about Miss Belleville, welcome wherever he went, for he was what men
commonly call a "good mixer." Marchant, on the other hand, was almost
always to be found not far from Edith Gaines. Perhaps it was the more
brilliant conversation that attracted him, for it ran on many subjects,
but it was difficult to explain it so to my satisfaction. All of which
I saw Gaines duly noting, not for the report he had to make to the
Medical Society, but for his own information. In fact, it was difficult
to tell the precise degree of disapproval with which he regarded
Karatoff, Errol, and Marchant, in turn, as he noted the intimacy of
Edith Gaines with them. I wished that we might observe them all when
they did not know it, for I could not determine whether she was taking
pleasure in piquing the professor or whether she was holding her
admirers in leash in his presence. At any rate, I felt I need lay no
claim to clairvoyance to predict the nature of the report that Gaines
would prepare.
The conversation was at its height when Karatoff detached himself from
one of the groups and took a position in a corner of the room, alone.
Not a word was said by him, yet as if by magic the buzz of conversation
ceased. Karatoff looked about as though proud of the power of even his
silence. Whatever might be said of the man, at least his very presence
seemed to command respect from his followers.
I had expected that he would make some reference to Gaines and
ourselves and the purpose of the meeting, but he avoided the subject
and, instead, chose to leap right into the middle of things.
"So that there can be no question about what I am able to do," he
began, "I wish each of you to write on a piece of paper what you would
like to have me cause any one to do or say under hypnotism. You will
please fold the paper tightly, covering the writing. I will read the
paper to myself, still folded up, will hypnotize the subject, and will
make the subject do whatever is desired. That will be preliminary to
what I have to say later about my powers in hypnotic therapeutics."
Pieces of paper and little lead-pencils were distributed by an
attendant and in the rustling silence that followed each cudgeled his
brain for something that would put to the test the powers of Karatoff.
Thinking, I looked about the room. Near the speaker stood a table on
which lay a curious collection of games and books, musical instruments,
and other things that might suggest actions to be performed in the
test. My eye wandered to a phonograph standing next the table. Somehow,
I could not get Mrs. Gaines and Carita Belleville out of my head.
Slowly I wrote, "Have Mrs. Gaines pick out a record, play it on the
phonograph, then let her do as she pleases."
Some moments elapsed while the others wrote. Apparently they were
trying to devise methods of testing Doctor Karatoff's mettle. Then the
papers were collected and deposited on the table beside him.
Apparently at random Karatoff picked out one of the folded papers,
then, seemingly without looking at it and certainly without unfolding
it, as far as I could determine, he held it up to his forehead.
It was an old trick, I knew. Perhaps he had palmed a sponge wet with
alcohol or some other liquid, had brushed it over the paper, making the
writing visible through it, and drying out rapidly so as to leave the
paper opaque again long before any of us saw it a second time. Or was
he really exercising some occult power? At any rate, he read it, or
pretended to read it, at least.
"I am asked to hypnotize Mrs. Gaines," he announced, dropping the paper
unconcernedly on the table beside the other pile, as though this were
mere child's play for his powers. It was something of a shock to
realize that it was my paper he had chanced to pick up first, and I
leaned forward eagerly, watching.
Mrs. Gaines rose and every eye was riveted on her as Karatoff placed
her in an easy-chair before him. There was an expectant silence, as
Karatoff moved the chair so that she could concentrate her attention
only on a bright silver globe suspended from the ceiling. The
half-light, the heavy atmosphere, the quiet, assured manner of the
chief actor in the scene, all combined to make hypnotization as nearly
possible as circumstances could. Karatoff moved before her, passing his
hands with a peculiar motion before her eyes. It seemed an incredibly
short time in which Edith Gaines yielded to the strange force which
fascinated the group.
"Quite susceptible," murmured Kennedy, beside me, engrossed in the
operation.
"It is my test," I whispered back, and he nodded.
Slowly Edith Gaines rose from the chair, faced us with unseeing eyes,
except as Karatoff directed. Karatoff himself was a study. It seemed as
if he had focused every ounce of his faculties on the accomplishment of
the task in hand. Slowly still the woman moved, as if in a dream walk,
over toward the phonograph, reached into the cabinet beneath it and
drew forth a book of records. Karatoff faced us, as if to assure us
that at that point he had resigned his control and was now letting her
act for her subconscious self.
Her fingers passed over page after page until finally she stopped, drew
forth the record, placed it on the machine, wound it, then placed the
record on the revolving disk.
My first surprise was quickly changed to gratification. She had picked
out the music to the "Hypnotic Whirl." I bent forward, more intent.
What would she do next?
As she turned I could see, even in the dim light, a heightened color in
her cheeks, as though the excitement of the catchy music had infected
her. A moment later she was executing, and very creditably, too, an
imitation of Carita herself in the Revue. What did it mean? Was it that
consciously or unconsciously she was taking the slender dancer as her
model? The skill and knowledge that she put into the dance showed
plainly.
Next to Kennedy, I saw Gaines leaning far forward, looking now at his
wife, now at the little group. I followed his eyes. To my surprise, I
saw Marchant, his gaze riveted on Edith Gaines as if she had been the
star performer in a play. Evidently my chance request to Karatoff had
been builded better than I knew. I ran my gaze over the others. Errol
was no less engrossed than Marchant. Quickly I glanced at Carita,
wondering whether she might be gratified by the performance of a pupil.
Whether it was natural grace or real hypnotism in the "Hypnotic Whirl,"
I was surprised to see on Carita's face something that looked strangely
akin to jealousy. It was as though some other woman had usurped her
prerogative. She leaned over to speak to Errol with the easy
familiarity of an old admirer. I could not hear what was said and
perhaps it was inconsequential. In fact, it must have been the very
inconsequentiality of his reply that piqued her. He glanced at Marchant
a moment, as if she had said something about him, then back at Edith
Gaines. On his part, Professor Gaines was growing more and more furious.
I had just about decided that the little drama in the audience was of
far more importance and interest than even the dance, when the music
ceased. Karatoff approached, took Mrs. Gaines by the hand, led her back
to the chair, and, at a word, she regained her normal consciousness. As
she rose, still in a daze it seemed, it was quite evident that she had
no waking realization of what had happened, for she walked back and sat
down beside her husband, quite as though nothing had happened.
As for me, I could not help wondering what had actually happened. What
did it all mean? Had Mrs. Gaines expressed her own self--or was it
Karatoff--or Marchant--or Errol? What was the part played by Carita
Belleville? Gaines did not betray anything to her, but their mutual
attitude was eloquent. There was something of which he disapproved and
she knew it, some lack of harmony. What was the cause?
As for Karatoff's exhibition, it was all truly remarkable, whether in
his therapeutics the man was a faker or not.
Karatoff seemed to realize that he had made a hit. Without giving any
one a chance to question him, he reached down quickly and picked up
another of the papers, repeating the process through which he had gone
before.
"Mr. Errol," he summoned, placing the second folded paper on the table
with the first.
Errol rose and went forward and Karatoff placed him in the chair as he
had Mrs. Gaines. There seemed to be no hesitation, at least on the part
of Karatoff's followers, to being hypnotized.
Whatever it was written on the paper, the writer had evidently not
trusted to chance, as I had, but had told specifically what to do.
At the mute bidding of Karatoff Errol rose. We watched breathlessly.
Deliberately he walked across the room to the table, and, to the
astonishment of all save one, picked up a rubber dagger, one of those
with which children play, which was lying in the miscellaneous pile on
the table. I had not noticed it, but some one's keen eye had, and
evidently it had suggested a melodramatic request.
Quickly Errol turned. If he had been a motion-picture actor, he could
not have portrayed better the similitude of hate that was written on
his face. A few strides and he had advanced toward our little audience,
now keyed up to the highest pitch of excitement by the extraordinary
exhibition.
"Of course," remarked Karatoff, as at a word Errol paused, still
poising the dagger, "you know that under hypnotism in the psychological
laboratory a patient has often struck at his 'enemy' with a rubber
dagger, going through all the motions of real passion. Now!"
No word was said by Karatoff to indicate to Errol what it was that he
was to do. But a gasp went up from some one as he took another step and
it was evident that it was Marchant whom he had singled out. For just a
moment Errol poised the rubber dagger over his "victim," as if
gloating. It was dramatic, realistic. As Errol paused, Marchant smiled
at the rest of us, a sickly smile, I thought, as though he would have
said that the play was being carried too far.
Never for a moment did Errol take from him the menacing look. It was
only a moment in the play, yet it was so unexpected that it seemed
ages. Then, swiftly, down came the dagger on Marchant's left side just
over the breast, the rubber point bending pliantly as it descended.
A sharp cry escaped Marchant. I looked quickly. He had fallen forward,
face down, on the floor.
Edith Gaines screamed as we rushed to Marchant and turned him over. For
the moment, as Kennedy, Karatoff, and Gaines bent over him and
endeavored to loosen his collar and apply a restorative, consternation
reigned in the little circle. I bent over, too, and looked first at
Marchant's flushed face, then at Kennedy. Marchant was dead!
There was not a mark on him, apparently. Only a moment before he had
been one of us. We could look at one another only in amazement, tinged
with fear. Killed by a rubber dagger? Was it possible?
"Call an ambulance--quick!" directed Kennedy to me, though I knew that
he knew it was of no use except as a matter of form.
We stood about the prostrate form, stunned. In a few moments the police
would be there. Instinctively we looked at Karatoff. Plainly he was
nervous and overwrought now. His voice shook as he brought Errol out of
the trance, and Errol, dazed, uncomprehending, struggled to take in the
horribly unreal tragedy which greeted his return to consciousness.
"It--it was an accident," muttered Karatoff, eagerly trying to justify
himself, though trembling for once in his life. "Arteriosclerosis,
perhaps, hardening of the arteries, some weakness of the heart. I
never--"
He cut the words short as Edith Gaines reeled and fell into her
husband's arms. She seemed completely prostrated by the shock. Or was
it weakness following the high mental tension of her own hypnotization?
Together we endeavored to revive her, waiting for the first flutter of
her eyelids, which seemed an interminable time.
Errol in the mean time was pacing the floor like one in a dream. Events
had followed one another so fast in the confusion that I had only an
unrelated series of impressions. It was not until a moment later that I
realized the full import of the affair, when I saw Kennedy standing
near the table in the position Karatoff had assumed, a strange look of
perplexity on his face. Slowly I realized what was the cause. The
papers on which were written the requests for the exhibitions of
Karatoff's skill were gone!
Whatever was done must be done quickly, and Kennedy looked about with a
glance that missed nothing. Before I could say a word about the papers
he had crossed the room to where Marchant had been standing in the
little group about Edith Gaines as we entered. On a side-table stood
the teacup from which he had been sipping. With his back to the rest,
Kennedy drew from his breast pocket a little emergency case he carried
containing a few thin miniature glass tubes. Quickly he poured the few
drops of the dregs of the tea into one of the tubes, then into others
tea from the other cups.
Again he looked at the face of Marchant as though trying to read in the
horrified smile that had petrified on it some mysterious secret hidden
underneath. Slowly the question was shaping in my mind, was it, as
Karatoff would have us believe, an accident?
The clang of a bell outside threw us all into worse confusion, and a
moment later, almost together, a white-coated surgeon and a blue-coated
policeman burst into the room. It seemed almost no time, in the swirl
of events, before the policeman was joined by a detective assigned by
the Central Office to that district.
"Well, doctor," demanded the detective as he entered, "what's the
verdict?"
"Arteriosclerosis, I think," replied the young surgeon. "They tell me
there was some kind of hypnotic seance going on. One of them named
Errol struck at him with a rubber dagger, and--"
"Get out!" scoffed the Central Office man. "Killed by a rubber dagger!
Say, what do you think we are? What did you find when you entered,
sergeant?"
The policeman handed the detective the rubber dagger which he had
picked up, forgotten, on the floor where Errol had dropped it when he
came out from the hypnotization.
The detective took it gingerly and suspiciously, with a growl. "I'll
have the point of this analyzed. It may be--well--we won't say what may
be. But I can tell you what is. You, Doctor Karatoff, or whatever your
name is, and you, Mr. Errol, are under arrest. It's a good deal easier
to take you now than it will be later. Then if you can get a judge to
release you, we'll at least know where you are."
"This is outrageous, preposterous!" stormed Karatoff.
"Can't help it," returned the officer, coolly.
"Why," exclaimed Carita Belleville, excitedly projecting herself before
the two prisoners, "it's ridiculous! Even the ambulance surgeon says it
was arteriosclerosis, an accident. I--"
"Very well, madam," calmed the sergeant. "So much the better. They'll
get out of our hands that much quicker. Just at present it is my duty."
Errol was standing silent, his eyes averted from the hideous form on
the floor, not by word or action betraying a feeling. The police moved
to the door.
Weak and trembling still from the triple shock she had received, Edith
Gaines leaned heavily on the arm of her husband, but it was, as nearly
as I could make out, only for physical support.
"I told you, Edith, it was a dangerous business," I heard him mutter.
"Only I never contemplated that they'd carry it this far. Now you see
what such foolishness can lead to."
Weak though she was, she drew away and flashed a glance at him,
resenting his man's "I-told-you-so" manner. The last I saw of them in
the confusion was as they drove off in the car, still unreconciled.
Kennedy seemed well contented, for the present at least, to allow the
police a free hand with Errol and Karatoff. As for me, Mrs. Gaines and
Carita Belleville presented a perplexing problem, but I said nothing,
for he was hurrying back now to his laboratory.
At once he drew forth the little tube containing the few drops of tea
and emptied a drop or two into a beaker of freshly distilled water as
carefully as if the tea had been some elixir of life. As he was
examining the contents of the beaker his face clouded with thought.
"Do you find anything?" I asked, eagerly.
Kennedy shook his head. "There's something wrong," he hazarded.
"Perhaps it's only fancy, but I am sure that there is something with a
slight odor in the tea, something tea-like, but with a more bitter
taste, something that would be nauseous if not concealed in the tea.
There's more than tannin and sugar here."
"Then you think that some one present placed something in the tea?" I
inquired, shuddering at the thought that we had run some unknown danger.
"I can't just say, without further investigation of this and the other
samples I took."
"Still, you have eliminated that ridiculous dagger theory," I ventured.
"The police can never appreciate the part it played," Craig answered,
non-committally, laying out various chemicals preparatory to his
exhaustive analysis. "I began to suspect something the moment I noticed
that those notes which we all wrote were gone. When we find out about
this tea we may find who took them. Perhaps the mystery is not such a
mystery after all, then."
There seemed to be nothing that I could do, in the mean time, except to
refrain from hindering Kennedy in his investigations, and I decided to
leave him at the laboratory while I devoted my time to watching what
the police might by chance turn up, even if they should prove to be
working on the wrong angle of the case.
I soon found that they were showing energy, if nothing else. Although
it was so soon after the death of Marchant, they had determined that
there could not have been anything but rubber on the end of the toy
dagger which had excited the doubts of the detective.
As for the autopsy that was performed on Marchant, it did, indeed, show
that he was suffering from hardening of the arteries, due to his manner
of living, as Karatoff had asserted. Indeed, the police succeeded in
showing that it was just for that trouble that Marchant was going to
Karatoff, which, to my mind, seemed quite sufficient to establish the
therapeutic hypnotist as all that Gaines had accused him of being. Even
to my lay mind the treatment of arteriosclerosis by mental healing
seemed, to say the least, incongruous.
Yet the evidence against Karatoff and Errol was so flimsy that they had
little trouble in getting released on bail, though, of course, it was
fixed very high.
My own inquiries among the other reporters on the Star who might know
something offered a more promising lead. I soon found that Errol had
none too savory a reputation. His manner of life had added nothing to
his slender means, and there was a general impression among his fellow
club-members that unfortunate investments had made serious inroads into
the principal of his fortune. Still, I hesitated to form even an
opinion on gossip.
Quite unsatisfied with the result of my investigation, I could not
restrain my impatience to get back to the laboratory to find out
whether Kennedy had made any progress in his tests of the tea.
"If you had been five minutes earlier," he greeted me, "you would have
been surprised to find a visitor."
"A visitor?" I repeated. "Who?"
"Carita Belleville," he replied, enjoying my incredulity.
"What could she want?" I asked, at length.
"That's what I've been wondering," he agreed "Her excuse was plausible.
She said that she had just heard why I had come with Gaines. I suppose
it was half an hour that she spent endeavoring to convince me that
Karatoff and Errol could not possibly have had any other connection
than accidental with the death of Marchant."
"Could it have been a word for them and half an hour for herself?" I
queried, mystified.
Kennedy shrugged. "I can't say. At any rate, I must see both Karatoff
and Errol, now that they are out. Perhaps they did send her, thinking I
might fall for her. She hinted pretty broadly at using my influence
with Gaines on his report. Then, again, she may simply have been
wondering how she herself stood."
"Have you found anything?" I asked, noticing that his laboratory table
was piled high with its usual paraphernalia.
"Yes," he replied, laconically, taking a bottle of concentrated
sulphuric acid and pouring a few drops in a beaker of slightly tinged
water.
The water turned slowly to a beautiful green. No sooner was the
reaction complete than he took some bromine and added it. Slowly again
the water changed, this time from the green to a peculiar violet red.
Adding more water restored the green color.
"That's the Grandeau test," he nodded, with satisfaction. "I've tried
the physiological test, too, with frogs from the biological department,
and it shows the effect on the heart that I--"
"What shows the effect?" I interrupted, somewhat impatiently.
"Oh, to be sure," he smiled. "I forgot I hadn't told you what I
suspected. Why, digitalis--foxglove, you know. I suppose it never
occurred to the police that the rubber dagger might have covered up a
peculiar poisoning? Well, if they'll take the contents of the stomach,
in alcohol, with a little water acidulated, strain off the filtrate and
try it on a dog, they will see that its effect is the effect of
digitalis. Digitalis is an accumulative poison and a powerful stimulant
of arterial walls, by experimental evidence an ideal drug for the
purpose of increasing blood pressure. Don't you see it?" he added,
excitedly. "The rubber dagger was only a means to an end. Some one who
knew the weakness of Marchant first placed digitalis in his tea. That
was possible because of the taste of the tea. Then, in the excitement
of the act pantomimed by Errol, Marchant's disease carried him off,
exactly as was to be expected under the circumstances. It was clever,
diabolically clever. Whoever did it destroyed the note in which the act
was suggested and counted that no one would ever stop to search for a
poison in the tangle of events."
Slowly but clearly I began to realize how certainly Kennedy was
reconstructing the strange case. But who was it? What was the motive
back of this sinister murder that had been so carefully planned that no
one would ever suspect a crime?
I had hardly framed the queries when our telephone rang. It was the
Central Office man. The detective had anticipated my own line of
inquiry, only had gone much further with it. He had found a clear
record of the business relations existing between Errol and Marchant.
One episode consisted of a stock deal between them in which Errol had
invested in a stock which Marchant was promoting and was known to be
what brokers call "cats and dogs." That, I reasoned, must have been the
basis of the gossip that Errol had suffered financial losses that
seriously impaired his little fortune. It was an important item and
Kennedy accepted it gladly, but said nothing of his own discovery. The
time had not arrived yet to come out into the open.
For a few moments after the talk with the detective Kennedy seemed to
be revolving the case, as though in doubt whether the new information
cleared it up or added to the mystery. Then he rose suddenly.
"We must find Karatoff," he announced.
Whatever might have been the connection of the hypnotist with this
strange case, he was far too clever to betray himself by any such
misstep as seeming to avoid inquiry. We found him easily at his studio
apartment, nor did we have any difficulty in gaining admittance. He
knew that he was watched and that frankness was his best weapon of
defense.
"Of course," opened Kennedy, "you know that investigation has shown
that you were right in your diagnosis of the trouble with Marchant. Was
it arteriosclerosis for which you were treating him?"
"It would be unprofessional to discuss it," hastily parried Karatoff,
"but, since Mr. Marchant is now dead, I think I may say that it was. In
fact, few persons, outside of those whom I have associated about me,
realize to what a wonderful extent hypnotism may be carried in the
treatment of disease. Why, I have even had wonderful success with such
disorders as diabetes mellitus. We are only on the threshold of
understanding what a wonderful thing is the human mind in its effect on
the material body."
"But another patient might have known what Marchant was being treated
for?" interrupted Kennedy, ignoring the defense of Karatoff, which was
proceeding along the stereotyped lines of such vagaries which seem
never to be without followers.
Karatoff looked at him a moment in surprise. Evidently he was doing
some hasty mental calculation to determine what was Craig's ulterior
motive. And, in spite of his almost uncanny claims and performances, I
could see that he was able to read Kennedy's mind no whit better than
myself.
"I suppose so," he admitted. "No doctor was ever able to control his
patients' tongues. Sometimes they boast of their diseases."