attracted nation-wide attention because of the heroic fight for life he
had made against what the doctors admitted had puzzled them—a new and
baffling manifestation of coma. They had laboured hard to keep him
awake, but had not succeeded, and after several days of lying in a
comatose state he had finally succumbed. It was one of those strange
but rather frequent cases of long sleeps reported in the newspapers,
although it was by no means one which might be classed as
record-breaking.
The interest in Phelps lay, a great deal, in the fact that the young
man had married the popular dancer, Anginette Petrovska, a few months
previously. His honeymoon trip around the world had suddenly been
interrupted, while the couple were crossing Siberia, by the news of the
failure of the Phelps banking-house in Wall Street and the practical
wiping-out of his fortune. He had returned, only to fall a victim to a
greater misfortune.
“A few days before his death,” continued Andrews, measuring his words
carefully, “I, or rather the Great Eastern, which had been secretly
investigating the case, received this letter. What do you think of it?”
He spread out on the table a crumpled note in a palpably disguised
handwriting:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
You would do well to look Into the death of Montague Phelps,
Jr. I accuse no one, assert nothing. But when a young man
apparently in the best of health, drops off so mysteriously
and even the physician in the case can give no very
convincing information, that case warrants attention. I know
what I know.
AN OUTSIDER.
XXI
THE GHOULS
“H-M,” mused Kennedy, weighing the contents of the note carefully, “one
of the family, I’ll be bound—unless the whole thing is a hoax. By the
way, who else is there in the immediate family?”
“Only a brother, Dana Phelps, younger and somewhat inclined to
wildness, I believe. At least, his father did not trust him with a
large inheritance, but left most of his money in trust. But before we
go any further, read that.”
Andrews pulled from the papers a newspaper cutting on which he had
drawn a circle about the following item. As we read, he eyed us sharply.
PHELPS TOMB DESECRATED
Last night, John Shaughnessy, a night watchman employed by
the town of Woodbine, while on his rounds, was attracted by
noises as of a violent struggle near the back road in the
Woodbine Cemetery, on the outskirts of the town. He had varied
his regular rounds because of the recent depredations of
motor-car yeggmen who had timed him in pulling off several jobs
lately. As he hurried toward the large mausoleum of the Phelps
family, he saw two figures slink away in opposite directions in
the darkness. One of them, he asserts positively, seemed to be a
woman in black, the other a man whom he could not see clearly.
They readily eluded pursuit in the shadows, and a moment later
he heard the whir of a high-powered car, apparently bearing them
away.
At the tomb there was every evidence of a struggle. Things
had been thrown about; the casket had been broken open, but
the body of Montague Phelps, Jr., which had been interred there
about ten days ago, was not touched or mutilated.
It was a shocking and extraordinary violation. Shaughnessy
believes that some personal jewels may have been buried with
Phelps and that the thieves were after them, that they fought
over the loot, and in the midst of the fight were scared away.
The vault is of peculiar construction, a costly tomb in which
repose the bodies of the late Montague Phelps, Sr., of his wife,
and now of his eldest son. The raid had evidently been carefully
planned to coincide with a time when Shaughnessy would
ordinarily have been on the other side of the town. The entrance
to the tomb had been barred, but during the commotion the ghouls
were surprised and managed to escape without accomplishing
their object and leaving no trace.
Mrs. Phelps, when informed of the vandalism, was shocked,
and has been in a very nervous state since the tomb was forced
open. The local authorities seem extremely anxious that every
precaution should be taken to prevent a repetition of the
ghoulish visit to the tomb, but as yet the Phelps family has
taken no steps.
“Are you aware of any scandal, any skeleton in the closet in the
family?” asked Craig, looking up.
“No—not yet,” considered Andrews. “As soon as I heard of the
vandalism, I began to wonder what could have happened in the Phelps
tomb, as far as our company’s interests were concerned. You see, that
was yesterday. To-day this letter came along,” he added, laying down a
second very dirty and wrinkled note beside the first. It was quite
patently written by a different person from the first; its purport was
different, indeed quite the opposite of the other. “It was sent to Mrs.
Phelps,” explained Andrews, “and she gave it out herself to the police.”
Do not show this to the police. Unless you leave $5000 in gold
in the old stump in the swamp across from the cemetery, you
will have reason to regret it. If you respect the memory of
the dead, do this, and do it quietly.
BLACK HAND.
“Well,” I ejaculated, “that’s cool. What threat would be used to back
this demand on the Phelpses?”
“Here’s the situation,” resumed Andrews, puffing violently on his
inevitable cigar and toying with the letters and clippings. “We have
already held up payment of the half-million dollars of insurance to the
widow as long as we can consistently do so. But we must pay soon,
scandal or not, unless we can get something more than mere conjecture.”
“You are already holding it up?” queried Craig.
“Yes. You see, we investigate thoroughly every suspicious death. In
most cases, no body is found. This case is different in that respect.
There is a body, and it is the body of the insured, apparently. But a
death like this, involving the least mystery, receives careful
examination, especially if, as in this case, it has recently been
covered by heavy policies. My work has often served to reverse the
decision of doctors and coroners’ juries.
“An insurance detective, as you can readily appreciate, Kennedy, soon
comes to recognise the characteristics in the crimes with which he
deals. For example, writing of the insurance plotted for rarely
precedes the conspiracy to defraud. That is, I know of few cases in
which a policy originally taken out in good faith has subsequently
become the means of a swindle.
“In outright-murder cases, the assassin induces the victim to take out
insurance in his favour. In suicide cases, the insured does so himself.
Just after his return home, young Phelps, who carried fifty thousand
dollars already, applied for and was granted one of the largest
policies we have ever written—half a million.”
“Was it incontestible without the suicide clause?” asked Kennedy.
“Yes,” replied Andrews, “and suicide is the first and easiest theory.
Why, you have no idea how common the crime of suicide for the sake of
the life insurance is becoming. Nowadays, we insurance men almost
believe that every one who contemplates ending his existence takes out
a policy so as to make his life, which is useless to him, a benefit, at
least, to some one—and a nightmare to the insurance detective.”
“I know,” I cut in, for I recalled having been rather interested in the
Phelps case at the time, “but I thought the doctors said finally that
death was due to heart failure.”
“Doctor Forden who signed the papers said so,” corrected Andrews.
“Heart failure—what does that mean? As well say breath failure, or
nerve failure. I’ll tell you what kind of failure I think it was. It
was money failure. Hard times and poor investments struck Phelps before
he really knew how to handle his small fortune. It called him home
and—pouf!—he is off—to leave to his family a cool half-million by
his death. But did he do it himself or did some one else do it? That’s
the question.”
“What is your theory,” inquired Kennedy absently, “assuming there is no
scandal hidden in the life of Phelps before or after he married the
Russian dancer?”
“I don’t know, Kennedy,” confessed Andrews. “I have had so many
theories and have changed them so rapidly that all I lay claim to
believing, outside of the bald facts that I have stated, is that there
must have been some poison. I rather sense it, feel that there is no
doubt of it, in fact. That is why I have come to you. I want you to
clear it up, one way or another. The company has no interest except in
getting at the truth.”
“The body is really there?” asked Kennedy. “You saw it?”
“It was there no later than this afternoon, and in an almost perfect
state of preservation, too.”
Kennedy seemed to be looking at and through Andrews as if he would
hypnotise the truth out of him. “Let me see,” he said quickly. “It is
not very late now. Can we visit the mausoleum to-night?”
“Easily. My car is down-stairs. Woodbine is not far, and you’ll find it
a very attractive suburb, aside from this mystery.”
Andrews lost no time in getting us out to Woodbine, and on the fringe
of the little town, one of the wealthiest around the city, he deposited
us at the least likely place of all, the cemetery. A visit to a
cemetery is none too enjoyable even on a bright day. In the early night
it is positively uncanny. What was gruesome in the daylight became
doubly so under the shroud of darkness.
We made our way into the grounds through a gate, and I, at least, even
with all the enlightenment of modern science, could not restrain a
weird and creepy sensation.
“Here is the Phelps tomb,” directed Andrews, pausing beside a marble
structure of Grecian lines and pulling out a duplicate key of a new
lock which had been placed on the heavy door of grated iron. As we
entered, it was with a shudder at the damp odour of decay. Kennedy had
brought his little electric bull’s-eye, and, as he flashed it about, we
could see at a glance that the reports had not been exaggerated.
Everything showed marks of a struggle. Some of the ornaments had been
broken, and the coffin itself had been forced open.
“I have had things kept just as we found them,” explained Andrews.
Kennedy peered into the broken coffin long and attentively. With a
little effort I, too, followed the course of the circle of light. The
body was, as Andrews had said, in an excellent, indeed a perfect, state
of preservation. There were, strange to say, no marks of decay.
“Strange, very strange,” muttered Kennedy to himself.
“Could it have been some medical students, body-snatchers?” I asked
musingly. “Or was it simply a piece of vandalism? I wonder if there
could have been any jewels buried with him, as Shaughnessy said? That
would make the motive plain robbery.”
“There were no jewels,” said Andrews, his mind not on the first part of
my question, but watching Kennedy intently.
Craig had dropped on his knees on the damp, mildewed floor, and
bringing his bull’s-eye close to the stones, was examining some spots
here and there.
“There could not have been any substitution?” I whispered, with, my
mind still on the broken coffin. “That would cover up the evidence of a
poisoning, you know.”
“No,” replied Andrews positively, “although bodies can be obtained
cheaply enough from a morgue, ostensibly for medical purposes. No, that
is Phelps, all right.”
“Well, then,” I persisted, “body-snatchers, medical students?”
“Not likely, for the same reason,” he rejected.
We bent over closer to watch Kennedy. Apparently he had found a number
of round, flat spots with little spatters beside them. He was carefully
trying to scrape them up with as little of the surrounding mould as
possible.
Suddenly, without warning, there was a noise outside, as if a person
were moving through the underbrush. It was fearsome in its suddenness.
Was it human or wraith? Kennedy darted to the door in time to see a
shadow glide silently away, lost in the darkness of the fine old
willows. Some one had approached the mausoleum for a second time, not
knowing we were there, and had escaped. Down the road we could hear the
purr of an almost silent motor.
“Somebody is trying to get in to conceal something here,” muttered
Kennedy, stifling his disappointment at not getting a closer view of
the intruder.
“Then it was not a suicide,” I exclaimed. “It was a murder!”
Craig shook his head sententiously. Evidently he not prepared yet to
talk.
With another look at the body in the broken casket he remarked:
“To-morrow I want to call on Mrs. Phelps and Doctor Forden, and, if it
is possible to find him, Dana Phelps. Meanwhile, Andrews, if you and
Walter will stand guard here, there is an apparatus which I should like
to get from my laboratory and set up here before it is too late.”
It was far past the witching hour of midnight, when graveyards
proverbially yawn, before Craig returned in the car. Nothing had
happened in the meantime except those usual eery noises that one may
hear in the country at night anywhere. Our visitor of the early evening
seemed to have been scared away for good.
Inside the mausoleum, Kennedy set up a peculiar machine which he
attached to the electric-light circuit in the street by a long wire
which he ran loosely over the ground. Part of the apparatus consisted
of an elongated box lined with lead, to which were several other
attachments, the nature of which I did not understand, and a
crank-handle.
“What’s that?” asked Andrews curiously, as Craig set up a screen
between the apparatus and the body.
“This is a calcium-tungsten screen,” remarked Kennedy, adjusting now
what I know to be a Crookes’ tube on the other side of the body itself,
so that the order was: the tube, the body, the screen, and the oblong
box. Without a further word we continued to watch him.
At last, the apparatus adjusted apparently to his satisfaction, he
brought out a jar of thick white liquid and a bottle of powder.
“Buttermilk and a couple of ounces of bismuth sub-carbonate,” he
remarked, as he mixed some in a glass, and with a pump forced it down
the throat of the body, now lying so that the abdomen was almost flat
against the screen.
He turned a switch and the peculiar bluish effulgence, which always
appears when a Crookes’ tube is being used, burst forth, accompanied by
the droning of his induction-coil and the welcome smell of ozone
produced by the electrical discharge in the almost fetid air of the
tomb. Meanwhile, he was gradually turning the handle of the crank
attached to the oblong box. He seemed so engrossed in the delicateness
of the operation that we did not question him, in fact did not move.
For Andrews, at least, it was enough to know that he had succeeded in
enlisting Kennedy’s services.
Well along toward morning it was before Kennedy had concluded his
tests, whatever they were, and had packed away his paraphernalia.
“I’m afraid it will take me two or three days to get at this evidence,
even now,” he remarked, impatient at even the limitations science put
on his activity. We had started back for a quick run to the city and
rest. “But, anyhow, it will give us a chance to do some investigating
along other lines.”
Early the next day, in spite of the late session of the night before,
Kennedy started me with him on a second visit to Woodbine. This time he
was armed with a letter of introduction from Andrews to Mrs. Phelps.
She proved to be a young woman of most extraordinary grace and beauty,
with a superb carriage such as only years of closest training under the
best dancers of the world could give. There was a peculiar velvety
softness about her flesh and skin, a witching stoop to her shoulders
that was decidedly continental, and in her deep, soulful eyes a
half-wistful look that was most alluring. In fact, she was as
attractive a widow as the best Fifth Avenue dealers in mourning goods
could have produced.
I knew that ‘Ginette Phelps had been, both as dancer and wife, always
the centre of a group of actors, artists, and men of letters as well as
of the world and affairs. The Phelpses had lived well, although they
were not extremely wealthy, as fortunes go. When the blow fell, I could
well fancy that the loss of his money had been most serious to young
Montague, who had showered everything as lavishly as he was able upon
his captivating bride.
Mrs. Phelps did not seem to be overjoyed at receiving us, yet made no
open effort to refuse.
“How long ago did the coma first show itself?” asked Kennedy, after our
introductions were completed. “Was your husband a man of neurotic
tendency, as far as you could judge?”
“Oh, I couldn’t say when it began,” she answered, in a voice that was
soft and musical and under perfect control. “The doctor would know that
better. No, he was not neurotic, I think.”
“Did you ever see Mr. Phelps take any drugs—not habitually, but just
before this sleep came on?”
Kennedy was seeking his information in a manner and tone that would
cause as little offence as possible “Oh, no,” she hastened. “No,
never—absolutely.”
“You called in Dr. Forden the last night?”
“Yes, he had been Montague’s physician many years ago, you know.”
“I see,” remarked Kennedy, who was thrusting about aimlessly to get her
off her guard. “By the way, you know there is a great deal of gossip
about the almost perfect state of preservation of the body, Mrs.
Phelps. I see it was not embalmed.”
She bit her lip and looked at Kennedy sharply.
“Why, why do you and Mr. Andrews worry me? Can’t you see Doctor Forden?”
In her annoyance I fancied that there was a surprising lack of sorrow.
She seemed preoccupied. I could not escape the feeling that she was
putting some obstacle in our way, or that from the day of the discovery
of the vandalism, some one had been making an effort to keep the real
facts concealed. Was she shielding some one? It flashed over me that
perhaps, after all, she had submitted to the blackmail and had buried
the money at the appointed place. There seemed to be little use in
pursuing the inquiry, so we excused ourselves, much, I thought, to her
relief.
We found Doctor Forden, who lived on the same street as the Phelpses
several squares away, most fortunately at home. Forden was an extremely
interesting man, as is, indeed, the rule with physicians. I could not
but fancy, however, that his hearty assurance that he would be glad to
talk freely on the case was somewhat forced.
“You were sent for by Mrs. Phelps, that last night, I believe, while
Phelps was still alive?” asked Kennedy.
“Yes. During the day it had been impossible to arouse him, and that
night, when Mrs. Phelps and the nurse found him sinking even deeper
into the comatose state, I was summoned again. He was beyond hope then.
I did everything I could, but he died a few moments after I arrived.”
“Did you try artificial respiration?” asked Kennedy.
“N-no,” replied Forden. “I telephoned here for my respirator, but by
the time it arrived at the house it was too late. Nothing had been
omitted while he was still struggling with the spark of life. When that
went out what was the use?”
“You were his personal physician?”
“Yes.”
“Had you ever noticed that he took any drug?”
Doctor Forden shot a quick glance at Kennedy. “Of course not. He was
not a drug fiend.”
“I didn’t mean that he was addicted to any drug. But had he taken
anything lately, either of his own volition or with the advice or
knowledge of any one else?”
“Of course not.”
“There’s another strange thing I wish to ask your opinion about,”
pursued Kennedy, not to be rebuffed. “I have seen his body. It is in an
excellent state of preservation, almost lifelike. And yet I understand,
or at least it seems, that it was not embalmed.”
“You’ll have to ask the undertaker about that,” answered the doctor
brusquely.
It was evident that he was getting more and more constrained in his
answers. Kennedy did not seem to mind it, but to me it seemed that he
must be hiding something. Was there some secret which medical ethics
kept locked in his breast? Kennedy had risen and excused himself.
The interviews had not resulted in much, I felt, yet Kennedy did not
seem to care. Back in the city again, he buried himself in his
laboratory for the rest of the day, most of the time in his dark room,
where he was developing photographic plates or films, I did not know
which.
During the afternoon Andrews dropped in for a few moments to report
that he had nothing to add to what had already developed. He was not
much impressed by the interviews.
“There’s just one thing I want to speak about, though,” he said at
length, unburdening his mind. “That tomb and the swamp, too, ought to
be watched. Last night showed me that there seems to be a regular
nocturnal visitor and that we cannot depend on that town night watchman
to scare him off. Yet if we watch up there, he will be warned and will
lie low. How can we watch both places at once and yet remain hidden?”
Kennedy nodded approval of the suggestion. “I’ll fix that,” he replied,
anxious to return to his photographic labours. “Meet me, both of you,
on the road from the station at Woodbine, just as it is getting dusk.”
Without another word he disappeared into the dark room.
We met him that night as he had requested. He had come up to Woodbine
in the baggage-car of the train with a powerful dog, for all the world
like a huge, grey wolf.
“Down, Schaef,” he ordered, as the dog began to show an uncanny
interest in me. “Let me introduce my new dog-detective,” he chuckled.
“She has a wonderful record as a police-dog.”
We were making our way now through the thickening shadows of the town
to the outskirts. “She’s a German sheep-dog, a Schaferhund,” he
explained. “For my part, it is the English bloodhound in the open
country and the sheep-dog in the city and the suburbs.”
Schaef seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild,
prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog
which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, upstanding
dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like
a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the
smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail.
Untamed though she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy’s control,
and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience.
At the cemetery we established a strict watch about the Phelps
mausoleum and the swamp which lay across the road, not a difficult
thing to do as far as concealment went, owing to the foliage. Still,
for the same reason, it was hard to cover the whole ground. In the
shadow of a thicket we waited. Now and then we could hear Schaef
scouting about in the underbrush, crouching and hiding, watching and
guarding.
As the hours of waiting in the heavily laden night air wore on, I
wondered whether our vigil in this weird place would be rewarded. The
soughing of the night wind in the evergreens, mournful at best, was
doubly so now. Hour after hour we waited patiently.
At last there was a slight noise from the direction opposite the
mausoleum and toward the swamp next to the cemetery.
Kennedy reached out and drew us back into the shadow deeper. “Some one
is prowling about, approaching the mausoleum on that side, I think,” he
whispered.
Instantly there recurred to me the thought I had had earlier in the day
that perhaps, after all, the five thousand dollars of hush money, for
whatever purpose it might be extorted, had been buried in the swamp by
Mrs. Phelps in her anxiety. Had that been what she was concealing?
Perhaps the blackmailer had come to reconnoitre, and, if the money was
there, to take it away.
Schaef, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our
hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too, even
before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle tense.
Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant later,
the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Schaef kept right on, never
stopping a second, except, perhaps, for surprise.
“Crack!” almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness,
and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree
with a ping. The intruder’s marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no
attention to it.
“One of the few animals that show no fear of gunfire,” muttered
Kennedy, in undisguised admiration.
“G-R-R-R,” we heard from the police-dog.
“She has made a leap at the hand that holds the gun,” cried Kennedy,
now rising and moving rapidly in the same direction. “She has been
taught that a man once badly bitten in the hand is nearly out of the
fight.”
We followed, too. As we approached we were just in time to see Schaef
running in and out between the legs of a man who had heard us approach
and was hastily making tracks for the road. As he tripped, she lunged
for his back.