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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Cosmopolitan, June 1915, with "The Absolute Zero"
Craig Kennedy, in this story, makes a startling statement: "Science has become the greatest detective in the world." Is it not true? Not so very long ago many a skilful malefactor evaded the law, and innocent men have been punished because appearances were against them. But nowadays the criminal has the man of science on his track, and is brought face to face with the real accusing facts. Here we have two mysterious deeds, one undoubtedly a crime, than which there would seem to be nothing more improbable as any connection between them, but see what the marvelous Craig discovers when he gets to work.
"ISN'T there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? You must come out to Briar Lake."
When a handsome woman like Mrs. Fraser Ferris pleads, she is irresistible. Not only that, but the story which she had not trusted either to a message or a messenger was deeply interesting, for already it had set agog the fashionable country-house colony.
"Isn't there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy?
You must come out to Briar Lake."
Mrs. Ferris had come to us not as the social leader but as a mother. Only the night before, her son, young Fraser, had been arrested by the local authorities at Briar Lake on the charge of homicide. I had read the meager despatch in the morning papers and had wondered what the whole story might be.
"You see, Professor Kennedy," she began, in an agitated voice, as soon as she arrived at the laboratory and introduced herself to us, "day before yesterday Fraser was boxing at the country club with another young man, Irving Evans."
Kennedy nodded. Both of them were well known. Ferris had been the All-America tackle on the university football team a couple of years previously, and Evans was a crack baseball pitcher several years before.
"Irving," she proceeded, adding, "of course I call him Irving, for his mother and I were schoolgirls together—Irving, I believe, fell unconscious during the bout. I'm telling you just what Fraser told me.
"The other men in the club gymnasium at the time carried him into the locker-room, and there they all did what they could to revive him. They succeeded finally, but when he regained consciousness he complained of a burning sensation in his stomach or, rather, as Fraser says, just below the point where his ribs come together. They say, too, that there was a red spot on his skin about the size of a half-dollar.
"Finally," she continued, with a sigh, "the other men took Irving home—but he lapsed into a half-comatose condition. He never got better. He—he died the next day."
It was evidently a great effort for Mrs. Ferris to talk of the affair which had involved her son, but she had made up her mind to face the necessity, and was going through it bravely.
"Of course," she resumed, a moment later, "the death of Irving Evans caused a great deal of talking. This was natural, in a community like Briar Lake. But I don't think anything would have been thought about it out of the way, if the afternoon after his death—yesterday—the body of one of the club's stewards, Benson, had not been found jammed into a trunk. Apparently it had been dumped off an automobile in one of the most lonely sections of the country.
"In fact," she went on, "it was the sort of thing that might have taken place, one would say, in the dark alleys of a big city. But in a country resort like Briar Lake, the very uncommonness of such a case called added attention to it."
"I understand," agreed Craig; "but why do they suspect your son?"
"That's the ridiculous part of it—at least to me," hastened the mother to her son's defense. "Both Irving and my son, as you know, were former university athletic stars, and, as in all country clubs, I suppose, that meant popularity. Irving was engaged to Anita Allison. Anita is one of the most beautiful and popular girls in the younger set, a splendid golfer, charming and clever, the life of the club at the dances and teas." Mrs. Ferris paused as though she would convey to us just the social status of everyone concerned. "Of course," she threw in parenthetically, "you know the Allisons are reputed to be quite well-off. When old Mr. Allison died, Anita's brother Dean, several years older than herself, inherited the brokerage business of his father and, according to the will, assumed the guardianship of his younger sister."
She seemed to be considering something, then suddenly to make up her mind to tell.
"I suppose everyone knows it," she resumed, "and you ought to know it, too. Fraser was—er—one of Anita's unsuccessful suitors. In fact, Anita had been sought by nearly all of the most eligible young fellows of the club. I don't think there were many who had not, at some time or other, offered her their whole hearts as well as their fortunes. I didn't encourage Fraser—or try to discourage him. But I could see that it lay between Fraser and Irving."
"And the rather strange circumstances of the death of Evans, as well as of the steward, have occasioned a good deal of gossip, I suppose," chimed in Kennedy.
"Yes. Somehow, people began to whisper that it was revenge or hate or jealousy that had prompted the blow—that, perhaps, the steward, Benson, who was very popular with the young men, knew or had seen something that made him dangerous. Anyhow, gossip grew until it seemed that, in some way which no one has ever said definitely, a deliberate attempt was made on Irving Evans' life, and, finally, the local authorities, rather glad to take up a scandal in the club set, took action and arrested my Fraser—on a charge of homicide."
She blurted the words out fiercely and defiantly, but it was all assumed. Underneath, one could see the woman fighting loyally with every weapon for her son, keenly alive to the disgrace that even the breath of scandal, unrefuted, might bring to his name.
"How about the other admirers?" asked Craig quickly.
"That's another queer thing," she replied eagerly. "You see, they have all suddenly become very busy and have made perfect alibis. But there was Allan Wyndham—he's a friend of the Allisons'—why shouldn't they suspect him? In fact, there was quite a group of young fellows closely associated with Dean Allison in speculation. Irving Evans was one. But," she added, with a glance at Kennedy as if she realized that it was like catching at a straw, "with Fraser, of course—there is that blow. We can't deny that."
"What does Miss Allison think?" queried Craig.
"Oh, I believe Anita is all broken up by the tragedy to her fiancé. She was at the club at the time—in the tea-room. No one dared to tell her until Irving had been taken home. Then her brother, who was in the gymnasium when the thing happened and had been one of those to carry Irving into the locker-room, was naturally chosen by the rest, after they had done all they could to revive Irving, to break the news as gently as he could to his sister. She took it calmly. But I think it would have been better if she had given way to her real feelings. They say she has secluded herself in the Allison house and won't see a soul."
Kennedy's brow puckered in thought.
"You can't imagine what a terrible shock this thing has been to me," pleaded Mrs. Ferris. "Oh, the horror of it all! You must come out to Briar Lake with me."
There was, naturally, no doubt of the poignancy of her feelings as she imploringly looked from Kennedy to myself. As for Craig, he did not need to betray the sympathy he felt, not only for the young man who had been arrested, and his mother, but for the poor girl whose life might be blasted by the tragedy, and the unhappy victim who had been snatched away so suddenly, almost on the very eve of happiness.
IT was not half an hour later that, with a very grateful mother, we were on our way out to Briar Lake in Mrs. Ferris's touring car. As we whirled along past the city limits, Kennedy leaned back on the cushions and, for some minutes, seemed absorbed in thought.
"Of course it is possible," he remarked, at length, noticing that both Mrs. Ferris and I were watching him nervously, "that Miss Allison may know something that will throw light on the affair. But it may be of an entirely private nature. I don't know how we'll get her to talk; but we must—if she knows anything. I'd like to stop at the Allison house, first."
"Very well," agreed Mrs. Ferris, leaning forward and directing the chauffeur to turn off the main road before we reached Briar Lake.
We sped along, and I could not help feeling that the young man who was driving the car was quite as eager as anyone else to bring help to his young master.
The Allison house proved to be a roomy, old-fashioned place on a rise of ground just this side of Briar Lake, for the Allisons had been among the first to acquire estates in the exclusive colony.
Mrs. Ferris remained in the car while Kennedy and I went in to introduce ourselves. We found the young society girl evidently now in full possession of her nerves. She was slender, fair, with deep-blue eyes, not merely pretty but with a face that showed character.
Anita Allison had been seated in the library, and, as we entered, I could see that she had hastily shoved some papers, at which she had been looking, into the drawer of a table.
She had hastily shoved some papers, at which she
had been looking, into the drawer of a table.
"Miss Allison," began Kennedy, "this is a most unfortunate affair, and I must beg your pardon—"
"Yes," she interrupted; "I understand. As if I didn't feel badly enough—oh, they have to make it all so much harder to bear by arresting Fraser—and then all this notoriety—it is awful!"
I confess that I had not expected that we would see her so easily. Yet I felt that there was some constraint in her manner, in spite of that.
"I want to speak frankly with you, Miss Allison," went on Craig gently. "Is there anything about the matter—of a personal nature—that you haven't told? I want to appeal to you. Remember, there is another life at stake, now." She looked at us searchingly. Did she suspect that we knew something, or was she herself seeking information?
"No, no," she cried; "there isn't a thing—not a thing that I know that I haven't told—nothing!"
Kennedy said nothing himself, but watched her, apparently assuming that she would go on.
"Oh," she cried, "if I could only do something—anything! It might get my mind off it all. But I—I can't even cry!"
Plainly, there was little except a sort of mental vivisection of her grief to be gained from her yet—even if she suspected something, of which I was not entirely sure.
We excused ourselves and left her, sunk deeply into a leather chair, her face buried in her hands but not weeping.
"Is Mr. Allison at home?" inquired Craig, as we passed, out through the hall, meeting the butler at the door.
"No, sir," the man replied; "he went to New York this morning, sir, and said he'd be at the club later this afternoon."
We climbed into the car and Kennedy looked at his watch.
"It's getting well along in the afternoon," he remarked. "I think I'll go over to the club. We may find Allison there now."
As we turned out into the main road, our driver had to swerve for a car which turned off, coming from the city as we had come a few minutes before. He looked around at it blankly, as it went up the road to the Allison house, for he had had to stall his own engine to avoid a collision. There was no one in the other car but a driver with a vizored hat.
"Whose car was that?" asked Craig quickly.
"Allan Wyndham's," answered our driver, starting his engine.
"H'm!" mused Craig. "Wyndham must have sent her a message from town. Too bad we hurried so to get up here."
At last, as we turned a bend in the main road, the broad chimneys, white columns, and wide balustrades of the Briar Lake Country Club loomed into sight.
THE country club was a most pretentious building; yet, unlike many such clubs, it had a very hospitable air in spite of its aristocratic appearance.
There was something very inviting about its wide sweep of roof and ample piazzas, some enclosed in glass, as we approached by the broad, graveled driveway that swung in from the highway between the gentle curves of green lawns, whose expanse was broken by tall pines, through which we caught a glimpse of hills. It was indeed a beautiful country.
We entered a wide hall and came to the reception-room crowded with luxurious armchairs and cozy corners. In a glass case stood the usual trophies.
Grouped about a huge, deep fireplace was a knot of people, and, here and there, others were talking earnestly. One could feel that this was one of those social institutions not to be in which argued that one was decidedly out of things. I could almost visualize the close scrutiny that new applicants would undergo, not so much as men among men but through the eyes of the women folk, dissecting the wives and daughters of the family.
Founded originally because of the interest of the older members in horses and the hunt, the club had now extended its activities to polo and motors, golf, tennis, squash, with a fine old English bowling-green and ample shooting-traps.
I could not blame Mrs. Ferris for not wishing to enter the club just yet. She had left us at the door, promising to send the car back for our disposal.
Fortunately, Dean Allison was at the club, as we hoped, having just arrived by the train that left New York at the close of the banking-day. Some one told us, however, that Wyndham had probably decided to remain in town overnight.
Allison was perhaps a little older than I had imagined, rather a grave young man, who seemed to take his club responsibilities on the council very seriously.
"I'd like to talk to you about this Evans case," began Craig, when we had introduced ourselves.
"Glad to tell you all I know," he responded cordially. "It isn't much, I'm afraid. It's terrible—terrible! We don't know what to think. My sister is all broken up by it, poor girl!"
He led the way over to a corner, in a sort of bow window, and we sat down on the hard leather cushions.
"No; there isn't much I can say," he resumed. "You see, one of the recreations of the younger set at the club is boxing—that's about all there was to it—not the amateurish thing one usually sees but real scientific boxing.
"Fraser had adopted the so-called Fitzsimmons shift—you know, the right foot forward, while the left hand shoots out from somewhere near the hip, plunging at close range into the pit of the stomach." Allison rose to illustrate it. "Irving, on the other hand, had been advocating the Jeffries crouch as the only safeguard to meet it—like that!" He threw himself into position and went on: "The bout had been arranged accordingly, and it was some bout, too. Most of us here are fond of boxing to keep fit.
"Well, at last, Fraser got under his guard, I suppose you'd call it. He landed. For an instant, Irving stood up straight, his hands helplessly extended. Most of us thought he was fooling, and Fraser jumped back, laughing at the way his contention had worked out. Then, slowly, struggling as if against the inevitable, Irving bent forward and toppled over on his face.
"That's where we woke up. We rushed forward and picked him up, apparently unconscious, and carried him to the locker-room. There was a good deal of excitement. Some one telephoned for a doctor, but couldn't seem to find one at home."
"Did you see anything peculiar take place in the locker-room?" asked Kennedy, following keenly.
"Anything peculiar?"
"Yes; anyone near him. Perhaps another blow—while he was unconscious."
"No; and I think I would have seen anything that was out of the way. I was there almost all the time—until some one told me my sister was upstairs, and suggested that I was the best one to break the news to her."
"I'd like to look over the gymnasium and locker-room," suggested Craig.
Dean Allison led the way downstairs quickly. Craig did not spend more than a minute in the gymnasium, but the locker-room he examined carefully. It was a long room. Each locker bore the name of its owner, and he hastily ran his eye over them, getting their locations.
I don't know that even he had, yet, any idea that he would find anything, but it was just his habit to go over the ground of a tragedy, in hope of picking up some clue. He looked over the floor very carefully, now and then bending down as if to discover spots. Once, he paused a moment, then continued his measured tread down the long row of lockers until he came to a door at the other end of the room. We went out, and Kennedy looked about closely.
"Oh—about Benson, the steward," he said, looking up quickly and stroking his chin as if an idea had occurred to him; "is there anyone here who might know something about him—his habits, associates, that sort of thing?"
"Why, yes," considered Allison slowly, "the chef might know. Wait; I'll call him!"
As Allison disappeared in the direction of what was evidently the kitchen, we stood outside by the door, waiting.
Kennedy's eye traveled back and forth about us and finally fell on a row of rubbish-barrels, a few feet away. He moved over to them.
He had half turned away, retracing his steps to me thoughtfully, when his eye must have been attracted by something gleaming. He turned back and poked at it with his stick. Peeping from the rubbish was a dented thermos bottle, the lining of which was cracked and broken.
He was about to turn away again when his eye fell on something else. It was the top of the bottle, the little metal cap that screws over it, or, rather, it was what was left of the cap.
"That's strange," he muttered to himself, picking it up.
The cap, which might have been used as a cup, was broken in the most peculiar manner, in spite of the fact that it was of metal. If it had been of glass, I should have said that some one had dropped it.
Kennedy frowned and dropped the pieces into his pocket, turning to wait for Allison to return with the chef.
"I can't seem to find him," reported Allison, a moment later, "but he'll be here soon. He'll have to be—or lose his job. How would after dinner do? I'll have him and all the other employees, then."
"Good!" agreed Kennedy. "That will give me time to go into the town first and get back."
"I'll be glad to have you dine with me," invited Allison.
"Thank you," smiled Kennedy. "I'm afraid I won't have time for dining to-night. I'll be back after dinner, though."
MRS. FERRIS'S car had returned, and Craig's next step was to go on into the town of Briar Lake. On the way, he decided, first, to stop at the Evans house, which took us only a little bit out of our way. There he made a minute examination of the body of the young man.
Irving Evans had been a handsome fellow, and the tragedy of his death had been a sad blow to his family. However, I shall not dwell on that, as it is no part of my story.
Kennedy was eager to see the red spot on the pit of the stomach of the dead man of which everyone had spoken.
He looked at it closely, as I did, also, although I could make nothing of it. Evans had complained of a burning, stinging sensation during his moments of consciousness, and the mark had had a flushed, angry look. It seemed as though a sort of crust had formed over it, which now was ashen white.
Craig did not spend as long as I had anticipated at the Evans house, but, although he said nothing, I could tell, by the expression of his face, that he was satisfied with the conclusions which he drew from the examination. Yet, I could not see that the combination of circumstances looked much better for Fraser Ferris.
We went on now to the town, and there we had no trouble in meeting the authorities and getting them to talk. In fact, they seemed quite eager to justify themselves.
As we passed down the main street, Mrs. Ferris's chauffeur mentioned the fact that a local physician, Doctor Welch, was also the coroner of the county. Kennedy asked him to stop at the doctor's office, and we entered.
"A most unfortunate occurrence," prefaced the doctor, as we seated ourselves.
"You assume, then, that it was the blow that killed Evans?" asked Kennedy pointedly.
The doctor looked at him a moment.
"Of course—why not?" he demanded argumentatively, as though we had come all the way from the city for the sole purpose of impugning his medical integrity. "I suppose you know the classical case of the young man who was coming out of the theater when some of the party began indulging in rather boisterous horse-play? One bent another quickly over his arm and tapped him a sharp blow with the disengaged hand on the stretched abdomen. The blow fell right over the solar plexus and, to the surprise of everyone, the young man died." The coroner had risen and was pacing the room slowly. "I could cite innumerable cases. Everyone understands that a blow may be fatal because of shock to the solar plexus. In such a case, no post-mortem trace might be found, and the blow could even be a light one.
"For instance, in a fight, a blow might be struck and the recipient fall dead. If the medical examiner should find nothing, on holding the autopsy, which would have caused sudden death, he can testify that a shock to the solar plexus will cause death and that the post-mortem examination will give no evidence to support or disprove the statement. The absolute absence, however, of any reason, or of injury to the other organs, will add weight to his testimony, evidence of the blow being present."
"And you think this was such a case?" asked Kennedy, with just a trace of a challenge in his tone.
"Certainly," replied the coroner; "certainly. We know that a blow was struck—in all probability hard enough to affect the solar plexus."
It was evident, in his mind at least, that young Ferris was guilty, and Kennedy rose to go, refraining from antagonizing him by further questions.
WE next visited the county court-house, which was not far from the doctor's office. There, the sheriff, a young man, met us and seemed willing to talk over the evidence which so far had been unearthed in the case.
In his office was a trunk, a cheap, brown affair in which the body of the unfortunate steward, Benson, had been found.
"Quite likely the trunk had been carried to the spot in a car and thrown off," the sheriff explained. "A couple of boys happened to find it. They told of their find, and one of the constables opened the trunk, then called us up here. In the trunk was the body of a man, crouched, the head forced between the knees."
"I'd like to see Benson's body," remarked Kennedy.
"Very well; I'll go with you," returned the sheriff. "It's at the undertaker's—our only local morgue."
As we walked slowly up the street, the sheriff went on, just to show that country as well as city detectives knew a thing or two.
"There are just two things in which this differs from the ordinary barrel- or trunk-murder you read about."
"What are they?" encouraged Craig.
"Well, we know the victim. There wasn't any difficulty about identifying him. We know it wasn't really a Black Hand crime, although everything seems to have been done to make it look like one, and the body was left in the most lonely part of the country. And then the trunk. We have traced it easily to the club-house. It was Benson's own trunk—had been up in his own room, which was locked."
"His own trunk?" repeated Craig, suddenly becoming interested. "How could anyone take it out without being seen? Didn't anyone hear anything?"
"No; apparently not. None of the other servants seems to have heard a thing. I don't know how it could have been got out, especially as his door was locked and we found the keys on him. But—well, it was; that's all."
We had reached the undertaker's. The body of Benson was horribly mangled about the head and chest, particularly the mouth. It seemed as if a great hole had been torn in him, and he must have died instantly. Kennedy examined the gruesome remains most carefully. What had done it, I wondered? Could the man have been drugged, perhaps, and then shot?
"Maybe it was a dumdum bullet," I suggested, "one of those that mushroom out and produce such frightful wounds."
"But assuming it entered the front, there is no exit in the back," the sheriff put in quickly, "and no bullet has been found."
"Well, if he wasn't shot," I persisted, "it must have been a blow, and it seems impossible that a blow could have produced such an effect."
The sheriff said nothing, evidently preferring to gain with silence a reputation for superior wisdom. Kennedy had nothing better than silence to offer, either, though he continued, for a long time, to examine the wounds on the body.
OUR last visit in town was to Fraser Ferris himself, to whom the sheriff agreed to conduct us. Ferris was confined in the grim, dark-stone, vine-clad county jail.
We had scarcely entered the forbidding door of the place when we heard a step behind us. We turned to see Mrs. Ferris again. She seemed very much excited, and, together, we four, with a keeper, mounted the steps. As she caught sight of her son behind the bars she seemed to gasp, then nerve herself up to face the ordeal of seeing a Ferris in such a place.
"Fraser!" she cried, running forward.
He was tall, sunburned, and looked like a good sportsman, a clean-cut fellow. It was hard to think of him as a murderer, especially after the affecting meeting of the mother and son.
"Do you know what I've just heard?" she asked, at length, then, scarcely pausing for a word of encouragement from him, she went on, "Why, they say that Benson was in town early that evening, drinking heavily, and that that might account—"
"There—there you are!" Fraser cried earnestly. "I don't know what happened. But why should I do anything to him? Perhaps some one waylaid him. That's plausible."
"Of course," warned Kennedy, a few minutes later, "you know that anything you say may be used against you. But—"
"I will talk," interrupted the young man passionately, "although my lawyer tells me not to. Why, it's all so silly! As for Irving Evans, I can't see how I could have hit him hard enough, while as for poor Benson—well, that's even sillier yet! How should I know anything of that? Besides, they were all at the club late that night—all except me—talking over the—the accident. Why don't they suspect Wyndham? He was there. Why don't they suspect some of the others?"
Mrs. Ferris was trying to keep a brave face, and her son was more eager to encourage her than to do anything else.
"Keep up a good heart, mother!" he called, as we finally left, after his thanking Kennedy most heartily. "They haven't indicted me yet, and the grand jury won't meet for a couple of weeks. Lots of things may turn up before then."
It was evident that, next to the disgrace of the arrest, his mother feared even more the shame of an indictment and trial, even though it might end in an acquittal. Yet, we had found no one, so far as I knew, who had been able to give us a fact that contradicted the deductions of the authorities in the case.
IT was after the dinner-hour that we found ourselves at the country club again. Wyndham had not come back from the city, but Allison was there, and had gathered together all the club help so that Kennedy might question them.
He did question them down in the locker-room, I thought perhaps for the moral effect. The chef, whom I had suspected of knowing something, was there, but proved to be unenlightening. In fact, no one seemed to have anything to contribute—quite the contrary. They could not even suggest a way in which the trunk might have been taken from the steward's room.
"That's not very difficult," smiled Kennedy, as, one after another, the servants asserted that it would be impossible to get it around the turns in the stairs without making a noise. "Where was Benson's room?"
The chef led the way to the door—that by which we had gone out before when we had seen the rubbish-barrels.
"Up there," he pointed, "on the third floor."
There was no fire-escape, nor were there any outside balconies; and I wondered how Craig would account for it.
"Some one might have lowered the trunk from the window by a rope, might they not?" he asked simply.
"Yes," returned the chef, unconvinced; "but his door was locked, and he had his keys in his pocket. How about that?"
"It doesn't follow that he was killed in his room, does it?" asked Craig. "In fact, it is altogether impossible that he could have been. Suppose he was killed outside. Might not some one have taken the keys from his pocket, gone up to the room without making any noise, and let the trunk down here by a rope? Then, if he had dropped the rope, locked the door, and returned the keys to Benson's pockets—how about that?"
It was so simple and feasible that no one could deny it. Yet I could not see that it furthered us in solving the greater mystery.
We even went up to the steward's room and searched his belongings, without finding anything that merited even that expenditure of time.
However, Craig was confident now, although he did not say much; and by a late train we returned to the city, in preference to using Mrs. Ferris's car.
ALL the next day Kennedy was engaged either in his laboratory or on an errand that took him down-town during most of the middle of the day.
When he returned, I could tell by the look on his face that his quest, whatever it had been, was successful.
"I found Wyndham—had a long talk with him," was all he would say, in answer to my questions, before he went back to whatever he was studying at the laboratory.
I had made some inquiries myself in the mean time, especially about Wyndham. As nearly as I could make out, the young men at Briar Lake were afflicted with a disease which is very prevalent—the desire to get rich quickly. In that respect, Fraser Ferris was no better than the rest; nor was Irving Evans. Allan Wyndham had been a plunger almost from boyhood, and only the tight rein that his conservative father held over him had checked him. Sometimes the young men had succeeded, and that had served only to whet their appetites for more easy money. But more often they had failed. In most cases, it seemed, Dean Allison's firm had been the brokers through whom they dealt, particularly Wyndham.
In fact, with more time on my hands during the day than I knew what to do with, in the absence of Kennedy I had evolved several very pretty little theories of the case, which involved the recouping of dissipated fortunes by marriage with the popular young heiress.
It was late in the afternoon that the telephone-bell rang, and, as Craig was busy, I answered it.
"Oh, Mr. Jameson," I heard Mrs. Ferris's voice calling over long-distance from Briar Lake anxiously, "is Mr. Kennedy there? Please let me speak to him!"
I hastened to hand over the receiver to Kennedy and waited impatiently until he finished.
"A special grand jury has been impaneled for ten o'clock to-morrow morning," he said, as he turned from the wire and faced me, "and unless we can do something immediately, they are sure to find an indictment."
Kennedy scowled and shook his head.
"It looks to me as if some one were mighty anxious to railroad young Ferris along," he remarked, hurrying across to the laboratory table, where he had been at work, and flinging off his stained smock.
"Well, are you ready for them?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied quickly. "Call up and find out about the trains to Briar Lake, Walter."
I FOUND that we could easily get a train that would have us at the country club not later than eight o'clock, and, as I turned to tell Kennedy, I saw him carefully packing into a case a peculiar-shaped flask which he had been using in some of his experiments. Outside, it had a felt jacket, and, as we hurried over to the station, Kennedy carried it carefully in the case by a handle.
The ride out to Briar Lake seemed interminable, but it was better than going up in a car at night, and Mrs. Ferris met us anxiously at the station.
Thus, early in the evening, in the little reception-room of the country club, there gathered a large party, not the largest it had seen but certainly the most interested. In fact, no one except young Ferris had any legitimate reason for staying away.
"Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced us, having whispered to me that he wanted me to take a position near the door and stay there, no matter what happened. "But," he added, "science opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in the world.
"Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But to-day the assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to face damning, dispassionate, scientific facts.
"And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal zeal, brings facts to clear an innocent man, protesting his innocence but condemned by circumstantial evidence."
For a moment he paused, and when he began again, it was evident that he was going straight to the point at issue in the case.
"Various theories have been confidently proposed in this unfortunate affair which resulted in the death of Irving Evans," he proceeded. "One thing I want clear at the start. The fact is, and I am not running counter to it, that we have what might very well be called two brains. One, in the head, does the thinking. The other is a sort of abdominal brain, controls nutrition and a host of other functions automatically. It is the solar plexus—the epigastric sympathetic nervous system.
"It is true that the knot of life is situated at the base of the cranial brain. One jab of a needle and it might be quickly extinguished. Yet derangement of the so-called abdominal brain destroys life as effectually, though perhaps not so quickly. A shock to the abdominal brain of young Evans has been administered—in a most remarkable manner!"
I could see Mrs. Ferris watching him with staring eyes, for Kennedy was doing just what many a lawyer does—stating first the bad side of one's case and seeming to establish the contention of the opposite side.
"It was an unfortunate blow," he admitted, "perhaps even dangerous. But it was not deadly. What happened downstairs in the gymnasium must be taken into account with what happened afterward in the locker-room, and both considered in the light of the death of the steward, Benson, later.
"The mark on the stomach of Irving Evans was due to something else than the blow. Everyone has noticed that mark. It was a peculiar mark, and no mere blow could have produced it. Weird in conception, horribly cunning in its execution was this attempt at murder," he added, taking from the case the peculiar flask which I had seen him pack up.
Craig held it up so that we could see. It was evidently composed of two flasks, one inside the other—-the outer encased in felt, as I had seen; the inner coated with quicksilver, and with a space between the two. Inside was a peculiar liquid which had a bluish tinge but was odorless. From the surface a thin vapor seemed to rise.
It was not corked, but from the neck he pulled out a light cotton stopper. As he agitated the liquid slightly, it had the appearance of boiling. He turned over the bottle and spilled some of it on the floor. It evaporated instantly, like water on a hot stove.
Then he took from his pocket a small tin cup and poured out into it some of the liquid, letting it stand a few moments smoking.
He poured back the liquid into the flask and dropped the cup on the hard-wood floor. It shattered as if it had been composed of glass!
One of the men in the front row moved forward to pick up the pieces.
"Just a minute," interfered Kennedy. "If you think anything of your fingers, let that be. In the rubbish, just outside the locker-room, yesterday, I discovered the remains of a thermos bottle and of a metal cup like this, which I have dropped on the floor. I have examined the cup, or, rather, the pieces. These two murders were committed by one of the least known agencies—freezing by liquid air!"
I could hear a gasp from the auditors, and I knew that some one's heart must be icy at the discovery of the portentous secret.
"I have some liquid air in this Dewar flask," continued Kennedy. "That is what liquid air is usually kept in. But it may be kept in an ordinary thermos bottle quite well, also.
"If I should drop just a minute bit on my hand, it would probably boil away without hurting me, for it evaporates so quickly that it forms a layer or film of air which prevents contact of the terribly cold liquid air and the skin. I might thrust my finger in it for a few seconds and it would not hurt me; but if I kept it there, my finger would become brittle and actually break off, so terrible is the cold of one hundred and ninety degrees below zero, centigrade. It produces an instantaneous frost-bite, numbing so quickly that it often is hardly felt. Placed on the surface of flesh this way, it changes it to a pearly-white, solid surface. The thawing, however, is intensely painful, giving first a burning sensation, then a stinging, flushed feeling, exactly as Irving Evans described what he felt. The part affected swells, and a crust forms, which it takes weeks to heal, supposing the part affected is small.
"Some one in that locker-room," continued Craig, "placed a piece of cotton soaked in liquid air on the stomach of the unconscious boy. Instantly, before anyone noticed it, it froze through to the solar plexus. Ultimately that was bound to kill him. And who would bear the blame? Why, Fraser Ferris, of course. The accident in the bout afforded an opportunity to use the stuff which the criminal in his wildest dreams could not have bettered."
"How about Benson, the steward?" spoke up a voice.
We turned. It was the coroner, loath, even yet, to give up the official theory.
"That was a pure accident," returned Kennedy. "The club, as you know, is a temperance club. But the members, or at least some of them, keep drinks in their lockers. The steward, Benson, knew this. It has been shown that he had been in town that evening, had imbibed considerably. He had observed one of the members of the club take from his locker something which he thought was to revive young Evans. What more natural then than for him to visit that locker when he returned from town and open it?
"He found a thermos bottle. Instead of the regular cork, it had a light cotton stopper. In his muddled state, the steward did not stop to think. Even if he had, he would have seen no reason for carefully corking something that was not designed to keep in a thermos bottle.
"But instead of whisky, the bottle contained what had not yet evaporated of the liquid air. You may not know it, but liquid air can be easily preserved in open vessels with a stopper which allows the passage of the evaporated air. However paradoxical it may seem, it cannot be kept in closed vessels, for enormous pressures are at once brought into play.
"Benson opened the bottle and poured out some of the contents in the metal cup-cap of the bottle. He raised it to his lips—swallowed it—or that much of it that did not paralyze him. It expanded, boiled, exploded—producing that ghastly wound.
"The owner of the liquid air, who must have had it there waiting a chance to use it, was probably waiting up in the club-rooms now, for a chance to get rid of it as evidence. He must have heard a noise down in the locker-room. What if he had been observed and some one were down there investigating?
"He hurried down there. To his horror, in the darkness he found Benson already dead, the locker open, the thermos bottle broken, and the cup smashed.
"It was a terrible clue. He must get that body away from the locker-room. He could throw the bottle out; no one could suspect anything when the air had evaporated, as it soon would. But the body—that was different. The method he employed in getting rid of the body, I think you already know."
I had been watching Wyndham's face, and saw in it a look of startled surprise.
"Was it one of Anita Allison's many admirers who did this thing?" Craig asked suddenly.
I turned from Wyndham to Craig, wondering. What did he mean? Before he could go on, there came a startled cry from one of the ladies.
"Oh, he did it—he did it!"
Anita Allison had fainted.
Dean Allison was at his sister's side in a moment.
Dean Allison was at his sister's side in a moment.
"Here—let me get her out into the fresh air!" he cried.
Wyndham had started up at the words, and the two men were facing each other over the girl, who had already discovered the secret but had kept it locked in her breast.
"Walter, lock that door!" rang out Craig's voice mercilessly.
I backed up, my whole weight against it, and turned the key.
"I know the gossip of Wall Street now," shot out Kennedy hurriedly, facing the crowd, who were all on their feet. "To-day, I have visited a number of the speculative young gentlemen of Briar Lake, including Mr. Wyndham. The truth is that Miss Allison's fortune was gone—dissipated in an unsuccessful bear raid on the market in which others have shared—and lost. If she had married, it meant an accounting and surrendering to her full control of her fortune. You have done this dastardly crime, Dean Allison, to keep your sister in ignorance of the loss and to save your own miserable reputation!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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