CHAPTER XV
THE GERM OF ANTHRAX
It was not until the middle of the afternoon that there came a sudden,brief message from the Secret Service in Washington:
Mr. Craig Kennedy, New York.
I have located the Baroness Von Dorf in a private sanitarium here and will have her in New York tonight by eight o'clock.
BURKE.
"In a private sanitarium--will have her in New York tonight," rereadCraig, studying the message. "Then it wouldn't seem that there could bemuch the matter with her."
For a few moments he paced the laboratory floor, alternately studyingthe boards and the yellow telegram. At last, his face seemed to light upas if he had reasoned something out to his satisfaction. Quickly hereached for the telephone and called Dr. Leslie.
"I shall have the Baroness here tonight at eight, Leslie," I heard himsay. "Don't tell a soul about it. But I'd like to have you make all thearrangements to secure the attendance of Haynes, Ames, and Madame Dupreshere just a bit ahead of that time."
There was nothing that I could do to aid Craig more in the hours thatremained than to efface myself, and I did it in the most effectual way Icould think of, compatible with my interest in the case. I rode down toDr. Leslie's office and dined hurriedly with him. The only newinformation I gleaned was that Haynes had visited him during theafternoon and had outlined his theory of cyanogen, which certainlyseemed to me to fit in quite readily with the facts.
When we reached the laboratory, early, Kennedy was still absorbed instudying his microscope. He said nothing, but apparently had gained anair of confidence which he lacked the night before.
The Baroness had not yet arrived, but a few minutes after us came AshbyAmes, still complaining about the closing of his apartment and theinconvenience the whole affair had put him to. Haynes arrived and Amescut short his tirade, glancing resentfully at the veterinary as thoughin some way he were responsible for his troubles. Madame Dupres arrivedshortly, and I could not help noticing that Haynes was patently jealousof even the nod of recognition she gave to Ames.
"I don't think I need say that this is one of the most baffling casesthat we have ever had," began Kennedy, with a glance at Dr. Leslie.
"It certainly is," chimed in the coroner, as though he had been appealedto for corroboration.
"In the first place," resumed Kennedy, "I discovered in the air up therein Delaney's room just a trace of cyanogen."
Haynes nodded approvingly, glancing from one to the other of us.
"But," added Craig, as if he had built up a house of cards merely todemolish it, "I don't think that cyanogen was the cause of Delaney'sdeath--although it furnished the clew."
"What could it have been, then?" demanded Haynes, his face clouding.
Kennedy looked at him calmly. "You've heard of anthrax?" he askedsimply.
"Y-yes," replied Haynes, meeting his eye fixedly. "Murrain--the cattledisease."
"That is so deadly to human beings sometimes," added Craig. "Well, I'vefound something very much like anthrax germs in the sweepings that Itook up with the vacuum cleaner up there."
Dr. Leslie was listening intently.
"I can't see how it could have been anthrax," he put in, slowly shakinghis head. "Why, Kennedy, the symptoms were entirely different."
"No, this was a poisoning of some kind," added Dr. Haynes. "Dr. Lesliehimself tells me that you found traces of cyanogen in the air--and youhave just said so, too."
Kennedy indicated the microscope. "Take a look at that slide under thelens," he said simply.
I was nearest and as he evidently meant each of us to look, I did so.Under the high-power lens I could see some little roundish dots movingslowly through the field.
Haynes looked next. "But, Professor Kennedy," he objected, almost assoon as he had time for a good look, "the bacilli of anthrax havenormally the form of straight bars strung together in a row."
"Yes, rod bacilli," added Dr. Leslie, also looking. "Like long rows ofhyphens, slender cylindric, non-motile chains joined end to end."
We looked at Craig inquiringly.
"Like that," he indicated, substituting another slide.
We looked again. The field had somewhat the appearance of an exaggeratedwar map with dark units of supposed troops.
"That's it," nodded Haynes.
Kennedy removed the slide. "Those are some anthrax germs I obtained herein the city from a pathologist," he said, turning a switch that threw onin a lamp a peculiar, purplish light. "This is a machine for thepropagation of ultra-violet rays."
He placed the second slide, with its germs of anthrax, in the light,allowing it to play over the slide.
"Now look," he said.
We did. Something had evidently happened. The chains were broken andsmaller units were moving.
"If anthrax germs are exposed for a few seconds, even, to ultra-violetlight, they change more or less," Kennedy proceeded. "These new formsare not stable. They quickly change back again into their originalform."
For about ten minutes we sat in silence while the weird light played asif with ghostly fingers on the deadly invisible peril on the littleglass microscope slide.
"But if the action of the ultra-violet rays is continued," went onCraig, "the microbe changes into a coccus, and then into a filiformbacillus. This form is stable. And the germ is changed in otherrespects than mere shape. It has entirely new characteristics. It is atrue mutation. It produces a disease entirely different from that of theanthrax bacillus from which it is derived. I have tried it on a guineapig--and it has died in forty-eight hours."
Startled as I was by this remarkable discovery, I yet had time to watchHaynes. He had not taken his eyes off Kennedy once since he began tospeak.
"In anthrax," continued Craig, "an autopsy reveals an enormous serousswelling, about the point of inoculation, with a large gathering ofmicrobes which are formed in the blood and spleen. Death seems to be dueto septic poisoning. But this new microbe--super-toxicus, I think itmight well be named--produces no swelling and scarcely any microbes areto be found in the blood.
"The lungs are inflamed, with innumerable small abscesses. That is theinternal form of the disease from breathing in the spores of thesemicrobes. It has an external form, also, but that is by no means sodeadly. One would say that death from the internal form of the diseasewas due to poisoning. The toxin of this microbe produces a sort ofasphyxiation, cutting off and eating up the supply of oxygen.
"Such a condition is called cyanosis. That is why in Delaney it had theappearance of cyanogen poisoning. The effect was the same. But the traceof cyanogen in the air was merely a coincidence, Haynes. It wasn'tcyanogen that killed. But it was something quite as deadly--and farharder to trace--a new germ!"
We listened, fascinated.
"A French scientist, a woman, Madame Victor Henri, a student at thePasteur Institute in Paris, has shown that a new microbe can actually becreated from anthrax germs by the use of ultra-violet rays. It is notlike anthrax, but may be quite as deadly, perhaps more so.
"This discovery," he added earnestly, "proves for the first time that aliving organism can be changed suddenly and artificially into anorganism of a new and entirely different species. One can scarcelyappreciate the importance of it. If the germs of different diseases canbe transformed, the germ of one being changed into the germ of another,it will be a first step toward finding a way to change deadly germs intoothers that will be quite innocuous."
Kennedy paused impressively to let the horror of the thing impressitself on our minds. "But this criminal has been working for evilpurposes in the wrong direction--creating a disease in order to cover uphis tracks!"
One could almost feel the net closing.
"Delaney has fallen a victim to a new germ of which someone learned inParis," Craig raced on, inexorably, "a germ that would never, in allprobability, be discovered by American doctors, a germ that poisonedsafely, surely, and swiftly by its deadly super-toxin."
A
few moments before there had been a noise of a car outside thelaboratory window, but in the excitement of Craig's startling revelationwe had paid no attention.
A hasty tap at the door interrupted him. Before he could open it a verybeautiful woman burst in, followed by a thick-set Irishman.
It was the Baroness Von Dorf and our friend Burke.
For a moment the two women fairly glared at each other.
"I've heard what Professor Kennedy just said," cried the Baroness, hereyes snapping fire. "Fortunately, I had to go to Washington and was ableto protect myself by seeming to disappear. If I had stayed in New Yorkanother day, there is no telling what might have happened to me.Probably I should have got this disease internally instead ofexternally. As it was, I thought it would come near ruining my beauty."
Burke tossed a yellow slip of paper on the table near Kennedy. "That issomething one of our special agents found and brought me today," heexclaimed.
Kennedy picked it up and read it, while Burke faced us.
The Secret Service man fixed his eyes on Madame Dupres. "As for you, mydear lady," he challenged, "how do you happen to be in New York with oneof the greatest international crooks that ever troubled the police offive continents?"
"I--in New York?" she shrugged coolly. "Monte Carlo, Paris, Vienna,London--all were dead. I had to come here to make a living."
The Baroness drew herself up as if to speak.
"You scoundrel--you will give my apartment a bad name with your dirtycattle plague--will you!" ground out a voice harshly at my side.
I turned quickly. Ames had clutched Haynes by the throat. We were all onour feet in a moment, but there was no need of separating them. Theveterinary was more than a match for the hot-headed little lawyer.
"Someone," shot out Kennedy, wheeling quickly, "figured that the cattledeal could be brought about quite naturally if Delaney were dead and theBaroness out of the way. Later he could reap the profit and carry offMadame Dupres into the bargain. And if anything were ever discovered,what more natural than to throw the suspicion on a veterinary who wassupposed to know all about anthrax?"
Just then a half circle of nickled steel gleamed momentarily inKennedy's hands. I recognized it as a pair of the new handcuffs thatuncoiled automatically, gripping at a mere touch.
I saw it all in a flash, as I picked up the paper that Burke had tossedto Kennedy.
It was a telegram, and read:
A. A., The New Stratfield, Washington. Return immediately. Coroner has Craig Kennedy on case. D. D.
"It was a devilish scheme," snapped Kennedy, as the handcuffs circledthe fake lawyer's wrists, "but it didn't work, Ames."