building until we came to the side away from the road. The tracks
seemed to run right in under the boards.
Kennedy approached and touched the boards. They were loose. Some one
had evidently been there, had taken them down, and put them up. In
fact, by the marks on them, it seemed as though he had made a practice
of doing so.
MacLeod and Kennedy unhooked the boarding, while Snedden looked on in a
sort of daze. They had taken down only two or three sections, which
indicated that that whole side might similarly be removed, when I heard
a low, startled exclamation from Snedden.
We peered in. There, in the half-light of the gloomy interior, we could
see a car. Before we knew it Snedden had darted past us. An instant
later I distinguished what his more sensitive eye had seen--a woman,
all alone in the car, motionless.
"Ida!" he cried.
There was no answer.
"She--she's dead!" he shouted.
It was only too true. There was Ida Snedden, seated in Jackson's car in
the old deserted building, all shut up--dead.
Yet her face was as pink as if she were alive and the blood had been
whipped into her cheeks by a walk in the cold wind.
We looked at one another, at a loss. How did she get there--and why?
She must have come there voluntarily. No one had seen any one else with
her in the car.
Snedden was now almost beside himself.
"Misfortunes never come singly," he wailed. "My daughter Gertrude
gone--now my wife dead. Confound that young fellow Garretson--and
Jackson, too! Where are they? Why have they fled? The scoundrels--they
have stolen my whole family. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?"
Trying to quiet Snedden, at the same time we began to look about the
building. On one side was a small stove, in which were still the dying
coals of a fire. Near by were a work-bench, some tools, pieces of wire,
and other material. Scattered about were pieces of material that looked
like celluloid. Some one evidently used the place as a secret workshop.
Kennedy picked up a piece of the celluloid-like stuff and carefully
touched a match to it. It did not burn rapidly as celluloid does, and
Craig seemed more than ever interested. MacLeod himself was no mean
detective. Accustomed to action, he had an idea of what to do.
"Wait here!" he called back, dashing out. "I'm going to the nearest
house up the road for help. I'll be back in a moment."
We heard him back and turn his car and shoot away. Meanwhile, Kennedy
was looking over carefully Jackson's roadster. He tapped the gas-tank
in the rear, then opened it. There was not a drop of gas in it. He
lifted up the hood and looked inside at the motor. Whatever he saw
there, he said nothing. Finally, by siphoning some gas from Snedden's
tank and making some adjustments, he seemed to have the car in a
condition again for it to run. He was just about to start it when
MacLeod returned, carrying a canary-bird in a cage.
"I've telephoned to town," he announced. "Some one will be here soon
now. Meanwhile, an idea occurred to me, and I borrowed this bird. Let
me see whether the idea is any good."
Kennedy, by this time, had started the engine. MacLeod placed the
bright little songster near the stove on the work-bench and began to
watch it narrowly.
More than ever up in the air over the mystery, I could only watch
Kennedy and MacLeod, each following his own lines.
It might, perhaps, have been ten minutes after MacLeod returned, and
during that time he had never taken his eyes off the bird, when I began
to feel a little drowsy. A word from MacLeod roused me.
"There's carbon monoxide in the air, Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "You know
how this gas affects birds."
Kennedy looked over intently. The canary had begun to show evident
signs of distress over something.
"It must be that this stove is defective," pursued MacLeod, picking up
the poor little bird and carrying it quickly into the fresh air, where
it could regain its former liveliness. Then, when he returned, he
added, "There must be some defect in the stove or the draught that
makes it send out the poisonous gas."
"There's some gas," agreed Kennedy. "It must have cleared away mostly,
though, or we couldn't stand it ourselves."
Craig continued to look about the car and the building, in the vain
hope of discovering some other clue. Had Mrs. Snedden been killed by
the carbonic oxide? Was it a case of gas poisoning? Then, too, why had
she been here at all? Who had shut her up? Had she been overcome first
and, in a stupor, been unable to move to save herself? Above all, what
had this to do with the mysterious phantom slayer that had wrecked so
much of the works in less than a week?
It was quite late in the afternoon when, at last, people came from the
town and took away both the body of Mrs. Snedden and Jackson's car.
Snedden could only stare and work his fingers, and after we had seen
him safely in the care of some one we could trust Kennedy, MacLeod, and
I climbed into MacLeod's car silently.
"It's too deep for me," acknowledged MacLeod. "What shall we do next?"
"Surely that fellow must have my pictures developed by this time,"
considered Kennedy. "Shoot back there."
"They came out beautifully--all except one," reported the druggist, who
was somewhat of a camera fiend himself. "That's a wonderful system,
sir."
Kennedy thanked him for his trouble and took the prints. With care he
pieced them together, until he had several successive panoramas of the
country taken from various elevations of the parachute. Then, with a
magnifying-glass, he went over each section minutely.
"Look at that!" he pointed out at last with the sharp tip of a pencil
on one picture.
In what looked like an open space among some trees was a tiny figure of
a man. It seemed as if he were hacking at something with an ax. What
the something was did not appear in the picture.
"I should say that it was half a mile, perhaps a mile, farther away
than that grove," commented Kennedy, making a rough calculation.
"On the old Davis farm," considered MacLeod. "Look and see if you can't
make out the ruins of a house somewhere near-by. It was burned many
years ago."
"Yes, yes," returned Kennedy, excitedly; "there's the place! Do you
think we can get there in a car before it's dark?"
"Easily," replied MacLeod.
It was only a matter of minutes before we three were poking about in a
tangle of wood and field, seeking to locate the spot where Kennedy's
apparatus had photographed the lone axman.
At last, in a large, cleared field, we came upon a most peculiar heap
of debris. As nearly as I could make out, it was a pile of junk, but
most interesting junk. Practically all of it consisted in broken bits
of the celluloid-like stuff we had seen in the abandoned building.
Twisted inextricably about were steel wires and bits of all sorts of
material. In the midst of the wreckage was something that looked for
all the world like the remains of a gas-motor. It was not rusted,
either, which indicated that it had been put there recently.
As he looked at it, Craig's face displayed a smile of satisfaction.
"Looks as though it might have been an aeroplane of the tractor type,"
he vouchsafed, finally.
"Surely there couldn't have been an accident," objected MacLeod. "No
aviator could have lived through it, and there's no body."
"No; it was purposely destroyed," continued Craig. "It was landed here
from somewhere else for that purpose. That was what the man in the
picture was doing with the ax. After the last explosion something
happened. He brought the machine here to destroy the evidence."
"But," persisted MacLeod, "if there had been an aeroplane hovering
about we should have seen it in the air, passing over the works at the
time of the explosion."
Kennedy picked the pieces, significantly.
"Some one about here has kept abreast of the times, if not ahead. See;
the planes were of this non-inflammable celluloid that made it
virtually transparent and visible only at a few hundred feet in the
air. The aviator could fly low and so drop those pastilles
accurately--and unseen. The engine had one of those new muffler-boxes.
He would have been unheard, too, except for that delicate air-ship
detector."
MacLeod and I could but stare at each other, aghast. Without a doubt it
was in the old merry-go-round building that the phantom aviator had
established his hangar. What the connection was between the tragedy in
the Snedden family and the tragedy in the powder-works we did not know,
but, at least, now we knew that there was some connection.
It was growing dark rapidly, and, with some difficulty, we retraced our
steps to the point where we had left the car. We whirled back to the
town, and, of course, to the Snedden house.
Snedden was sitting in the parlor when we arrived, by the body of his
wife, staring, speechless, straight before him, while several neighbors
were gathered about, trying to console him. We had scarcely entered
when a messenger-boy came up the path from the gate. Both Kennedy and
MacLeod turned toward him, expecting some reply to the numerous
messages of alarm sent out earlier in the afternoon.
"Telegram for Mrs. Snedden," announced the boy.
"MRS. Snedden?" queried Kennedy, surprised, then quickly: "Oh yes,
that's all right. I'll take care of it."
He signed for the message, tore it open, and read it. For a moment his
face, which had been clouded, smoothed out, and he took a couple of
turns up and down the hall, as though undecided. Finally he crumpled
the telegram abstractedly and shoved it into his pocket. We followed
him as he went into the parlor and stood for several moments, looking
fixedly on the strangely flushed face of Mrs. Snedden. "MacLeod," he
said, finally, turning gravely toward us, and, for the present, seeming
to ignore the presence of the others, "this amazing series of crimes
has brought home to me forcibly the alarming possibilities of applying
modern scientific devices to criminal uses. New modes and processes
seem to bring new menaces."
"Like carbon-monoxide poisoning?" suggested MacLeod. "Of course it has
long been known as a harmful gas, but--"
"Let us see," interrupted Kennedy. "Walter, you were there when I
examined Jackson's car. There was not a drop of gasolene in the tank,
you will recall. Even the water in the radiator was low. I lifted the
hood. Some one must have tampered with the carburetor. It was adjusted
so that the amount of air in the mixture was reduced. More than that, I
don't know whether you noticed it or not, but the spark and gas were
set so that, when I did put gasolene in the tank, I had but to turn the
engine over and it went. In other words, that car had been standing
there, the engine running, until it simply stopped for want of fuel."
He paused while we listened intently, then resumed. "The gas-engine and
gas-motor have brought with them another of those unanticipated menaces
of which I spoke. Whenever the explosion of the combustible mixture is
incomplete or of moderated intensity a gas of which little is known may
be formed in considerable quantities.
"In this case, as in several others that have come to my attention,
vapors arising from the combustion must have emitted certain noxious
products. The fumes that caused Ida Snedden's death were not of carbon
monoxide from the stove, MacLeod. They were splitting-products of
gasolene, which are so new to science that they have not yet been named.
"Mrs. Snedden's death, I may say for the benefit of the coroner, was
due to the absorption of some of these unidentified gaseous poisons.
They are as deadly as a knife-thrust through the heart, under certain
conditions. Due to the non-oxidation of some of the elements of
gasolene, they escape from the exhaust of every running gas-engine. In
the open air, where only a whiff or two would be inhale now and then,
they are not dangerous. But in a closed room they may kill in an
incredibly short time. In fact, the condition has given rise to an
entirely new phenomenon which some one has named 'petromortis.'"
"Petromortis?" repeated Snedden, who, for the first time, began to show
interest in what was going on about him. "Then it was an accident?"
"I did not say it was an accident," corrected Craig. "There is an old
adage that murder will out. And this expression of human experience is
only repeated in what we modern scientific detectives are doing. No man
bent on the commission of a crime can so arrange the circumstances of
that crime that it will afterward appear, point by point, as an
accident."
Kennedy had us all following him breathlessly now.
"I do not consider it an accident," he went on, rapidly piecing
together the facts as we had found them. "Ida Snedden was killed
because she was getting too close to some one's secret. Even at
luncheon, I could see that she had discovered Gertrude's attachment for
Garretson. How she heard that, following the excitement of the
explosion this afternoon, Gertrude and Garretson had disappeared, I do
not pretend to know. But it is evident that she did hear, that she went
out and took Jackson's car, probably to pursue them. If we have heard
that they went by the river road, she might have heard it, too.
"In all probability she came along just in time to surprise some one
working on the other side of the old merry-go-round structure. There
can be no reason to conceal the fact longer. From that deserted
building some one was daily launching a newly designed invisible
aeroplane. As Mrs. Snedden came along, she must have been just in time
to see that person at his secret hangar. What happened I do not know,
except that she must have run the car off the river road and into the
building. The person whom she found must have suddenly conceived a
method of getting her out of the way and making it look like an
accident of some kind, perhaps persuaded her to stay in the car with
the engine running, while he went off and destroyed the aeroplane which
was damning evidence now."
Startling as was the revelation of an actual phantom destroyer, our
minds were more aroused as to who might be the criminal who had
employed such an engine of death.
Kennedy drew from his pocket the telegram which had just arrived, and
spread it out flat before us on a table. It was dated Philadelphia, and
read:
MRS. IDA SNEDDEN, Nitropolis:
Garretson and Gertrude were married to-day. Have traced them to the
Wolcott. Try to reconcile Mr. Snedden.
HUNTER JACKSON.
I saw at once that part of the story. It was just a plain love-affair
that had ended in an elopement at a convenient time. The fire-eating
Garretson had been afraid of the Sneddens and Jackson, who was their
friend. Before I could even think further, Kennedy had drawn out the
films taken by the rocket-camera.
"With the aid of a magnifying-glass," he was saying, "I can get just
enough of the lone figure in this picture to identify it. These are the
crimes of a crazed pacifist, one whose mind had so long dwelt on the
horrors of--"
"Look out!" shouted MacLeod, leaping in front of Kennedy.
The strain of the revelation had been too much. Snedden--a raving
maniac--had reeled forward, wildly and impotently, at the man who had
exposed him.
VI
THE BEAUTY MASK
"Oh, Mr. Jameson, if they could only wake her up--find out what is the
matter--do something! This suspense is killing both mother and myself."
Scenting a good feature story, my city editor had sent me out on an
assignment, my sole equipment being a clipping of two paragraphs from
the morning Star.
GIRL IN COMA SIX DAYS--SHOWS NO SIGN OF REVIVAL
Virginia Blakeley, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Mrs. Stuart
Blakeley, of Riverside Drive, who has been in a state of coma for six
days, still shows no sign of returning consciousness.
Ever since Monday some member of her family has been constantly beside
her. Her mother and sister have both vainly tried to coax her back to
consciousness, but their efforts have not met with the slightest
response. Dr. Calvert Haynes, the family physician, and several
specialists who have been called in consultation, are completely
baffled by the strange malady.
Often I had read of cases of morbid sleep lasting for days and even for
weeks. But this was the first case I had ever actually encountered and
I was glad to take the assignment.
The Blakeleys, as every one knew, had inherited from Stuart Blakeley a
very considerable fortune in real estate in one of the most rapidly
developing sections of upper New York, and on the death of their mother
the two girls, Virginia and Cynthia, would be numbered among the
wealthiest heiresses of the city.
They lived in a big sandstone mansion fronting the Hudson and it was
with some misgiving that I sent up my card. Both Mrs. Blakeley and her
other daughter, however, met me in the reception-room, thinking,
perhaps, from what I had written on the card, that I might have some
assistance to offer.
Mrs. Blakeley was a well-preserved lady, past middle-age, and very
nervous.
"Mercy, Cynthia!" she exclaimed, as I explained my mission, "it's
another one of those reporters. No, I cannot say anything--not a word.
I don't know anything. See Doctor Haynes. I--"
"But, mother," interposed Cynthia, more calmly, "the thing is in the
papers. It may be that some one who reads of it may know of something
that can be done. Who can tell?"
"Well, I won't say anything," persisted the elder woman. "I don't like
all this publicity. Did the newspapers ever do anything but harm to
your poor dear father? No, I won't talk. It won't do us a bit of good.
And you, Cynthia, had better be careful."
Mrs. Blakeley backed out of the door, but Cynthia, who was a few years
older than her sister, had evidently acquired independence. At least
she felt capable of coping with an ordinary reporter who looked no more
formidable than myself.
"It is quite possible that some one who knows about such cases may
learn of this," I urged.
She hesitated as her mother disappeared, and looked at me a moment,
then, her feelings getting the better of her, burst forth with the
strange appeal I have already quoted.
It was as though I had come at just an opportune moment when she must
talk to some outsider to relieve her pent-up feelings.
By an adroit question here and there, as we stood in the
reception-hall, I succeeded in getting the story, which seemed to be
more of human interest than of news. I even managed to secure a
photograph of Virginia as she was before the strange sleep fell on her.
Briefly, as her sister told it, Virginia was engaged to Hampton Haynes,
a young medical student at the college where his father was a professor
of diseases of the heart. The Hayneses were of a fine Southern family
which had never recovered from the war and had finally come to New
York. The father, Dr. Calvert Haynes, in addition to being a well-known
physician, was the family physician of the Blakeleys, as I already
knew. "Twice the date of the marriage has been set, only to be
postponed," added Cynthia Blakeley. "We don't know what to do. And
Hampton is frantic."
"Then this is really the second attack of the morbid sleep?" I queried.
"Yes--in a few weeks. Only the other wasn't so long--not more than a
day."
She said it in a hesitating manner which I could not account for.
Either she thought there might be something more back of it or she
recalled her mother's aversion to reporters and did not know whether
she was saying too much or not.
"Do you really fear that there is something wrong?" I asked,
significantly, hastily choosing the former explanation.
Cynthia Blakeley looked quickly at the door through which her mother
had retreated.
"I--I don't know," she replied, tremulously. "I don't know why I am
talking to you. I'm so afraid, too, that the newspapers may say
something that isn't true."
"You would like to get at the truth, if I promise to hold the story
back?" I persisted, catching her eye.
"Yes," she answered, in a low tone, "but--" then stopped.
"I will ask my friend, Professor Kennedy, at the university, to come
here," I urged.
"You know him?" she asked, eagerly. "He will come?"
"Without a doubt," I reassured, waiting for her to say no more, but
picking up the telephone receiver on a stand in the hall.
Fortunately I found Craig at his laboratory and a few hasty words were
all that was necessary to catch his interest.
"I must tell mother," Cynthia cried, excitedly, as I hung up the
receiver. "Surely she cannot object to that. Will you wait here?"
As I waited for Craig, I tried to puzzle the case out for myself.
Though I knew nothing about it as yet, I felt sure that I had not made
a mistake and that there was some mystery here.
Suddenly I became aware that the two women were talking in the next
room, though too low for me to catch what they were saying. It was
evident, however, that Cynthia was having some difficulty in persuading
her mother that everything was all right.
"Well, Cynthia," I heard her mother say, finally, as she left the room
for one farther back, "I hope it will be all right--that is all I can
say."
What was it that Mrs. Blakeley so feared? Was it merely the unpleasant
notoriety? One could not help the feeling that there was something more
that she suspected, perhaps knew, but would not tell. Yet, apparently,
it was aside from her desire to have her daughter restored to normal.
She was at sea, herself, I felt.
"Poor dear mother!" murmured Cynthia, rejoining me in a few moments.
"She hardly knows just what it is she does want-except that we want
Virginia well again."
We had not long to wait for Craig. What I had told him over the
telephone had been quite enough to arouse his curiosity.
Both Mrs. Blakeley and Cynthia met him, at first a little fearfully,
but quickly reassured by his manner, as well as my promise to see that
nothing appeared in the Star which would be distasteful.
"Oh, if some one could only bring back our little girl!" cried Mrs.
Blakeley, with suppressed emotion, leading the way with her daughter
up-stairs.
It was only for a moment that I could see Craig alone to explain the
impressions I had received, but it was enough.
"I'm glad you called me," he whispered. "There is something queer."
We followed them up to the dainty bedroom in flowered enamel where
Virginia Blakeley lay, and it was then for the first time that we saw
her. Kennedy drew a chair up beside the little white bed and went to
work almost as though he had been a physician himself.
Partly from what I observed myself and partly from what he told me
afterward, I shall try to describe the peculiar condition in which she
was.
She lay there lethargic, scarcely breathing. Once she had been a tall,
slender, fair girl, with a sort of wild grace. Now she seemed to be
completely altered. I could not help thinking of the contrast between
her looks now and the photograph in my pocket.
Not only was her respiration slow, but her pulse was almost
imperceptible, less than forty a minute. Her temperature was far below
normal, and her blood pressure low. Once she had seemed fully a woman,
with all the strength and promise of precocious maturity. But now there
was something strange about her looks. It is difficult to describe. It
was not that she was no longer a young woman, but there seemed to be
something almost sexless about her. It was as though her secondary sex
characteristics were no longer feminine, but--for want of a better
word--neuter.
Yet, strange to say, in spite of the lethargy which necessitated at
least some artificial feeding, she was not falling away. She seemed, if
anything, plump. To all appearances there was really a retardation of
metabolism connected with the trance-like sleep. She was actually
gaining in weight!
As he noted one of these things after another, Kennedy looked at her
long and carefully. I followed the direction of his eyes. Over her
nose, just a trifle above the line of her eyebrows, was a peculiar red
mark, a sore, which was very disfiguring, as though it were hard to
heal.
"What is that?" he asked Mrs. Blakeley, finally.
"I don't know," she replied, slowly. "We've all noticed it. It came
just after the sleep began."
"You have no idea what could have caused it?"
"Both Virginia and Cynthia have been going to a face specialist," she
admitted, "to have their skins treated for freckles. After the
treatment they wore masks which were supposed to have some effect on
the skin. I don't know. Could it be that?"