XXII
THE X-RAY "MOVIES"
Still holding Dana Phelps between us, we hurried toward the tomb andentered. While our attention had been diverted in the direction of theswamp, the body of Montague Phelps had been stolen.
Dana Phelps was still deliberately brushing off his clothes. Had hebeen in league with them, executing a flank movement to divert ourattention? Or had it all been pure chance?
"Well?" demanded Andrews.
"Well?" replied Dana.
Kennedy said nothing, and I felt that, with our capture, the mysteryseemed to have deepened rather than cleared.
As Andrews and Phelps faced each other, I noticed that the latter wasnow and then endeavouring to cover his wrist, where the dog had tornhis coat sleeve.
"Are you hurt badly?" inquired Kennedy.
Dana said nothing, but backed away. Kennedy advanced, insisting onlooking at the wounds. As he looked he disclosed a semicircle of marks.
"Not a dog bite," he whispered, turning to me and fumbling in hispocket. "Besides, those marks are a couple of days old. They have scabson them."
He had pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper, and, unknown toPhelps, was writing in the darkness. I leaned over. Near the point, inthe tube through which the point for writing was, protruded a smallaccumulator and tiny electric lamp which threw a little disc of light,so small that it could be hidden by the hand, yet quite sufficient toguide Craig in moving the point of his pencil for the proper formationof whatever he was recording on the surface of the paper.
"An electric-light pencil," he remarked laconically, in an undertone.
"Who were the others?" demanded Andrews of Dana.
There was a pause as though he were debating whether or not to answerat all. "I don't know," he said at length. "I wish I did."
"You don't know?" queried Andrews, with incredulity.
"No, I say I wish I did know. You and your dog interrupted me just as Iwas about to find out, too."
We looked at each other in amazement. Andrews was frankly skeptical ofthe coolness of the young man. Kennedy said nothing for some moments.
"I see you don't want to talk," he put in shortly.
"Nothing to talk about," grunted Dana, in disgust.
"Then why are you here?"
"Nothing but conjecture. No facts, only suspicions," said Dana, half tohimself.
"You expect us to believe that?" insinuated Andrews.
"I can't help what you believe. That is the fact."
"And you were not with them?"
"No."
"You'll be within call, if we let you go now, any time that we wantyou?" interrupted Kennedy, much to the surprise of Andrews.
"I shall stay in Woodbine as long as there is any hope of clearing upthis case. If you want me, I suppose I shall have to stay anyhow, evenif there is a clue somewhere else."
"I'll take your word for it," offered Kennedy.
"I'll give it."
I must say that I rather liked the young chap, although I could makenothing out of him.
As Dana Phelps disappeared down the road, Andrews turned to Kennedy."What did you do that for?" he asked, half critically.
"Because we can watch him, anyway," answered Craig, with a significantglance at the now empty casket. "Have him shadowed, Andrews. It maylead to something and it may not. But in any case don't let him get outof reach."
"Here we are in a worse mystery than ever," grumbled Andrews. "We havecaught a prisoner, but the body is gone, and we can't even show that hewas an accomplice."
"What were you writing?" I asked Craig, endeavouring to change thesubject to one more promising.
"Just copying the peculiar shape of those marks on Phelps' arm. Perhapswe can improve on the finger-print method of identification. Those werethe marks of human teeth."
He was glancing casually at his sketch as he displayed it to us. Iwondered whether he really expected to obtain proof of the identity ofat least one of the ghouls by the tooth-marks.
"It shows eight teeth, one of them decayed," he remarked. "By the way,there's no use watching here any longer. I have some more work to do inthe laboratory which will keep me another day. To-morrow night I shallbe ready. Andrews, in the mean time I leave the shadowing of Dana toyou, and with the help of Jameson I want you to arrange to have allthose connected with the case at my laboratory to-morrow night withoutfail."
Andrews and I had to do some clever scheming to bring pressure to bearon the various persons interested to insure their attendance, now thatCraig was ready to act. Of course there was no difficulty in gettingDana Phelps. Andrews's shadows reported nothing in his actions of thefollowing day that indicated anything. Mrs. Phelps came down to town bytrain and Doctor Forden motored in. Andrews even took the precaution tosecure Shaughnessy and the trained nurse, Miss Tracy, who had been withMontague Phelps during his illness but had not contributed anythingtoward untangling the case. Andrews and myself completed the littleaudience.
We found Kennedy heating a large mass of some composition such asdentists use in taking impressions of the teeth.
"I shall be ready in a moment," he excused himself, still bending overhis Bunsen flame. "By the way, Mr. Phelps, if you will permit me."
He had detached a wad of the softened material. Phelps, taken bysurprise, allowed him to make an impression of his teeth, almost beforehe realised what Kennedy was doing. The precedent set, so to speak,Kennedy approached Doctor Forden. He demurred, but finally consented.Mrs. Phelps followed, then the nurse, and even Shaughnessy.
With a quick glance at each impression, Kennedy laid them aside toharden.
"I am ready to begin," he remarked at length, turning to a peculiarlooking instrument, something like three telescopes pointing at acentre in which was a series of glass prisms.
"These five senses of ours are pretty dull detectives sometimes,"Kennedy began. "But I find that when we are able to call in outside aidwe usually find that there are no more mysteries."
He placed something in a test-tube in line before one of the barrels ofthe telescopes, near a brilliant electric light.
"What do you see, Walter?" he asked, indicating an eyepiece.
I looked. "A series of lines," I replied. "What is it?"
"That," he explained, "is a spectroscope, and those are the lines ofthe absorption spectrum. Each of those lines, by its presence, denotesa different substance. Now, on the pavement of the Phelps mausoleum Ifound, you will recall, some roundish spots. I have made a very dilutedsolution of them which is placed in this tube.
"The applicability of the spectroscope to the differentiation ofvarious substances is too well known to need explanation. Its valuelies in the exact nature of the evidence furnished. Even the verydilute solution which I have been able to make of the material scrapedfrom these spots gives characteristic absorption bands between the Dand E lines, as they are called. Their wave-lengths are between 5774and 5390. It is such a distinct absorption spectrum that it is possibleto determine with certainty that the fluid actually contains a certainsubstance, even though the microscope might fail to give sure proof.Blood--human blood--that was what those stains were."
He paused. "The spectra of the blood pigments," he added, "of theextremely minute quantities of blood and the decomposition products ofhemoglobin in the blood are here infallibly shown, varying verydistinctly with the chemical changes which the pigments may undergo."
Whose blood was it? I asked myself. Was it of some one who had visitedthe tomb, who was surprised there or surprised some one else there? Iwas hardly ready for Kennedy's quick remark.
"There were two kinds of blood there. One was contained in the spots onthe floor all about the mausoleum. There are marks on the arm of DanaPhelps which he probably might say were made by the teeth of mypolice-dog, Schaef. They are human tooth-marks, however. He was bittenby some one in a struggle. It was his blood on the floor of themausoleum. Whose were the teeth?"
Kennedy fingered the now set impressions, then resumed: "
Before Ianswer that question, what else does the spectroscope show? I foundsome spots near the coffin, which has been broken open by a heavyobject. It had slipped and had injured the body of Montague Phelps.From the injury some drops had oozed. My spectroscope tells me thatthat, too, is blood. The blood and other muscular and nervous fluids ofthe body had remained in an aqueous condition instead of becomingpectous. That is a remarkable circumstance."
It flashed over me what Kennedy had been driving at in his inquiryregarding embalming. If the poisons of the embalming fluid had not beeninjected, he had now clear proof regarding anything his spectroscopediscovered.
"I had expected to find a poison, perhaps an alkaloid," he continuedslowly, as he outlined his discoveries by the use of one of the mostfascinating branches of modern science, spectroscopy. "In cases ofpoisoning by these substances, the spectroscope often has obviousadvantages over chemical methods, for minute amounts will produce awell-defined spectrum. The spectroscope 'spots' the substance, to use apolice idiom, the moment the case is turned over to it. There was nopoison there." He had raised his voice to emphasise the startlingrevelation. "Instead, I found an extraordinary amount of the substanceand products of glycogen. The liver, where this substance is stored, isliterally surcharged in the body of Phelps."
He had started his moving-picture machine.
"Here I have one of the latest developments in the moving-picture art,"he resumed, "an X-ray moving picture, a feat which was until recentlyvisionary, a science now in its infancy, bearing the formidable namesof biorontgenography, or kinematoradiography."
Kennedy was holding his little audience breathless as he proceeded. Ifancied I could see Anginette Phelps give a little shudder at theprospect of looking into the very interior of a human body. But she waspale with the fascination of it. Neither Forden nor the nurse looked tothe right or to the left. Dana Phelps was open-eyed with wonder.
"In one X-ray photograph, or even in several," continued Kennedy, "itis difficult to discover slight motions. Not so in a moving picture.For instance, here I have a picture which will show you a living bodyin all its moving details."
On the screen before us was projected a huge shadowgraph of a chest andabdomen. We could see the vertebrae of the spinal column, the ribs, andthe various organs.
"It is difficult to get a series of photographs directly from afluorescent screen," Kennedy went on. "I overcome the difficulty byhaving lenses of sufficient rapidity to photograph even faint images onthat screen. It is better than the so-called serial method, by which anumber of separate X-ray pictures are taken and then pieced togetherand rephotographed to make the film. I can focus the X-rays first onthe screen by means of a special quartz objective which I have devised.Then I take the pictures.
"Here, you see, are the lungs in slow or rapid respiration. There isthe rhythmically beating heart, distinctly pulsating in perfectoutline. There is the liver, moving up and down with the diaphragm, theintestines, and the stomach. You can see the bones moving with thelimbs, as well as the inner visceral life. All that is hidden to theeye by the flesh is now made visible in striking manner."
Never have I seen an audience at the "movies" so thrilled as we werenow, as Kennedy swayed our interest at his will. I had been dividing myattention between Kennedy and the extraordinary beauty of the famousRussian dancer. I forgot Anginette Phelps entirely.
Kennedy placed another film in the holder.
"You are now looking into the body of Montague Phelps," he announcedsuddenly.
We leaned forward eagerly. Mrs. Phelps gave a half-suppressed gasp.What was the secret hidden in it?
There was the stomach, a curved sack something like a bagpipe or abadly made boot, with a tiny canal at the toe connecting it with thesmall intestine. There were the heart and lungs.
"I have rendered the stomach visible," resumed Kennedy, "made it'metallic,' so to speak, by injecting a solution of bismuth inbuttermilk, the usual method, by which it becomes more impervious tothe X-rays and hence darker in the skiagraph. I took these pictures notat the rate of fourteen or so a second, like the others, but atintervals of a few seconds. I did that so that, when I run them off, Iget a sort of compressed moving picture. What you see in a short spaceof time actually took much longer to occur. I could have either kind ofpicture, but I prefer the latter.
"For, you will take notice that there is movement here--of the heart,of the lungs, of the stomach--faint, imperceptible under ordinarycircumstances, but nevertheless, movement."
He was pointing at the lungs. "A single peristaltic contraction takesplace normally in a very few seconds. Here it takes minutes. And thestomach. Notice what the bismuth mixture shows. There is a very slowseries of regular wave-contractions from the fundus to the pylorus.Ordinarily one wave takes ten seconds to traverse it; here it is soslow as almost to be unnoticed."
What was the implication of his startling, almost gruesome, discovery?I saw it clearly, yet hung on his words, afraid to admit even to myselfthe logical interpretation of what I saw.
"Reconstruct the case," continued Craig excitedly. "Mr. Phelps, alwaysa bon vivant and now so situated by marriage that he must be so, comesback to America to find his personal fortune--gone.
"What was left? He did as many have done. He took out a new largepolicy on his life. How was he to profit by it? Others have committedsuicide, have died to win. Cases are common now where men have endedtheir lives under such circumstances by swallowingbichloride-of-mercury tablets, a favourite method, it seems, lately.
"But Phelps did not want to die to win. Life was too sweet to him. Hehad another scheme." Kennedy dropped his voice.
"One of the most fascinating problems in speculation as to the futureof the race under the influence of science is that of suspendedanimation. The usual attitude is one of reserve or scepticism. There isno necessity for it. Records exist of cases where vital functions havebeen practically suspended, with no food and little air. Every dayscience is getting closer to the control of metabolism. In the trancethe body functions are so slowed as to simulate death. You have heardof the Indian fakirs who bury themselves alive and are dug up dayslater? You have doubted it. But there is nothing improbable in it.
"Experiments have been made with toads which have been imprisoned inporous rock where they could get the necessary air. They have lived formonths in a stupor. In impervious rock they have died. Frozen fish canrevive; bears and other animals hibernate. There are all gradationsfrom ordinary sleep to the torpor of death. Science can slow downalmost to a standstill the vital processes so that excretions disappearand respiration and heart-beat are almost nil.
"What the Indian fakir does in a cataleptic condition may beduplicated. It is not incredible that they may possess some vegetableextract by which they perform their as yet unexplained feats ofprolonged living burial. For, if an animal free from disease issubjected to the action of some chemical and physical agencies whichhave the property of reducing to the extreme limit the motor forces andnervous stimulus, the body of even a warm-blooded animal may be broughtdown to a condition so closely resembling death that the most carefulexamination may fail to detect any signs of life. The heart willcontinue working regularly at low tension, supplying muscles and otherparts with sufficient blood to sustain molecular life, and the stomachwould naturally react to artificial stimulus. At any time beforedecomposition of tissue has set in, the heart might be made to resumeits work and life come back.
"Phelps had travelled extensively. In Siberia he must undoubtedly haveheard of the Buriats, a tribe of natives who hibernate, almost like theanimals, during the winters, succumbing to a long sleep known as the'leshka.' He must have heard of the experiments of ProfessorBakhmetieff, who studied the Buriats and found that they subsisted onfoods rich in glycogen, a substance in the liver which science hasdiscovered makes possible life during suspended animation. He must haveheard of 'anabiose,' as the famous Russian calls it, by whichconsciousness can be totally removed and respiration and digestioncease almost completely.
"
"But--the body--is gone!" some one interrupted. I turned. It was DanaPhelps, now leaning forward in wide-eyed excitement.
"Yes," exclaimed Craig. "Time was passing rapidly. The insurance hadnot been paid. He had expected to be revived and to disappear withAnginette Phelps long before this. Should the confederates of Phelpswait? They did not dare. To wait longer might be to sacrifice him, ifindeed they had not taken a long chance already. Besides, you yourselfhad your suspicions and had written the insurance company hinting atmurder."
Dana nodded, involuntarily confessing.
"You were watching them, as well as the insurance investigator, Mr.Andrews. It was an awful dilemma. What was to be done? He must beresuscitated at any risk.
"Ah--an idea! Rifle the grave--that was the way to solve it. That wouldstill leave it possible to collect the insurance, too. The blackmailletter about the five thousand dollars was only a blind, to lay on themythical Black Hand the blame for the desecration. Brought into light,humidity, and warmth, the body would recover consciousness and thelife-functions resume their normal state after the anabiotic coma intowhich Phelps had drugged himself.
"But the very first night the supposed ghouls were discovered. DanaPhelps, already suspicious regarding the death of his brother,wondering at the lack of sentiment which Mrs. Phelps showed, since shefelt that her husband was not really dead--Dana was there. Hissuspicions were confirmed, he thought. Montague had been, in reality,murdered, and his murderers were now making away with the evidence. Hefought with the ghouls, yet apparently, in the darkness, he did notdiscover their identity. The struggle was bitter, but they were two toone. Dana was bitten by one of them. Here are the marks ofteeth--teeth--of a woman."
Anginette Phelps was sobbing convulsively. She had risen and was facingDoctor Forden with outstretched hands.
"Tell them!" she cried wildly.
Forden seemed to have maintained his composure only by a superhumaneffort.
"The--body is--at my office," he said, as we faced him with deathlikestillness. "Phelps had told us to get him within ten days. We did gethim, finally. Gentlemen, you, who were seeking murderers, are, ineffect, murderers. You kept us away two days too long. It was too late.We could not revive him. Phelps is really dead!"
"The deuce!" exclaimed Andrews, "the policy is incontestible!"
As he turned to us in disgust, his eyes fell on Anginette Phelps,sobered down by the terrible tragedy and nearly a physical wreck fromreal grief.
"Still," he added hastily, "we'll pay without a protest."
She did not even hear him. It seemed that the butterfly in her wascrushed, as Dr. Forden and Miss Tracy gently led her away.
They had all left, and the laboratory was again in its normal state ofsilence, except for the occasional step of Kennedy as he stowed awaythe apparatus he had used.
"I must say that I was one of the most surprised in the room at theoutcome of that case," I confessed at length. "I fully expected anarrest."
He said nothing, but went on methodically restoring his apparatus toits proper place.
"What a peculiar life you lead, Craig," I pursued reflectively. "Oneday it is a case that ends with such a bright spot in our lives as therecollection of the Shirleys; the next goes to the other extreme ofgruesomeness and one can hardly think about it without a shudder. Andthen, through it all, you go with the high speed power of a racingmotor."
"That last case appealed to me, like many others," he ruminated, "justbecause it was so unusual, so gruesome, as you call it."
He reached into the pocket of his coat, hung over the back of a chair.
"Now, here's another most unusual case, apparently. It begins, really,at the other end, so to speak, with the conviction, begins at the veryplace where we detectives send a man as the last act of our littledramas."
"What?" I gasped, "another case before even this one is fairly cleanedup? Craig--you are impossible. You get worse instead of better."
"Read it," he said, simply. Kennedy handed me a letter in the angularhand affected by many women. It was dated at Sing Sing, or ratherOssining. Craig seemed to appreciate the surprise which my face musthave betrayed at the curious combination of circumstances.
"Nearly always there is the wife or mother of a condemned man who livesin the shadow of the prison," he remarked quietly, adding, "where shecan look down at the grim walls, hoping and fearing."
I said nothing, for the letter spoke for itself.
I have read of your success as a scientific detective and hope that youwill pardon me for writing to you, but it is a matter of life or deathfor one who is dearer to me than all the world.
Perhaps you recall reading of the trial and conviction of my husband,Sanford Godwin, at East Point. The case did not attract much attentionin New York papers, although he was defended by an able lawyer from thecity.
Since the trial, I have taken up my residence here in Ossining in orderto be near him. As I write I can see the cold, grey walls of the stateprison that holds all that is dear to me. Day after day, I have watchedand waited, hoped against hope. The courts are so slow, and lawyers areso technical. There have been executions since I came here, too--and Ishudder at them. Will this appeal be denied, also?
My husband was accused of murdering by poison--hemlock, theyalleged--his adoptive parent, the retired merchant, Parker Godwin,whose family name he took when he was a boy. After the death of the oldman, a later will was discovered in which my husband's inheritance wasreduced to a small annuity. The other heirs, the Elmores, asserted, andthe state made out its case on the assumption, that the new willfurnished a motive for killing old Mr. Godwin, and that only byaccident had it been discovered.
Sanford is innocent. He could not have done it. It is not in him to dosuch a thing. I am only a woman, but about some things I know more thanall the lawyers and scientists, and I KNOW that he is innocent.
I cannot write all. My heart is too full. Cannot you come and adviseme? Even if you cannot take up the case to which I have devoted mylife, tell me what to do. I am enclosing a check for expenses, all Ican spare at present.
Sincerely yours,
NELLA GODWIN.
"Are you going?" I asked, watching Kennedy as he tapped the checkthoughtfully on the desk.
"I can hardly resist an appeal like that," he replied, absentlyreplacing the check in the envelope with the letter.