Fire

Roy Glashan's Library
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ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

FIRE

RGL e-Book Cover^©

First published in Flynn's, 11 Oct 1924

Reprinted in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, 27 Sep 1925

Collected in "The Fourteen Points,"
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-01-26

Produced by Art Lortie, Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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Flynn's, 11 Oct 1924, with "Fire"

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

Illustration from "Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine."

Footsteps—stealthy footsteps—then the click of a key—

"OPERATOR, I had the Follies box-office. You cut me off.... Some one calling me?... Gamble's Funeral Parlor?... What? Oh—hang it!—Leslie, that you?... Trying to get me?... Well, you are a joy-killer!"

Kennedy turned from the telephone a moment later. "Mrs. Oakley Asche is dead and her physician refuses to sign the death certificate. Doctor Leslie—you remember him, the medical examiner?—is up there and wants me."

"Mrs. Oakley Asche?" I repeated. I was thinking of the vanity of the rich old lady. Several months before she had startled the readers of society news by marrying the Broadway health culturist, Professor Gaston Asche.

Craig smiled. "Must have been well into her sixties to get the name of the 'million-dollar gray flapper.'"

"Kennedy," he explained, "it began when Doctor Davids expressed a doubt that it was a natural death. You know it almost never happens in a poisoning case that the attending physician has an inkling of what is going on.

"Davids's hesitation about filling in the certificate aroused the health authorities. They called in the police. That's how I got here. But I can't find anything wrong, except that there must have been arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure and all that; nothing else, however—yet."

"Davids—Davids," I repeated, "I could swear I have heard that name and Mrs. Asche's—and not in the capacity of her physician."

"Very likely you have; Doctor Oakley Davids is her nephew," returned Leslie, adding reflectively, "he would also have been her heir if she had not married this Asche. That's what makes me go slow. I see in it the possible foundation for a will contest—'undue influence' on the part of Asche at a time when it might be that Mrs. Asche was mentally incompetent."

"Davids is really a specialist in cancer treatment by X-rays," interposed Kennedy.

"Tell me something of the history of the case," continued Craig, as we walked down a somber corridor.

"Well, I understand that this afternoon she had a sort of stroke, in her boudoir. Her face was covered with some beauty clay or other at the time. Her maid thought it was apoplexy. Maybe it was. She called Doctor Davids. Mrs. Asche was unconscious when he arrived soon after—and died a few moments later, before he was able to do anything for her, without regaining consciousness."

"But how does it come the body is here? I understood that the old Oakley house was one of those remodeled in the old Chelsea district, with a private park shared by the houses fronting it, and all that."

Leslie shook his head. "I don't know how it came about that her body got here so soon. Some mix-up between the Health Department, the police and her husband, I imagine. Anyhow, it's here and the police are here, I'm here, and now you're here. It's up to us."

Unconsciously one treads softly in the presence of the dead. The room was dimly lighted by one shaded electrie bulb. The draught from a ventilator made the draperies about the crypt move uncannily.

It seemed impossible to think that Mrs. Oakley Asche was dead. Even in death appeared her love of the beautiful, the exquisite. Her hands folded, she looked like one asleep. There was certainly no evidence of violence, of fear, of terror, of emaciation, or, now, of Buffering. I looked at the woman and marveled.

Kennedy's own first glance brought an exclamation to his lips. "Leslie, that woman past sixty looks like the Sleeping Beauty waiting for the Prince to waken her with a kiss!" He stood before her a moment contemplating the form now in deep shadow.

No lines or wrinkles were noticeable on her pretty face, only the waxen pallor of death. Her face, a delicate oval with perfectly bow-shaped lips, long black lashes, sweeping over her upper cheeks, eyebrows arched gracefully above her closed eyes, suggested the work of the masters in their portraits of noble ladies many years ago. Her hair was curly and tinged with gray and seemed to be more than most young persons have in these days. It had been brushed lightly from her face and rippled softly over her ears. Of medium height and daintily slender, she made a wonderful picture.

"Only the wealthy can do it," considered Kennedy, as he bent over her examining. "Time and money are represented here. Many visits to the masseuse, the hair dresser, the figure expert, were needed to produce this woman before us."

He was now bending more closely over the body searching for some mark or evidence of violence. There were none apparently any more obvious to him than to Leslie, as be knelt between the dim-shaded light and the beautiful body, the body now in his own shadow.

We had been followed into the crypt by the policeman detailed to watch. Flaherty stood quietly back of us. There was nothing said or done that he did not observe, yet he acted as if he did not relish his job.

Suddenly Craig stepped back, over to the wall switch and turned off even the dim light. I could not imagine what the darkness was for, here, until I heard the policeman muttering thickly to himself, "Look! Holy Saints! She shines! Her lips—her face!"

Then, indeed, I did look, and in astonishment. It was a fact. Her lips, her whole face, her hands, all of her seemed to glow. It was too much for Flaherty. He drew toward the door, still whispering hoarsely: "I feel like I'd like to beat it! It's the corpse light, I'm tellin' ye!"

"I fancied I saw a faint glow in the darkness of the shadow," now observed Craig, straightening up, by way of explanation of his weird discovery.

Leslie was silent, assuring himself that it was no optical illusion. As for me I was speechless. A corpse that shone, not with an aura, which would have been startling enough to me, but with a light, faint, delicate, evanescent, but of its own making, as it were! If the gray flapper of the much-written-about million had risen on that catafalque or whatever it was, had pointed a finger at me and spoken, I could not have been more awed. Faint, delicate, evanescent though it was, it was to me like a fiery accusation of—what?

I am neither scientist nor criminologist. I felt like following Flaherty. But I stood rooted to the spot.

"It's all right, I tell you. She is Miss Millard." I could not recognize the voice of the man speaking.

I opened the door with alacrity and saw our frightened Flaherty, now recovered far enough to argue with some one.

"I'm the undertaker. Miss Millard wants to see Mrs. Asche, too. She always patronized the Millard Beauty Shop. She feels that she would like to do the things for Mrs. Asche this last time that she did so often for her when she was living."

Behind me I caught Leslie whispering to Craig. "Davids told me about her, that Mrs. Asche often went for treatment to the Millard Beauty Shop, run by this Irrita Millard, on the first floor of the building where Asche had his health-culture gym and institute on the roof. I couldn't quite make out what was back of it... some innuendo, though. Gaston Asche and this Irrita, he said, were very friendly. It seemed to weigh on his mind—this pretty girl in the beauty parlor, Irrita Millard, and Gaston Asche. I believe he meant to imply that Asche was using her in some way."

"All right, Mr. Kennedy, if you says so—and she wants to." Flaherty stood in the doorway where he could make a quick exit and at the same time do his duty of watching us all.

Irrita Millard stepped into the room. The light had been on just long enough for her to locate the position of the body.

Irrita seemed suddenly to regain her self-possession. She seemed annoyed. "I must have been dreaming," she muttered. "I thought I saw her face glowing in the darkness and I was so frightened I hardly know what I did say."

Irrita was exceptionally beautiful and young. She possessed unusual limpid brown eyes and golden hair which had never been bobbed. It was high up on her head in the prevailing mode that Paris was then trying so industriously to reestablish in this country. She was slender, not very tall, carried herself with a dash and verve that would compel attention.

Kennedy regarded her silently. But it did not seem to ruffle the composure she had regained.

"I'm afraid, Miss Millard," he replied slowly, "that will have to be postponed. But I can promise you I will let you know the moment it is possible. Where can I find you?"

"At my shop, or call the apartment on Fifty-ninth Street. My maid will tell you."

Craig watched her face. There was not the quiver of a muscle. She was a good actress.

"Let me see," he pursued. "Isn't Doctor Davids in that physicians' building on Fifty-ninth Street?"

"I believe he is." She nodded with a look of naive questioning that said, "What can that matter?"

"At any moment. She was always so gentle and kind to me, seemed to appreciate all my efforts."

Kennedy bowed Irrita out into the corridor. Then, between them, Kennedy and Leslie, after Irrita had left, arranged for an autopsy to be held in Leslie's laboratory.

"And in this matter," added Craig, "I am your deputy? I shall need official status."

It was then I saw what Kennedy was contemplating. He was bent on a visit, a surprise visit, immediately, to Mrs. Oakley Asche's house in the old Chelsea district.

THE old Oakley house was distinctive. In front of it was the park with its well-kept little lawn and ancient trees, with clumps of dense shrubbery, a constant invitation to the eyes of the dwellers surrounding it, a bit of country in the city within sound of the elevated railroads.

It was a house that betrayed its owner. Just as she had preserved the body, so she had preserved the house to set off and add distinction to herself. It was different from the other houses. Here a personality had lived. It also had taken on a new youth, like its owner.

The house conformed to the main lines of the old-fashioned red-brick houses, with their monotonous high stoops now eliminated. In place was a beautifully arched window with soft lights shining through the draperies. The entrance had been transformed into the still older English basement. At the door were two antique lanterns. Rare old tiles, imported, were on the floor and the walls were paneled in softly aged oak. The lights with their batik covers, the unhemmed pink taffeta curtains, the soft blue and ivory of the furniture and upholstery breathed exquisite youth.

I looked out at the park again before I followed Craig into the interior. The shadows of the trees seemed to be engaged in a game of chase with the slenderer shadows of the high iron fence, as if in a desire to efface them with their more expanded surface. The breeze was constantly moving the trees and it seemed a never-ending struggle with the fence shadows holding their own in steady defiance. In the center of each side of the park fence was a high grilled gate, four in all. Only the owners of four of the houses on the square held the keys to these gates.

Inside, where there were no oak panels in the walls, there were mirrors. I could imagine the handsome Mrs. Oakley Asche as she flitted about glimpsing herself, complacent at the pretty picture she made.

It was not without some difficulty that we got in. But Kennedy was a diplomat. He found that the maid, Marie, who came to the door, loved her mistress passionately. In his best phrasing, he told her he had come to make inquiries about the death of her mistress, showed Doctor Leslie's credentials, and in a moment had Marie won.

To his inquiry Marie replied by leading the way up to the second floor. "Here is her boudoir, Doctor. The adjoining room is her bedroom."

Marie smiled as she saw my look of astonishment. The boudoir was bizarre, indeed. What with white columns wrapped in boa-constrictor skins, one electric light shining from a rattler's mouth, as he coiled, stuffed, ready to strike, another shining from and through fossil resin of claret red, lights of innumerable odd conceptions, the bookcase surmounted with a mummy head under glass, rugs made up of skins of all the pets for sixty years, it was characteristic.

"Mrs. Asche always did things unusual, y'know," explained Marie to Craig as he questioned her, leading on.

She bent over a stuffed Irish terrier and putting her hand about the dog's neck, pressed a concealed button. Immediately a little box dropped to the floor from the body. It seemed to amuse Marie to catch my surprise.

"She said that Mike was the most faithful guardian she ever had while he was alive—and she gave him the job after he was dead. Rather good, eh?"

Kennedy took the opportunity to run through the papers. Everything was in order, apparently untouched. Each little group of papers was in an envelope or neatly folded. Some of the envelopes were still sealed, intact. There were several bunches of keys. Craig looked at them all. One bunch he examined more curiously than the others. I saw that little reflective frown come between his eyes as he regarded minutely one key that was tagged. Then he dropped them all slowly back in their places without a word.

"May I see her creams and lotions which she used at home to preserve that marvelous complexion of hers?" asked Craig next.

We entered. It might have been the room of a little girl, all yellow maple with sea-green silk hanging.

"Over on the dressing table," indicated Marie, "there is her beauty clay—something she mixed herself. I have hated to shut it up. It was the last thing she touched, you know. Her creams are there, too, everything she used afterward."

Craig went over and looked carefully, smelling the clay, then laying it back in the jar on the glass-topped table. "Did she use much of this, Marie?"

"Glory be!" The girl threw up her hands with an air that suggested an endless stream of creams and lotions. "I don't believe there was ever a new cream or clay or powder that was put on the market that she didn't get. She tried them all—everything."

"Something did," Marie answered, briefly. "She was three times as old as I am and I declare I looked older than she did. But I used to be afraid of accidents, sir—I did. I used to say she would poison herself or get hurt. But with some women, it's anything to keep looking young!"

Craig behind me, had been examining the clay carefully again. Now he dipped his finger into the jar. Marie brought him several empty bottles which he rinsed, then took in them specimens of the clay and of the creams and other toilet articles Marie said she used most.

He was looking about the room curiously. Marie saw his glance resting on a big old-fashioned maple chest of drawers. On the top, with the lid still loose, was her jewel box.

"That's where she put the jewels she used for the time being—took them off at night, stuck them up there."

Kennedy took a step over and examined them on the dresser. As we surrounded the little table we shut off the direct rays of the softly shaded light. No lights glared in Mrs. Asche's house. I saw Craig lean over with interest.

In the darkness the diamond necklace, the rings, the brooch, all these jewels of Mrs. Asche glowed!

"Marie, the police must hold these," decided Kennedy, promptly. "I will give you a receipt, be personally responsible. Don't mention it until some one else does. Can you keep a secret?"

"Indeed, I can, Doctor. I didn't work with the pretty co-respondent in that last big Vandam divorce case for three years without learning that!"

"Marie, get us out of here quickly," nodded Craig. "I'd rather not be seen in Mrs. Asche's rooms—yet."

Down the winding flight of stairs we hurried after Marie into a charming library. We had just got in when we heard a deep voice and the servant's greeting to Doctor Davids. Davids did not know any one was there and was talking with a certain freedom to another man with him.

"Something strange, Welburn—mighty strange, to me. She was always going to remember me and I hear this new will cuts me off without a cent. Why, she used to urge me to go into things, said she would back me financially, often told me she had taken care of me in her will. Now I learn she has left everything to him. I am sore—and worried, too."

A polished, well-modulated voice replied. "I think we can do something about it, Doctor."

"Evidently Welburn is retained as his attorney," whispered Craig to me behind his hand. "Clever lawyer; mixed up with half the will contests for a generation."

It was apparent that Oakley Davids was preparing a bitter lawsuit over the will to Gaston Asche.

A tall, handsome chap now followed the deep voice and we saw Davids himself in the doorway. I had never seen him, but he struck me as a typical society physician, very much of a ladies' man. He paused for a moment, his eyes roving from me to Kennedy, whom he evidently had met.

"Hello, Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "Beat us up here?" Underneath that deep polished voice and easy manner I fancied he was nervous and ill at ease. "Find out anything?"

"Haven't had a chance yet. Have you told everything you can about the case to Doctor Leslie? Is there anything more?"

"Not a thing that I haven't told him or the health authorities—except that I am determined to have my rights. I feel that my aunt desired me to have the Oakley money. She wasn't a woman to say a thing and then go back on it. There is something mighty like undue influence, coercion, on a sick woman. I have brought my attorney up here to look things over, perhaps talk with Asche. If he won't talk, I'm going to fight."

"Well, fight then! My wife knew what she was doing. She had been throwing bones to you long enough. She thought it was about time you did something for yourself!"

Gaston Asche had let himself in downstairs quietly with his pass-key and had mounted the first flight, unheard in the reverberation of David's deep voice. He now stood in the doorway of the library, hands gripped on the portières on each side of him. He was almost white with anger and the muscles of his face twitched.

"It's a nice thing, a considerate thing, to come into a man's house, to berate him while he is away attending to things that sudden bereavement make necessary. By the way—this is my house, now. She wanted me to have it after I advised her how to fix it over for its effect on her physical and mental health. And she was my wife." He faced us all with indignation and I must say I felt the lash of it.

"Yes, your wife! She was my aunt; you might say raised me. I was running all about this place, and my mother before me, years before my aunt ever heard of an Asche!"

"Haven't you any appreciation of a man's sorrow?" There was a note of scorn in it. "I came home to be with the things she loved—and I walk into—you—and an insulting row. Fine comfort!"

"Well, who carted her away from the place she loved best? Is that love? You got her, somehow, into a public funeral parlor. I suppose you want to hurry her right along!"

"You dog! Up to your old tricks, with that fog-horn voice of yours. Well, you can't talk me down. She told me enough about you."

"I doubt it." There was a fine edge to the towering scorn that Davids, on his part, worked himself into. "I doubt if you were with her long enough for her to take you into her confidence. You're too busy with that physique trying to fascinate Broadway flappers, organizing beauty contests—advertising pays!"

"Davids!" Asche seemed to hold himself in leash only by realising that the rest of us were there. "I know what you insinuate. It's your own jealousy, jealous of your aunt's fortune, jealous of me of my success, everything. Say, Davids, you were a pretty constant visitor to Irrita Millard, were you not?" he retorted.

"No, and there's nothing criminal in my meeting her occasionally in the same building where we are both rather good tenants. I suppose, to suit you, I ought to move out of the building where I've been for over five years? Or maybe if I see her on Broadway, I ought to run across Longacre Square and come up by Seventh Avenue to my own gymnasium, eh?—especially when my wife used to bring her up herself to see me!

"You want to see me, talk with Asche, eh? If I won't talk, you're going to fight. Well, you can get out and be quick about it. My attorney will talk to you, Littlefield, see? I thought you'd retain Mr. Welburn. Well, my attorney will talk to yours. Gentlemen, good night! By the way, Mr. Kennedy—may I ask you to remain a few moments?"

DAVIDS and Welburn withdrew, I felt, second best in this first encounter. I felt that Asche seemed to tower over them in his righteous indignation and interrupted sorrow. Was he also a poser? As for Davids, I was not greatly impressed. Somehow or other men who impress the ladies never impress me. I often wonder at the fair creatures' judgment. However, there are some things past finding out.

Asche calmed down now as quickly as he flared. We talked several minutes as Kennedy explained his position in the case.

"I told Doctor Leslie I welcomed him in the case," remarked Asche, pacing the library. "And I tell you, Kennedy, I welcome you. Of course, my theory has been that it was an accident. By that I mean something in the course of nature. No one, not even a remarkable woman, in search of the fountain of eternal youth, will ever find it." He paused in his pacing.

"But, sometimes, now, especially after that visit, I am forced to wonder. Gould my wife's nephew and physician, in some way, perhaps under cover of some one close to her—you understand, some one close to her because of this hobby of beautification—could he have hastened her death, hoping perhaps in some way to throw it all on me, at least force me to a settlement? Mind you, I make no accusation that anyone close to her may have been more than an innocent tool."

I saw there was no concealment now in the bitter implication thrown by Asche. He had come out into the open.

"I don't know what I mean, sir. Only I seem to have heard that X-rays are not the safest things in the world unless they are in the hands of one mighty well skilled. He seems to have been at the top of his profession—in that respect."

Kennedy talked for several moments, made an appointment for the following day, then excused himself. I knew he was anxious to get to Leslie and the autopsy and to his own laboratory, where he might study this beauty clay and the glowing diamonds.

As for me I knew I had a good story for the Star. But I could not finish it. How did Mrs. Asche die? Was it an accident, an outgrowth of her own inordinate pursuit of beauty? What really had killed old Mrs. Asche?

THE entire next day was spent by Kennedy and Leslie over the autopsy. Not until evening did I see Craig, at his own laboratory at the university. Even then he was silent as to his findings with Leslie, his own study of the beauty clay and what had made the diamonds shine with a fire in the dark.

"No. I'd rather she didn't. I thought something might happen while we were there that might suggest a clue."

Irrita received us amiably enough in her tiny apartment, but there was a restraint about her that boded no ease in getting information from her.

"You see, it's this way, Irrita," and Craig fell so easily into the slight familiarity that it seemed rather to flatter her. "I feel that Mrs. Asche made a friend of you, even more, a confidante."

"But that doesn't signify that I'll make a confidante of you." She tossed her head and watched him, lips just a little bit curled in a knowing smile.

"No. I only feel sorry for that poor little woman and thought you might be a little sorry, too—that you might want to help me."

"How can I help you? Aren't all men self-sufficient? At least we've been told to believe that. Now that we're no longer clinging vines, I suppose we aren't so popular."

"You are clever at changing the subject, Irrita. I admit woman is a fascinating topic to discuss. But what I want is a little information. Has it come to your knowledge that Mrs. Asche was on bad terms with any one related to her?"

Irrita seemed to have to think before she answered. "As to relatives, she didn't have many. Her doctor and her husband are the only ones I ever met. She never discussed either with me."

Craig was watching her with rapt attention. "You are your own best ad for your business, Irrita. Charm and intellect."

"Yes?" She said it with a lift of the brow. "Most men praise a woman's intellect to her when they want to use her for something. What's the idea?"

"I've told you. I thought you would be woman enough to stand by another of your sex who has met a fatal misfortune, to right a wrong, if wrong has been done."

"I think I would—if wrong has been done. Ask me some questions, and if I can answer them I'll tell you no lies." Her accent was on the "can answer" and I felt it would not get us much.

The door bell burred. I watched her as she waited for her maid to answer it. She was beautiful, yet unconsciously I did not like her. Perhaps she was "too modern." Still, I must admit she was striking in an evening gown covered with sparkling blue sequins, her white shoulders and fair hair radiant. She was excited. Her pupils were dilated until her eyes were almost black.

"All right." Irrita turned to us tantalizingly. "It's a good thing I didn't say I hadn't met him!"

Davids seemed annoyed as he entered. He looked at Irrita inquiringly, as if wondering how much she had been forced to tell.

"Well, Irrita, we'll be going now, if you had an engagement." Craig held her hand a moment longer than was necessary, I thought, and with a trifle more interest than I liked. In an undertone he added, "At least I have found out enough to make me jealous."

With a quick little nervous motion she brushed her forehead, then suddenly faced Craig. "And I have found out enough to make me mad!"

Davids took a step toward the door with an air as of one who would make a farewell brief.

Outside, Craig observed to me, "Oakley Davids is in love with her—I wonder if anyone else is in love?"

IT was the following morning that Craig and I were crossing Longacre Square when we heard a familiar voice in the crowd.

"I'm over it." She laughed again. "Ask Mr. Asche. He will tell you I am very agreeable this morning."

"Not only agreeable, Irrita, but very beautiful," returned Craig, and it seemed to please Irrita.

Asche heard it and was annoyed. At the seeming good terms between Craig and Irrita his hospitality of the other night vanished completely into sullenness.

"Come, Irrita," he called, brusquely. "I have many things to attend to." Then to us he explained. "I am taking Miss Millard to see about the flowers and other things she was kind enough to order." He stepped on his starter.

I wondered if it were meant to cut short the chat with us. I thought Irrita would have liked to wait.

They left us at the curb and I turned to Craig. "What is that girl's game? She puzzles me."

ABOUT the middle of the afternoon Kennedy and Leslie completed their autopsy. It was not many moments before Craig had Asche on the wire and the funeral was fixed by Asche for noon of the following day.

Next day Kennedy telephoned to Irrita. "I promised you, Irrita, that I would let you know as soon as I could. If you will go up to Gamble's, you may perform the last offices of beautification for Mrs. Asche. Tell me when you can be there, so that I can see that you have no difficulty."

At Gamble's we did not have to wait long for her. Irrita came with a little handbag filled with the accessories of her profession. At once she proceeded to lay them out.

"Not with those, Irrita," cautioned Kennedy. She looked at him, startled, but said nothing. "I have some of her own things that she used at home. First I want you to use this beauty clay."

Kennedy nodded. "Yes, and when it is removed I want you to use this powder, her own, as well as this lipstick, and other things. Er—Marie has sent them over."

"Well, this is the strangest thing! I'll do it. I suppose you have some mere man's reason!"

In an incredibly short time the girl had finished. The face of the dead woman had taken on a new beauty. The cheeks glowed with an artificial color of health. The hair had been arranged a little more elaborately. In spite of the artificiality it seemed the beautification of the vain old lady.

As she worked, Irrita now and then talked. I noticed that she referred always to it as the "accident." Through it all Irrita seemed to show a quite sincere emotion over Mrs. Asche. But I still wondered if it were genuine. Did she know something she was concealing?

Irrita had scarcely finished and we had taken leave of her when Kennedy telephoned to Doctor Davids.

"I called up, Doctor, to let you know that Mr. Asche has decided to hold the funeral services at noon to-morrow. I thought you would like to know."

I could almost hear the resonant voice in reply, a bit angry, somewhat blustering.

"It's very kind to let me know! I'll surely be there—if for no other reason than to have one real member of her family present at the public funeral parlor. She's the first in the family to be buried like that! By the way, has everything been attended to? Did you let Miss Millard help? She told me you refused her offer."

"Another thing, Kennedy. I don't like the way you hound that poor girl. She was just a friend and adviser, had nothing to do with the case, whatever it is. It's an outrage to drag her into the mess.... How's that?... Well, all I have to say is that detection of crime does not consist in dragging the name of an innocent girl into the thing!"

As Kennedy repeated it to me. I wondered if Irrita did know something that he was afraid she might tell. One thing was now sufficiently evident. Both Gaston Asche and Oakley Davids were "rushing" Irrita.

I SHALL not even describe the simple services in the Gamble Funeral Church on the forenoon of the third day after the strange death of Mrs. Asche. There were two incidents, however, which I cannot possibly pass by.

The service had proceeded to the prayer when over our bowed heads the lights suddenly winked out. It was then that I noticed that Craig, who had been next to me, was not in his seat. The prayer proceeded to the end. Then, as we raised our beads, I saw again that strange, mysterious, awesome glow on the face and hands of the body in the rich casket, banked with overpowering lilies. It was a shock, even to me.

I heard an audible gasp from some one. Then the lights came up as suddenly as they had darkened. I watched them all, Asche, Davids, Irrita. There was not a quiver. Were they all good actors? Or had it been an accident? What did that impassiveness mean?

Then a second time. It was when the relatives were asked to take the final parting look that Doctor Davids and Gaston Asche met. They were the only relatives present. Irrita Millard rose with the men. I fancy she feared a clash and thought her presence might avert it.

Asche went first and tried to make way for Irrita next. But Doctor Davids insisted on being second. Leaning over, he quickly took Irrita by the arm. With a challenge in his eyes he accompanied her to the bier. Asche was furious. Doctor Davids was ready even for a clash, only for the place and the occasion. For once Irrita was frightened.

She turned down the aisle, trembling. Her face was white with emotion. As she reached us, she almost gasped: "Please, Craig, take me home! I don't know what to do—which way to turn."

It had been a dramatic encounter, this of Doctor Davids and Gaston Asche at the funeral under the eyes of the detectives. Yet, was it anything more than a deep-seated rivalry for Irrita? It seemed to frighten her—for the first time in her life—the elemental passions of these men—to shake her in her confidence that a girl is the equal to any situation in the world.

To me it seemed now that Irrita was turning to Craig—from both of them. She had called him "Craig," by his first name, as he had called hers. Was she falling in love with Kennedy? It worried me, as it always did when I saw a girl scheming to fascinate my friend. Craig was only human. Was it a game on her part?

I saw that the anger of Asche against Kennedy now was bitter and genuine. Davids made no concealment of his jealousy, either. Was it to involve Kennedy, pull the wool over his eyes? Then there was the type of Irrita. She alienated me, at least, by the smartness of her modernism.

I DID not see Kennedy much during the rest of the day, nor in the evening. When I came into our apartment I found him seated before our piano, slowly running his fingers through what I thought was a curious selection. It was the "Glowworm."

He did not stop when I entered, nor did he say a word. I dropped into a chair. Ordinarily I would have enjoyed it, for I like it. But now I would have given anything for a glimpse into his mind. Of what was Craig thinking? He was putting a sadness into the touch.

Suddenly he broke off, wheeled around, jumped up. "It's after midnight!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of this before? Come, Walter, slip your automatic into your pocket. Hurry. I'm going over to the laboratory."

In the campus he left the paved walk, where the sand grains made our steps audible, and took to the grass.

We had got not more than a hundred feet from the building where his laboratory was when I could have sworn that I saw a shadow skulking out and into the shrubbery a few feet from the entrance. Kennedy must have seen something, too. He flashed his pocket electric bull's eye. But the beam of light was swallowed up in the darkness at the distance. There was nothing, nothing but the crackling of a dry twig. It must have been under a foot.

Then I knew what his induction had been. The skulking shadow had confirmed it—an effort to break into the laboratory. We separated, gave chase, but, though we had not frustrated the attempt, the intruder had made good the escape.

In the hall, now, we could see that some one had indeed got in. Inside, I hurried over to a steel cabinet where I recalled I had seen Craig place the jewels and the beauty clay.

It was open. I looked in. They were not there! I turned to Craig with a startled gaze. He was regarding the open cabinet calmly.

"Do you think I would leave a hundred thousand dollars' worth of diamonds, for which I am personally responsible, here, in a mere fireproof safe?" he asked. "No. They are in the safe at headquarters. The samples of beauty clay are there, too."

He busied himself looking for evidences of identification, but I could tell by Craig's expression that the intruder had been clever and had left none.

As we closed everything up again, he said, thoughtfully, to me, "I want you, Walter, to get a story into the afternoon paper, the first edition, something as if announced by the police that they believe it is a poisoning case and have a clue to where the poison was obtained, by whom, and are just about to locate where it is hidden—you see, I'm building—first the glimpse of that glowing face to Irrita, then at the funeral to all, now this story."

I had the story published. But for the whole day the friendship between Craig and Irrita worried me. Not was I reassured when Craig told me, about six o'clock, that we had a dinner engagement with her. The only crumb of comfort I had was that they were not alone.

BY dint of dining and dancing the evening wore away until it became pretty late.

It was not until it was far too late for anything except dancing and dining that I began to see the direction of Kennedy's purpose.

"Irrita," he said, leaning toward her, his voice low, "are you game to learn whether there really was anything wrong in the death of Mrs. Asche?"

She met his gaze squarely; a little shiver seemed to run over her as she looked away momentarily, then quickly back again with clear eyes. "Yes!"

Though I did not understand it, I fancied I began to see the direction of Kennedy's building. He must have calmly calculated to start one of the two, either Davids or Asche, to do something to cover up guilt, if indeed either of them were guilty. Or was it aimed at an unknown?

At any rate, now I had an added worry. If, indeed, it were either of them, would the demonstration of that fact, the shock, clinch matters between Craig and this girl?

It was with small joy that I accompanied Craig and Irrita to the private park that night.

As I have said, there were four grilled gates to the park. Each owner about it had a key to the park. Craig had somehow got the key to the south gate.

It was dark, and he posted me in the shadows to watch somewhere between the north gate and the east gate. Just inside the north gate, facing the Oakley house, Craig had placed carefully a small wooden box with holes in the sides and a loose cover.

And now I spent a most uncomfortable hour. To me Irrita was baffling. Yet she was plainly showing a deep interest in Craig. I wondered. Why was there always a girl to keep me in anxiety over Craig? Every time I thought of her I could have kidnapped her. I had been cautioned to keep quiet, yet I had to listen to their sentimental conversation as I crouched in the shadow.

I was eager for action. Somehow I felt it would be solved that night whether it was an accident or a crime. Again and again raced through my mind the query whether Irrita was not using Kennedy to get information to shield some one. At least to-night he had been careful to give her no chance to communicate. I listened.

"Irrita, you were very ready to talk about women the night I came up to see you with Jameson. You seemed fired with the idea of women and their wrongs."

"That was different, Craig. I didn't know you quite so well. The better a woman knows a man, the less she likes to discuss women with him. In her mind there is no desire for the plural. It is always singular. Woman means herself."

Craig laughed. I swore under my breath, muttering, "It has reached the first name stage; next it will be pet names!" I lost their voices. But I still crouched at my post, waiting.

"You men are all alike. You can't see anything unless it is fastened to the end of your nose. As a crime detector, you may be all right. We'll see. As a love detector, you are—terrible." A low, tantalizing laugh followed.

I couldn't make her out. Was she suggesting a proposal to Craig? If I had been in Kennedy's place and she hadn't been such a modern, efficient young creature, I would have kissed her and taken the wrath that followed as an index that she liked it and was trying to hide the evidence of it.

"So—I am in love with love." She repeated it dreamily. I fidgeted nervously where Craig had stationed me. I could not desert the post, nor even speak.

I was not the only one who heard them. The voices of Craig and Irrita were hushed. They must have stood as quietly as I. I scarcely breathed.

"Wait!" a whisper from Kennedy, who had silently, Indian-like, crept up within a few feet of me. "Not yet! He might get away in the dark! Watch!"

The gate creaked on rusty hinges. There was a noise as of something wooden falling over on the flagstones.

Suddenly, rising from the ground, streaks of veritable fire zigzagged through the air in graceful arcs—weird, startling, as if alive! One—two—three—four—five—I counted them. They did not die away.

"West Indian fireflies," he whispered back, "the most brilliant fireflies in the world—primeval fire! Pyrophorus—the fire-carrier! Click beetles, cucujos, of the West Indies. There are ninety or a hundred species in tropical America. The natives of the tropical islands sometimes keep them in small cages for illumination—even make use of them for personal adornment."

One of the fire-bearers, more brilliant than the rest, was circling the face of the intruder. Viciously, with a quick, angry motion, he struck at it, killed it.

Quickly he turned toward the corner of the garden park where the shrubbery was dense. By the sounds, he must have been digging. We waited, silent.

In a few moments his hasty feet crunched the gravel path. Irrita, Kennedy, and I now strolled from the other end of the park, apparently.

Asche turned to Irrita, ignoring Kennedy. "May I ask you to take a little walk with me, please?" He indicated the other end of the garden. "I have something very important to tell you."

"Just a moment, Asche," interrupted Kennedy. "Give me that key in your left-hand pocket. There was a key in your wife's effects, tagged. It had just a trace of wax on it. I knew some one had made an impression of that key, that some day he would use it. Hand it over!"

Then Craig reached for a little lead casket under Asche's right arm. I saw now that he held his automatic in his own right.

On the ground, gingerly, Craig opened the casket. It contained a bottle with a liquid in it, and something in the liquid. Craig spilled some of it; it was water.

Then with his knife he poked it, cut a bit of what was in the water. As he withdrew the knife into the air something on it glowed and flamed, like a glowworm. From it arose curling luminous fumes.

Irrita gasped. "Months ago, Gaston," she blurted out, "you told her that the fountain of youth was in the elements, in what you called the mother of all elements, radium, that she might attain youth that way. And to me you said, 'No—it is bunk—besides, it is dangerous. Don't use it!'"

"No," Kennedy smiled quietly. "I have the whole story. Mrs. Asche came to you, a health specialist, to find a way to renew her youth. You persuaded her it was not in glands, not even in physical culture, that it was nothing she needed but elemental life and fire—radium!

"You married her. You were playing on her elemental love of beauty and youth. You planned not to kill her—but to let her kill herself through her vanity. Radium, internally, may be compared to the sapper and miner whose tunnels blow up the trenches. Externally it is like an overhead bombardment of high-explosive shells.

"There was the beauty clay into which she put the radium salts for radium rubs, perhaps radioactive water and food under your suggestion, infinitesimal amounts, of course. She was to be killed by high blood pressure created, induced, increased by the constant surrounding of radioactivity.

"I knew there were radium salts somewhere, knew it as soon as I saw the phosphorescent jewels. But could there be enough radium to kill, without burning, without leaving its traces? What about the glowing face and body?

"You were not content with the slowness of radium. It did not go fast enough. Radium salts are expensive, too. You turned to phosphorus, a deadly poison, hoping it would in some way be confounded, if it were ever observed, with the radium she obtained at your suggestion. No, this is not radium in the lead casket. You are right. It is phosphorus. There was phosphorus in that beauty clay!"

Kennedy paused. Asche made no move to escape the automatic which I held close to him.

"I felt that some one had hidden the poison somewhere. Here! I was sure of it. The key told me. I knew of the phosphorus in the beauty clay. I isolated it. You knew it, too—feared that I knew. It was anything to destroy it, destroy the evidence, my laboratory, if necessary.

"I was sure of my case. But you never can tell what juries, grand juries as well as trial juries, or judges, from the magistrates up to the judges of appeals, may do.

"The fireflies—cold light, light without heat, like the law—have revealed to me—to Mr. Jameson—to the girl for whose love I have brought—"

"Love?" interrupted Irrita. "In love with love?" She laughed as she repeated Craig's own words. "Mr. Kennedy, you have flattered yourself!"

"No, Irrita. I know you, have read you better than you know. You were afraid that I suspected Oakley Davids—and you were really in love with him, feared for him, wanted to watch what I did, to save him! Asche, I thought of this thing, this poetic justice—primeval fire—to catch you in the light of the fireflies with this leaden casket of elemental fire!

"Walk? You'll take a little walk with me, around to headquarters! That key opened the gates of hell fire for you, Asche!"

THE END

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

FIRE

THE END

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE