Files of newspapers and innumerable clippings from the press bureaus
littered Kennedy's desk in rank profusion. Kennedy himself was so
deeply absorbed that I had merely said good evening as I came in and had
started to open my mail. With an impatient sweep of his hand, however,
he brushed the whole mass of newspapers into the waste-basket.
“It seems to me, Walter,” he exclaimed in disgust, “that this mystery
is considered insoluble for the very reason which should make it easy to
solve--the extraordinary character of its features.”
Inasmuch as he had opened the subject, I laid down the letter I was
reading. “I'll wager I can tell you just why you made that remark,
Craig,” I ventured. “You're reading up on that Wainwright-Templeton
affair.”
“You are on the road to becoming a detective yourself, Walter,” he
answered with a touch of sarcasm. “Your ability to add two units to
two other units and obtain four units is almost worthy of Inspector
O'Connor. You are right and within a quarter of an hour the district
attorney of Westchester County will be here. He telephoned me this
afternoon and sent an assistant with this mass of dope. I suppose he'll
want it back,” he added, fishing the newspapers out of the basket again.
“But, with all due respect to your profession, I'll say that no one
would ever get on speaking terms with the solution of this case if he
had to depend solely on the newspaper writers.”
“No?” I queried, rather nettled at his tone.
“No,” he repeated emphatically. “Here one of the most popular girls
in the fashionable suburb of Williston, and one of the leading younger
members of the bar in New York, engaged to be married, are found dead in
the library of the girl's home the day before the ceremony. And now,
a week later, no one knows whether it was an accident due to the fumes
from the antique charcoal-brazier, or whether it was a double suicide,
or suicide and murder, or a double murder, or--or--why, the experts
haven't even been able to agree on whether they have discovered poison
or not,” he continued, growing as excited as the city editor did over my
first attempt as a cub reporter.
“They haven't agreed on anything except that on the eve of what was,
presumably, to have been the happiest day of their lives two of the best
known members of the younger set are found dead, while absolutely no
one, as far as is known, can be proved to have been near them within the
time necessary to murder them. No wonder the coroner says it is simply
a case of asphyxiation. No wonder the district attorney is at his wits'
end. You fellows have hounded them with your hypotheses until they can't
see the facts straight. You suggest one solution and before-”
The door-bell sounded insistently, and without waiting for an answer a
tall, spare, loose-jointed individual stalked in and laid a green bag on
the table.
“Good evening, Professor Kennedy,” he began brusquely. “I am District
Attorney Whitney, of Westchester. I see you have been reading up on the
case. Quite right.”
“Quite wrong,” answered Craig. “Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson,
of the Star. Sit down. Jameson knows what I think of the way the
newspapers have handled this case. I was about to tell him as you came
in that I intended to disregard everything that had been printed, to
start out with you as if it were a fresh subject and get the facts at
first hand. Let's get right down to business. First tell us just how it
was that Miss Wainwright and Mr. Templeton were discovered and by whom.”
The district attorney loosened the cords of the green bag and drew out a
bundle of documents. “I'll read you the affidavit of the maid who
found them,” he said, fingering the documents nervously. “You see, John
Templeton had left his office in New York early that afternoon, telling
his father that he was going to visit Miss Wainwright. He caught
the three-twenty train, reached Williston all right, walked to the
Wainwright house, and, in spite of the bustle of preparation for the
wedding, the next day, he spent the rest of the afternoon with Miss
Wainwright. That's where the mystery begins. They had no visitors. At
least, the maid who answers the bell says they had none. She was busy
with the rest of the family, and I believe the front door was not
locked--we don't lock our doors in Williston, except at night.”
He had found the paper and paused to impress these facts on our minds.
“Mrs. Wainwright and Miss Marian Wainwright, the sister, were busy about
the house. Mrs. Wainwright wished to consult Laura about something. She
summoned the maid and asked if Mr. Templeton and Miss Wainwright were
in the house. The maid replied that she would see, and this is her
affidavit. Ahem! I'll skip the legal part: 'I knocked at the library
door twice, but obtaining no answer, I supposed they had gone out for
a walk or perhaps a ride across country as they often did. I opened the
door partly and looked in. There was a silence in the room, a strange,
queer silence. I opened the door further and, looking toward the
davenport in the corner, I saw Miss Laura and Mr. Templeton in such an
awkward position. They looked as if they had fallen asleep. His head was
thrown back against the cushions of the davenport, and on his face was a
most awful look. It was discoloured. Her head had fallen forward on his
shoulder, sideways, and on her face, too, was the same terrible stare
and the same discolouration. Their right hands were tightly clasped.
“'I called to them. They did not answer. Then the horrible truth flashed
on me. They were dead. I felt giddy for a minute, but quickly recovered
myself, and with a cry for help I rushed to Mrs. Wainwright's room,
shrieking that they were dead. Mrs. Wainwright fainted. Miss Marian
called the doctor on the telephone and helped us restore her mother. She
seemed perfectly cool in the tragedy, and I do not know what we servants
should have done if she had not been there to direct us. The house was
frantic, and Mr. Wainwright was not at home.
“'I did not detect any odour when I opened the library door. No glasses
or bottles or vials or other receptacles which could have held poison
were discovered or removed by me, or to the best of my knowledge and
belief by anyone else.'”
“What happened next?” asked Craig eagerly.
“The family physician arrived and sent for the coroner immediately, and
later for myself. You see, he thought at once of murder.”
“But the coroner, I understand, thinks differently,” prompted Kennedy.
“Yes, the coroner has declared the case to be accidental. He says that
the weight of evidence points positively to asphyxiation. Still, how can
it be asphyxiation? They could have escaped from the room at any time;
the door was not locked. I tell you, in spite of the fact that the tests
for poison in their mouths, stomachs, and blood have so far revealed
nothing, I still believe that John Templeton and Laura Wainwright were
murdered.”
Kennedy looked at his watch thoughtfully. “You have told me just enough
to make me want to see the coroner himself,” he mused. “If we take
the next train out to Williston with you, will you engage to get us a
half-hour talk with him on the case, Mr. Whitney?”
“Surely. But we'll have to start right away. I've finished my other
business in New York. Inspector O'Connor--ah, I see you know him--has
promised to secure the attendance of anyone whom I can show to be a
material witness in the case. Come on, gentlemen: I'll answer your other
questions on the train.”
As we settled ourselves in the smoker, Whitney remarked in a low voice,
“You know, someone has said that there is only one thing more difficult
to investigate and solve than a crime whose commission is surrounded
by complicated circumstances and that is a crime whose perpetration is
wholly devoid of circumstances.”
“Are you so sure that this crime is wholly devoid of circumstances?”
asked Craig.
“Professor,” he replied, “I'm not sure of anything in this case. If I
were I should not require your assistance. I would like the credit of
solving it myself, but it is beyond me. Just think of it: so far we
haven't a clue, at least none that shows the slightest promise, although
we have worked night and day for a week. It's all darkness. The facts
are so simple that they give us nothing to work on. It is like a blank
sheet of paper.”
Kennedy said nothing, and the district attorney proceeded: “I don't
blame Mr. Nott, the coroner, for thinking it an accident. But to
my mind, some master criminal must have arranged this very baffling
simplicity of circumstances. You recall that the front door was
unlocked. This person must have entered the house unobserved, not a
difficult thing to do, for the Wainwright house is somewhat isolated.
Perhaps this person brought along some poison in the form of a beverage,
and induced the two victims to drink. And then, this person must have
removed the evidences as swiftly as they were brought in and by the same
door. That, I think, is the only solution.”
“That is not the only solution. It is one solution,” interrupted Kennedy
quietly.
“Do you think someone in the house did it?” I asked quickly.
“I think,” replied Craig, carefully measuring his words, “that if poison
was given them it must have been by someone they both knew pretty well.”
No one said a word, until at last I broke the silence. “I know from the
gossip of the Star office that many Williston people say that Marian was
very jealous of her sister Laura for capturing the catch of the season.
Williston people don't hesitate to hint at it.”
Whitney produced another document from that fertile green bag. It was
another affidavit. He handed it to us. It was a statement signed by Mrs.
Wainwright, and read:
“Before God, my daughter Marian is innocent. If you wish to find out
all, find out more about the past history of Mr. Templeton before he
became engaged to Laura. She would never in the world have committed
suicide. She was too bright and cheerful for that, even if Mr. Templeton
had been about to break off the engagement. My daughters Laura and
Marian were always treated by Mr. Wainwright and myself exactly alike.
Of course they had their quarrels, just as all sisters do, but there was
never, to my certain knowledge, a serious disagreement, and I was always
close enough to my girls to know. No, Laura was murdered by someone
outside.”
Kennedy did not seem to attach much importance to this statement. “Let
us see,” he began reflectively. “First, we have a young woman especially
attractive and charming in both person and temperament. She is just
about to be married and, if the reports are to be believed, there was
no cloud on her happiness. Secondly, we have a young man whom everyone
agrees to have been of an ardent, energetic, optimistic temperament. He
had everything to live for, presumably. So far, so good. Everyone who
has investigated this case, I understand, has tried to eliminate the
double-suicide and the suicide-and-murder theories. That is all
right, providing the facts are as stated. We shall see, later, when we
interview the coroner. Now, Mr. Whitney, suppose you tell us briefly
what you have learned about the past history of the two unfortunate
lovers.”
“Well, the Wainwrights are an old Westchester family, not very wealthy,
but of the real aristocracy of the county. There were only two children,
Laura and Marian. The Templetons were much the same sort of family. The
children all attended a private school at White Plains, and there also
they met Schuyler Vanderdyke. These four constituted a sort of little
aristocracy in the school. I mention this, because Vanderdyke later
became Laura's first husband. This marriage with Templeton was a second
venture.”
“How long ago was she divorced?” asked Craig attentively.
“About three years ago. I'm coming to that in a moment. The sisters went
to college together, Templeton to law school, and Vanderdyke studied
civil engineering. Their intimacy was pretty well broken up, all except
Laura's and Vanderdyke's. Soon after he graduated he was taken into the
construction department of the Central Railroad by his uncle, who was a
vice-president, and Laura and he were married. As far as I can learn he
had been a fellow of convivial habits at college, and about two years
after their marriage his wife suddenly became aware of what had
long been well known in Williston, that Vanderdyke was paying marked
attention to a woman named Miss Laporte in New York.
“No sooner had Laura Vanderdyke learned of this intimacy of her
husband,” continued Whitney, “than she quietly hired private detectives
to shadow him, and on their evidence she obtained a divorce. The papers
were sealed, and she resumed her maiden name.
“As far as I can find out, Vanderdyke then disappeared from her life. He
resigned his position with the railroad and joined a party of engineers
exploring the upper Amazon. Later he went to Venezuela. Miss Laporte
also went to South America about the same time, and was for a time in
Venezuela, and later in Peru.
“Vanderdyke seems to have dropped all his early associations completely,
though at present I find he is back in New York raising capital for
a company to exploit a new asphalt concession in the interior of
Venezuela. Miss Laporte has also reappeared in New York as Mrs. Ralston,
with a mining claim in the mountains of Peru.”
“And Templeton?” asked Craig. “Had he had any previous matrimonial
ventures?”
“No, none. Of course he had had love affairs, mostly with the
country-club set. He had known Miss Laporte pretty well, too, while he
was in law school in New York. But when he settled down to work he seems
to have forgotten all about the girls for a couple of years or so. He
was very anxious to get ahead, and let nothing stand in his way. He was
admitted to the bar and taken in by his father as junior member of the
firm of Templeton, Mills & Templeton. Not long ago he was appointed
a special master to take testimony in the get-rich-quick-company
prosecutions, and I happen to know that he was making good in the
investigation.”
Kennedy nodded. “What sort of fellow personally was Templeton?” he
asked.
“Very popular,” replied the district attorney, “both at the country
club and in his profession in New York. He was a fellow of naturally
commanding temperament--the Templetons were always that way. I doubt if
many young men even with his chances could have gained such a reputation
at thirty-five as his. Socially he was very popular, too, a great
catch for all the sly mamas of the country club who had marriageable
daughters. He liked automobiles and outdoor sports, and he was strong in
politics, too. That was how he got ahead so fast.
“Well, to cut the story short, Templeton met the Wainwright girls again
last summer at a resort on Long Island. They had just returned from a
long trip abroad, spending most of the time in the Far East with their
father, whose firm has business interests in China. The girls were very
attractive. They rode and played tennis and golf better than most of the
men, and this fall Templeton became a frequent visitor at the Wainwright
home in Williston.
“People who know them best tell me that his first attentions were paid
to Marian, a very dashing and ambitious young woman. Nearly every day
Templeton's car stopped at the house and the girls and some friend of
Templeton's in the country club went for a ride. They tell me that at
this time Marian always sat with Templeton on the front seat. But
after a few weeks the gossips--nothing of that sort ever escapes
Williston--said that the occupant of the front seat was Laura. She often
drove the car herself and was very clever at it. At any rate, not long
after that the engagement was announced.”
As he walked up from the pretty little Williston station Kennedy asked:
“One more question, Mr. Whitney. How did Marian take the engagement?”
The district attorney hesitated. “I will be perfectly frank, Mr.
Kennedy,” he answered. “The country-club people tell me that the girls
were very cool toward each other. That was why I got that statement from
Mrs. Wainwright. I wish to be perfectly fair to everyone concerned in
this case.”
We found the coroner quite willing to talk, in spite of the fact that
the hour was late. “My friend, Mr. Whitney, here, still holds the poison
theory,” began the coroner, “in spite of the fact that everything points
absolutely toward asphyxiation. If I had been able to discover the
slightest trace of illuminating-gas in the room I should have pronounced
it asphyxia at once. All the symptoms accorded with it. But the asphyxia
was not caused by escaping illuminating-gas.
“There was an antique charcoal-brazier in the room, and I have
ascertained that it was lighted. Now, anything like a brazier will,
unless there is proper ventilation, give rise to carbonic oxide
or carbon monoxide gas, which is always present in the products of
combustion, often to the extent of from five to ten per cent. A very
slight quantity of this gas, insufficient even to cause an odour in a
room, will give a severe headache, and a case is recorded where a whole
family in Glasgow was poisoned without knowing it by the escape of this
gas. A little over one per cent of it in the atmosphere is fatal,
if breathed for any length of time. You know, it is a product of
combustion, and is very deadly--it is the much-dreaded white damp or
afterdamp of a mine explosion.
“I'm going to tell you a secret which I have not given out to the press
yet. I tried an experiment in a closed room today, lighting the brazier.
Some distance from it I placed a cat confined in a cage so it could not
escape. In an hour and a half the cat was asphyxiated.”
The coroner concluded with an air of triumph that quite squelched the
district attorney.
Kennedy was all attention. “Have you preserved samples of the blood of
Mr. Templeton and Miss Wainwright?” he asked.
“Certainly. I have them in my office.”
The coroner, who was also a local physician, led us back into his
private office.
“And the cat?” added Craig.
Doctor Nott produced it in a covered basket.
Quickly Kennedy drew off a little of the blood of the cat and held it up
to the light along with the human samples. The difference was apparent.
“You see,” he explained, “carbon monoxide combines firmly with the
blood, destroying the red colouring matter of the red corpuscles. No,
Doctor, I'm afraid it wasn't carbonic oxide that killed the lovers,
although it certainly killed the cat.”
Doctor Nott was crestfallen, but still unconvinced. “If my whole medical
reputation were at stake,” he repeated, “I should still be compelled to
swear to asphyxia. I've seen it too often, to make a mistake. Carbonic
oxide or not, Templeton and Miss Wainwright were asphyxiated.”
It was now Whitney's chance to air his theory.
“I have always inclined toward the cyanide-of-potassium theory, either
that it was administered in a drink or perhaps injected by a needle,” he
said. “One of the chemists has reported that there was a possibility of
slight traces of cyanide in the mouths.”
“If it had been cyanide,” replied Craig, looking reflectively at the two
jars before him on the table, “these blood specimens would be blue in
colour and clotted. But they are not. Then, too, there is a substance
in the saliva which is used in the process of digestion. It gives a
reaction which might very easily be mistaken for a slight trace of
cyanide. I think that explains what the chemist discovered; no more, no
less. The cyanide theory does not fit.”
“One chemist hinted at nux vomica,” volunteered the coroner. “He said
it wasn't nux vomica, but that the blood test showed something very
much like it. Oh, we've looked for morphine chloroform, ether, all the
ordinary poisons, besides some of the little known alkaloids. Believe
me, Professor Kennedy, it was asphyxia.”
I could tell by the look that crossed Kennedy's face that at last a ray
of light had pierced the darkness. “Have you any spirits of turpentine
in the office?” he asked.
The coroner shook his head and took a step toward the telephone as if to
call the drug-store in town.
“Or ether?” interrupted Craig. “Ether will do.”
“Oh, yes, plenty of ether.”
Craig poured a little of one of the blood samples from the jar into a
tube and added a few drops of ether. A cloudy dark precipitate formed.
He smiled quietly and said, half to himself, “I thought so.”
“What is it?” asked the coroner eagerly. “Nux vomica?”
Craig shook his head as he stared at the black precipitate. “You were
perfectly right about the asphyxiation, Doctor,” he remarked
slowly, “but wrong as to the cause. It wasn't carbon monoxide or
illuminating-gas. And you, Mr. Whitney, were right about the poison,
too. Only it is a poison neither of you ever heard of.”
“What is it?” we asked simultaneously.
“Let me take these samples and make some further tests. I am sure of
it, but it is new to me. Wait till to-morrow night, when my chain of
evidence is completed. Then you are all cordially invited to attend
at my laboratory at the university. I'll ask you, Mr. Whitney, to
come armed with a warrant for John or Jane Doe. Please see that the
Wainwrights, particularly Marian, are present. You can tell Inspector
O'Connor that Mr. Vanderdyke and Mrs. Ralston are required as material
witnesses--anything so long as you are sure that these five persons are
present. Good night, gentlemen.”
We rode back to the city in silence, but as we neared the station,
Kennedy remarked: “You see, Walter, these people are like the
newspapers. They are floundering around in a sea of unrelated facts.
There is more than they think back of this crime. I've been revolving
in my mind how it will be possible to get some inkling about this
concession of Vanderdyke's, the mining claim of Mrs. Ralston, and the
exact itinerary of the Wainwright trip in the Far East. Do you think
you can get that information for me? I think it will take me all day
to-morrow to isolate this poison and get things in convincing shape on
that score. Meanwhile if you can see Vanderdyke and Mrs. Ralston you
can help me a great deal. I am sure you will find them very interesting
people.”
“I have been told that she is quite a female high financier,” I replied,
tacitly accepting Craig's commission. “Her story is that her claim is
situated near the mine of a group of powerful American capitalists, who
are opposed to having any competition, and on the strength of that
story she has been raking in the money right and left. I don't know
Vanderdyke, never heard of him before, but no doubt he has some equally
interesting game.”
“Don't let them think you connect them with the case, however,”
cautioned Craig.
Early the next morning I started out on my quest for facts, though not
so early but that Kennedy had preceded me to his work in his laboratory.
It was not very difficult to get Mrs. Ralston to talk about her troubles
with the government. In fact, I did not even have to broach the subject
of the death of Templeton. She volunteered the information that in his
handling of her case he had been very unjust to her, in spite of the
fact that she had known him well a long time ago. She even hinted that
she believed he represented the combination of capitalists who
were using the government to aid their own monopoly and prevent the
development of her mine. Whether it was an obsession of her mind,
or merely part of her clever scheme, I could not make out. I noted,
however, that when she spoke of Templeton it was in a studied,
impersonal way, and that she was at pains to lay the blame for the
governmental interference rather on the rival mine-owners.
It quite surprised me when I found from the directory that Vanderdyke's
office was on the floor below in the same building. Like Mrs. Ralston's,
it was open, but not doing business, pending the investigation by the
Post-Office Department.
Vanderdyke was a type of which I had seen many before. Well dressed to
the extreme, he displayed all those evidences of prosperity which are
the stock in trade of the man with securities to sell. He grasped
my hand when I told him I was going to present the other side of the
post-office cases and held it between both of his as if he had known me
all his life. Only the fact that he had never seen me before prevented
his calling me by my first name. I took mental note of his stock of
jewellery, the pin in his tie that might almost have been the Hope
diamond, the heavy watch chain across his chest, and a very brilliant
seal ring of lapis lazuli on the hand that grasped mine. He saw me
looking at it and smiled.
“My dear fellow, we have deposits of that stuff that would make a
fortune if we could get the machinery to get at it. Why, sir, there is
lapis lazuli enough on our claim to make enough ultramarine paint to
supply all the artists to the end of the world. Actually we could afford
to crush it up and sell it as paint. And that is merely incidental to
the other things on the concession. The asphalt's the thing. That's
where the big money is. When we get started, sir, the old asphalt trust
will simply melt away, melt away.”
He blew a cloud of tobacco smoke and let it dissolve significantly in
the air.
When it came to talking about the suits, however, Vanderdyke was not
so communicative as Mrs. Ralston, but he was also not so bitter against
either the post-office or Templeton.
“Poor Templeton,” he said. “I used to know him years ago when we were
boys. Went to school with him and all that sort of thing, you know,
but until I ran across him, or rather he ran across me, in this
investigation I hadn't heard much about him. Pretty clever fellow he
was, too. The state will miss him, but my lawyer tells me that we
should have won the suit anyhow, even if that unfortunate tragedy hadn't
occurred. Most unaccountable, wasn't it? I've read about it in the
papers for old time's sake, and can make nothing out of it.”
I said nothing, but wondered how he could pass so lightheartedly over
the death of the woman who had once been his wife. However, I said
nothing. The result was he launched forth again on the riches of his
Venezuelan concession and loaded me down with “literature,” which I
crammed into my pocket for future reference.
My next step was to drop into the office of a Spanish-America paper
whose editor was especially well informed on South American affairs.
“Do I know Mrs. Ralston?” he repeated, thoughtfully lighting one of
those black cigarettes that look so vicious and are so mild. “I should
say so. I'll tell you a little story about her. Three or four years
ago she turned up in Caracas. I don't know who Mr. Ralston was--perhaps
there never was any Mr. Ralston. Anyhow, she got in with the official
circle of the Castro government and was very successful as an
adventuress. She has considerable business ability and represented
a certain group of Americans. But, if you recall, when Castro was
eliminated pretty nearly everyone who had stood high with him went, too.
It seems that a number of the old concessionaires played the game on
both sides. This particular group had a man named Vanderdyke on the
anti-Castro side. So, when Mrs. Ralston went, she just quietly sailed by
way of Panama to the other side of the continent, to Peru--they paid her
well--and Vanderdyke took the title role.
“Oh, yes, she and Vanderdyke were very good friends, very, indeed. I
think they must have known each other here in the States. Still they
played their parts well at the time. Since things have settled down in
Venezuela, the concessionaires have found no further use for Vanderdyke
either, and here they are, Vanderdyke and Mrs. Ralston, both in New York
now, with two of the most outrageous schemes of financing ever seen on
Broad Street. They have offices in the same building, they are together
a great deal, and now I hear that the state attorney-general is after
both of them.”
With this information and a very meagre report of the Wainwright trip to
the Far East, which had taken in some out-of-the-way places apparently,
I hastened back to Kennedy. He was surrounded by bottles, tubes, jars,
retorts, Bunsen burners, everything in the science and art of chemistry,
I thought.
I didn't like the way he looked. His hand was unsteady, and his eyes
looked badly, but he seemed quite put out when I suggested that he was
working too hard over the case. I was worried about him, but rather than
say anything to offend him I left him for the rest of the afternoon,
only dropping in before dinner to make sure that he would not forget to
eat something. He was then completing his preparations for the evening.
They were of the simplest kind, apparently. In fact, all I could see was
an apparatus which consisted of a rubber funnel, inverted and attached
to a rubber tube which led in turn into a jar about a quarter full of
water. Through the stopper of the jar another tube led to a tank of
oxygen.
There were several jars of various liquids on the table and a number
of chemicals. Among other things was a sort of gourd, encrusted with a
black substance, and in a corner was a box from which sounds issued as
if it contained something alive.
I did not trouble Kennedy with questions, for I was only too glad when
he consented to take a brisk walk and join me in a thick porterhouse.
It was a large party that gathered in Kennedy's laboratory that night,
one of the largest he had ever had. Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright and Miss
Marian came, the ladies heavily veiled. Doctor Nott and Mr. Whitney were
among the first to arrive. Later came Mr. Vanderdyke and last of all
Mrs. Ralston with Inspector O'Connor. Altogether it was an unwilling
party.
“I shall begin,” said Kennedy, “by going over, briefly, the facts in
this case.”
Tersely he summarised it, to my surprise laying great stress on the
proof that the couple had been asphyxiated.
“But it was no ordinary asphyxiation,” he continued. “We have to deal in
this case with a poison which is apparently among the most subtle known.
A particle of matter so minute as to be hardly distinguishable by the
naked eye, on the point of a needle or a lancet, a prick of the skin
scarcely felt under any circumstances and which would pass quite
unheeded if the attention were otherwise engaged, and not all the power
in the world--unless one was fully prepared--could save the life of the
person in whose skin the puncture had been made.”
Craig paused a moment, but no one showed any evidence of being more than
ordinarily impressed.
“This poison, I find, acts on the so-called endplates of the muscles and
nerves. It produces complete paralysis, but not loss of consciousness,
sensation, circulation, or respiration until the end approaches. It
seems to be one of the most powerful sedatives I have ever heard of.
When introduced in even a minute quantity it produces death finally by
asphyxiation--by paralysing the muscles of respiration. This asphyxia is
what so puzzled the coroner.
“I will now inject a little of the blood serum of the victims into a
white mouse.”
He took a mouse from the box I had seen, and with a needle injected the
serum. The mouse did not even wince, so lightly did he touch it, but as
we watched, its life seemed gently to ebb away, without pain and without
struggle. Its breath simply seemed to stop.
Next he took the gourd I had seen on the table and with a knife scraped
off just the minutest particle of the black licorice-like stuff that
encrusted it. He dissolved the particle in some alcohol and with a
sterilised needle repeated his experiment on a second mouse. The effect
was precisely similar to that produced by the blood on the first.
It did not seem to me that anyone showed any emotion except possibly
the slight exclamation that escaped Miss Marian Wainwright. I fell
to wondering whether it was prompted by a soft heart or a guilty
conscience.
We were all intent on what Craig was doing, especially Doctor Nott, who
now broke in with a question.
“Professor Kennedy, may I ask a question? Admitting that the first mouse
died in an apparently similar manner to the second, what proof have you
that the poison is the same in both cases? And if it is the same can you
show that it affects human beings in the same way, and that enough of
it has been discovered in the blood of the victims to have caused their
death? In other words, I want the last doubt set aside. How do you know
absolutely that this poison which you discovered in my office last night
in that black precipitate when you added the ether--how do you know that
it asphyxiated the victims?”
If ever Craig startled me it was by his quiet reply. “I've isolated
it in their blood, extracted it, sterilised it, and I've tried it on
myself.”
In breathless amazement, with eyes riveted on Craig, we listened.
“Altogether I was able to recover from the blood samples of both of
the victims of this crime six centigrams of the poison,” he pursued.
“Starting with two centigrams of it as a moderate dose, I injected it
into my right arm subcutaneously. Then I slowly worked my way up
to three and then four centigrams. They did not produce any very
appreciable results other than to cause some dizziness, slight vertigo,
a considerable degree of lassitude, and an extremely painful headache
of rather unusual duration. But five centigrams considerably improved
on this. It caused a degree of vertigo and lassitude that was most
distressing, and six centigrams, the whole amount which I had recovered
from the samples of blood, gave me the fright of my life right here in
this laboratory this afternoon.
“Perhaps I was not wise in giving myself so large an injection on a day
when I was overheated and below par otherwise because of the strain I
have been under in handling this case. However that may be, the added
centigram produced so much more on top of the five centigrams previously
taken that for a time I had reason to fear that that additional
centigram was just the amount needed to bring my experiments to a
permanent close.
“Within three minutes of the time of injection the dizziness and vertigo
had become so great as to make walking seem impossible. In another
minute the lassitude rapidly crept over me, and the serious disturbance
of my breathing made it apparent to me that walking, waving my arms,
anything, was imperative. My lungs felt glued up, and the muscles of my
chest refused to work. Everything swam before my eyes, and I was soon
reduced to walking up and down the laboratory with halting steps, only
preventing falling on the floor by holding fast to the edge of this
table. It seemed to me that I spent hours gasping for breath. It
reminded me of what I once experienced in the Cave of the Winds of
Niagara, where water is more abundant in the atmosphere than air. My
watch afterward indicated only about twenty minutes of extreme distress,
but that twenty minutes is one never to be forgotten, and I advise you
all, if you ever are so foolish as to try the experiment, to remain
below the five-centigram limit.
“How much was administered to the victims, Doctor Nott, I cannot say,
but it must have been a good deal more than I took. Six centigrams,
which I recovered from these small samples, are only nine-tenths of
a grain. Yet you see what effect it had. I trust that answers your
question.”
Doctor Nott was too overwhelmed to reply.
“And what is this deadly poison?” continued Craig, anticipating our
thoughts. “I have been fortunate enough to obtain a sample of it from
the Museum of Natural History. It comes in a little gourd, or often a
calabash. This is in a gourd. It is blackish brittle stuff encrusting
the sides of the gourd just as if it was poured in in the liquid state
and left to dry. Indeed, that is just what has been done by those who
manufacture this stuff after a lengthy and somewhat secret process.”
He placed the gourd on the edge of the table where we could all see it.
I was almost afraid even to look at it.
“The famous traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgh first brought it into
Europe, and Darwin has described it. It is now an article of commerce
and is to be found in the United States Pharmacopoeia as a medicine,
though of course it is used in only very minute quantities, as a heart
stimulant.”
Craig opened a book to a place he had marked:
“At least one person in this room will appreciate the local colour of a
little incident I am going to read--to illustrate what death from this
poison is like. Two natives of the part of the world whence it comes
were one day hunting. They were armed with blowpipes and quivers full
of poisoned darts made of thin charred pieces of bamboo tipped with this
stuff. One of them aimed a dart. It missed the object overhead, glanced
off the tree, and fell down on the hunter himself. This is how the other
native reported the result:
“'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts it in
his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his blowpipe for his
little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife and the village. Then he
lies down. His tongue talks no longer. No sight in his eyes. He folds
his arms. He rolls over slowly. His mouth moves without sound. I feel
his heart. It goes fast and then slow. It stops. Quacca has shot his
last woorali dart.'”
We looked at each other, and the horror of the thing sank deep into our
minds. Woorali. What was it? There were many travellers in the room who
had been in the Orient, home of poisons, and in South America. Which one
had run across the poison?
“Woorali, or curare,” said Craig slowly, “is the well-known poison with
which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco tip their arrows.
Its principal ingredient is derived from the Strychnos toxifera tree,
which yields also the drug nux vomica.”
A great light dawned on me. I turned quickly to where Vanderdyke was
sitting next to Mrs. Ralston, and a little behind her. His stony stare
and laboured breathing told me that he had read the purport of Kennedy's
actions.
“For God's sake, Craig,” I gasped. “An emetic, quick--Vanderdyke.”
A trace of a smile flitted over Vanderdyke's features, as much as to say
that he was beyond our interference.
“Vanderdyke,” said Craig, with what seemed to me a brutal calmness,
“then it was you who were the visitor who last saw Laura Wainwright and
John Templeton alive. Whether you shot a dart at them I do not know. But
you are the murderer.”
Vanderdyke raised his hand as if to assent. It fell back limp, and I
noted the ring of the bluest lapis lazuli.
Mrs. Ralston threw herself toward him. “Will you not do something? Is
there no antidote? Don't let him die!” she cried.
“You are the murderer,” repeated Kennedy, as if demanding a final
answer.
Again the hand moved in confession, and he feebly moved the finger on
which shone the ring.
Our attention was centred on Vanderdyke. Mrs. Ralston, unobserved, went
to the table and picked up the gourd. Before O'Connor could stop her
she had rubbed her tongue on the black substance inside. It was only a
little bit, for O'Connor quickly dashed it from her lips and threw the
gourd through the window, smashing the glass.
“Kennedy,” he shouted frantically, “Mrs. Ralston has swallowed some of
it.”
Kennedy seemed so intent on Vanderdyke that I had to repeat the remark.
Without looking up, he said: “Oh, one can swallow it--it's strange,
but it is comparatively inert if swallowed even in a pretty good-sized
quantity. I doubt if Mrs. Ralston ever heard of it before except by
hearsay. If she had, she'd have scratched herself with it instead of
swallowing it.”
If Craig had been indifferent to the emergency of Vanderdyke before,
he was all action now that the confession had been made. In an instant
Vanderdyke was stretched on the floor and Craig had taken out the
apparatus I had seen during the afternoon.
“I am prepared for this,” he exclaimed quickly. “Here is the apparatus
for artificial respiration. Nott, hold that rubber funnel over his nose,
and start the oxygen from the tank. Pull his tongue forward so it won't
fall down his throat and choke him. I'll work his arms. Walter, make a
tourniquet of your handkerchief and put it tightly on the muscles of
his left arm. That may keep some of the poison in his arm from spreading
into the rest of his body. This is the only antidote known--artificial
respiration.”
Kennedy was working feverishly, going through the motions of first
aid to a drowned man. Mrs. Ralston was on her knees beside Vanderdyke,
kissing his hands and forehead whenever Kennedy stopped for a minute,
and crying softly.
“Schuyler, poor boy, I wonder how you could have done it. I was with him
that day. We rode up in his car, and as we passed through Williston he
said he would stop a minute and wish Templeton luck. I didn't think it
strange, for he said he had nothing any longer against Laura Wainwright,
and Templeton only did his duty as a lawyer against us. I forgave John
for prosecuting us, but Schuyler didn't, after all. Oh, my poor boy, why
did you do it? We could have gone somewhere else and started all over
again--it wouldn't have been the first time.”
At last came the flutter of an eyelid and a voluntary breath or two.
Vanderdyke seemed to realise where he was. With a last supreme effort he
raised his hand and drew it slowly across his face. Then he fell back,
exhausted by the effort.
But he had at last put himself beyond the reach of the law. There was no
tourniquet that would confine the poison now in the scratch across his
face. Back of those lack-lustre eyes he heard and knew, but could not
move or speak. His voice was gone, his limbs, his face, his chest,
and, last, his eyes. I wondered if it were possible to conceive a more
dreadful torture than that endured by a mind which so witnessed the
dying of one organ after another of its own body, shut up, as it were,
in the fulness of life, within a corpse.
I looked in bewilderment at the scratch on his face. “How did he do it?”
I asked.
Carefully Craig drew off the azure ring and examined it. In that part
which surrounded the blue lapis lazuli, he indicated a hollow point,
concealed. It worked with a spring and communicated with a little
receptacle behind, in such a way that the murderer could give the fatal
scratch while shaking hands with his victim.
I shuddered, for my hand had once been clasped by the one wearing
that poison ring, which had sent Templeton, and his fiancee and now
Vanderdyke himself, to their deaths.