IX
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
As Minna Pitts led us through the large mansion preparatory to turningus over to a servant she explained hastily that Mr. Pitts had long beenill and was now taking a new treatment under Dr. Thompson Lord. No onehaving answered her bell in the present state of excitement of thehouse, she stopped short at the pivoted door of the kitchen, with alittle shudder at the tragedy, and stood only long enough to relate tous the story as she had heard it from the valet, Edward.
Mr. Pitts, it seemed, had wanted an early breakfast and had sent Edwardto order it. The valet had found the kitchen a veritableslaughter-house, with, the negro chef, Sam, lying dead on the floor.Sam had been dead, apparently, since the night before.
As she hurried away, Kennedy pushed open the door. It was a marvellousplace, that antiseptic or rather aseptic kitchen, with its white tilingand enamel, its huge ice-box, and cooking-utensils for every purpose,all of the most expensive and modern make.
There were marks everywhere of a struggle, and by the side of the chef,whose body now lay in the next room awaiting the coroner, lay a longcarving-knife with which he had evidently defended himself. On itsblade and haft were huge coagulated spots of blood. The body of Sambore marks of his having been clutched violently by the throat, and inhis head was a single, deep wound that penetrated the skull in a mostpeculiar manner. It did not seem possible that a blow from a knifecould have done it. It was a most unusual wound and not at all the sortthat could have been made by a bullet.
As Kennedy examined it, he remarked, shaking his head in confirmationof his own opinion, "That must have been done by a Behr bulletless gun."
"A bulletless gun?" I repeated.
"Yes, a sort of pistol with a spring-operated device that projects asharp blade with great force. No bullet and no powder are used in it.But when it is placed directly over a vital point of the skull so thatthe aim is unerring, a trigger lets a long knife shoot out withtremendous force, and death is instantaneous."
Near the door, leading to the courtyard that opened on the side street,were some spots of blood. They were so far from the place where thevalet had discovered the body of the chef that there could be no doubtthat they were blood from the murderer himself. Kennedy's reasoning inthe matter seemed irresistible.
He looked under the table near the door, covered with a large lightcloth. Beneath the table and behind the cloth he found another bloodspot.
"How did that land there?" he mused aloud. "The table-cloth isbloodless."
Craig appeared to think a moment. Then he unlocked and opened the door.A current of air was created and blew the cloth aside.
"Clearly," he exclaimed, "that drop of blood was wafted under the tableas the door was opened. The chances are all that it came from a cut onperhaps the hand or face of the murderer himself."
It seemed to be entirely reasonable, for the bloodstains about the roomwere such as to indicate that he had been badly cut by thecarving-knife.
"Whoever attacked the chef must have been deeply wounded," I remarked,picking up the bloody knife and looking about at the stains,comparatively few of which could have come from the one deep fatalwound in the head of the victim.
Kennedy was still engrossed in a study of the stains, evidentlyconsidering that their size, shape, and location might throw some lighton what had occurred. "Walter," he said finally, "while I'm busy here,I wish you would find that valet, Edward. I want to talk to him."
I found him at last, a clean-cut young fellow of much above averageintelligence.
"There are some things I have not yet got clearly, Edward," beganKennedy. "Now where was the body, exactly, when you opened the door?"
Edward pointed out the exact spot, near the side of the kitchen towardthe door leading out to the breakfast room and opposite the ice-box.
"And the door to the side street?" asked Kennedy, to all appearancesvery favorably impressed by the young man.
"It was locked, sir," he answered positively.
Kennedy was quite apparently considering the honesty and faithfulnessof the servant. At last he leaned over and asked quickly, "Can I trustyou?"
The frank, "Yes," of the young fellow was convincing enough.
"What I want," pursued Kennedy, "is to have some one inside this housewho can tell me as much as he can see of the visitors, the messengersthat come here this morning. It will be an act of loyalty to youremployer, so that you need have no fear about that."
Edward bowed, and left us. While I had been seeking him, Kennedy hadtelephoned hastily to his laboratory and had found one of his studentsthere. He had ordered him to bring down an apparatus which hedescribed, and some other material.
While we waited Kennedy sent word to Pitts that he wanted to see himalone for a few minutes.
The instrument appeared to be a rubber bulb and cuff with a rubber bagattached to the inside. From it ran a tube which ended in anothergraduated glass tube with a thin line of mercury in it like athermometer.
Craig adjusted the thing over the brachial artery of Pitts, just abovethe elbow.
"It may be a little uncomfortable, Mr. Pitts," he apologised, "but itwill be for only a few minutes."
Pressure through the rubber bulb shut off the artery so that Kennedycould no longer feel the pulse at the wrist. As he worked, I began tosee what he was after. The reading on the graded scale of the height ofthe column of mercury indicated, I knew, blood pressure. This time, ashe worked, I noted also the flabby skin of Pitts as well as the smalland sluggish pupils of his eyes.
He completed his test in silence and excused himself, although as wewent back to the kitchen I was burning with curiosity.
"What was it?" I asked. "What did you discover?"
"That," he replied, "was a sphygmomanometer, something like thesphygmograph which we used once in another case. Normal blood pressureis 125 millimetres. Mr. Pitts shows a high pressure, very high. Thelarge life insurance companies are now using this instrument. Theywould tell you that a high pressure like that indicates apoplexy. Mr.Pitts, young as he really is, is actually old. For, you know, thesaying is that a man is as old as his arteries. Pitts has hardening ofthe arteries, arteriosclerosis--perhaps other heart and kidneytroubles, in short pre-senility."
Craig paused: then added sententiously as if to himself: "You haveheard the latest theories about old age, that it is due to microbicpoisons secreted in the intestines and penetrating the intestinalwalls? Well, in premature senility the symptoms are the same as insenility, only mental acuteness is not so impaired."
We had now reached the kitchen again. The student had also brought downto Kennedy a number of sterilised microscope slides and test-tubes, andfrom here and there in the masses of blood spots Kennedy was taking andpreserving samples. He also took samples of the various foods, which hepreserved in the sterilised tubes.
While he was at work Edward joined us cautiously.
"Has anything happened?" asked Craig.
"A message came by a boy for Mrs. Pitts," whispered the valet.
"What did she do with it?"
"Tore it up."
"And the pieces?"
"She must have hidden them somewhere."
"See if you can get them."
Edward nodded and left us.
"Yes," I remarked after he had gone, "it does seem as if the thing todo was to get on the trail of a person bearing wounds of some kind. Inotice, for one thing, Craig, that Edward shows no such marks, nor doesany one else in the house as far as I can see. If it were an 'insidejob' I fancy Edward at least could clear himself. The point is to findthe person with a bandaged hand or plastered face."
Kennedy assented, but his mind was on another subject. "Before we go wemust see Mrs. Pitts alone, if we can," he said simply.
In answer to his inquiry through one of the servants she sent down wordthat she would see us immediately in her sitting-room. The events ofthe morning had quite naturally upset her, and she was, if anything,even paler than when we saw her before.
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"Mrs. Pitts," began Kennedy, "I suppose you are aware of the physicalcondition of your husband?"
It seemed a little abrupt to me at first, but he intended it to be."Why," she asked with real alarm, "is he so very badly?"
"Pretty badly," remarked Kennedy mercilessly, observing the effect ofhis words. "So badly, I fear, that it would not require much moreexcitement like to-day's to bring on an attack of apoplexy. I shouldadvise you to take especial care of him, Mrs. Pitts."
Following his eyes, I tried to determine whether the agitation of thewoman before us was genuine or not. It certainly looked so. But then, Iknew that she had been an actress before her marriage. Was she acting apart now?
"What do you mean?" she asked tremulously.
"Mrs. Pitts," replied Kennedy quickly, observing still the play ofemotion on her delicate features, "some one, I believe, eitherregularly in or employed in this house or who had a ready means ofaccess to it must have entered that kitchen last night. For whatpurpose, I can leave you to judge. But Sam surprised the intruder thereand was killed for his faithfulness."
Her startled look told plainly that though she might have suspectedsomething of the sort she did not think that any one else suspected,much less actually perhaps knew it.
"I can't imagine who it could be, unless it might be one of theservants," she murmured hastily; adding, "and there is none of themthat I have any right to suspect."
She had in a measure regained her composure, and Kennedy felt that itwas no use to pursue the conversation further, perhaps expose his handbefore he was ready to play it.
"That woman is concealing something," remarked Kennedy to me as we leftthe house a few minutes later.
"She at least bears no marks of violence herself of any kind," Icommented.
"No," agreed Craig, "no, you are right so far." He added: "I shall bevery busy in the laboratory this afternoon, and probably longer.However, drop in at dinner time, and in the meantime, don't say a wordto any one, but just use your position on the Star to keep in touchwith anything the police authorities may be doing."
It was not a difficult commission, since they did nothing but issue astatement, the net import of which was to let the public know that theywere very active, although they had nothing to report.
Kennedy was still busy when I rejoined him, a little late purposely,since I knew that he would be over his head in work.
"What's this--a zoo?" I asked, looking about me as I entered thesanctum that evening.
There were dogs and guinea pigs, rats and mice, a menagerie that wouldhave delighted a small boy. It did not look like the same oldlaboratory for the investigation of criminal science, though I saw on asecond glance that it was the same, that there was the usualhurly-burly of microscopes, test-tubes, and all the paraphernalia thatwere so mystifying at first but in the end under his skilful hand madethe most complicated cases seem stupidly simple.
Craig smiled at my surprise. "I'm making a little study of intestinalpoisons," he commented, "poisons produced by microbes which we keepunder more or less control in healthy life. In death they are thelittle fellows that extend all over the body and putrefy it. We nourishwithin ourselves microbes which secrete very virulent poisons, and whenthose poisons are too much for us--well, we grow old. At least that isthe theory of Metchnikoff, who says that old age is an infectiouschronic, disease. Somehow," he added thoughtfully, "that beautifulwhite kitchen in the Pitts home had really become a factory forintestinal poisons."
There was an air of suppressed excitement in his manner which told methat Kennedy was on the trail of something unusual.
"Mouth murder," he cried at length, "that was what was being done inthat wonderful kitchen. Do you know, the scientific slaying of humanbeings has far exceeded organised efforts at detection? Of course youexpect me to say that; you think I look at such things through colouredglasses. But it is a fact, nevertheless.
"It is a very simple matter for the police to apprehend the commonmurderer whose weapon is a knife or a gun, but it is a different thingwhen they investigate the death of a person who has been the victim ofthe modern murderer who slays, let us say, with some kind of deadlybacilli. Authorities say, and I agree with them, that hundreds ofmurders are committed in this country every year and are not detectedbecause the detectives are not scientists, while the slayers have usedthe knowledge of the scientists both to commit and to cover up thecrimes. I tell you, Walter, a murder science bureau not only wouldclear up nearly every poison mystery, but also it would inspire such awholesome fear among would-be murderers that they would abandon manyattempts to take life."
He was as excited over the case as I had ever seen him. Indeed it wasone that evidently taxed his utmost powers.
"What have you found?" I asked, startled.
"You remember my use of the sphygmomanometer?" he asked. "In the firstplace that put me on what seems to be a clear trail. The most dreadedof all the ills of the cardiac and vascular systems nowadays seems tobe arterio-sclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. It is possible fora man of forty-odd, like Mr. Pitts, to have arteries in a conditionwhich would not be encountered normally in persons under seventy yearsof age.
"The hard or hardening artery means increased blood pressure, with aconsequent increased strain on the heart. This may lead, has led inthis case, to a long train of distressing symptoms, and, of course, toultimate death. Heart disease, according to statistics, is carrying offa greater percentage of persons than formerly. This fact cannot bedenied, and it is attributed largely to worry, the abnormal rush of thelife of to-day, and sometimes to faulty methods of eating and badnutrition. On the surface, these natural causes might seem to be atwork with Mr. Pitts. But, Walter, I do not believe it, I do not believeit. There is more than that, here. Come, I can do nothing moreto-night, until I learn more from these animals and the cultures whichI have in these tubes. Let us take a turn or two, then dine, andperhaps we may get some word at our apartment from Edward."
It was late that night when a gentle tap at the door proved thatKennedy's hope had not been unfounded. I opened it and let in Edward,the valet, who produced the fragments of a note, torn and crumpled.
"There is nothing new, sir," he explained, "except that Mrs. Pittsseems more nervous than ever, and Mr. Pitts, I think, is feeling alittle brighter."
Kennedy said nothing, but was hard at work with puckered brows atpiecing together the note which Edward had obtained after huntingthrough the house. It had been thrown into a fireplace in Mrs. Pitts'sown room, and only by chance had part of it been unconsumed. The bodyof the note was gone altogether, but the first part and the last partremained.
Apparently it had been written the very morning on which the murder wasdiscovered.
It read simply, "I have succeeded in having Thornton declared ..." Thenthere was a break. The last words were legible, and were,"... confinedin a suitable institution where he can cause no future harm."
There was no signature, as if the sender had perfectly understood thatthe receiver would understand.
"Not difficult to supply some of the context, at any rate," musedKennedy. "Whoever Thornton may be, some one has succeeded in having himdeclared 'insane,' I should supply. If he is in an institution near NewYork, we must be able to locate him. Edward, this is a very importantclue. There is nothing else."
Kennedy employed the remainder of the night in obtaining a list of allthe institutions, both public and private, within a considerable radiusof the city where the insane might be detained.
The next morning, after an hour or so spent in the laboratoryapparently in confirming some control tests which Kennedy had laid outto make sure that he was not going wrong in the line of inquiry he waspursuing, we started off in a series of flying visits to the varioussanitaria about the city in search of an inmate named Thornton.
I will not attempt to describe the many curious sights and experienceswe saw and had. I could readily believe that any one who spent even aslittle time as we did might almost think that the
very world was goingrapidly insane. There were literally thousands of names in the listswhich we examined patiently, going through them all, since Kennedy wasnot at all sure that Thornton might not be a first name, and we had notime to waste on taking any chances.
It was not until long after dusk that, weary with the search anddust-covered from our hasty scouring of the country in an automobilewhich Kennedy had hired after exhausting the city institutions, we cameto a small private asylum up in Westchester. I had almost been willingto give it up for the day, to start afresh on the morrow, but Kennedyseemed to feel that the case was too urgent to lose even twelve hoursover.
It was a peculiar place, isolated, out-of-the-way, and guarded by ahigh brick wall that enclosed a pretty good sized garden.
A ring at the bell brought a sharp-eyed maid to the door.
"Have you--er--any one here named Thornton--er--?" Kennedy paused insuch a way that if it were the last name he might come to a full stop,and if it were a first name he could go on.
"There is a Mr. Thornton who came yesterday," she snapped ungraciously,"but you can not see him, It's against the rules."
"Yes--yesterday," repeated Kennedy eagerly, ignoring her tartness."Could I--" he slipped a crumpled treasury note into her hand--"could Ispeak to Mr. Thornton's nurse?"
The note seemed to render the acidity of the girl slightly alkaline.She opened the door a little further, and we found ourselves in aplainly furnished reception room, alone.
We might have been in the reception-room of a prosperous countrygentleman, so quiet was it. There was none of the raving, as far as Icould make out, that I should have expected even in a twentieth centuryBedlam, no material for a Poe story of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather.
At length the hall door opened, and a man entered, not a prepossessingman, it is true, with his large and powerful hands and arms andslightly bowed, almost bulldog legs. Yet he was not of that aggressivekind which would make a show of physical strength without good andsufficient cause.
"You have charge of Mr. Thornton?" inquired Kennedy.
"Yes," was the curt response.
"I trust he is all right here?"
"He wouldn't be here if he was all right," was the quick reply. "Andwho might you be?"
"I knew him in the old days," replied Craig evasively. "My friend heredoes not know him, but I was in this part of Westchester visiting andhaving heard he was here thought I would drop in, just for old time'ssake. That is all."
"How did you know he was here?" asked the man suspiciously.
"I heard indirectly from a friend of mine, Mrs. Pitts."
"Oh."
The man seemed to accept the explanation at its face value.
"Is he very--very badly?" asked Craig with well-feigned interest.
"Well," replied the man, a little mollified by a good cigar which Iproduced, "don't you go a-telling her, but if he says the name Minnaonce a day it is a thousand times. Them drug-dopes has some strangedelusions."
"Strange delusions?" queried Craig. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Say," ejaculated the man. "I don't know you, You come here sayingyou're friends of Mr. Thornton's. How do I know what you are?"
"Well," ventured Kennedy, "suppose I should also tell you I am a friendof the man who committed him."
"Of Dr. Thompson Lord?"
"Exactly. My friend here knows Dr. Lord very well, don't you, Walter?"
Thus appealed to I hastened to add, "Indeed I do." Then, improving theopening, I hastened: "Is this Mr. Thornton violent? I think this is oneof the most quiet institutions I ever saw for so small a place."
The man shook his head.
"Because," I added, "I thought some drug fiends were violent and had tobe restrained by force, often."
"You won't find a mark or a scratch on him, sir," replied the man."That ain't our system."
"Not a mark or scratch on him," repeated Kennedy thoughtfully. "Iwonder if he'd recognise me?"
"Can't say," concluded the man. "What's more, can't try. It's againstthe rules. Only your knowing so many he knows has got you this far.You'll have to call on a regular day or by appointment to see him,gentlemen."
There was an air of finality about the last statement that made Kennedyrise and move toward the door with a hearty "Thank you, for yourkindness," and a wish to be remembered to "poor old Thornton."
As we climbed into the car he poked me in the ribs. "Just as good forthe present as if we had seen him," he exclaimed. "Drug-fiend, friendof Mrs. Pitts, committed by Dr. Lord, no wounds."
Then he lapsed into silence as we sped back to the city.
"The Pitts house," ordered Kennedy as we bowled along, after noting byhis watch that it was after nine. Then to me he added, "We must seeMrs. Pitts once more, and alone."
We waited some time after Kennedy sent up word that he would like tosee Mrs. Pitts. At last she appeared. I thought she avoided Kennedy'seye, and I am sure that her intuition told her that he had somerevelation to make, against which she was steeling herself.
Craig greeted her as reassuringly as he could, but as she sat nervouslybefore us, I could see that she was in reality pale, worn, and anxious.
"We have had a rather hard day," began Kennedy after the usual politeinquiries about her own and her husband's health had been, I thought, alittle prolonged by him.
"Indeed?" she asked. "Have you come any closer to the truth?"
Kennedy met her eyes, and she turned away.
"Yes, Mr. Jameson and I have put in the better part of the day in goingfrom one institution for the insane to another."
He paused. The startled look on her face told as plainly as words thathis remark had struck home.
Without giving her a chance to reply, or to think of a verbal means ofescape, Craig hurried on with an account of what we had done, sayingnothing about the original letter which had started us on the searchfor Thornton, but leaving it to be inferred by her that he knew muchmore than he cared to tell.
"In short, Mrs. Pitts," he concluded firmly, "I do not need to tell youthat I already know much about the matter which you are concealing."
The piling up of fact on fact, mystifying as it was to me who had asyet no inkling of what it was tending toward, proved too much for thewoman who knew the truth, yet did not know how much Kennedy knew of it.Minna Pitts was pacing the floor wildly, all the assumed manner of theactress gone from her, yet with the native grace and feeling of theborn actress playing unrestrained in her actions.
"You know only part of my story," she cried, fixing him with her nowtearless eyes. "It is only a question of time when you will worm it allout by your uncanny, occult methods. Mr. Kennedy, I cast myself on you."