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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Of all the strangely persistent remnants of primitive culture that still enslave the human mind, none is so potent as the belief in the evil-bringing practises of voodoo which prevails in the West Indies. It is true that in enlightened America we often hear of "hoodoo," which is the same word, but we venture to assume that the idea has no real terrors for any Cosmopolitan reader. Here Craig Kennedy encounters, in New York city, a strange lot of people from the voodoo-infested island of Haiti—a novel experience even for one who has learned so much of the waywardness of human motives. It is an extraordinary situation upon which he has to exercise his genius, and one that, but for his great scientific knowledge, must have had disastrous consequences for several innocent people concerned
"EVERYBODY'S crazy, Kennedy! The whole world's going mad!"
Our old friend Burke, of the secret service, scowled at the innocent objects in Craig's laboratory. "And the secret service is as bad as the rest," he went on, still scowling and not waiting for any comment from us. "Why, what with these European spies and agitators, strikers and dynamiters, we're nearly dippy! Here, in less than a week, I've been shifted off war-cases to Mexico, and now to Haiti. I don't mean that I've been away, of course—oh, no! You don't have to go to them. They come to us. Confound it, New York is full of plots and counter-plots!"
Craig listened with sympathy mixed with amusement.
"Can I help you out?" he asked.
"If you don't, I'll be dippy, too," returned Burke, with a whimsical grimace.
"What's the trouble with Haiti, then?" encouraged Kennedy seriously.
"Trouble enough," answered Burke. "Why, here's that Caribbean liner, Haitien, just in from Port au Prince. She's full of refugees—government supporters and revolutionists. You never saw such a menagerie since the ark!"
I watched Burke keenly as he cut loose with his often picturesque language. Somehow, it seemed rather fascinating to have the opéra bouffe side of the Black Republic presented to us. At least, it was different from anything we had had lately—and perhaps not all opéra bouffe, either. Kennedy, at least, thought so, for, although he was very busy at the time, he seemed prepared to lay aside his work to aid Burke.
"You haven't heard about it yet," continued the secret-service man, "but on the Haitien was a man—black, of course— Guillaume Léon. He was a friend of the United States—at least, so he called himself, I believe—wanted a new revolution down there, more American marines landed to bolster up a new government that would clean things up, a new deal all around." Burke paused, then added, by way of explanation of his own attitude in the matter: "That may be all right, perhaps—may be just what they need down there—but we can't let people come here and plot revolutions like that right in New York."
"Quite right," agreed Kennedy. "About Léon?"
"Yes; Léon," resumed Burke, getting back to the subject. "Well, I was told by the chief of the service to look out for this fellow. And I did. I thought it would make a good beginning to go down the bay on a revenue tug to meet the Haitien at Quarantine. But, by jingo, no sooner was I over the side of the ship than what do you suppose I ran up against?" He did not pause long enough to give us a guess, but shot out dramatically, "Léon was dead—yes, dead!
"But, by jingo, no sooner was I over the side of
the ship than what do you suppose I ran up against?"
"He died on the voyage up," continued Burke, "just after passing the Gulf Stream, suddenly, and from no apparent cause. At least the ship's surgeon couldn't find any cause, and neither could they down at Quarantine. So, after some time, they let the ship proceed, and placed the whole thing in the hands of the secret service."
"Is there anyone you suspect?" I asked.
"Suspect?" repeated Burke. "I suspect them all. The Haitien was full of niggers —as superstitious as they make 'em. The ship's surgeon tells me that after the body of Léon was discovered, there was such a scene as he had never witnessed. It was more like bedlam than a group of human beings. Some were for putting the body over into the sea immediately. Others threatened murder if it was done. Then, there was a woman there. She seemed to be nearly crazy—"
There came a knock at the door.
"If you'll just go into the next room with Walter," said Craig to Burke, "I'll see you in a few minutes."
I went in with him, and Burke dropped into a chair beside my typewriter. The laboratory door opened. From where we were sitting we could see in a mirror on the opposite wall that it was a girl, dark of skin, perhaps a mulatto, but extremely beautiful, with great brown eyes and just a trace of kinkiness in her black hair. But it was the worried almost hunted look on her face that attracted one's attention most.
I happened to glance at Burke to see whether he had noticed it. I thought his eyes would pop out of his head.
Just then, Kennedy walked across the laboratory and closed our door.
"What's the matter?" I whispered.
But before Burke could reply, a draft opened the door just a bit. He placed his finger on his lips. We could not close the door, and we sat there in our corner unintentional but no less interested eavesdroppers.
"Mademoiselle Collette aux Cayes is my name," she began, with a strangely French accent which we could just understand. "I've heard of you, Professor Kennedy, as a great detective."
"I should be glad to do what I can for you," he returned. "But you mustn't expect too much. You seem to be in some great trouble."
"Trouble—yes," she replied excitedly. "My name isn't really aux Cayes. That is the name of my guardian, a friend of my father's. Both my father and mother are dead—killed by a mob during an uprising, several years ago. I was in Paris at the time, being educated in a convent, or I suppose I should have been killed, too."
She seemed to take it as a matter of course, from which I concluded that she had been sent to Paris when she was very young and did not remember her parents very well.
"At last the time came for me to go back to Haiti," she resumed. "There is nothing that would interest you about that— except that, after I got back, in Port au Prince, I met a young lawyer—Guillaume Léon."
She hesitated and looked at Craig as though trying to read whether he had ever heard the name before; but Kennedy betrayed nothing. There was more than that in her tone, though. It was evident that Léon had been more than a friend to her,
"Haiti has been so upset during the past months," she went on, "that my guardian decided to go to New York, and, of course, I was taken along with him. It happened that on the ship—the Haitien—Monsieur Léon went also. It was very nice until—" She came to a full stop. Kennedy encouraged her gently, knowing what she was going to tell. "One night, after we had been out some time," she resumed unexpectedly, "I could not sleep, and I went out on the deck to walk and watch the moonlight. As I walked softly up and down, I heard voices, two men in the shadow of one of the cabins. They were talking, and now and then I could catch a word. It was about Guillaume. I heard them say that he was plotting another revolution, that that was the reason he was going to New York. There was something about money, too, although I couldn't get it very clearly. It had to do with an American banking house, Forsythe & Company, I think— money that was to be paid to Guillaume to start an uprising. I think they must have heard me, for I couldn't hear any more and they moved off from the deck, so that I couldn't recognize them. You see, I am not a revolutionist. My guardian belongs to the old order." She stopped again, as though in doubt just how to go on. "Anyhow," she continued finally, "I determined to tell Guillaume. It would have made it harder for us—but it was he, not his politics, I loved." She was almost crying as she blurted out: "But it was only the next day that he was found dead in his stateroom. I never saw him alive after I overheard that talk."
It was some moments before she had calmed herself so that she could go on.
"You know our people, Professor Kennedy," she resumed, choking back her sobs. "Some said his dead body was like Jonah, and ought to be thrown off to the sea. Then others didn't want to do that. Some said that it ought to be embalmed. And others didn't want it done."
"What do you mean? Who were they?" asked Craig.
"Oh, there was one man—Castine," she replied, hesitating over the name.
"He wanted it thrown overboard?"
"N-no; he didn't want that, either," she replied. "He urged them not to touch it—just to leave it alone."
She was very much frightened, yet something seemed to impel her to go on.
"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she exclaimed, in a sudden burst of renewed feeling, "don't you understand? I—I loved him—even after I found out about the money and what he intended to do with it. I could not see his dear body thrown in the ocean."
She shivered all over at the thought, and it was some time before she said anything more. But Kennedy let her do as she pleased, as he often did when deep emotion was wringing the secrets from people's hearts.
"He is dead!" she sobbed wildly. "Was he poisoned? Oh, can't you find out? Can't you help me?" Suddenly her voice, in wild appeal, sank almost to a hoarse whisper. "You must not let anybody know that I came to you," she implored.
"Why not?"
"Oh—I—I am just afraid—that's all."
There was real fear in her tone and face now, fear for herself.
"Where is the body?" asked Kennedy, to get her mind off whatever hung like an incubus over it.
"Down on the Haitien, at the pier, over in Brooklyn," she replied. "They kept us all interned there. But my guardian had enough influence to get off for a time and, while he is arranging for quarters for our stay after we are released, I slipped away."
"You must go back to the boat?"
"Oh, yes; we agreed to do that."
"Then I shall be down immediately," Craig promised. "If you will go ahead, I will see you there. Perhaps, at first you had better not recognize me. I will contrive some way to meet you."
"Thank you," she murmured, as she rose to go, now in doubt whether she had done the best thing to come to Craig, now glad that she had some outside assistance.
He accompanied her to the door, bidding her keep up her courage, then closed it, waiting until her footsteps down the hall had died away. Then he opened our door and caught sight of Burke's face.
"That's strange, Burke," he began, before he realized what the expression on his face meant. "There's a woman—what? You don't mean to tell me that you knew her?"
"Why, yes," hastened Burke; "there was a rich old planter, Henri aux Cayes, aboard, too. She's his ward, Mademoiselle Collette."
"That's right," nodded Craig, in surprise.
"She's the woman I was telling you about. She may be a little dark, but she's a beauty, all right. I heard what she said. No wonder she was so frantic, then."
"What do you know of the bankers, Forsythe & Company?" asked Craig.
"Forsythe & Company?" considered Burke. "Well, not much, perhaps. But for a long time, I believe, they've been the bankers and promoters of defunct Caribbean islands, reaping a rich harvest out of the troubles of those decrepit governments."
"H-m," mused Kennedy. "Can you go over to Brooklyn with me now?"
"Of course," agreed Burke, brightening up; "that was what I hoped you'd do."
Kennedy and I were just about to leave the laboratory with Burke when an idea seemed to occur to Craig. He excused himself and went back to a cabinet where I saw him place a little vial and a hypodermic needle in his vest pocket.
OUR trip over to the other borough was uneventful, except for the toilsome time we had to get to the docks where South and Central American ships are moored. We boarded the Haitien at last, and Burke led us along the deck toward a cabin. I looked about curiously. There seemed to be the greatest air of suppressed excitement. Everyone was talking, in French, too. Yet everything seemed to be in whispers, as if they were in fear.
We entered the cabin after our guide. There, in the dim light, lay the body of Léon in a bunk. There were several people in the room already, among them the beautiful Mademoiselle Collette. She pretended not to recognize Kennedy until we were introduced, but I fancied I saw her start at finding him in company with Burke. Yet she did not exhibit anything more than surprise, which was quite natural.
Burke turned the sheet down from the face of the figure in the bunk. Léon had been a fine-looking specimen of his race. Kennedy bent over and examined the body carefully.
"A very strange case," remarked the ship's surgeon, whom Burke beckoned over a moment later.
"Quite," agreed Craig absently, as he drew the vial and the hypodermic from his pocket, dipped the needle in, and shot a dose of the stuff into the side of the body.
"I can't find out that there is any definite cause of death," resumed the surgeon.
Before Craig could reply, some one else entered the darkened cabin. We turned and saw Collette run over to him and take his hand.
"My guardian, Monsieur aux Cayes," she introduced, then turned to him with a voluble explanation of something in French.
Aux Cayes was a rather distinguished-looking Haitien, darker than Collette, but evidently of the better class and one who commanded respect among the natives.
"It is quite extraordinary," he said, with a marked accent, taking up the surgeon's remark. "As for these people"—he threw out his hands in a deprecating gesture— "one cannot blame them for being perplexed when you doctors disagree."
Kennedy had covered up Léon's face again, and Collette was crying softly.
"Don't, my dear child!" soothed aux Cayes, patting her shoulder gently.
It was evident that he adored his beautiful ward and would have done anything to relieve her grief. Kennedy evidently thought it best to leave the two together, as aux Cayes continued to talk to her in familiar phrases from the French.
"Were there any other people on the boat who might be worth watching?" he asked, as we rejoined Burke, who was looking about at the gaping crowd.
Burke indicated a group.
"Well, there was an old man, Castine, and the woman he calls his wife," he replied. "They were the ones who really kept the rest from throwing the body overboard."
"Oh, yes," assented Kennedy; "she told me about them. Are they here now?"
Burke moved over to the group and beckoned some one aside toward us. Castine was an old man with gray hair, and a beard which gave him quite an appearance of wisdom, besides being a matter of distinction among those who were beardless. With him was Madame Castine, much younger and not unattractive for a negress.
"You knew Monsieur Léon well?" asked Kennedy.
"We knew him in Port au Prince—like everybody," replied Castine.
"Do you know of any enemies of his on the boat?" cut in Burke. "You were present when they were demanding that his body be thrown over, were you not? Who was foremost in that?"
Castine shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory manner.
"I do not speak English very well," he replied. "It was only those who fear the dead."
There was evidently nothing to be gained by trying on him any of Burke's third-degree methods. He had always that refuge that he did not understand very well.
I turned and saw that Collette and aux Cayes had come out of the cabin to the deck together, he holding her arm while she dabbed the tears away from her eyes.
At the sight of us talking to Castine and the other woman, she seemed to catch her breath. She did not speak to us, but I saw the two women exchange a glance of appraisal, and I determined that "Madame" Castine was at least worth observing.
By the attitude of the group- from which we had drawn them, Castine, it seemed, exercised some kind of influence over all— rich and poor, revolutionist and government supporter.
The appearance of Collette occasioned a buzz of conversation and glances, and it was only a moment before she retreated into the cabin again. Apparently she did not wish to lose anything as long as Kennedy and Burke were about.
Kennedy did not seem to be so much interested in quizzing Castine just yet, now that he had seen him, as he was in passing the time profitably for a few minutes. He looked at his watch, snapped it back into his pocket, and walked deliberately into the cabin again.
There he drew back the cover over Léon's face, bent over it, raised the lids of the eyes, and gazed into them.
Collette, who had been standing near him, watching every motion, drew back with an exclamation of horror and surprise.
"The voodoo sign is on him!" she cried. "It must be that!"
Almost in panic she fled, dragging her guardian with her.
I, too, looked. The man's eyes were actually green now. What did it mean?
"Burke," remarked Kennedy decisively, "I shall take the responsibility of having the body transferred to my laboratory where I can observe it. I'll leave you to attend to the formalities with the coroner. Then I want you to get in touch with Forsythe & Company. Watch them, and watch their visitors particularly."
A PRIVATE ambulance was called, and the body of Léon was carried on a stretcher, covered by a sheet, down the gangplank and placed in it. We followed closely in a taxi-cab, across the bridge and up-town.
For some days, I may say, Kennedy had been at work in his laboratory in a little anteroom, where he was installing some new apparatus. It was a very complicated affair, one part of which seemed to be a veritable room within the room. Into this chamber, as it were, he now directed the men to carry Léon's body and lay it on a sort of bed, or pallet, that was let down from the side wall of the compartment.
Outside the small chamber I have spoken of, in the room itself were several large pieces of machinery, huge cylinders with wheels and belts, run by electric motors. No sooner had the body been placed in the little chamber and the door carefully closed than Kennedy threw a switch, setting the apparatus in motion.
"How could Léon have been killed?" I asked, as he rejoined me in the outside laboratory. "What did Collette mean by her frightened cry of the 'voodoo sign'?"
The incident had made a marked impression on me, and I had been unable quite to arrive at any sensible explanation.
"Of course, you know that 'voodoo' means anything that inspires fear," remarked Kennedy, after a moment's thought. "The god of voodoo is the snake. I cannot say now what it was that she feared. But to see the eyeballs turn green is uncanny, isn't it?"
"I should say so," I agreed. "But is that all?" He shook his head.
"No; I don't believe it is. Haiti is the hotbed of voodoo worship. The cult has inaugurated a sort of priesthood—often a priest and priestess, called papaloi and mammaloi—papa and mamma, probably with a corruption of the French word, roi, king. They are, as it were, heads of the community, father and mother, king and queen. Some of the leading men of the communities in the islands of the Caribbean are secret voodooists and leaders. As to just what is going on under the surface in this case, I cannot even hazard a guess. But there is some deviltry afoot."
Just then the telephone-bell rang.
"It was from Burke," Craig said, as he hung up the receiver. "No one from the ship seems to have been down to see Forsythe, but Forsythe has had people over at the ship. Burke says some one is sending off great bunches of messages to Haiti —he thinks the powerful wireless apparatus of the Haitien is being used."
For a moment, Kennedy stood in the center of the laboratory, thinking. Then he appeared to make up his mind.
"Has that taxi-cab gone?" he asked, opening a cabinet from which he took several packages.
I looked out of the window. The ambulance had gone back; but the driver of the car had evidently waited to call up his office for instructions. I beckoned to him, and together Kennedy and I placed the packages in the car.
Thus we were able quickly to get back again to the wharf where the Haitien was berthed. Instead of going aboard again, however, Kennedy stopped just outside, where he was not observed, and got out of the car, dismissing it.
IN the office of the steamship company, he sought one of the employees and handed him a card, explaining that we were aiding Burke in the case. The result of the parley was that Kennedy succeeded in getting to the roof of the covered pier on the opposite side from that where the ship lay.
There he set to work on a strange apparatus, wires from which ran up to a flagpole on which he was constructing what looked like a hastily improvised wireless aerial. That part arranged, Kennedy followed his wires down again and took them in by a window to a sort of lumber-room back of the office.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Installing a wireless plant?"
"Not quite," he smiled quietly. "This is a home-made wireless photo-recording set. Of course, wireless aerials of amateurs don't hum any more since war has caused the strict censorship of all wireless. But there is no reason why one can't receive messages, even if they can't be sent by everybody. This is a fairly easy and inexpensive means by which automatic records can be taken. It involves no delicate instruments, and the principal part of it can be made in a few hours from materials that I have in my laboratory. The basis is the capillary electrometer."
"Sounds very simple," I volunteered, trying not to be sarcastic.
"Well, here it is," he indicated, touching what looked like an ordinary soft-glass tube of perhaps a quarter of an inch diameter, bent U-shaped, with one limb shorter than the other. "It is filled nearly to the top of the shorter limb with chemically pure mercury," he went on. "On the top of it, I have poured a little twenty-per-cent. sulphuric acid. Dipping into the acid is a small piece of capillary tube drawn out to a very fine point at the lower end." He filled the little tube with mercury also. "The point of this," he observed, "is fine enough to prevent the mercury running through of its own weight —about as fine as a hair."
He dipped the point and held it in the sulphuric acid and blew through the capillary tube. When the mercury bubbled through the point in minute drops, he stopped blowing. It drew back for a short distance by capillary attraction, and the acid followed it up.
"You can see that connections are made to the mercury in the arm and the tube by short pieces of platinum wire," he continued. "It isn't necessary to go into the theory of the instrument. But the most minute difference of potential between the two masses of mercury will cause the fine point at the junction of the liquids to move up and down. Connected to the aerial and the earth, with a crystal detector in series, it is only a matter of applying an ordinary photo-recording drum, and the machine is made."
He had been setting up a light-tight box, inside of which was a little electric lamp. Opposite was a drum covered with bromide paper. He started the clockwork going, and, after a few moments' careful observation, he went away and left the thing, trusting that no one was the wiser.
THE time was shortening during which Burke could keep the passengers of the Haitien under such close surveillance, and it was finally decided that on the next morning they should be released, while all those suspected were to be shadowed separately by secret-service agents, in the hope that, once free, they would commit some overt act that might lead to a clue.
It was early the next morning, about half an hour after the time set for the release of the passengers, that the laboratory door was flung open, and Collette aux Cayes rushed in, wildly excited.
The laboratory door was flung open, and
Collette aux Cayes rushed in, wildly excited.
"What's the matter?" asked Kennedy.
"Some one has been trying to keep me on the boat," she panted, "and all the way over here a man has been following me."
Kennedy looked at her a minute calmly.
We could understand why she might have been shadowed, though it must have been a bungling job of Burke's operative. But who could have wanted her kept on the boat?
"I don't know," she replied, in answer to Kennedy's question. "But, somehow, I was the only one not told that we could go. And when I did go, one of the secret-service men stopped me."
"Are you sure it was a secret-service man?"
"He said he was."
"Yes; but if he had been, he would not have done that, or let you get away, if he had. Can't you imagine any one who might want you detained longer?"
She looked at us, half frightened.
"N-not unless it is that man—or the woman with him," she replied.
"You mean Castine?"
"Yes," she replied, avoiding the use of his name; "ever since you had the body removed, he has been in great fear. I have heard him ask fifty times, 'Where have they taken him?' and, 'Is he to be embalmed?'"
"That's strange," remarked Kennedy. "Why that anxiety from him? I remember that it was he who wanted the body left alone. Is it for fear that we might discover something?"
Kennedy disappeared into the anteroom, and I heard him making a great fuss as he regulated the various pieces of machinery. Some minutes later, he emerged.
"Meet us here in an hour," he directed Collette, "with your guardian."
Quickly Craig telephoned for a tank of oxygen to be sent over to the laboratory, then got Burke on the wire, and asked him to meet us down at the dock.
WE arrived first, and Craig hurried into the lumber-room, where, fortunately, he found everything undisturbed. He tore off the strip of paper from the drum and held it up. On it was a series of marks, which looked like dots and dashes of a peculiar kind, along a sort of base line. Carefully he ran his eye over the strip. Then he shoved it into his pocket in great excitement.
"Hello!" greeted Burke, as he came up puffing from the hurried trip over from the custom-house, where his office was. "What's doing now?"
"A great deal, I think," returned Kennedy. "Can you locate Castine and that woman and come up to the laboratory?"
"I can put my finger on them in five minutes, and be there in half an hour," he returned, not pausing to inquire further.
Together, Craig and I returned to the laboratory to find that Collette aux Cayes was already there with her guardian, as solicitous as ever for her comfort, and breathing fire and slaughter against the miscreants who had tried to detain her.
Some minutes later Castine and "Madame" Castine arrived. At sight of Collette she seemed both defiant and restless—as though sensing trouble, I thought. Few words were spoken now by anyone as Burke and I completed the party.
"Will you be so kind as to step into the little anteroom with me?" invited Craig, holding open the door for us.
We entered and he followed, then, as he led the way, stopped before a little glass window in the compartment which I have described. Collette was next to me, and I could imagine the tenseness of her senses as she gazed through the window at the body on the shelf-like pallet inside.
"What is this thing?" asked aux Cayes, as Collette drew back and he caught her by the arm.
For the moment, Kennedy said nothing, but opened a carefully sealed door and slid the pallet out, unhinging it, while I saw Castine trembling and actually turning ashen about the lips.
"This," Kennedy replied, at length, "is what is known as a respiration calorimeter, which I have had constructed after the ideas of Professors Atwater and Benedict, of Wesleyan, with some improvements of my own. It is used, as you may know, in studying food-values, both by the government and by other investigators. A man could live in that room for ten or twelve days. My idea, however, was to make use of it for other things than that for which it was intended."
He took a few steps over to the complicated apparatus which had so mystified me, now at rest as he turned the switch when he opened the carefully sealed door.
"It is what is known as a closed-circuit calorimeter," he went on. "For instance, through this tube air leaves the chamber. Here is a blower. At this point, the water in the air is absorbed by sulphuric acid. Next, the carbon dioxide is absorbed by soda-lime. Here a little oxygen is introduced to keep the composition normal, and, at this point, the air is returned to the chamber." He traced the circuit as he spoke, then paused and remarked: "Thus, you see, it is possible to measure the carbon dioxide and the other respiration-products. As for heat, the walls are constructed so that the gain or loss of heat in the chamber is prevented. Heat cannot escape in any other way than that provided for carrying it off and measuring it. Any heat is collected by this stream of water, which keeps the temperature constant, and in that way we can measure any energy that is given off. The walls are of concentric shells of copper and zinc with two of wood, between which is 'dead air,' an effective heat insulator. In other words," he concluded, "it is like a huge thermos bottle."
It was all very weird and fascinating. But what he could have been doing with a dead body, I could not imagine. Was there some subtle, unknown poison which had hitherto baffled science but which now he was about to reveal to us? He seemed to be in no hurry to overcome the psychological effect his words had on his auditors, for, as he picked up and glanced at a number of sheets of figures, he went on:
"In the case of live persons, there is a food-aperture here, a little window with air-locks arranged for the passage of food and drink. That large window through which you looked admits light. There is also a telephone. Everything is arranged so that all that enters, no matter how minute, is weighed and measured. The same is true of all that leaves. Nothing is too small to take into account." He shook the sheaf of papers before us. "Here I have some records which have been made by myself and, in my absence, by one of my students. In them the most surprising thing that I have discovered is that in the body of Léon metabolism seems still to be going on."
I listened to him in utter amazement, wondering toward what his argument was tending.
"I got my first clue from an injection of fluorescin," he resumed, "You know there are many people who have a horror of being buried alive. It's a favorite theme of the creepy-creep writers. As you know, the heart may stop beating, but that does not necessarily mean that the person is dead. There are on record innumerable cases where the use of stimulants has started again the beating of a heart that has stopped.
"Still, burial alive is hardly likely among civilized people, for the simple reason that the practise of embalming makes death practically certain. At once, when I heard there had been objections to the embalming of this body, I began to wonder why they had been made.
"Then it occurred to me that one certain proof of death was the absolute cessation of circulation. You may not know, but scientists have devised this fluorescin test to take advantage of that. I injected about ten grains. If there is any circulation, there should be an emerald-green discoloration of the cornea of the eye. If not, the eye should remain perfectly white.
"I tried the test. The green eyeball gave me a hint. Then I decided to make sure with a respiration calorimeter that would measure whatever heat, what breath, no matter how minute they were."
Collette gave a start as she began to realize vaguely what Craig was driving at.
"It was not the voodoo sign, mademoiselle," he said, turning to her. "It was a sign, however, of something that suggested at once to me the connection of voodoo practises."
There was something so uncanny about it that my own heart almost skipped beating, while Burke, on my other side, muttered something which was not meant to be profane.
Collette was now trembling violently, and I took her arm so that, if she should faint, she would not fall either on my side or on that of her guardian, who seemed himself on the verge of keeling over. Castine was mumbling. Only his wife seemed to retain her defiance.
"The skill of the voodoo priests in the concoction of strange drafts from the native herbs of Haiti is well known," Kennedy began again. "There are among them fast and slow poisons, poisons that will kill almost instantly and others that are gaged in strength to accumulate and resemble wasting away and slow death.
"I know that, in all such communities to-day, no one will admit that there is such a thing still as the human sacrifice, 'the lamb without horns.' But there is on record a case where a servant was supposed to have died. The master ordered the burial, and it took place. But the grave was robbed. Later, the victim was resuscitated and sacrificed.
"Most uncanny of the poisons is that which will cause the victim to pass into an unconscious condition so profound that it may easily be taken for death. It is almost cataleptic. Such is the case here. My respiration calorimeter shows that from that body there are still coming the products of respiration. It must have been that peculiar poison of the voodoo priests that was used."
Racing on now, not giving any of us a chance even to think of the weird thing except to shudder instinctively, Kennedy drew from his pocket and slapped down on a table the photographic records that had been taken by his home-made wireless recording apparatus.
"From Mr. Burke," he said, as he did so, "I received the hint that many messages were being transmitted by wireless, secretly perhaps, from the Haitien. I wanted to read those messages that were being flashed so quietly and secretly through the air. How could it be done? I managed to install down at the dock an apparatus known as the capillary electrometer. By the use of this almost unimaginably delicate instrument, I was able to drag down literally out of the air the secrets that seemed so well hidden from all except those for whom they were intended. Listen!" He took the roll of paper from the drum and ran his finger along it hastily, translating to himself the Morse code as he passed from one point to another. "Here," cried Craig excitedly: "'Léon out of way for time safely. Revolution suppressed before Forsythe can make other arrangements. Conspiracy frustrated.' Just a moment—here's another: 'Have engaged bridal suite at Hotel La Coste. Communicate with me there after to-morrow.'"
Still holding the wireless record, Kennedy swung about to Burke and myself.
"Burke, stand over by the door!" he shouted. "Walter—that tank of oxygen!"
I dragged over the heavy tank which he had ordered, as he adjusted a sort of pulmotor breathing-apparatus over Léon.
Castine was now on his knees, his aged arms outstretched.
"Before God, Mr. Kennedy—I didn't do it! I didn't give Léon the poison!"
Kennedy, however, engrossed in what he was doing, paid no attention to the appeal.
Suddenly I saw what might have been a faint tremor of an eyelid on the pallid body before us.
I felt Collette spring forward from my side.
"He lives! He lives!" she cried, falling on her knees before the still cataleptic form. "Guillaume!"
There was just a faint movement of the lips, as though, as the man came back from another world, he would have called, "Collette!"
"Seize that man—it is his name signed to the wireless messages!" shouted Kennedy, extending his accusing forefinger at aux Cayes, who had plotted so devilishly to use his voodoo knowledge both to suppress the revolution and, at the same time, to win his beautiful ward for himself from her real lover.
"Seize that man—it is his name signed
to the wireless messages!" shouted Kennedy.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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