him a few inconsequential questions, his eye caught a row of books on a
shelf. It was a most complete library of the culinary arts. Craig
selected one and turned the pages over rapidly. Then he came back to
the frontispiece, which showed a model dinner-table set for a number of
guests. He placed the picture before Francois, then withdrew it in, I
should say, about ten seconds. It was a strange and incomprehensible
action, but I was more surprised when Kennedy added:
"Now tell me what you saw."
Francois was quite overwhelming in his desire to please. Just what was
going on in his mind I could not guess, nor did he betray it, but
quickly he enumerated the objects on the table, gradually slowing up as
the number which he recollected became exhausted.
"Were there candles?" prompted Craig, as the flow of Francois's
description ceased.
"Oh yes, candles," he agreed, eagerly.
"Favors at each place?"
"Yes, sir."
I could see no sense in the proceeding, yet knew Kennedy too well to
suppose, for an instant, that he had not some purpose.
The questioning over, Kennedy withdrew, leaving poor Francois more
mystified than ever.
"Well," I exclaimed, as we passed through the dining-room, "what was
all that?"
"That," he explained, "is what is known to criminologists as the
'Aussage test.' Just try it some time when you get a chance. If there
are, say, fifty objects in a picture, normally a person may recall
perhaps twenty of them."
"I see," I interrupted; "a test of memory."
"More than that," he replied. "You remember that, at the end, I
suggested several things likely to be on the table. They were not
there, as you might have seen if you had had the picture before you.
That was a test of the susceptibility to suggestion of the chef.
Francois may not mean to lie, but I'm afraid we'll have to get along
without him in getting to the bottom of the case. You see, before we go
any further we know that he is unreliable--to say the least. It may be
that nothing at all happened in the kitchen to the mushrooms. We'll
never discover it from him. We must get it elsewhere."
Miss Grey had been trying to straighten out some of the snarls which
Mansfield's business affairs had got into as a result of his illness;
but it was evident that she had difficulty in keeping her mind on her
work.
"The next thing I'd like to see," asked Kennedy, when we rejoined her,
"is that wall safe." She led the way down the hall and into an
ante-room to Mansfield's part of the suite. The safe itself was a
comparatively simple affair inside a closet. Indeed, I doubt whether it
had been seriously designed to be burglar-proof. Rather it was merely a
protection against fire.
"Have you any suspicion about when the robbery took place?" asked
Kennedy, as we peered into the empty compartment. "I wish I had been
called in the first thing when it was discovered. There might have been
some chance to discover fingerprints. But now, I suppose, every clue of
that sort has been obliterated."
"No," she replied; "I don't know whether it happened before or after
Mr. Mansfield was discovered so ill by his valet."
"But at least you can give me some idea of when the jewels were placed
in the safe."
"It must have been before the supper, right after our return from the
theater."
"So?" considered Kennedy. "Then that would mean that they might have
been taken by any one, don't you see? Why did he place them in the safe
so soon, instead of wearing them the rest of the evening?"
"I hadn't thought of that way of looking at it," she admitted. "Why,
when we came home from the theater I remember it had been so warm that
Mr. Mansfield's collar was wilted and his dress shirt rumpled. He
excused himself, and when he returned he was not wearing the diamonds.
We noticed it, and Miss Hargrave expressed a wish that she might wear
the big diamond at the opening night of 'The Astor Cup.' Mr. Mansfield
promised that she might and nothing more was said about it."
"Did you notice anything else at the dinner--no matter how trivial?"
asked Kennedy.
Helen Grey seemed to hesitate, then said, in a low voice, as though the
words were wrung from her:
"Of course, the party and the supper were given ostensibly to Miss
Hargrave. But--lately--I have thought he was paying quite as much
attention to Mina Leitch."
It was quite in keeping with what we knew of "Diamond Jack." Perhaps it
was this seeming fickleness which had saved him from many entangling
alliances. Miss Grey said it in such a way that it seemed like an
apology for a fault in his character which she would rather have
hidden. I could not but fancy that it mitigated somewhat the wistful
envy I had noticed before when she spoke of Madeline Hargrave.
While he had been questioning her Kennedy had been examining the wall
safe, particularly with reference to its accessibility from the rest of
the apartment. There appeared to be no reason why one could not have
got at it from the hallway as well as from Mansfield's room.
The safe itself seemed to yield no clue, and Kennedy was about to turn
away when he happened to glance down at the dark interior of the closet
floor. He stooped down. When he rose he had something in his hand. It
was just a little thin piece of something that glittered iridescently.
"A spangle from a sequin dress," he muttered to himself; then, turning
to Miss Grey, "Did any one wear such a dress last night?"
Helen Grey looked positively frightened. "Miss Hargrave!" she murmured,
simply. "Oh, it cannot be--there must be some mistake!"
Just then we heard voices in the hall.
"But, Murray, I don't see why I can't see him," said one.
"What good will it do, Lewis?" returned the other, which I recognized
as that of Doctor Murray.
"Fleming Lewis," whispered Miss Grey, taking a step out into the
hallway.
A moment later Doctor Murray and Lewis had joined us.
I could see that there was some feeling between the two men, though
what it was about I could not say. As Miss Grey introduced us, I
glanced hastily out of the corner of my eye at Kennedy. Involuntarily
his hand which held the telltale sequin had sought his waistcoat
pocket, as though to hide it. Then I saw him check the action and
deliberately examine the piece of tinsel between his thumb and
forefinger.
Doctor Murray saw it, too, and his eyes were riveted on it, as though
instantly he saw its significance.
"What do you think--Jack as sick as a dog, and robbed, too, and yet
Murray says I oughtn't to see him!" complained Lewis, for the moment
oblivious to the fact that all our eyes were riveted on the spangle
between Kennedy's fingers. And then, slowly it seemed to dawn on him
what it was. "Madeline's!" he exclaimed, quickly. "So Mina did tear it,
after all, when she stepped on the train."
Kennedy watched the faces before us keenly. No one said anything. It
was evident that some such incident had happened. But had Lewis, with a
quick flash of genius, sought to cover up something, protect somebody?
Miss Grey was evidently anxious to transfer the scene at least to the
living-room, away from the sick-room, and Kennedy, seeing it, fell in
with the idea.
"Looks to me as though this robbery was an inside affair," remarked
Lewis, as we all stood for a moment in the living-room. "Do you suppose
one of the servants could have been 'planted' for the purpose of
pulling it off?"
The idea was plausible enough. Yet, plausible as the suggestion might
seem, it took no account of the other circumstances of the case. I
could not believe that the illness of Mansfield was merely an
unfortunate coincidence.
Fleming Lewis's unguarded and blunt tendency to blurt out whatever
seemed uppermost in his mind soon became a study to me as we talked
together in the living-room. I could not quite make out whether it was
studied and astute or whether it was merely the natural exuberance of
youth. There was certainly some sort of enmity between him and the
doctor, which the remark about the spangle seemed to fan into a flame.
Miss Grey manoeuvered tactfully, however, to prevent a scene. And,
after an interchange of remarks that threw more heat than light on the
matter, Kennedy and I followed Lewis out to the elevator, with a
parting promise to keep in touch with Miss Grey.
"What do you think of the spangle?" I queried of Craig as Lewis bade us
a hasty good-by and climbed into his car at the street-entrance. "Is it
a clue or a stall?"
"That remains to be seen," he replied, noncommittally. "Just now the
thing that interests me most is what I can accomplish at the laboratory
in the way of finding out what is the matter with Mansfield."
While Kennedy was busy with the various solutions which he made of the
contents of the ramekins that had held the mushrooms, I wandered over
to the university library and waded through several volumes on fungi
without learning anything of value. Finally, knowing that Kennedy would
probably be busy for some time, and that all I should get for my pains
by questioning him would be monosyllabic grunts until he was quite
convinced that he was on the trail of something, I determined to run
into the up-town office of the Star and talk over the affair as well as
I could without violating what I felt had been given us in confidence.
I could not, it turned out, have done anything better, for it seemed to
be the gossip of the Broadway cafes and cabarets that Mansfield had
been plunging rather deeply lately and had talked many of his
acquaintances into joining him in a pool, either outright or on
margins. It seemed to be a safe bet that not only Lewis and Doctor
Murray had joined him, but that Madeline Hargrave and Mina Leitch, who
had had a successful season and some spare thousands to invest, might
have gone in, too. So far the fortunes of the stock-market had not
smiled on Mansfield's schemes, and, I reflected, it was not impossible
that what might be merely an incident to a man like Mansfield could be
very serious to the rest of them.
It was the middle of the afternoon when I returned to the laboratory
with my slender budget of news. Craig was quite interested in what I
had to say, even pausing for a few moments in his work to listen.
In several cages I saw that he had a number of little guinea-pigs. One
of them was plainly in distress, and Kennedy had been watching him
intently.
"It's strange," he remarked. "I had samples of material from six
ramekins. Five of them seem to have had no effect whatever. But if the
bit that I gave this fellow causes such distress, what would a larger
quantity do?"
"Then one of the ramekins was poisoned?" I questioned.
"I have discovered in it, as well as in the blood smear, the tox
albumin that Doctor Murray mentioned," he said, simply, pulling out his
watch. "It isn't late. I think I shall have to take a trip out to Miss
Hargrave's. We ought to do it in an hour and a half in a car."
Kennedy said very little as we sped out over the Long Island roads that
led to the little colony of actors and actresses at Cedar Grove. He
seemed rather to be enjoying the chance to get away from the city and
turn over in his mind the various problems which the case presented.
As for myself, I had by this time convinced myself that, somehow, the
mushrooms were involved. What Kennedy expected to find I could not
guess. But from what I had read I surmised that it must be that one of
the poisonous varieties had somehow got mixed with the others, one of
the Amanitas, just as deadly as the venom of the rattler or the
copperhead. I knew that, in some cases, Amanitas had been used to
commit crimes. Was this such a case?
We had no trouble in finding the estate of Miss Hargrave, and she was
at home.
Kennedy lost no time introducing himself and coming to the point of his
visit. Madeline Hargrave was a slender, willowy type of girl,
pronouncedly blond, striking, precisely the type I should have imagined
that Mansfield would have been proud to be seen with.
"I've just heard of Mr. Mansfield's illness," she said, anxiously. "Mr.
Lewis called me up and told me. I don't see why Miss Grey or Doctor
Murray didn't let me know sooner."
She said it with an air of vexation, as though she felt slighted. In
spite of her evident anxiety to know about the tragedy, however, I did
not detect the depth of feeling that Helen Grey had shown. In fact, the
thoughtfulness of Fleming Lewis almost led me to believe that it was
he, rather than Mansfield, for whom she really cared.
We chatted a few minutes, as Kennedy told what little we had
discovered. He said nothing about the spangle.
"By the way," remarked Craig, at length, "I would very much like to
have a look at that famous mushroom-cellar of yours."
For the first time she seemed momentarily to lose her poise.
"I've always had a great interest in mushrooms," she explained,
hastily. "You--you do not think it could be the mushrooms--that have
caused Mr. Mansfield's illness, do you?"
Kennedy passed off the remark as best he could under the circumstances.
Though she was not satisfied with his answer, she could not very well
refuse his request, and a few minutes later we were down in the dark
dampness of the cellar back of the house, where Kennedy set to work on
a most exhaustive search.
I could see by the expression on his face, as his search progressed,
that he was not finding what he had expected. Clearly, the fungi before
us were the common edible mushrooms. The upper side of each, as he
examined it, was white, with brownish fibrils, or scales. Underneath,
some were a beautiful salmon-pink, changing gradually to almost black
in the older specimens. The stem was colored like the top. But search
as he might for what I knew he was after, in none did he find anything
but a small or more often no swelling at the base, and no "cup," as it
is called.
As he rose after his thorough search, I saw that he was completely
baffled.
"I hardly thought you'd find anything," Miss Hargrave remarked,
noticing the look on his face. "I've always been very careful of my
mushrooms."
"You have certainly succeeded admirably," he complimented.
"I hope you will let me know how Mr. Mansfield is," she said, as we
started back toward our car on the road. "I can't tell you how I feel.
To think that, after a party which he gave for me, he should be taken
ill, and not only that but be robbed at the same time! Really, you must
let me know--or I shall have to come up to the city."
It seemed gratuitous for Kennedy to promise, for I knew that he was by
no means through with her yet; but she thanked him, and we turned back
toward town.
"Well," I remarked, as we reeled off the miles quickly, "I must say
that that puts me all at sea again. I had convinced myself that it was
a case of mushroom poisoning. What can you do now?"
"Do?" he echoed. "Why, go on. This puts us a step nearer the truth,
that's all."
Far from being discouraged at what had seemed to me to be a fatal blow
to the theory, he now seemed to be actually encouraged. Back in the
city, he lost no time in getting to the laboratory again.
A package from the botanical department of the university was waiting
there for Kennedy, but before he could open it the telephone buzzed
furiously.
I could gather from Kennedy's words that it was Helen Grey.
"I shall be over immediately," he promised, as he hung up the receiver
and turned to me. "Mansfield is much worse. While I get together some
material I must take over there, Walter, I want you to call up Miss
Hargrave and tell her to start for the city right away--meet us at
Mansfield's. Then get Mina Leitch and Lewis. You'll find their numbers
in the book--or else you'll have to get them from Miss Grey."
While I was delivering the messages as diplomatically as possible
Kennedy had taken a vial from a medicine-chest, and then from a cabinet
a machine which seemed to consist of a number of collars and belts
fastened to black cylinders from which ran tubes. An upright roll of
ruled paper supported by a clockwork arrangement for revolving it, and
a standard bearing a recording pen, completed the outfit.
"I should much have preferred not being hurried," he confessed, as we
dashed over in the car to Mansfield's again, bearing the several
packages. "I wanted to have a chance to interview Mina Leitch alone.
However, it has now become a matter of life or death."
Miss Grey was pale and worn as she met us in the living-room.
"He's had a sinking-spell," she said, tremulously. "Doctor Murray
managed to bring him around, but he seems so much weaker after it.
Another might--" She broke off, unable to finish.
A glance at Mansfield was enough to convince any one that unless
something was done soon the end was not far.
"Another convulsion and sinking-spell is about all he can stand,"
remarked Doctor Murray.
"May I try something?" asked Kennedy, hardly waiting for the doctor to
agree before he had pulled out the little vial which I had seen him
place in his pocket.
Deftly Kennedy injected some of the contents into Mansfield's side,
then stood anxiously watching the effect. The minutes lengthened. At
least he seemed to be growing no worse.
In the next room, on a table, Kennedy was now busy setting out the
scroll of ruled paper and its clockwork arrangement, and connecting the
various tubes from the black cylinders in such a way that the recording
pen just barely touched on the scroll.
He had come back to note the still unchanged condition of the patient
when the door opened and a handsome woman in the early thirties
entered, followed by Helen Grey. It was Mina Leitch.
"Oh, isn't it terrible! I can hardly believe it!" she cried, paying no
attention to us as she moved over to Doctor Murray.
I recalled what Miss Grey had said about Mansfield's attentions. It was
evident that, as far as Mina was concerned, her own attentions were
monopolized by the polished physician. His manner in greeting her told
me that Doctor Murray appreciated it. Just then Fleming Lewis bustled
in.
"I thought Miss Hargrave was here," he said, abruptly, looking about.
"They told me over the wire she would be."
"She should be here any moment," returned Kennedy, looking at his watch
and finding that considerably over an hour had elapsed since I had
telephoned.
What it was I could not say, but there was a coldness toward Lewis that
amounted to more than latent hostility. He tried to appear at ease, but
it was a decided effort. There was no mistaking his relief when the
tension was broken by the arrival of Madeline Hargrave.
The circumstances were so strange that none of them seemed to object
while Kennedy began to explain, briefly, that, as nearly as he could
determine, the illness of Mansfield might be due to something eaten at
the supper. As he attached the bands about the necks and waists of one
after another of the guests, bringing the little black cylinders thus
close to the middle of their chests, he contrived to convey the
impression that he would like to determine whether any one else had
been affected in a lesser degree.
I watched most intently the two women who had just come in. One would
certainly not have detected from their greeting and outward manner
anything more than that they were well acquainted. But they were an
interesting study, two quite opposite types. Madeline, with her
baby-blue eyes, was of the type that craved admiration. Mina's black
eyes flashed now and then imperiously, as though she sought to compel
what the other sought to win.
As for Fleming Lewis, I could not fail to notice that he was most
attentive to Madeline, though he watched, furtively, but none the less
keenly, every movement and word of Mina.
His preparations completed, Kennedy opened the package which had been
left at the laboratory just before the hasty call from Miss Grey. As he
did so he disclosed several specimens of a mushroom of pale-lemon
color, with a center of deep orange, the top flecked with white bits.
Underneath, the gills were white and the stem had a sort of veil about
it. But what interested me most, and what I was looking for, was the
remains of a sort of dirty, chocolate-colored cup at the base of the
stem.
"I suppose there is scarcely any need of saying," began Kennedy, "that
the food which I suspect in this case is the mushrooms. Here I have
some which I have fortunately been able to obtain merely to illustrate
what I am going to say. This is the deadly Amanita muscaria, the
fly-agaric."
Madeline Hargrave seemed to be following him with a peculiar
fascination.
"This Amanita," resumed Kennedy, "has a long history, and I may say
that few species are quite so interesting. Macerated in milk, it has
been employed for centuries as a fly-poison, hence its name. Its deadly
properties were known to the ancients, and it is justly celebrated
because of its long and distinguished list of victims. Agrippina used
it to poison the Emperor Claudius. Among others, the Czar Alexis of
Russia died of eating it.
"I have heard that some people find it only a narcotic, and it is said
that in Siberia there are actually Amanita debauchees who go on
prolonged tears by eating the thing. It may be that it does not affect
some people as it does others, but in most cases that beautiful
gossamer veil which you see about the stem is really a shroud.
"The worst of it is," he continued, "that this Amanita somewhat
resembles the royal agaric, the Amanita caesarea. It is, as you see,
strikingly beautiful, and therefore all the more dangerous."
He ceased a moment, while we looked in a sort of awe at the fatally
beautiful thing.
"It is not with the fungus that I am so much interested just now,
however," Kennedy began again, "but with the poison. Many years ago
scientists analyzed its poisonous alkaloids and found what they called
bulbosine. Later it was named muscarin, and now is sometimes known as
amanitin, since it is confined to the mushrooms of the Amanita genus.
"Amanitin is a wonderful and dangerous alkaloid, which is absorbed in
the intestinal canal. It is extremely violent. Three to five
one-thousandths of a gram, or six one-hundredths of a grain, are very
dangerous. More than that, the poisoning differs from most poisons in
the long time that elapses between the taking of it and the first
evidences of its effects.
"Muscarin," Kennedy concluded, "has been chemically investigated more
often than any other mushroom poison and a perfect antidote has been
discovered. Atropin, or belladonna, is such a drug."
For a moment I looked about at the others in the room. Had it been an
accident, after all? Perhaps, if any of the others had been attacked,
one might have suspected that it was. But they had not been affected at
all, at least apparently. Yet there could be no doubt that it was the
poisonous muscarin that had affected Mansfield.
"Did you ever see anything like that?" asked Kennedy, suddenly, holding
up the gilt spangle which he had found on the closet floor near the
wall safe.
Though no one said a word, it was evident that they all recognized it.
Lewis was watching Madeline closely. But she betrayed nothing except
mild surprise at seeing the spangle from her dress. Had it been
deliberately placed there, it flashed over me, in order to compromise
Madeline Hargrave and divert suspicion from some one else?
I turned to Mina. Behind the defiance of her dark eyes I felt that
there was something working. Kennedy must have sensed it even before I
did, for he suddenly bent down over the recording needle and the ruled
paper on the table.
"This," he shot out, "is a pneumograph which shows the actual intensity
of the emotions by recording their effects on the heart and lungs
together. The truth can literally be tapped, even where no confession
can be extracted. A moment's glance at this line, traced here by each
of you, can tell the expert more than words."
"Then it was a mushroom that poisoned Jack!" interrupted Lewis,
suddenly. "Some poisonous Amanita got mixed with the edible mushrooms?"
Kennedy answered, quickly, without taking his eyes off the line the
needle was tracing:
"No; this was a case of the deliberate use of the active principle
itself, muscarin--with the expectation that the death, if the cause was
ever discovered, could easily be blamed on such a mushroom.
Somehow--there were many chances--the poison was slipped into the
ramekin Francois was carefully preparing for Mansfield. The method does
not interest me so much as the fact--"
There was a slight noise from the other room where Mansfield lay.
Instantly we were all on our feet. Before any of us could reach the
door Helen Grey had slipped through it.