arrived, and Dr. Guthrie introduced Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby to us as
specialists whom he had persuaded with great difficulty to come down
from New York. Mr. Willoughby he requested to remain outside until
after the tests. She seemed perfectly calm as she greeted us, and
looked with curiosity at the paraphernalia which Kennedy had installed
in her library. Kennedy, who was putting some finishing touches on it,
was talking in a low voice to reassure her.
“If you will sit here, please, Mrs. Willoughby, and place your hands on
these two brass domes—there, that’s it. This is just a little
arrangement to test your nervous condition. Dr. Guthrie, who
understands it, will take his position outside in the music-room at
that other table. Walter, just switch off that light, please.
“Mrs. Willoughby, I may say that in testing, say, the memory, we
psychologists have recently developed two tests, the event test, where
something is made to happen before a person’s eyes and later he is
asked to describe it, and the picture test, where a picture is shown
for a certain length of time, after which the patient is also asked to
describe what was in the picture. I have endeavoured to combine these
two ideas by using the moving-picture machine which you see here. I am
going to show three reels of films.”
As nearly as I could make out Kennedy had turned on the light in the
lantern on his side of the table. As he worked over the machine, which
for the present served to distract Mrs. Willoughby’s attention from
herself, he was asking her a series of questions. From my position I
could see that by the light of the machine he was recording both the
questions and the answers, as well as the time registered to the fifth
of a second by a stop-watch. Mrs. Willoughby could not see what he was
doing under the pretence of working over his little moving-picture
machine.
He had at last finished the questioning. Suddenly, without any warning,
a picture began to play on the sheet. I must say that I was startled
myself. It represented the jewelry counter at Trimble’s, and in it I
could see Mrs. Willoughby herself in animated conversation with one of
the clerks. I looked intently, dividing my attention between the
picture and the woman. But so far as I could see there was nothing in
this first film that incriminated either of them.
Kennedy started on the second without stopping. It was practically the
same as the first, only taken from a different angle.
He had scarcely run it half through when Dr. Guthrie opened the door.
“I think Mrs. Willoughby must have taken her hands off the metal
domes,” he remarked; “I can get no record out here.”
I had turned when he opened the door, and now I caught a glimpse of
Mrs. Willoughby standing, her hands pressed tightly to her head as if
it were bursting, and swaying as if she would faint. I do not know what
the film was showing at this point, for Kennedy with a quick movement
shut it off and sprang to her side.
“There, that will do, Mrs. Willoughby. I see that you are not well,” he
soothed. “Doctor, a little something to quiet her nerves. I think we
can complete our work merely by comparing notes. Call Mr. Willoughby,
Walter. There, sir, if you will take charge of your wife and perhaps
take her for a turn or two in the fresh air, I think we can tell you in
a few moments whether her condition is in any way serious or not.”
Mrs. Willoughby was on the verge of hysterics as her husband supported
her out of the room. The door had scarcely shut before Kennedy threw
open a window and seemed to beckon into the darkness. As if from
nowhere, Donnelly and Bentley sprang to and were admitted.
Dr. Guthrie had now returned from the music-room, bearing a sheet of
paper on which was traced a long irregular curve at various points on
which marginal notes had been written hastily.
Kennedy leaped directly into the middle of things with his
characteristic ardour. “You recall,” he began, “that no one seemed to
know just who took the jewels in both the cases you first reported?
‘Seeing is believing,’ is an old saying, but in the face of such
reports as you detectives gathered it is in a fair way to lose its
force. And you were not at fault, either, for modern psychology is
proving by experiments that people do not see even a fraction of the
things they confidently believe they see.
“For example, a friend of mine, a professor in a Western university,
has carried on experiments with scores of people and has not found one
who could give a completely accurate description of what he had seen,
even in the direct testimony; while under the influence of questions,
particularly if they were at all leading, witnesses all showed
extensive inaccuracies in one or more particulars, and that even though
they are in a more advantageous position for giving reports than were
your clerks who were not prepared. Indeed, it is often a wonder to me
that witnesses of ordinary events who are called upon in court to
relate what they saw after a considerable lapse of time are as accurate
as they are, considering the questioning they often go through from
interested parties, neighbours and friends, and the constant and often
biased rehearsing of the event. The court asks the witness to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. How can he? In fact,
I am often surprised that there is such a resemblance between the
testimony and the actual facts of the case!
“But I have here a little witness that never lies, and, mindful of the
fallibility of ordinary witnesses, I called it in. It is a new,
compact, little motion camera which has just been perfected to do
automatically what the big moving-picture making cameras do.”
He touched one of the little black boxes such as we had seen him
install in the jewelry department at Trimble’s.
“Each of these holds one hundred and sixty feet of film,” he resumed,
“enough to last three minutes, taking, say, sixteen pictures to the
foot and running about one foot a second. You know that less than ten
or eleven pictures a second affect the retina as separate, broken
pictures. The use of this compact little motion camera was suggested to
me by an ingenious but cumbersome invention recently offered to the
police in Paris—the installation on the clock-towers in various
streets of cinematograph apparatus directed by wireless. The motion
camera as a detective has now proved its value. I have here three films
taken at Trimble’s, from different angles, and they clearly show
exactly what actually occurred while Mrs. Willoughby and Annie Grayson
were looking at the Kimberley Queen.”
He paused as if analysing the steps in his own mind. “The telegraphone
gave me the first hint of the truth,” he said. “The motion camera
brought me a step nearer, but without this third instrument, while I
should have been successful, I would not have got at the whole truth.”
He was fingering the apparatus on the library table connected with that
in the music-room. “This is the psychometer for testing mental
aberrations,” he explained. “The scientists who are using it to-day are
working, not with a view to aiding criminal jurisprudence, but with the
hope of making such discoveries that the mental health of the race may
be bettered. Still, I believe that in the study of mental diseases
these men are furnishing the knowledge upon which future criminologists
will build to make the detection of crime an absolute certainty. Some
day there will be no jury, no detectives, no witnesses, no attorneys.
The state will merely submit all suspects to tests of scientific
instruments like these, and as these instruments can not make mistakes
or tell lies their evidence will be conclusive of guilt or innocence.
“Already the psychometer is an actual working fact. No living man can
conceal his emotions from the uncanny instrument. He may bring the most
gigantic of will-powers into play to conceal his inner feelings and the
psychometer will record the very work which he makes this will-power do.
“The machine is based upon the fact that experiments have proved that
the human body’s resistance to an electrical current is increased with
the increase of the emotions. Dr. Jung, of Zurich, thought that it
would be a very simple matter to record these varying emotions, and the
psychometer is the result—simple and crude to-day compared with what
we have a right to expect in the future.
“A galvanometer is so arranged that its action swings a mirror from
side to side, reflecting a light. This light falls on a ground-glass
scale marked off into centimetres, and the arrow is made to follow the
beam of light. A pen pressing down on a metal drum carrying a long roll
of paper revolved by machinery records the variations. Dr. Guthrie, who
had charge of the recording, simply sat in front of the ground glass
and with the arrow point followed the reflection of the light as it
moved along the scale, in this way making a record on the paper on the
drum, which I see he is now holding in his hand.
“Mrs. Willoughby, the subject, and myself, the examiner, sat here,
facing each other over this table. Through those metal domes on which
she was to keep her hands she received an electric current so weak that
it could not be felt even by the most sensitive nerves. Now with every
increase in her emotion, either while I was putting questions to her or
showing her the pictures, whether she showed it outwardly or not, she
increased her body’s resistance to the current that was being passed in
through her hands. The increase was felt by the galvanometer connected
by wires in the music-room, the mirror swung, the light travelled on
the scale, the arrow was moved by Dr. Guthrie, and her varying emotions
were recorded indelibly upon the revolving sheet of paper, recorded in
such a way as to show their intensity and reveal to the trained
scientist much of the mental condition of the subject.”
Kennedy and Dr. Guthrie now conversed in low tones. Once in a while I
could catch a scrap of the conversation—“not an epileptic,” “no
abnormal conformation of the head,” “certain mental defects,” “often
the result of sickness or accident.”
“Every time that woman appeared there was a most peculiar disturbance,”
remarked Dr. Guthrie as Kennedy took the roll of paper from him and
studied it carefully.
At length the light seemed to break through his face.
“Among the various kinds of insanity,” he said, slowly measuring his
words, “there is one that manifests itself as an irresistible impulse
to steal. Such terms as neuropath and kleptomaniac are often regarded
as rather elegant names for contemptible excuses invented by medical
men to cover up stealing. People are prone to say cynically, ‘Poor
man’s sins; rich man’s diseases.’ Yet kleptomania does exist, and it is
easy to make it seem like crime when it is really persistent,
incorrigible, and irrational stealing. Often it is so great as to be
incurable. Cases have been recorded of clergymen who were kleptomaniacs
and in one instance a dying victim stole the snuffbox of his confessor.
“It is the pleasure and excitement of stealing, not the desire for the
object stolen, which distinguishes the kleptomaniac from the ordinary
thief. Usually the kleptomaniac is a woman, with an insane desire to
steal for the mere sake of stealing. The morbid craving for excitement
which is at the bottom of so many motiveless and useless crimes, again
and again has driven apparently sensible men and women to ruin and even
to suicide. It is a form of emotional insanity, not loss of control of
the will, but perversion of the will. Some are models in their lucid
intervals, but when the mania is on them they cannot resist. The very
act of taking constitutes the pleasure, not possession. One must take
into consideration many things, for such diseases as kleptomania belong
exclusively to civilisation; they are the product of an age of
sensationalism. Naturally enough, woman, with her delicately balanced
nervous organisation, is the first and chief offender.”
Kennedy had seated himself at the table and was writing hastily. When
he had finished, he held the papers in his hand to dry.
He handed one sheet each to Bentley and Donnelly. We crowded about.
Kennedy had simply written out two bills for the necklace and the
collar of pearls.
“Send them in to Mr. Willoughby,” he added. “I think he will be glad to
pay them to hush up the scandal.”
We looked at each other in amazement at the revelation.
“But what about Annie Grayson?” persisted Donnelly.
“I have taken care of her,” responded Kennedy laconically. “She is
already under arrest. Would you like to see why?”
A moment later we had all piled into Dr. Guthrie’s car, standing at the
door.
At the cosy little Grayson villa we found two large eyed detectives and
a very angry woman waiting impatiently. Heaped up on a table in the
living room was a store of loot that readily accounted for the ocular
peculiarity of the detectives.
The jumble on the table contained a most magnificent collection of
diamonds, sapphires, ropes of pearls, emeralds, statuettes, and bronze
and ivory antiques, books in rare bindings, and other baubles which
wealth alone can command. It dazzled our eyes as we made a mental
inventory of the heap. Yet it was a most miscellaneous collection.
Beside a pearl collar with a diamond clasp were a pair of plain leather
slippers and a pair of silk stockings. Things of value and things of no
value were mixed as if by a lunatic. A beautiful neck ornament of
carved coral lay near a half-dozen common linen handkerchiefs. A strip
of silk hid a valuable collection of antique jewellery. Besides
diamonds and precious stones by the score were gold and silver
ornaments, silks, satins, laces, draperies, articles of virtu, plumes,
even cutlery and bric-a-brac. All this must have been the result of
countless excursions to the stores of New York and innumerable clever
thefts.
We could only look at each other in amazement and wonder at the
defiance written on the face of Annie Grayson.
“In all this strange tangle of events,” remarked Kennedy, surveying the
pile with obvious satisfaction, “I find that the precise instruments of
science have told me one more thing. Some one else discovered Mrs.
Willoughby’s weakness, led her on, suggested opportunities to her, used
her again and again, profited by her malady, probably to the extent of
thousands of dollars. My telegraphone record hinted at that. In some
way Annie Grayson secured the confidence of Mrs. Willoughby. The one
took for the sake of taking; the other received for the sake of money.
Mrs. Willoughby was easily persuaded by her new friend to leave here
what she had stolen. Besides, having taken it, she had no further
interest in it.
“The rule of law is that every one is responsible who knows the nature
and consequences of his act. We have absolute proof that you, Annie
Grayson, although you did not actually commit any of the thefts
yourself, led Mrs. Willoughby on and profited by her. Dr. Guthrie will
take care of the case of Mrs. Willoughby. But the law must deal with
you for playing on the insanity of a kleptomaniac—the cleverest scheme
yet of the queen of shoplifters.”
As Kennedy turned nonchalantly from the detectives who had seized Annie
Grayson, he drew a little red folder from his pocket.
“You see, Walter,” he smiled, “how soon one gets into a habit? I’m
almost a regular commuter, now. You know, they are always bringing out
these little red folders just when things grow interesting.”
I glanced over his shoulder. He was studying the local timetable.
“We can get the last train from Glenclair if we hurry,” he announced,
stuffing the folder back into his pocket. “They will take her to Newark
by trolley, I suppose. Come on.”
We made our hasty adieux and escaped as best we could the shower of
congratulations.
“Now for a rest,” he said, settling back into the plush covered seat
for the long ride into town, his hat down over his eyes and his legs
hunched up against the back of the next seat. Across in the tube and
uptown in a nighthawk cab we went and at last we were home for a good
sleep.
“This promises to be an off-day,” Craig remarked, the next morning over
the breakfast table. “Meet me in the forenoon and we’ll take a long,
swinging walk. I feel the need of physical exercise.”
“A mark of returning sanity!” I exclaimed.
I had become so used to being called out on the unexpected, now, that I
almost felt that some one might stop us on our tramp. Nothing of the
sort happened, however, until our return.
Then a middle-aged man and a young girl, heavily veiled, were waiting
for Kennedy, as we turned in from the brisk finish in the cutting river
wind along the Drive.
“Winslow is my name, sir,” the man began, rising nervously as we
entered the room, “and this is my only daughter, Ruth.”
Kennedy bowed and we waited for the man to proceed. He drew his hand
over his forehead which was moist with perspiration in spite of the
season. Ruth Winslow was an attractive young woman, I could see at a
glance, although her face was almost completely hidden by the thick
veil.
“Perhaps, Ruth, I had better—ah—see these gentlemen alone?” suggested
her father gently.
“No, father,” she answered in a tone of forced bravery, “I think not. I
can stand it. I must stand it. Perhaps I can help you in telling about
the—the case.”
Mr. Winslow cleared his throat.
“We are from Goodyear, a little mill-town,” he proceeded slowly, “and
as you doubtless can see we have just arrived after travelling all day.”
“Goodyear,” repeated Kennedy slowly as the man paused. “The chief
industry, of course, is rubber, I suppose.”
“Yes,” assented Mr. Winslow, “the town centres about rubber. Our
factories are not the largest but are very large, nevertheless, and are
all that keep the town going. It is on rubber, also, I fear, that the
tragedy which I am about to relate hangs. I suppose the New York papers
have had nothing to say of the strange death of Bradley Cushing, a
young chemist in Goodyear who was formerly employed by the mills but
had lately set up a little laboratory of his own?”
Kennedy turned to me. “Nothing unless the late editions of the evening
papers have it,” I replied.
“Perhaps it is just as well,” continued Mr. Winslow. “They wouldn’t
have it straight. In fact, no one has it straight yet. That is why we
have come to you. You see, to my way of thinking Bradley Cushing was on
the road to changing the name of the town from Goodyear to Cushing. He
was not the inventor of synthetic rubber about which you hear nowadays,
but he had improved the process so much that there is no doubt that
synthetic rubber would soon have been on the market cheaper and better
than the best natural rubber from Para.
“Goodyear is not a large place, but it is famous for its rubber and
uses a great deal of raw material. We have sent out some of the best
men in the business, seeking new sources in South America, in Mexico,
in Ceylon, Malaysia and the Congo. What our people do not know about
rubber is hardly worth knowing, from the crude gum to the thousands of
forms of finished products. Goodyear is a wealthy little town, too, for
its size. Naturally all its investments are in rubber, not only in our
own mills but in companies all over the world. Last year several of our
leading citizens became interested in a new concession in the Congo
granted to a group of American capitalists, among whom was Lewis
Borland, who is easily the local magnate of our town. When this group
organised an expedition to explore the region preparatory to taking up
the concession, several of the best known people in Goodyear
accompanied the party and later subscribed for large blocks of stock.
“I say all this so that you will understand at the start just what part
rubber plays in the life of our little community. You can readily see
that such being the case, whatever advantage the world at large might
gain from cheap synthetic rubber would scarcely benefit those whose
money and labour had been expended on the assumption that rubber would
be scarce and dear. Naturally, then, Bradley Cushing was not precisely
popular with a certain set in Goodyear. As for myself, I am frank to
admit that I might have shared the opinion of many others regarding
him, for I have a small investment in this Congo enterprise myself. But
the fact is that Cushing, when he came to our town fresh from his
college fellowship in industrial chemistry, met my daughter.”
Without taking his eyes off Kennedy, he reached over and patted the
gloved hand that clutched the arm of the chair alongside his own. “They
were engaged and often they used to talk over what they would do when
Bradley’s invention of a new way to polymerise isoprene, as the process
is called, had solved the rubber question and had made him rich. I
firmly believe that their dreams were not day dreams, either. The thing
was done. I have seen his products and I know something about rubber.
There were no impurities in his rubber.”
Mr. Winslow paused. Ruth was sobbing quietly.
“This morning,” he resumed hastily, “Bradley Cushing was found dead in
his laboratory under the most peculiar circumstances. I do not know
whether his secret died with him or whether some one has stolen it.
From the indications I concluded that he had been murdered.”
Such was the case as Kennedy and I heard it then.
Ruth looked up at him with tearful eyes wistful with pain, “Would Mr.
Kennedy work on it?” There was only one answer.
XV
THE VAMPIRE
As we sped out to the little mill-town on the last train, after Kennedy
had insisted on taking us all to a quiet little restaurant, he placed
us so that Miss Winslow was furthest from him and her father nearest. I
could hear now and then scraps of their conversation as he resumed his
questioning, and knew that Mr. Winslow was proving to be a good
observer.
“Cushing used to hire a young fellow of some scientific experience,
named Strong,” said Mr. Winslow as he endeavoured to piece the facts
together as logically as it was possible to do. “Strong used to open
his laboratory for him in the morning, clean up the dirty apparatus,
and often assist him in some of his experiments. This morning when
Strong approached the laboratory at the usual time he was surprised to
see that though it was broad daylight there was a light burning. He was
alarmed and before going in looked through the window. The sight that
he saw froze him. There lay Cushing on a workbench and beside him and
around him pools of coagulating blood. The door was not locked, as we
found afterward, but the young man did not stop to enter. He ran to me
and, fortunately, I met him at our door. I went back.
“We opened the unlocked door. The first thing, as I recall it, that
greeted me was an unmistakable odour of oranges. It was a very
penetrating and very peculiar odour. I didn’t understand it, for there
seemed to be something else in it besides the orange smell. However, I
soon found out what it was, or at least Strong did. I don’t know
whether you know anything about it, but it seems that when you melt
real rubber in the effort to reduce it to carbon and hydrogen, you get
a liquid substance which is known as isoprene. Well, isoprene,
according to Strong, gives out an odour something like ether. Cushing,
or some one else, had apparently been heating isoprene. As soon as
Strong mentioned the smell of ether I recognised that that was what
made the smell of oranges so peculiar.
“However, that’s not the point. There lay Cushing on his back on the
workbench, just as Strong had said. I bent over him, and in his arm,
which was bare, I saw a little gash made by some sharp instrument and
laying bare an artery, I think, which was cut. Long spurts of blood
covered the floor for some distance around and from the veins in his
arm, which had also been severed, a long stream of blood led to a
hollow in the cement floor where it had collected. I believe that he
bled to death.”
“And the motive for such a terrible crime?” queried Craig.
Mr. Winslow shook his head helplessly. “I suppose there are plenty of
motives,” he answered slowly, “as many motives as there are big
investments in rubber-producing ventures in Goodyear.”
“But have you any idea who would go so far to protect his investments
as to kill?” persisted Kennedy.
Mr. Winslow made no reply. “Who,” asked Kennedy, “was chiefly
interested in the rubber works where Cushing was formerly employed?”