. No ordinary mortal would ever be
capable of it.”
Just then the head nurse came in, a large woman breathing of
germlessness and cheerfulness in her spotless uniform. We were shown
every courtesy. There was, in fact, nothing to conceal. The visit set
at rest my last suspicion that perhaps Jim Bisbee had been poisoned by a
drug. The charts of his temperature and the sincerity of the nurse were
absolutely convincing. It had really been typhoid, and there was nothing
to be gained by pursuing that inquiry further.
Back at the apartment, Craig began packing his suitcase with the few
things he would need for a journey. “I'm going out to Bisbee Hall
to-morrow for a few days, Walter, and if you could find it convenient to
come along I should like to have your assistance.”
“To tell you the truth, Craig, I am afraid to go,” I said.
“You needn't be. I'm going down to the army post on Governor's Island
first to be vaccinated against typhoid. Then I am going to wait a few
hours till it takes effect before going. It's the only place in the city
where one can be inoculated against it, so far as I know. While three
inoculations are really best, I understand that one is sufficient for
ordinary protection, and that is all we shall need, if any.”
“You're sure of it?”
“Almost positive.”
“Very well, Craig. I'll go.”
Down at the army post the next morning we had no difficulty in being
inoculated against the disease. The work of immunising our army was
going on at that time, and several thousands of soldiers in various
parts of the country had already been vaccinated, with the best of
results. “Do many civilians come over to be vaccinated?” asked Craig of
Major Carroll, the surgeon in charge.
“Not many, for very few have heard of it,” he replied.
“I suppose you keep a record of them.”
“Only their names--we can't follow them up outside the army, to see how
it works. Still, when they come to us as you and Mr. Jameson have done
we are perfectly willing to vaccinate them. The Army Medical Corps takes
the position that if it is good for the army it is good for civil life,
and as long as only a few civilians apply we are perfectly willing to do
it for a fee covering the cost.”
“And would you let me see the list?”
“Certainly. You may look it over in a moment.”
Kennedy glanced hurriedly through the short list of names, pulled out
his notebook, made an entry, and handed the list back. “Thank you,
Major.”
Bisbee Hall was a splendid place set in the heart of a great park whose
area was measured by square miles rather than by acres. But Craig did
not propose to stay there, for he arranged for accommodations in a
near-by town, where we were to take our meals also. It was late when we
arrived, and we spent a restless night, for the inoculation “took.” It
wasn't any worse than a light attack of the grippe, and in the morning
we were both all right again, after the passing of what is called the
“negative phase.” I, for one, felt much safer.
The town was very much excited over the epidemic at the hall, and if I
had been wondering why Craig wanted me along my wonder was soon set at
rest. He had me scouring the town and country looking up every case or
rumour of typhoid for miles around. I made the local weekly paper my
headquarters, and the editor was very obliging. He let me read all his
news letters from his local correspondent at every crossroads. I waded
through accounts of new calves and colts, new fences and barns, who
“Sundayed” with his brother, etc., and soon had a list of all the
cases in that part of the country. It was not a long one, but it
was scattered. After I had traced them out, following Kennedy's
instructions, they showed nothing, except that they were unrelated to
the epidemic at the hall.
Meanwhile, Kennedy was very busy there. He had a microscope and slides
and test-tubes and chemicals for testing things, and I don't know what
all, for there was not time to initiate me into all the mysteries. He
tested the water from the various driven wells and in the water-tank,
and the milk from the cows;--he tried to find out what food had come
in from outside, though there was practically none, for the hall was
self-supporting. There was no stone he left unturned.
When I rejoined him that night he was clearly perplexed. I don't think
my report decreased his perplexity, either.
“There is only one thing left as far as I have been able to discover
after one day's work,” he said, after we had gone over our activities
for the day. “Jim Bisbee never drank the water from his own wells. He
always drank a bottled water shipped down from a camp of his in New York
State, where he had a remarkable mountain spring. I tested a number of
the full bottles at the hall, but they were perfectly pure. There wasn't
a trace of the bacillus typhosus in any of them. Then it occurred to me
that, after all, that was not the thing to do. I should test the empty
ones. But there weren't any empty ones. They told me they had all been
taken down to the freight station yesterday to be shipped back to the
camp. I hope they haven't gone yet. Let's drive around and see if they
are there.”
The freight-master was just leaving, but when he learned we were from
the hall he consented to let us examine the bottles. They were corked
and in wooden cases, which protected them perfectly. By the light of the
station lamps and the aid of a pocket-lens, Kennedy examined them on the
outside and satisfied himself that after being replaced in the wooden
cases the bottles themselves had not been handled.
“Will you let me borrow some of these bottles to-night” he asked
the agent. “I'll give you my word that they will be returned safely
to-morrow. If necessary, I'll get an order for them.”
The station-agent reluctantly yielded; especially as a small green
banknote figured in the transaction. Craig and I tenderly lifted the big
bottles in their cases into our trap and drove back to our rooms in the
hotel. It quite excited the hangers-on to see us drive up with a lot of
empty five-gallon bottles and carry them up-stairs, but I had long ago
given up having any fear of public opinion in carrying out anything
Craig wanted.
In our room we worked far into the night. Craig carefully swabbed out
the bottom and sides of each bottle by inserting a little piece of
cotton on the end of a long wire. Then he squeezed the water out of the
cotton swab on small glass slides coated with agar-agar, or Japanese
seaweed, a medium in which germ-cultures multiply rapidly. He put the
slides away in a little oven with an alcohol-lamp which he had brought
along, leaving them to remain overnight at blood heat.
I had noticed all this time that he was very particular not to touch any
of the bottles on the outside. As for me, I wouldn't have touched them
for the world. In fact, I was getting so I hesitated to touch anything.
I was almost afraid to breathe, though I knew there was no harm in that.
However, it was not danger of infection in touching the bottles that
made Craig so careful. He had noted, in the dim light of the station
lamps, what seemed to be finger-marks on the bottles, and they had
interested him, in fact, had decided him on a further investigation of
the bottles.
“I am now going to bring out these very faint finger-prints on the
bottles,” remarked Craig, proceeding with his examination in the better
light of our room. “Here is some powder known to chemists as 'grey
powder'--mercury and chalk. I sprinkle it over the faint markings, so,
and then I brush it off with a camel's-hair brush lightly. That brings
out the imprint much more clearly, as you can see. For instance, if
you place your dry thumb on a piece of white paper you leave no visible
impression. If grey powder is sprinkled over the spot and then brushed
off a distinct impression is seen. If the impression of the fingers is
left on something soft, like wax, it is often best to use printers' ink
to bring out the ridges and patterns of the finger-marks. And so on
for various materials. Quite a science has been built up around
finger-prints.
“I wish I had that enlarging camera which I have in my laboratory.
However, my ordinary camera will do, for all I want is to preserve a
record of these marks, and I can enlarge the photographs later. In the
morning I will photograph these marks and you can do the developing of
the films. To-night we'll improvise the bathroom as a dark-room and get
everything ready so that we can start in bright and early.”
We were, indeed, up early. One never has difficulty in getting up early
in the country: it is so noisy, at least to a city-bred man. City noise
at five A.M. is sepulchral silence compared with bucolic activity at
that hour.
There were a dozen negatives which I set about developing after Craig
had used up all our films. Meanwhile, he busied himself adjusting
his microscope and test-tubes and getting the agar slides ready for
examination.
Shirt-sleeves rolled up, I was deeply immersed in my work when I heard a
shout in the next room, and the bathroom door flew open.
“Confound you, Kennedy, do you want to ruin these films!” I cried.
He shut the door with a bang. “Hurrah, Walter!” he exclaimed. “I think I
have it, at last. I have just found some most promising colonies of the
bacilli on one of my slides.”
I almost dropped the pan of acid I was holding, in my excitement.
“Well,” I said, concealing my own surprise, “I've found out something,
too. Every one of these finger-prints so far is from the same pair of
hands.”
We scarcely ate any breakfast, and were soon on our way up to the hall.
Craig had provided himself at the local stationer's with an inking-pad,
such as is used for rubber stamps. At the hall he proceeded to get the
impressions of the fingers and thumbs of all the servants.
It was quite a long and difficult piece of work to compare the
finger-prints we had taken with those photographed, in spite of the fact
that writers descant on the ease with which criminals are traced by this
system devised by the famous Galton. However, we at last finished the
job between us; or rather Craig finished it, with an occasional remark
from me. His dexterity amazed me; it was more than mere book knowledge.
For a moment we sat regarding each other hopelessly. None of the
finger-prints taken at the hall tallied with the photographed prints.
Then Craig rang for the housekeeper, a faithful old soul whom even the
typhoid scare could not budge from her post.
“Are you sure I have seen all the servants who were at the hall while
Mr. Bisbee was here” asked Craig.
“Why, no, sir--you didn't ask that. You asked to see all who are here
now. There is only one who has left, the cook, Bridget Fallon. She left
a couple of days ago--said she was going back to New York to get another
job. Glad enough I was to get rid of her, too, for she was drunk most of
the time after the typhoid appeared.”
“Well, Walter, I guess we shall have to go back to New York again,
then,” exclaimed Kennedy. “Oh, I beg pardon, Mrs. Rawson, for
interrupting. Thank you ever so much. Where did Bridget come from?”
“She came well recommended, sir. Here is the letter in my writing-desk.
She had been employed by the Caswell-Joneses at Shelter Island before
she came here.”
“I may keep this letter” asked Craig, scanning it quickly.
“Yes.”
“By the way, where were the bottles of spring water kept”
“In the kitchen.”
“Did Bridget take charge of them?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Bisbee have any guests during the last week that he was here?”
“Only Mr. Denny one night.”
“H'm!” exclaimed Craig. “Well, it will not be so hard for us to unravel
this matter, after all, when we get back to the city. We must make that
noon train, Walter. There is nothing more for us to do here.”
Emerging from the “Tube” at Ninth Street, Craig hustled me into a
taxicab, and in almost no time we were at police headquarters.
Fortunately, Inspector Barney O'Connor was in and in an amiable mood,
too, for Kennedy had been careful that the Central Office received a
large share of credit for the Kerr Parker case. Craig sketched hastily
the details of this new case. O'Connor's face was a study. His honest
blue Irish eyes fairly bulged in wonder, and when Craig concluded with
a request for help I think O'Connor would have given him anything in the
office, just to figure in the case.
“First, I want one of your men to go to the surrogate's office and
get the original of the will. I shall return it within a couple of
hours--all I want to do is to make a photographic copy. Then another
man must find this lawyer, James Denny, and in some way get his
finger-prints--you must arrange that yourself. And send another fellow
up to the employment offices on Fourth Avenue and have him locate this
cook, Bridget Fallon. I want her finger-prints, too. Perhaps she had
better be detained, for I don't want her to get away. Oh, and say,
O'Connor, do you want to finish this case up like the crack of a whip
to-night?”
“I'm game, sir. What of it?”
“Let me see. It is now four o'clock. If you can get hold of all
these people in time I think I shall be ready for the final scene
to-night--say, at nine. You know how to arrange it. Have them all
present at my laboratory at nine, and I promise we shall have a story
that will get into the morning papers with leaded type on the front
page.”
“Now, Walter,” he added, as we hurried down to the taxicab again, “I
want you to drop off at the Department of Health with this card to the
commissioner. I believe you know Dr. Leslie. Well, ask him if he
knows anything about this Bridget Fallon. I will go on up-town to the
laboratory and get my apparatus ready. You needn't come up till nine,
old fellow, for I shall be busy till then, but be sure when you come
that you bring the record of this Fallon woman if you have to beg,
borrow, or steal it.”
I didn't understand it, but I took the card and obeyed implicitly. It is
needless to say that I was keyed up to the greatest pitch of excitement
during my interview with the health commissioner, when I finally got in
to see him. I hadn't talked to him long before a great light struck me,
and I began to see what Craig was driving at. The commissioner saw it
first.
“If you don't mind, Mr. Jameson.” he said, after I had told him as much
of my story as I could, “will you call up Professor Kennedy and tell him
I'd like very much to be present to-night myself?”
“Certainly I will,” I replied, glad to get my errand done in first-class
fashion in that way.
Things must have been running smoothly, for while I was sitting in our
apartment after dinner, impatiently waiting for half-past eight,
when the commissioner had promised to call for me and go up to the
laboratory, the telephone rang. It was Craig.
“Walter, might I ask a favour of you?” he said. “When the commissioner
comes ask him to stop at the Louis Quinze and bring Miss Bisbee up, too.
Tell her it is important. No more now. Things are going ahead fine.”
Promptly at nine we were assembled, a curious crowd. The health
commissioner and the inspector, being members of the same political
party, greeted each other by their first names. Miss Bisbee was nervous,
Bridget was abusive, Denny was sullen. As for Kennedy, he was, as usual,
as cool as a lump of ice. And I--well, I just sat on my feelings to keep
myself quiet.
At one end of the room Craig had placed a large white sheet such as he
used in his stereopticon lectures, while at the top of the tier of seats
that made a sort of little amphitheatre out of his lecture-room his
stereopticon sputtered.
“Moving pictures to-night, eh?” said Inspector O'Connor.
“Not exactly,” said Craig, “though--yes, they will be moving in another
sense. Now, if we are all ready, I'll switch off the electric lights.”
The calcium sputtered some more, and a square of light was thrown on the
sheet.
Kennedy snapped a little announcer such as lecturers use. “Let me invite
your attention to these enlargements of finger-prints,” he began, as
a huge thumb appeared on the screen. “Here we have a series of
finger-prints which I will show one after another slowly. They are all
of the fingers of the same person, and they were found on some empty
bottles of spring water used at Bisbee Hall during the two weeks
previous to the departure of Mr. Bisbee for New York.
“Here are, in succession, the finger-prints of the various servants
employed about the house--and of a guest,” added Craig, with a slight
change of tone. “They differ markedly from the finger-prints on the
glass,” he continued, as one after another appeared, “all except this
last one. That is identical. It is, Inspector, what we call a composite
type of finger-print--in this case a combination of what is called the
'loop' and 'whorl' types.”
No sound broke the stillness save the sputtering of the oxygen on the
calcium of the stereopticon.
“The owner of the fingers from which these prints were made is in this
room. It was from typhoid germs on these fingers that the fever was
introduced into the drinking water at Bisbee Hall.”
Kennedy paused to emphasise the statement, then continued. “I am now
going to ask Dr. Leslie to give us a little talk on a recent discovery
in the field of typhoid fever--you understand, Commissioner, what I
mean, I believe?”
“Perfectly. Shall I mention names?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well,” began Dr. Leslie, clearing his throat, “within the past year or
two we have made a most weird and startling discovery in typhoid fever.
We have found what we now call 'typhoid carriers'--persons who do not
have the disease themselves, perhaps never have had it, but who are
literally living test-tubes of the typhoid bacillus. It is positively
uncanny. Everywhere they go they scatter the disease. Down at the
department we have the records of a number of such instances, and our
men in the research laboratories have come to the conclusion that, far
from being of rare occurrence, these cases are comparatively common. I
have in mind one particular case of a servant girl, who, during the past
five or six years, has been employed in several families.
“In every family typhoid fever has later broken out. Experts have traced
out at least thirty, cases and several deaths due to this one person.
In another case we found an epidemic up in Harlem to be due to a typhoid
carrier on a remote farm in Connecticut. This carrier, innocently
enough, it is true, contaminated the milk-supply coming from that farm.
The result was over fifty cases of typhoid here in this city.
“However, to return to the case of the servant I have mentioned. Last
spring we had her under surveillance, but as there was no law by which
we could restrain her permanently she is still at large. I think one
of the Sunday papers at the time had an account of her--they called
her 'Typhoid Bridget,' and in red ink she was drawn across the page in
gruesome fashion, frying the skulls of her victims in a frying-pan over
a roaring fire. That particular typhoid carrier, I understand--”
“Excuse me, Commissioner, if I interrupt, but I think we have carried
this part of the programme far enough to be absolutely convincing,” said
Craig. “Thank you very much for the clear way in which you have put it.”
Craig snapped the announcer, and a letter appeared on the screen. He
said nothing, but let us read it through.
To whom it may concern:
This is to certify that Bridget Fallon has been employed in my family at
Shelter Island for the past season and that I have found her a reliable
servant and an excellent cook.