CHAPTER XXX
THE FILTERABLE VIRUS
I was surprised to run into O'Hanlon himself in the train out toNorwood. The failure to get Dr. Loeb troubled him and he had reasonedthat if Darius Moreton took the trouble to write a letter about hisfriend he might possibly know more of his whereabouts than he professed.We discussed the case nearly the whole journey, agreeing to separatejust before we reached the station in order not to be seen together.
It took me longer to carry out Kennedy's request than I had expected. Ifound Myra at home alone, very much excited.
"Someone called me up from New York this morning," she said, "and askedwhether father and Lionel were at home. I thought they were at thefactory, but when I called there, the foreman told me they hadn't beenthere. And Dr. Goode is out, too--hasn't seen any of his patients today.Oh, Mr. Jameson, what does it all mean? Where have they gone?"
I was a poor one to comfort her, for I had no idea myself. Still, I didmy best, and incidentally secured the brushes, though I must confess Ihad to commit a little second-story work to get into Dr. Goode's.
It seemed heartless to leave the poor girl all alone, but I knew thatKennedy was waiting anxiously for me. I promised to make inquiries allover about her father, Lionel, and Dr. Goode, and, I think, the merefact that someone showed an interest in her cheered her up, especiallywhen I told her Kennedy was working hard on the case.
As I waited for the train that was to take me back to the city, thetrain from New York pulled in. Imagine my surprise when I saw MissGolder step off nervously and hurry up the main street.
I watched her, debating what to do, whether to let Kennedy wait andfollow her, or not.
"Someone, they don't know who, bailed her out," I heard a voice whisperin my ear.
I turned quickly. It was O'Hanlon. "She put up cash bail," he addedunder his breath. "No one knows where she got it. I'm waiting until sheturns that corner--then I'm going to shadow her. I can't seem to findanyone in this town just now. Perhaps she knows where Loeb is."
"If you get on the trail, will you wire me?" I asked. "Here's my trainnow."
O'Hanlon promised, and as I swung on the step I caught a last glimpse ofhim sauntering casually in the direction Miss Golder had taken.
I handed Kennedy the brushes I had obtained, but he gave me noopportunity to satisfy my curiosity. Instead, he started me out again tokeep in touch with the progress made in the cases of the quacks,particularly the search for Dr. Loeb, which seemed to interest him quiteas much as the bailing out of Miss Golder.
It was after dinner and I was preparing to follow the cases on into thenight court, if necessary, when one of O'Hanlon's assistants hurried upto me.
"We've just had a wire from Mr. O'Hanlon," he cried excitedly, handingme a telegram.
I read:
"Loeb captured Norwood. Darius Moreton hiding him in vacant house outside town. Advise Kennedy."
I dashed for the nearest telephone and called up Craig.
"Fine, Walter," he shouted back. "I am ready. Meet me at the station andwire O'Hanlon to wait there for us."
We made the journey to Norwood as impatiently as any two passengers onthe accommodation at that hour of night, Craig carrying his evidence inthe case in a little leather hand satchel.
Already, out at the old house, O'Hanlon had gathered the Moreton family,Dr. Goode, who had turned up with the rest, Dr. Loeb, and Miss Golder.Myra Moreton was even more agitated than she had been when I left herduring the afternoon. In fact the secrecy maintained by both her familyand Dr. Goode, to say nothing of the presence of Dr. Loeb in the houseunder arrest, had all but broken her down. She greeted Kennedy almost asthough he had been a life-long friend.
"I want you to look after Miss Moreton, Walter," he said in a low toneas we three stood in the hall. "And you, Miss Moreton, I want to trustme when I tell you I am going to bring you safely out of this thing. Bea brave girl," he encouraged, taking her hand. "Remember that Mr.Jameson and I are here solely in your interest."
"I know it," she murmured, her lip trembling. "I will try."
A moment later we entered the Moreton library. Dr. Loeb was glaringimpartially at everybody. I am sure that if he had been able to get atany of his formidable electrical apparatus he would have made short workof us "without cautery or knife." Darius Moreton was indignant, Lionelsupercilious, Dr. Goode silent.
Kennedy lost no time in getting down to the business that had broughthim out to Norwood, for this was not exactly a sociable gathering.
"Of course," he began, laying his leather case on the table andunlocking, but not opening it, "references to cancer houses abound inmedical literature, but I think I am safe in saying that nothing hasbeen conclusively proved in favor either of the believers or theskeptics. At least, it may be said to be an open question, with theweight of opinion against it. Such physicians as Sir Thomas Oliver havesaid that the evidence in favor is too strong to be ignored. Others,equally brilliant, have shown why it should be ignored.
"In the absence of better proof--or rather in the presence of otherfacts--perhaps, in this case, it would be better to see whether there isnot some other theory that may fit the facts better."
"Dr. Goode thought that the cancers might have been caused artificiallyby X-rays or radium," I ventured.
Craig shook his head. "I have taken a piece of filter paper saturatedwith a solution of potassium iodide, starch paste, and ferrosulphate andlaid it over a sample of blood, not four millimeters away. The whole Ihave kept in the dark.
"Now, we know that blood gives off peroxide of hydrogen. Peroxide ofhydrogen is capable of attacking photographic plates. The paper can bepermeated by a gas. No, that was not a case of photo-activity observedby Dr. Goode. It was the emission of gas from the blood that affectedthe plates."
"But suppose that is the case," objected Dr. Goode hastily. "There arethe deaths from cancer. How do you explain them? It is not a cancerhouse, you say. Is it mere chance?"
"Anyone may be pardoned for believing that cancer houses or even cancerdistricts exist," reiterated Craig. "Indeed some observations seem toshow it, as I have said, though the opponents of the theory claim tohave found other causes. Here, as you hint, five people, living in closeassociation, have died in five years."
He paused and drew from the satchel the little porcelain cone which hehad picked up between the Moreton and Goode houses.
"I have here," he resumed, "what is known as a Berkefeld filter. Itsmeshes let through none of the germs that we can see with a microscope.It is bacteria-proof. Only something smaller than these things can passthrough it, something that we cannot see, a clear watery fluid. Thatsomething in this case is a filterable virus."
Kennedy paused again, then went on, "Although the filterable viruseshave only recently come to attention, it is known that they are of verydiverse character. Here we have opened up the world of the infinitelylittle--the universe that lies beyond the range of the microscope. Thestudy of these tiny particles is now one of the greatest objects inscientific medicine.
"Are they living? It seems so, for a very little of the virus gives riseto growths from which many others start. It may, of course, be chemical,but it looks as if it were organic, since it resists cold, although notheat, and can be destroyed by phenol, toluol, and other antiseptics.Perhaps the virus may be visible, but not by any means yet known. Still,we do know that these things which no eye can see may cause some of thecommonest diseases."
Kennedy paused. As usual he had his little audience following himbreathlessly. Even Dr. Loeb forgot to glower.
"In recent experiments with cancer in chickens," continued Craig, "tumormaterial ground fine and treated in various ways has been filteredthrough these filters. Cancers have been caused by this agent which haspassed through the filter.
"On the inside of the filter which I picked up back of this very house,near the boundary of Dr. Goode's, I have found the giant cells ofcancer. On the outside was something which I have been able to developin
to a virus, these micro-organisms that belong to the ultra-invisible.I do not pretend to know just how this bacteriological dwarf has beenused. But I know enough to say that someone has, without doubt, beenusing some sort of filterable virus to induce cancers, just as theexperimenters at the Rockefeller Institute have done with animals.
"Naturally, in the Moreton family, this person found a fertile soil.Perhaps he waited until he saw what looked like a favorable wound, ortraumatism. It is well-known that cancer often can be traced to a wound.Perhaps he introduced this virus surreptitiously into a cut, now andthen. For, experiments show that the virus is strikingly dependent forits action on the derangement of the tissues with which it is brought incontact.
"This person must have had a high percentage of failures in his attemptsto inoculate the virus successfully. But by persistence and takingadvantage of every predisposition afforded by nature, he succeeded. Atany rate, this person must have been intimately acquainted with thefamily, must have had some motive for seeking their deaths,--forinstance the family fortune.
"It makes no difference whether the victims might have had cancer sooneror later, anyway. Even if that were so, this cold-blooded villain was atleast hastening the development, if not actually causing the frightfuland fatal disease."
Myra Moreton shuddered, and looked at Dr. Goode anxiously as Kennedyproceeded. He seemed about to interrupt, but managed to check himself.Craig reached over and picked out from the satchel the hat which we hadfound on a desk at the office of the cancer quack.
"In the raid of Dr. Loeb's," he explained, changing tone, "a mandisappeared. I have here a soft hat which he left behind in his hurry toescape, as well as some of the filters he was carrying."
He turned the hat inside out. "You will see," Craig pointed out, "thaton the felt of the inside there are numerous hairs, from the head ofthe wearer."
I leaned forward, breathlessly. I began to see the part I had played inbuilding up his case.
"Human hair," he remarked, "differs greatly. Under the microscope onemay study the oval-shaped medulla, the long pointed cortex, and the flatcuticle cells of an individual hair. The pigment in the cortex can bestudied also.
"I have taken some of the hairs from the inside of this hat, examined,photographed, and measured them. I have compared them with a color scaleperfected by the late Alphonse Bertillon. In fact, in France quite ascience has been built up about hair by the so-called 'pilologists.' TheGerman scientific criminalists have written minute treaties on the hairand astounding results have been obtained by them in detection.
"I have been able to secure samples of the hair of everyone in this caseand I have studied them also. These hairs in the hat which was left overthe package of filters have furnished me with a slender but no lessdamning clew to a veritable monster."
One could have heard a pin drop, as if Kennedy were a judge pronouncinga death sentence.
"Dr. Loeb is guilty of being one of the most heartless of quacks, it istrue," Kennedy's voice rang out tensely, as he faced us. "But the slowmurders, one by one, bringing the family estate nearer and nearer--theywere done by one who hoped to throw the blame on Dr. Loeb, by the manwhose hair I have here--Lionel Moreton."