CHAPTER XXXIII
THE RESPIRATION CALORIMETER
It was early the next morning, about half an hour after the time set forthe release of the passengers, that our laboratory door was flung openand Collette Aux Cayes rushed in, wildly excited.
"What's the matter?" asked Kennedy anxiously.
"Someone has been trying to keep me on the boat," she panted. "And allthe way over here a man has been following me."
Kennedy looked at her a minute calmly. We could understand why she mighthave been shadowed, though it must have been a bungling job of Burke'soperative. But who could have wanted her kept on the boat?
"I don't know," she replied, in answer to Kennedy's question. "Butsomehow I was the only one not told that we could go. And when I did go,one of the Secret Service men stopped me."
"Are you sure it was a Secret Service man?"
"He said he was."
"Yes, but if he had been, he would not have done that, nor let you getaway, if he had. Can't you imagine anyone who might want you detainedlonger?"
She looked at us, half frightened. "N--not unless it is that man--or thewoman with him," she replied, clasping her hands.
"You mean Castine?"
"Yes," she replied, avoiding the use of his name. "Ever since you hadthe body removed, he has been in great fear. I have heard him ask fiftytimes, 'Where have they taken him?' and 'Is he to be embalmed?'"
"That's strange," remarked Kennedy. "Why that anxiety from him? Iremember that it was he who wanted the body left alone. Is it for fearthat we might discover something which might be covered up?"
Kennedy disappeared into the anteroom and I heard him making a greatfuss as he regulated the various pieces of machinery that surrounded thelittle chamber.
Some minutes later, he emerged.
"Meet us here in an hour," he directed Collette, "with your guardian."
Quickly Craig telephoned for a tank of oxygen to be sent over to thelaboratory, then got Burke on the wire and asked him to meet us down atthe dock.
We arrived first and Craig hurried into the lumber-room, wherefortunately he found everything undisturbed. He tore off the strip ofpaper from the drum and held it up. On it was a series of marks, whichlooked like dots and dashes, of a peculiar kind, along a sort of baseline. Carefully he ran his eye over the strip. Then he shoved it intohis pocket in great excitement.
"Hello," greeted Burke, as he came up puffing from the hurried trip overfrom the Customs House, where his office was. "What's doing now?"
"A great deal, I think," returned Kennedy. "Can you locate Castine andthat woman and come up to the laboratory--right away?"
"I can put my finger on them in five minutes and be there in half anhour," he returned, not pausing to inquire further, for, like me, Burkehad learned that Kennedy could not be hurried in any of his revelations.
Together, Craig and I returned to the laboratory to find that ColletteAux Cayes was already there with her guardian, as solicitous as ever forher comfort and breathing fire and slaughter against the miscreants whohad tried to detain her, without his knowledge.
Some minutes later Castine and "Madame" Castine arrived. At sight ofCollette she seemed both defiant and restless, as though sensingtrouble, I thought. Few words were spoken now by anyone, as Burke and Icompleted the party.
"Will you be so kind as to step into the little anteroom with me?"invited Craig, holding open the door for us.
We entered and he followed; then, as he led the way, stopped before alittle glass window in the compartment which I have described. Collettewas next to me. I could feel the tenseness of her senses as she gazedthrough the window at the body on the shelf-like pallet inside.
"What is this thing?" asked Aux Cayes, as Collette drew back, and hecaught her by the arm.
For the moment Kennedy said nothing, but opened a carefully sealed doorand slid the pallet out, unhinging it, while I saw Castine trembling andactually turning ashen about the lips.
"This," Kennedy replied at length, "is what is known as a respirationcalorimeter, which I have had constructed after the ideas of ProfessorsAtwater and Benedict of Wesleyan, with some improvements of my own. Itis used, as you may know, in studying food values, both by thegovernment and by other investigators. A man could live in that room forten or twelve days. My idea, however, was to make use of it for otherthings than that for which it was intended."
He took a few steps over to the complicated apparatus which had somystified me, now at rest, as he turned a switch on opening thecarefully sealed door.
"It is what is known as a closed circuit calorimeter," he went on. "Forinstance, through this tube air leaves the chamber. Here is a blower. Atthis point, the water in the air is absorbed by sulphuric acid. Next thecarbon dioxide is absorbed by soda lime. Here a little oxygen isintroduced to keep the composition normal and at this point the air isreturned to the chamber."
He traced the circuit as he spoke, then paused and remarked, "Thus, yousee, it is possible to measure the carbon dioxide and the otherrespiration products. As for heat, the walls are constructed so that thegain or loss of heat in the chamber is prevented. Heat cannot escape inany other way than that provided for carrying it off and measuring it.Any heat is collected by this stream of water which keeps thetemperature constant and in that way we can measure any energy that isgiven off. The walls are of concentric shells of copper and zinc withtwo of wood, between which is 'dead air,' an effective heat insulator.In other words," he concluded, "it is like a huge thermos bottle."
It was all very weird and fascinating. But what he could have beendoing with a dead body, I could not imagine. Was there some subtle,unknown poison which had hitherto baffled science, but which now he wasabout to reveal to us?
He seemed to be in no hurry to overcome the psychological effect hiswords had on his auditors, for as he picked up and glanced at a numberof sheets of figures, he went on: "In the case of live persons, there isa food aperture here, a little window with air locks arranged for thepassage of food and drink. That large window through which you lookedadmits light. There is also a telephone. Everything is arranged so thatall that enters, no matter how minute, is weighed and measured. The sameis true of all that leaves. Nothing is too small to take into account."
He shook the sheaf of papers before us. "Here I have some records whichhave been made by myself, and, in my absence, by one of my students. Inthem the most surprising thing that I have discovered is that in thebody of Leon metabolism seems still to be going on."
I listened to him in utter amazement, wondering toward what his argumentwas tending.
"I got my first clew from an injection of fluoriscine," he resumed. "Youknow there are many people who have a horror of being buried alive. Itis a favorite theme of the creepy-creep writers. As you know, the heartmay stop beating, but that does not necessarily mean that the person isdead. There are on record innumerable cases where the use of stimulantshas started again the beating of a heart that has stopped.
"Still, burial alive is hardly likely among civilized people, for thesimple reason that the practice of embalming makes death practicallycertain. At once, when I heard that there had been objections to theembalming of this body, I began to wonder why they had been made.
"Then it occurred to me that one certain proof of death was the absolutecessation of circulation. You may not know, but scientists have devisedthis fluoriscine test to take advantage of that. I injected about tengrains. If there is any circulation, there should be an emerald greendiscoloration of the cornea of the eye. If not, the eye should remainperfectly white.
"I tried the test. The green eye-ball gave me a hint. Then I decided tomake sure with a respiration calorimeter that would measure whateverheat, what breath, no matter how minute they were."
Collette gave a start as she began to realize vaguely what Craig wasdriving at.
"It was not the voodoo sign, Mademoiselle," he said, turning to her. "Itwas a sign, however, of something that suggested at once to me thecon
nection of voodoo practices."
There was something so uncanny about it that my own heart almost skippedbeating, while Burke, by my other side, muttered something which was notmeant to be profane.
Collette was now trembling violently and I took her arm so that if sheshould faint she would not fall either on my side or on that of herguardian, who seemed himself on the verge of keeling over. Castine wasmumbling. Only his wife seemed to retain her defiance.
"The skill of the voodoo priests in the concoction of strange draughtsfrom the native herbs of Hayti is well known," Kennedy began again."There are among them fast and slow poisons, poisons that will killalmost instantly and others that are guaged in strength to accumulateand resemble wasting away and slow death.
"I know that in all such communities today no one will admit that thereis such a thing still as the human sacrifice, 'the lamb without horns.'But there is on record a case where a servant was supposed to have died.The master ordered the burial, and it took place. But the grave wasrobbed. Later the victim was resuscitated and sacrificed.
"Most uncanny of the poisons is that which will cause the victim to passinto an unconscious condition so profound that it may easily be mistakenfor death. It is almost cataleptic. Such is the case here. Myrespiration calorimeter shows that from that body there are still comingthe products of respiration, that there is still heat in it. It musthave been that peculiar poison of the voodoo priests that was used."
Racing on now, not giving any of us a chance even to think of the weirdthing, except to shudder instinctively, Kennedy drew from his pocket andslapped down on a table the photographic records that had been taken byhis home-made wireless recording apparatus.
"From Mr. Burke," he said, as he did so, "I received the hint that manymessages were being transmitted by wireless, secretly perhaps, from the_Haytien_. I wanted to read those messages that were being flashed soquietly and secretly through the air. How could it be done? I managedto install down at the dock an apparatus known as the capillaryelectrometer. By the use of this almost unimaginably delicate instrumentI was able to drag down literally out of the air the secrets that seemedso well hidden from all except those for whom they were intended.Listen."
He took the roll of paper from the drum and ran his finger along ithastily, translating to himself the Morse code as he passed from onepoint to another.
"Here," cried Craig excitedly. "'Leon out of way for time safely.Revolution suppressed before Forsythe can make other arrangements.Conspiracy frustrated.' Just a moment. Here's another. 'Have engagedbridal suite at Hotel La Coste. Communicate with me there aftertomorrow.'"
Still holding the wireless record, Kennedy swung about to Burke andmyself. "Burke, stand over by the door," he shouted. "Walter--that tankof oxygen, please."
I dragged over the heavy tank which he had ordered as he adjusted a sortof pulmotor breathing apparatus over Leon. Then I dropped back to myplace beside Collette, as the oxygen hissed out.
Castine was now on his knees, his aged arms outstretched.
"Before God, Mr. Kennedy--I didn't do it. I didn't give Leon thepoison!"
Kennedy, however, engrossed in what he was doing, paid no attention tothe appeal.
Suddenly I saw what might have been a faint tremor of an eyelid on thepallid body before us.
I felt Collette spring forward from my side.
"He lives! He lives!" she cried, falling on her knees before the stillcataleptic form. "Guillaume!"
There was just a faint movement of the lips, as though as the man cameback from another world he would have called, "Collette!"
"Seize that man--it is his name signed to the wireless messages!"shouted Kennedy, extending his accusing forefinger at Aux Cayes, who hadplotted so devilishly to use his voodoo knowledge both to suppress therevolution and at the same time to win his beautiful ward for himselffrom her real lover.