the remark keenly. "I have just had the pleasure of a visit from Carita
Belleville in my laboratory."
"Indeed?" returned Karatoff, with difficulty restraining his curiosity.
"Miss Belleville has been very kind in introducing me to some of her
friends and acquaintances, and I flatter myself that I have been able
to do them much good."
"Then she was not a patient?" pursued Kennedy, studiously avoiding
enlightening Karatoff on the visit.
"Rather a friend," he replied, quickly. "It was she who introduced Mr.
Errol."
"They are quite intimate, I believe," put in Kennedy at a chance.
"Really, I knew very little about it," Karatoff avoided.
"Did she introduce Mr. Marchant?"
"She introduced Mrs. Gaines, who introduced Mr. Marchant," the
hypnotist replied, with apparent frankness.
"You were treating Mrs. Gaines?" asked Craig, again shifting the attack
unexpectedly.
"Yes," admitted Karatoff, stopping.
"I imagine her trouble was more mental than physical," remarked
Kennedy, in a casual tone, as though feeling his way.
Karatoff looked up keenly, but was unable to read Kennedy's face. "I
think," he said, slowly, "that one trouble was that Mrs. Gaines liked
the social life better than the simple life."
"Your clinic, Mr. Marchant, and the rest better than her husband and
the social life at the university," amplified Kennedy. "I think you are
right. She had drifted away from her husband, and when a woman does
that she has hosts of admirers--of a certain sort. I should say that
Mr. Errol was the kind who would care more for the social life than the
simple life, as you put it, too."
I did not gather in what direction Kennedy was tending, but it was
evident that Karatoff felt more at ease. Was it because the quest
seemed to be leading away from himself?
"I had noticed something of the sort," he ventured. "I saw that they
were alike in that respect, but, of course, Mr. Marchant was her
friend."
Suddenly the implication flashed over me, but before I could say
anything Kennedy cut in, "Then Mr. Errol might have been enacting under
hypnotism what were really his own feelings and desires?"
"I cannot say that," replied Karatoff, seeking to dodge the issue. "But
under the influence of suggestion I suppose it is true that an
evil-minded person might suggest to another the commission of a crime,
and the other, deprived of free will, might do it. The rubber dagger
has often been used for sham murders. The possibility of actual murder
cannot be denied. In this case, however, there can be no question that
it was an unfortunate accident."
"No question?" demanded Kennedy, directly.
If Karatoff was concealing anything, he made good concealment. Either
to protect himself or another he showed no evidence of weakening his
first theory of the case.
"No question as far as I know," he reiterated.
I wondered whether Kennedy planned to enlighten him on the results of
his laboratory tests, but was afraid to look at either for fear of
betraying some hint. I was glad I did not. Kennedy's next question
carried him far afield from the subject.
"Did you know that the Medical Society were interested in you and your
clinic before the demonstration before Professor Gaines was arranged?"
"I suspected some one was interested," answered Karatoff, quickly, "But
I had no idea who it might be. As I think it over now, perhaps it was
Professor Gaines who instigated the whole inquiry. He would most likely
be interested. My work is so far in advance of any that the
conservative psychologists do that he would naturally feel hostile,
would he not?"
"Especially with the added personal motive of knowing that his wife was
one of your patients, along with Carita Belleville, Marchant, Errol,
and the rest," added Kennedy.
Karatoff smiled. "I would not have said that myself. But since you have
said it, I cannot help admitting its truth. Don't you suppose I could
predict the nature of any report he would make?"
Karatoff faced Kennedy squarely. There was an air almost of triumph in
his eyes. "I think I had better say no more, except under the advice of
my lawyer," he remarked, finally. "When the police want me, they can
find me here."
Quite evident to me now, as we went out of the studio, was the fact
that Karatoff considered himself a martyr, that he was not only the
victim of an accident, but of persecution as well.
"The fishing was good," remarked Kennedy, tersely, as we reached the
street. "Now before I see Errol I should like to see Gaines again."
I tried to reason it out as we walked along in silence. Marchant had
known Edith Gaines intimately. Carita Belleville had known Errol as
well. I recalled Errol hovering about Mrs. Gaines at the tea and the
incident during the seance when Carita Belleville had betrayed her
annoyance over some remark by Errol. The dancing by Edith Gaines had
given a flash of the jealous nature of the woman. Had it been interest
in Errol that had led her to visit the laboratory? Kennedy was weaving
a web about some one, I knew. But about whom?
As we passed a corner, he paused, entered a drugstore and called up
several numbers at a pay-station telephone booth. Then we turned into
the campus and proceeded rapidly toward the laboratory of the
psychological department. Gaines was there, sitting at his desk,
writing, as we entered.
"I'm glad to see you," he greeted, laying down his work. "I am just
finishing the draft of my report on that Karatoff affair. I have been
trying to reach you by telephone to know whether you would add anything
to it. Is there anything new?"
"Yes," returned Kennedy, "there is something new. I've just come from
Karatoff's and on the way I decided suddenly that it was time we did
something. So I have called up, and the police will bring Errol here,
as well as Miss Belleville. Karatoff will come--he won't dare stay
away; and I also took the liberty of calling Mrs. Gaines."
"To come here?" repeated Gaines, in mild surprise. "All of them?"
"Yes. I hope you will pardon me for intruding, but I want to borrow
some of your psychological laboratory apparatus, and I thought the
easiest way would be to use it here rather than take it all over to my
place and set it up again."
"I'm sure everything is at your service," offered Gaines. "It's a
little unexpected, but if the others can stand the chaotic condition of
the room, I guess we can."
Kennedy had been running his eye over the various instruments which
Gaines and his students used in their studies, and was now examining
something in a corner on a little table. It was a peculiar affair,
quite simple, but conveying to me no idea of its use. There seemed to
be a cuff, a glass chamber full of water into which it fitted, tubes
and wires that attached various dials and recording instruments to the
chamber, and what looked like a chronograph.
"That is my new plethysmograph," remarked Gaines, noting with some
satisfaction how Kennedy had singled it out.
"I've heard the students talk of it," returned Kennedy. "It's an
improved apparatus, Walter, that records one's blood flow." I nodded
politely and concealed my ignorance in a discreet silence, hoping that
Gaines would voluntarily enlighten us.
"One of my students is preparing an exhaustive table," went on Gaines,
as I had hoped, "showing the effects on blood distribution of different
stimuli--for instance, cold, heat, chloroform, arenalin, desire,
disgust, fear; physical conditions, drugs, emotions--all sorts of
things can be studied by this plethysmograph which can be set to record
blood flow through the brain, the extremities, any part of the body.
When the thing is charted I think we shall have opened up a new field."
"Certainly a very promising one for me," put in Kennedy. "How has this
machine been improved? I've seen the old ones, but this is the first
time I've seen this. How does it work?"
"Well," explained Gaines, with just a touch of pride, "you see, for
studying blood flow in the extremities, I slip this cuff over my arm,
we'll say. Suppose it is the effect of pain I want to study. Just jab
that needle in my other arm. Don't mind. It's in the interest of
science. See, when I winced then, the plethysmograph recorded it. It
smarts a bit and I'm trying to imagine it smarts worse. You'll see how
pain affects blood flow."
As he watched the indicator, Kennedy asked one question after another
about the working of the machine, and the manner in which the modern
psychologist was studying every emotion.
"By the way, Walter," he interrupted, glancing at his watch, "call up
and see if they've started with Errol and the rest yet. Don't stop,
Gaines. I must understand this thing before they get here. It's just
the thing I want."
"I should be glad to let you have it, then," replied Gaines.
"I think I'll need something new with these people," went on Kennedy.
"Why, do you know what I've discovered?"
"No, but I hope it's something I can add to my report?"
"Perhaps. We'll see. In the first place, I found that digitalis had
been put in Marchant's tea."
"They'll be here directly," I reported from the telephone, hanging it
up and joining them again.
"It couldn't have been an accident, as Karatoff said," went on Kennedy,
rapidly. "The drug increased the blood pressure of Marchant, who was
already suffering from hardening of the arteries. In short, it is my
belief that the episode of the rubber dagger was deliberately planned,
an elaborate scheme to get Marchant out of the way. No one else seems
to have noticed it, but those slips of paper on which we all wrote have
disappeared. At the worst, it would look like an accident, Karatoff
would be blamed, and--" There was a noise outside as the car pulled up.
"Here, let me take this off before any of them see it," whispered
Gaines, removing the cuff, just as the door opened and Errol and
Karatoff, Carita Belleville and Edith Gaines entered.
Before even a word of greeting passed, Kennedy stepped forward. "It was
NOT an accident," he repeated. "It was a deliberately planned,
apparently safe means of revenge on Marchant, the lover of Mrs. Gaines.
Without your new plethysmograph, Gaines, you might have thrown it on an
innocent person!"
X
THE SUBMARINE MINE
"Here's the bullet. What I want you to do, Professor Kennedy, is to
catch the crank who fired it."
Capt. Lansing Marlowe, head of the new American Shipbuilding Trust, had
summoned us in haste to the Belleclaire and had met us in his suite
with his daughter Marjorie. Only a glance was needed to see that it was
she, far more than her father, who was worried.
"You must catch him," she appealed. "Father's life is in danger. Oh,
you simply MUST."
I knew Captain Marlowe to be a proverbial fire-eater, but in this case,
at least, he was no alarmist. For, on the table, as he spoke, he laid a
real bullet.
Marjorie Marlowe shuddered at the mere sight of it and glanced
apprehensively at him as if to reassure herself. She was a tall,
slender girl, scarcely out of her teens, whose face was one of those
quite as striking for its character as its beauty. The death of her
mother a few years before had placed on her much of the responsibility
of the captain's household and with it a charm added to youth.
More under the spell of her plea than even Marlowe's vigorous urging,
Kennedy, without a word, picked up the bullet and examined it. It was
one of the modern spitzer type, quite short, conical in shape, tapering
gradually, with the center of gravity back near the base.
"I suppose you know," went on the captain, eagerly, "that our company
is getting ready to-morrow to launch the Usona, the largest liner that
has ever been built on this side of the water--the name is made up of
the initials of the United States of North America.
"Just now," he added, enthusiastically, "is what I call the golden
opportunity for American shipping. While England and Germany are
crippled, it's our chance to put the American flag on the sea as it was
in the old days, and we're going to do it. Why, the shipyards of my
company are worked beyond their capacity now."
Somehow the captain's enthusiasm was contagious. I could see that his
daughter felt it, that she was full of fire over the idea. But at the
same time something vastly more personal weighed on her mind.
"But, father," she interrupted, anxiously, "tell them about the BULLET."
The captain smiled indulgently as though he would say that he was a
tough old bird to wing. It was only a mask to hide the fighting spirit
underneath.
"We've had nothing but trouble ever since we laid the keel of that
ship," he continued, pugnaciously, "strikes, a fire in the yard,
delays, about everything that could happen. Lately we've noticed a
motor-boat hanging about the river-front of the yards. So I've had a
boat of my own patrolling the river."
"What sort of craft is this other?" inquired Kennedy, interested at
once.
"A very fast one--like those express cruisers that we hear so much
about now."
"Whose is it? Who was in it? Have you any idea?"
Marlowe shook his head doubtfully. "No idea. I don't know who owns the
boat or who runs it. My men tell me they think they've seen a woman in
it sometimes, though. I've been trying to figure it out. Why should it
be hanging about? It can't be spying. There isn't any secrecy about the
Usona. Why is it? It's a mystery."
"And the shot?" prompted Craig, tapping the bullet.
"Oh yes, let me tell you. Last night, Marjorie and I arrived from Bar
Harbor on my yacht, for the launching. It's anchored off the yard now.
Well, early this morning, while it was still gray and misty, I was up.
I'll confess I'm worried over to-morrow. I hadn't been able to forget
that cruiser. I was out on the deck, peering into the mist, when I'm
sure I saw her. I was just giving a signal to the boat we have
patrolling, when a shot whistled past me and the bullet buried itself
in the woodwork of the main saloon back of me. I dug it out of the wood
with my knife--so you see I got it almost unflattened. That's all I
have got, too. The cruiser made a getaway, clean."
"I'm sure it was aimed at him," Marjorie exclaimed. "I don't think it
was chance. Don't you see? They've tried everything else. Now if they
could get my father, the head of the company, that would be a blow that
would cripple the trust."
Marlowe patted his daughter's hand reassuringly and smiled again, as
though not to magnify the incident.
"Marjorie was so alarmed," he confessed, "that nothing would satisfy
her but that I should come ashore and stay here at the Belleclaire,
where we always put up when we are in town."
The telephone rang and Marjorie answered it. "I hope you'll pardon me,"
she excused, hanging up the receiver. "They want me very much
down-stairs." Then appealing, she added: "I'll have to leave you with
father. But, please, you must catch that crank who is threatening him."
"I shall do my level best," promised Kennedy. "You may depend on that."
"You see," explained the captain as she left us, "I've invited quite a
large party to attend the launching, for one reason or another.
Marjorie must play hostess. They're mostly here at the hotel. Perhaps
you saw some of them as you came in."
Craig was still scanning the bullet. "It looks almost as if some one
had dum-dummed it," he remarked, finally. "It's curiously done, too.
Just look at those grooves."
Both the captain and I looked. It had a hard jacket of cupro-nickel,
like the army bullet, covering a core of softer metal. Some one had
notched or scored the jacket as if with a sharp knife, though not
completely through it. Had it been done for the purpose of inflicting a
more frightful wound if it struck the captain?
"There've been other shots, too," went on Marlowe. "One of my watchmen
was wounded the night before. It didn't took like a serious wound, in
the leg. Yet the poor fellow seems to be in a bad way, they tell me."
"How is that?" asked Craig, glancing up quickly from studying the
bullet.
"The wound seems to be all puffed up, and very painful. It won't heal,
and he seems to be weak and feverish. Why, I'm afraid the man will die."
"I'd like to see that case," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully.
"Very well. I'll have you driven to the hospital where we have had to
take him."
"I'd like to see the yards, too, and the Usona," he added.
"All right. After you go to the hospital I'll meet you at the yards at
noon. Now if you'll come down-stairs with me, I'll get my car and have
you taken to the hospital first."
We followed Marlowe into the elevator and rode down. In the large
parlor we saw that Marjorie Marlowe had joined a group of the guests,
and the captain turned aside to introduce us.
Among them I noticed a striking-looking woman, somewhat older than
Marjorie. She turned as we approached and greeted the captain cordially.
"I'm so glad there was nothing serious this morning," she remarked,
extending her hand to him.
"Oh, nothing at all, nothing at all," he returned, holding the hand, I
thought, just a bit longer than was necessary. Then he turned to us,
"Miss Alma Hillman, let me present Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson."
I was not so preoccupied in taking in the group that I did not notice
that the captain was more than ordinarily attentive to her. Nor can I
say that I blamed him, for, although he might almost have been her
father in age, there was a fascination about her that youth does not
often possess.
Talking with her had been a young man, slender, good-looking, with
almost a military bearing.
"Mr. Ogilvie Fitzhugh," introduced Marjorie, seeing that her father was
neglecting his duties.
Fitzhugh bowed and shook hands, murmured something stereotyped, and
turned again to speak to Marjorie.
I watched the young people closely. If Captain Marlowe was interested
in Alma, it was more than evident that Fitzhugh was absolutely
captivated by Marjorie, and I fancied that Marjorie was not averse to
him, for he had a personality and a manner which were very pleasing.
As the conversation ran gaily on to the launching and the gathering
party of notables who were expected that night and the next day, I
noticed that a dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-complexioned young man
approached and joined us.
"Doctor Gavira," said Marlowe, turning to us, his tone indicating that
he was well acquainted about the hotel. "He is our house physician."
Gavira also was welcomed in the party, chatting with animation. It was
apparent that the physician also was very popular with the ladies, and
it needed only half an eye to discern that Fitzhugh was jealous when he
talked to Marjorie, while Marlowe but ill concealed his restlessness
when Gavira spoke to Alma. As for Alma, she seemed to treat all men
impartially, except that just now it pleased her to bestow the favor of
her attention on the captain.
Just then a young lady, all in white, passed. Plainly she did not
belong to the group, though she was much interested in it. As his eye
roved over the parlor, Gavira caught her glance and bowed. She returned
it, but her look did not linger. For a moment she glanced sharply at
Fitzhugh, still talking to Marjorie, then at Marlowe and Alma Hillman.
She was a very pretty girl with eyes that it was impossible to control.
Perhaps there was somewhat of the flirt in her. It was not that that
interested me. For there was something almost akin to jealousy in the
look she gave the other woman. Marlowe was too engrossed to see her and
she passed on slowly. What did it mean, if anything?
The conversation, as usual at such times, consisted mostly of
witticisms, and just at present we had a rather serious bit of business
in hand. Kennedy did not betray any of the impatience that I felt, yet
I knew he was glad when Marlowe excused himself and we left the party
and passed down the corridor while the captain called his car.
"I don't know how you are going to get at this thing," he remarked,
pausing after he had sent a boy for his driver. "But I'll have to rely
on you. I've told you all I know. I'll see you at noon, at the yards.
My man will take you there."
As he turned and left us I saw that he was going in the direction of
the barber-shop. Next to it and in connection with it, though in a
separate room, was a manicure. As we passed we looked in. There, at the
manicure's table, sat the girl who had gone by us in the parlor and had
looked so sharply at Marlowe and Alma.
The boy had told us that the car was waiting at a side entrance, but
Kennedy seemed now in no haste to go, the more so when Marlowe, instead
of going into the barber-shop, apparently changed his mind and entered
the manicure's. Craig stopped and watched. Prom where we were we could
see Marlowe, though his back was turned, and neither he nor the
manicure could see us.
For a moment the captain paused and spoke, then sat down. Quite
evidently he had a keen eye for a pretty face and trim figure. Nor was
there any mistaking the pains which the manicure took to please her
rich and elderly customer. After watching them a moment Kennedy lounged
over to the desk in the lobby.
"Who is the little manicure girl?" he asked.
The clerk smiled. "Seems as if she was a good drawing-card for the
house, doesn't it?" he returned. "All the men notice her. Why, her name
is Rae Melzer." He turned to speak to another guest before Kennedy
could follow with another inquiry.
As we stood before the desk, a postman, with the parcel post, arrived.
"Here's a package addressed to Dr. Fernando Gavira," he said,
brusquely. "It was broken in the mail. See?"
Kennedy, waiting for the clerk to be free again, glanced casually at
the package at first, then with a sudden, though concealed, interest. I
followed his eye. In the crushed box could be seen some thin broken
pieces of glass and a wadding of cotton-wool.
As the clerk signed for another package Craig saw a chance, reached
over and abstracted two or three of the broken pieces of glass, then
turned with his back to the postman and clerk and examined them.
One I saw at once had a rim around it. It was quite apparently the top
of a test-tube. The other, to which some cotton-wool still adhered, was
part of the rounded bowl. Quickly Craig dropped the pieces into one of
the hotel envelopes that stood in a rack on the desk, then, changing
his mind about asking more now about the little manicure, strode out of
the side entrance where Marlowe's car was waiting for us.
Hurriedly we drove across town to the City Hospital, where we had no
difficulty in being admitted and finding, in a ward, on a white cot,
the wounded guard. Though his wound was one that should not have
bothered him much, it had, as Marlowe said, puffed up angrily and in a
most peculiar manner. He was in great pain with it and was plainly in a
bad way.
Though he questioned the man, Craig did not get anything out of him
except that the shot had come from a cruiser which had been hanging
about and was much faster than the patrol boat. The nurse and a young
intern seemed inclined to be reticent, as though we might imply that
the mail's condition reflected on the care he had received, which they
were at pains to convince us had been perfect.
Puzzled himself, Craig did not say much, but as he pondered the case,
shook his head gravely to himself and finally walked out of the
hospital abstractedly.
"We have almost an hour before we are to meet Marlowe at the yard," he
considered, as we came to the car. "I think I'll go up to the
laboratory first."
In the quiet of his own workshop, Kennedy carefully examined again the
peculiar grooves on the bullet. He was about to scrape it, but paused.
Instead, he filled a tube with a soapy solution, placed the bullet in
it, and let it stand. Next he did the same with the pieces of glass
from the envelope.
Then he opened a drawer and from a number of capillary pipettes
selected a plain capillary tube of glass. He held it in the flame of a
burner until it was red hot. Then carefully he drew out one end of the
tube until it was hair fine. Again he heated the other end, but this
time he let the end alone, except that he allowed it to bend by
gravity, then cool. It now had a siphon curve. Another tube he treated
in the same way.