Chapter IV: Part 4

"You remember, I found his pupils contracted almost to a pin-point?" he asked.

"Yes. Was it morphine, as in the cases Doyle cited?"

Craig shook his head. "No, it wasn't morphine, either. I had to go at it with practically no other hint. However, in this case the elimination of drugs was comparatively easy. I simply began testing for all I could recall that had the effect of contracting the pupils of the eyes. There was one thing that helped very much. The contraction was so marked in this case that I started off by looking for the drug which occurred to me next after morphine. I don't claim any uncanny intelligence for it, either. That part of it was all just pure luck."

"Luck be hanged!" I exclaimed. "It's knowledge, preparedness. Would I ever have hit on it by luck?"

"Still, I was as much surprised to find it so soon as you are to hear it."

"I'll concede anything," I hastened. "I'm burning with curiosity. What was it?"

"Wilford died of physostigmine poisoning," he answered.

I suppose my face wrinkled with disappointment, for Craig laughed outright. "And--physostigmine--is what?" I inquired, quite willing to admit my ignorance if by that I might get ahead in understanding the mystery. "What does it do?"

"It's a drug used by oculists, just as they use atropin, but for the precisely opposite effect. Atropin dilates the pupils; physostigmine contracts them. Both are pre-eminent in their respective properties."

"Used by oculists!" I exclaimed, remembering suddenly that Honora Wilford's father, Honore Chappelle, had been an oculist.

Kennedy apparently did not wish to encourage my quick deduction, for he paid no attention. "Yes," he repeated, thoughtfully, "it causes a contraction of the pupils more marked than that produced by any other drug I know. That was why I tried the test for it first--simply because it was at the top of the scale, so to speak."

Interested as I was in physostigmine, which, by the way, now came tripping off my tongue like the name of an old friend, I could not forget our first acquaintance with the case.

"But what about the atropin in the glass--and in the bottle?" I asked, hesitatingly.

"I did not say that I had cleared up the case," cautioned Craig. "It is still a mystery. Atropin has not only the opposite effect on the eye from physostigmine, but there is a further most unusual fact about the relationship of these two drugs. This is one of the few cases where we find drugs mutually antagonistic. And they are antagonistic to a marked degree in this instance, too."

He paused a moment and I tried to follow him, but was too bewildered to make an inch of progress. Here was a man killed, we knew, by a drug which Craig had recognized. Yet in the glass on his desk had been found unmistakable traces of another drug. Was it an elaborate camouflage? If so, it seemed to be utterly purposeless, for, even if Kennedy had not discovered the poison, the veriest tyro at the game must have done so comparatively soon. I gave it up. I could see no chance that the atropin might have been put in the glass either to point or to obscure suspicion. It was too clumsy and a brain clever enough to have conceived the whole thing would not have fallen into such an egregious error. It was too easy. But, if the obvious were rejected, what remained? By the grave look on Kennedy's face I was convinced that there was a depth of meaning to this apparent contradiction which even he himself had not fathomed yet.

"Atropin is an antidote to physostigmine," he continued. "Three and a half times the quantity almost infallibly counteracts the poisonous dose."

"But," I objected, "there was no trace of physostigmine in either glass, was there?"

"No," he replied, "the glasses are here. I got them from Doyle's office while you were away. Not a trace in either. In fact, one of the glasses is really free from belladonna traces. The physostigmine I discovered was all in the stomach contents of Wilford--and there is a great deal of it, too. When you come right down to the point, we've taken a step forward--that's all. There's a long way to go yet."

"But what of the physostigmine?" I queried. "How do you suppose it was given?"

He shook his head in doubt. "I made a close examination. There were no marks on the body such as if a needle had been used. Besides, my investigations showed that a needle need not have been used. There are peculiar starch grains in the stomach associated with the poison. I admit I still have no explanation of that."

For some minutes Kennedy worked along thoughtfully over his analysis, though I knew that he was merely endeavoring to determine in his own mind the next important move to make.

"I think I'll vary my custom, in this case," he decided, finally. "I'm going to announce what I have discovered as I go along. If you tell it to one you may depend that it will spread to the others eventually. It will be interesting to see what happens. Often when you do that it's the quickest way to have the whole truth come out--especially if some one is trying to conceal it."

There was a tap on the laboratory door and I rose to open it, admitting Doyle himself, quite excited.

"What's the matter?" greeted Kennedy.

"There's the deuce to pay up at the Wilford apartment," replied Doyle. "Shattuck called there to see Mrs. Wilford this afternoon and offer her his sympathy."

I glanced over to Kennedy, who nodded to me. It was evidently the visit about which we already knew.

"I wasn't there," went on Doyle, "but McCabe was, of course. I don't know just what happened, but McCabe and Shattuck had some kind of run-in--Shattuck protested against the way we're holding Mrs. Wilford, and all that. Some mess!" He shook his head dubiously.

"Why?" prompted Kennedy. "What's the trouble?"

"Trouble enough. Mrs. Wilford's almost in a state of hysteria. When I tried to smooth things over she ordered me out of the apartment, said she'd receive whom she pleased and when and where she pleased."

Kennedy scowled. I could well imagine Doyle "smoothing" anything over. A road-roller would have been tactful by comparison.

"I think she's breaking," he pursued. "I know I'm on the right track. I thought you might like to know it. If I don't get a confession--say, I'll eat my shield!"

With difficulty I restrained myself. It was not policy to offend Doyle, I reasoned.

"Say," pursued Doyle, with a knowing nod, "you remember I found out that some one had been at that office the night Wilford was murdered?"

"Yes," agreed Kennedy.

"Well--who was it?" demanded Doyle. "Who _must_ it have been? Who wanted her husband out of the way? Isn't it clear?"

There was no mistake that he implied Honora.

"By the way," interposed Kennedy, "I think I've found the poison that killed him."

"Belladonna--eh?"

"No. Just the opposite--physostigmine."

Doyle stared. Yet he could not dispute.

"Maybe it was. But it's a poison just the same--ain't it?" he hastened. Then he added, aggressively, "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to put a dictagraph in that place."

Kennedy smiled encouragingly. I knew what his thought was. This was the height to which Doyle's mind reached.

Yet, I reasoned, perhaps it was not without its value, after all.

IX

THE ASSOCIATION TEST

"I think I ought to visit Mrs. Wilford, after that," decided Kennedy, the moment Doyle had left. "This case is really resolving itself into a study of that woman, or rather of her hidden personality."

Accordingly he doffed his acid-stained smock which he wore about the laboratory, and we set out for the Wilford apartment.

When we arrived we were not surprised to find Honora in a highly nervous state, really bordering on hysteria, as we had been told by Doyle. McCabe had taken up a less conspicuous place in which to watch her, from a neighboring apartment in which he had got himself placed.

As we met her, it actually seemed as if Honora had turned from Doyle and McCabe to Kennedy.

"Were the dreams I wrote for you all right?" she asked, with a rather concealed anxiety.

"Perfectly satisfactory," replied Kennedy, reassuringly. "I haven't finished with them yet. I'll tell you about them later. They were all right, but I never have enough of them. I suppose Doctor Lathrop used to say that too?"

She nodded. Evidently Craig had won her confidence, in spite of what she must have known about us by this time.

"Are there any other dreams that you have thought of since?" he inquired, pressing his advantage.

She passed her hand over her forehead wearily and did not answer immediately.

"You look tired," Craig remarked, sympathetically. "Why not rest while we talk?"

"Thank you," she murmured.

As he spoke, Kennedy had been arranging the pillows on a _chaise-longue_. When he finished, she sank into them, resting her head, slightly elevated.

Having discussed the various phases of the psychanalysis before with Kennedy, I knew that he was placing her at her ease, so that nothing foreign might distract her from the free association of ideas.

Kennedy placed himself near her head and motioned to me to stand farther back where she could not see me.

"Avoid all muscular exertion and distraction," he continued. "I want you to concentrate your attention thoroughly. Tell me anything that comes into your mind. Tell all you know of your feelings. Concentrate. Repeat all you think about. Frankly express all the thoughts you have, even though they may be painful and perhaps embarrassing."

He said this soothingly and she seemed to understand that much depended upon her answers and the fact that she did not try to force her ideas.

"Tell me--of just what you are thinking," he pursued.

Dreamily she closed her eyes, as though allowing her thoughts to wander.

"I am thinking," she replied, slowly, still with her eyes closed, "of a time just after Vail and I were married."

She choked back the trace of a sob in her voice.

"It is a dream," she went on. "I seem to be alone, crossing the fields--it is at the country estate where we spent our honeymoon. I see a figure ahead of me. It is Vail. But each time that I get close to him--he has disappeared into the forest that skirts the field."

She stopped.

"Now--I see the figure--a figure--but--it is not Vail--no, it is another man--I do not know him--with another woman--not myself."

She had opened her eyes as though the day-dream was at an end, but before she finished the sentence she had deliberately closed them again.

From what I learned of the method of psychanalysis, I recalled that it was the gaps and hesitations which were considered most important in arriving at the truth regarding the cause of any nervous trouble.

More than that, as she had said the words, it was easy to read into her remarks the fact that she knew there had been another woman in Wilford's life. It had wounded her deeply, in spite of the fact--as Kennedy had demonstrated by the Freud theory--that she really had not cared as greatly for Wilford as even she herself had thought.

Even to me it was plain in this day-dream recollection that the man throughout it was really Vail. She knew it was Vail and she knew that woman with him was Vina. But in her wish that it should not be so, she had unconsciously changed the face on the "figure" she saw. It was her endeavor to preserve what she desired. She had unconsciously striven not to have it her husband, as it was not herself she saw in the vision with him.

"Go on," urged Kennedy, gently. "Is there anything else that comes into your mind?"

"Yes" she murmured, dreamily. "I am thinking about some of Vail's clients."

"About any of them in particular?" hastened Kennedy, eager to catch the fleeting thought before she might either lose or conceal it. "About any one contemplating a suit for divorce?"

"Y-yes," she replied before she realized it, her eyes opening as she came out of the half-relaxed state again, recalled by the sound of Kennedy's voice.

"What were you thinking about that person?"

"That he was devoting entirely too much time to that sort of practice," she answered, quickly, avoiding a direct reply. "I can remember when I first knew him that he was in a fair way to be a very successful corporation lawyer. But the money and the cases seemed to come to him--the divorce cases, I mean."

Kennedy ignored the last, explanatory part of the remark, as though he penetrated that it disguised something. He did not wish to put her on guard.

"Devoting too much time to the practice?" he queried, "or do you mean you think he was devoting too much time and attention to the particular client?"

Honora was thoroughly on guard now, in spite of him. Had she known, she probably would never have allowed herself to be led along until Kennedy struck on such an important "complex." But, quite evidently, she knew nothing of the Freud theory and trusted that her own control of herself was sufficient. And, indeed, it would have been had it not been that the dreams betrayed so much, that even she did not realize, to one who understood the theory. She did not answer.

"Who is it that you were thinking about?" persisted Craig, refusing to be turned aside.

"Oh, no one in particular," she replied, quickly, with a petulant little shrug.

Yet it was plain now that she had been thinking of some one, both in the last remarks and perhaps in the day-dreams she had repeated. She was now trying to hide the name from us.

By this time, also, Honora was sitting bolt-up-right on the _chaise-longue_, staring straight at Kennedy, as though amazed at her own frankness and a bit afraid of what it had led her into.

"Was it Vina Lathrop?" he asked, suddenly.

"No--no!" she denied, emphatically.

Yet to me it was evident that it most certainly had been Vina whom she had in mind. The association test of the waking state quite accorded with the results of the dream study which Kennedy had made.

Moreover, it was now evident that Honora was holding back something, that she had taken refuge in silence. Vainly Kennedy now strove to restore the relaxed condition, in which she might let her thoughts wander at will. It was of no use. She simply would not let herself go.

Deftly he changed his tactics altogether and the conversation drifted off quickly to inconsequential topics, such as would restore any shaken confidence in him. Clearly it was too early to come to an open break with her. Besides, I understood, Kennedy would rather have allowed her to believe that she had come off victor than to have pressed any minor advantage.

"Please don't repeat this," he remarked, as we were leaving. "You can readily understand the reason. I quite appreciate the uncomfortable position in which the city detectives have placed you, Mrs. Wilford. Depend on me, I shall use every influence I have with them to mitigate the hardship of their presence. Besides, I know how brutally annoying they can be. You understand--my position is quite different. And if I can be of any assistance to you, no matter in what way, don't fail to command me."

I had expected her to be a bit put out by our continued quizzing. On the contrary, however, she seemed to be actually grateful for Kennedy's sympathy, now that he had ceased treading upon dangerous ground.

"Thank you," she sighed, as we rose to leave her. "I feel that you are always trying to be fair to me."

Kennedy hastened to assure her that we were, and we left before the final good impression could be destroyed.

"I consider you an artist, Craig," I complimented, as we left the elevator a few minutes later, after a brief talk with McCabe in which Kennedy urged him to keep a close watch, but to seem not to be watching. "We go to cross-examine; we leave, friends. But I don't yet understand what the idea was of trying the association test on her."

"Couldn't you see that when we came there she was in a state verging on hysteria?" he replied. "No doubt, if McCabe had stayed she would have been quite over the verge, too. But it would not have done them any good. They always think that if any one 'blows up,' as they call it, they'll learn the truth. That's not the case with a woman as clever as Honora. If she gave way to hysteria, she would be infinitely more likely to mislead them than to lead them. Besides, in the study of hysteria a good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now."

I nodded encouragingly, not so much that I cared about the subject of hysteria, either what was known of it now or long ago, as that I was deeply interested in anything whatever that might advance the case.

"Perhaps," he went on, "you are not aware of the fact that Freud's contribution to the study of hysteria and even to insanity is really of greater scientific value than his theories of dreams, taken by themselves. Study of Freud, as you can see, has led us already to a better understanding of this very case."

"But what sort of condition did you think her in before you reassured her at the start by the association test?"

Kennedy thought a moment. "Here is, I feel, what is known as one of the so-called 'borderline cases,'" he answered, slowly. "It is clearly a case of hysteria--not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly as such, but the condition which scientists to-day know as such.

"By psychanalytical study of one sort or another we may trace the impulse from which hysterical conditions arise, penetrate the disguises which these repressed impulses or wishes must assume in order to appear in the consciousness. Such transformed impulses are found in normal people, too, sometimes. The hysteric suffers mostly from reminiscences which, paradoxically, may be completely forgotten.

"Thus, obsessions and phobias have their origin, according to Freud, in sexual life. The obsession represents a compensation, a substitute for an unbearable sex idea, and takes its place in consciousness."

"That is," I supplied, "in this case you mean that her husband's lack of interest in her was such an unbearable idea to her that in her mind she tried to substitute something to take its place?"

"Precisely. In normal sex life, as you recall, the Freudists say that no neurosis is possible. Also recall what I said, that sex is one of the strongest of impulses, yet subject to the greatest repression--and hence is the weakest point in our cultural development. Often sex wishes may be consciously rejected, but unconsciously accepted. Well, now--hysteria arises through the conflict between libido--the uncontrollable desire--and sex repression. So, when they are understood, every hysterical utterance has a reason back of it. Do you catch the idea? There is really method in madness, after all.

"Take an example," he continued. "When hysteria in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband, it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place. In a sense it might even be said to be desirable for her. You see, the great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Freud, is that certain symptoms of hysteria disappear when the hidden causes are brought to light and the repressed desires are gratified."

"But," I interrupted, "how does this analysis apply to the case of Honora Wilford?"

Kennedy considered a moment. "Very neatly," he answered. "Honora is suffering from what the psychanalysts call a psychic trauma--a soul wound, as it were. Recall, for instance, what our dream analysis has already shown us--the old love-affair with Shattuck. To her mind, that was precisely like a wound would have been to the body. It cut deeply. Seemingly it had healed. Yet the old scar remained--a repressed love. It could no more be taken away than could a scar be taken from the face."

"Yet was not open and visible like a physical scar," I agreed.

"Quite the case. Then," he pursued, "came a new wound--the neglect by her husband whom she thought she loved, and the discovery of Vina Lathrop as the trouble-maker."

"I begin to see," I returned. "Those two sets of facts, the old scar and the new wound, are sufficient, you think, to explain much in her life."

"At least they explain about the hysteria. In her dream, a wave of recollection swept over her and, so to speak, engulfed her mind. In other words, reason could no longer dominate the cravings for love so long repressed. The unconscious strain was too great. Hence the hysteria--not so much the hysteria and the isolated outburst which Doyle saw, as the condition back of it which must have continued for days, perhaps weeks, previous to the actual murder of Wilford."

I frowned and objected inwardly. Was Craig, also, laying a foundation for the ultimate conviction of Honora?

Before I could question him there was an interruption at the door and I sprang to open it.

"Hello, Jameson!" greeted Doctor Leslie; then catching sight of Kennedy, he entered and asked, "Have you discovered anything yet, Professor?"

"Yes," replied Craig, "I should say I have."

Leslie was himself quite excited and did not wait for Craig to go on. "So have I," he exclaimed, searching Kennedy's face as he spoke. "Did you find physostigmine in the stomach contents I sent you? I did in what I retained."

Kennedy nodded quietly.

"What does it mean?" queried Leslie, puzzled.

Kennedy shook his head gravely. "I can't say--yet," he replied. "It may mean much before we are through, but for the present I think we had better go slow with our deductions."

Leslie evidently had hoped that Kennedy's active mind would have already figured out the explanation. But in cases such as this facts are more important than clever reasoning and Kennedy was not going to commit himself.

"Doyle tells me that he has put in a dictagraph in the Wilford apartment," ventured Leslie, changing the subject unwillingly.

"Has he learned anything yet?"

"No, not yet. It's too soon, I imagine."

Leslie paused and glanced about impatiently. Things were evidently not going fast enough to suit him. Yet, without Kennedy, he felt himself helpless. However, there was always one thing about Leslie which I was forced to like. He was no poser. Even when Doyle and the rest did not recognize Kennedy's genius, Leslie quite appreciated it. Although he was a remarkably good physician, he knew that the problems which many cases presented to him were such that only Kennedy could help him out.

"You've heard nothing more about the gossip regarding Mrs. Lathrop and Shattuck?" I asked.

"No, nothing about that. But there is something else that I have found out," he added, after a moment--"something that leads to Wilford's office."

Kennedy was interested in a moment. We had been so occupied with the case that we had not even a chance to go down there yet, although that would have been one of the first things to do, ordinarily, unless, as in this case, we were almost certain that the ransacking of Doyle and Leslie had destroyed those first clues that come only when one is called immediately on a case.

"I've been looking about the place," went on Leslie, encouraged by Kennedy's interest. "I knew you'd be busy with other things. Well, I've discovered one of the other tenants in the building who did not leave his office on the same floor until just after seven o'clock last night."

"Yes?" inquired Craig. "Did he see or hear anything?"

Leslie nodded. "Early in the evening there must have been a woman who visited Wilford," he hastened.

"Who was she?"

"The tenant doesn't know."

"Did he see her?"

"No. He remembers hearing a voice on the other side of the door to the hall. He didn't see any one, he says, and it is quite likely. When I asked him if he overheard anything, he replied that he could catch only a word here and there. There was one sentence he caught as he closed his own door."

"And that was--?"

"Rather loudly, the woman said: 'Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?'"

Leslie paused to watch the effect of the sentence on us. I, too, studied Kennedy's face.

"Did she leave soon?" asked Craig.

Leslie shook his head. "I don't know. The tenant left and that was all I heard."

"Well, Wilford was not dead then, we know," considered Craig. "Could she have been there when he died? Of course you don't know."

"It's possible," replied Leslie.

To myself, I repeated the words: "Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?"

A few hours ago I should have been forced to conclude that only Vina might have said it, knowing as she did the peculiar nature of Honora and the relations between Wilford and his wife. But now, with the hints discovered by Leslie and amplified by Miss Balcom, I could not be so sure. The remark might have come equally well from Honora herself and have applied to Vina--for Honora, too, might have known that it was not love for Wilford that prompted Vina's interest in her husband, but the desire to make sure of her divorce for the purpose of being free to capture Vance Shattuck.

Interesting and important as the discovery was, it did not help us, except that it added to the slender knowledge we had of what had taken place at the office. A woman had been there. Who it was, whether Honora or Vina, we did not know. Nor did we know how long she had stayed, whether she might merely have dropped in and have gone before the crime was committed.

"You've told Doyle?" asked Kennedy.

"Naturally. I had to tell him. Remember, it was much later that he found that some one else had been at the office, according to the janitor's story."

"I do remember. That's just what I have been thinking about. I suppose he'll tell it all around--he usually does use such things in his third-degree manner."

Leslie smiled, then sobered. "Quite likely. Does it make any difference?"

"Not a bit. I'm rather hoping he does tell it around. I've decided in this case to play the game with the cards on the table. Then some one is sure to make a false move and expose his hand, I feel sure."

Quickly I canvassed the situation. All might be involved, in one way or another--either Vina or Honora might have been the early visitor; later it might have been either Shattuck or even Lathrop, or perhaps neither, who had been there, as far as the janitor's vague observation was concerned.

"There was something strange that went on at that office the night of the murder," ruminated Kennedy. "Maybe there is some clue down there, after all, that has been overlooked. You've searched, you say. Doyle has searched. The place must have been pretty well gone over. However, I can see nothing left but to search again," he decided, quickly. "We must go down there."

X

THE ORDEAL BEAN

Wilford's office was in an old building of the days when a structure of five or six stories, with a cast-iron, ornamented front, was considered a wonderful engineering achievement. It was down-town, in the heart of the financial district, and had been chosen by Wilford, without a doubt, to convey an impression of solidity and conservatism, a useful camouflage to cover the essential character of his law practice as scandal attorney.

We climbed the worn stairs with Leslie, and, as we mounted, I noticed that there was also, down the hall, a back stairway, evidently placed there in case of fire. Hence, it was possible, I reasoned, for a person to have slipped in or out practically unobserved from the front.

We knew now that at least one person, probably two, had been there, though who they were we did not know. Nor was there yet any clue, except that certainly a woman had visited Wilford, at least early in the evening.

Wilford's office was on the third floor, in the front. We entered and looked about. Past the outer railing and outer office was his own sanctum.

It was furnished lavishly with divans and settees in mahogany and dark leather, with elaborate hangings over the windows and on the walls. There were law-books, but only, it seemed, for the purpose of giving a legal flavor to the place. Most of the legal library was outside. The office was rather like a den than a lawyer's office.

Reflecting, I could see the reason. Society must be made welcome here, and at ease. Besides, the conservative surroundings were quite valuable in covering up the profession--I had almost said, business--of divorce made easy and pleasant. I recalled Rascon and the crook detectives who made little concealment of their business--"Evidence for divorce furnished." Doubtless many of these gentry had found occupation from this source. What stories these walls might have told! They would have made even Belle Balcom's ears tingle.

At once Kennedy began his search of the office, going over everything minutely but quickly, while we waited, apart.

"Not even a finger-print has been left unobscured!" he exclaimed, finally, almost ready in disgust to give it up. "It is shameful--shameful," he muttered. "When will they learn to let things alone until some one comes who knows the scientific importance of little things! If only I could have been first on the job."

"There's the typewriter," suggested Leslie, trying to divert attention and smooth things over.

"Have you the letter?" asked Craig.

Leslie drew it eagerly from his pocket and unfolded it. Kennedy took it, spread it out and studied it a moment:

HONORA:

Don't think I am a coward to do this, but things cannot go on
as they have been going. It is no use. I cannot work it out.
This is the only way. So I shall drop out. You will find my
will in the safe. Good-by forever.

VAIL.

Then Craig moved over and sat at the typewriter. Quickly he struck several keys, then made a hasty comparison of the note with what he had written.

"The 's' and the 'r' are out of alignment, the 'e' battered--in both," he concluded, hurriedly, as though merely confirming what he was already convinced of. "There are enough marks to identify the writing as having been done on this machine, all right. No, there's nothing in this note--except what is back of it, and we do not know that yet. Did Wilford write that letter, or was it written for him? It could hardly have been done voluntarily."

"It was in this desk chair that we found him sprawled--so," illustrated Doctor Leslie, dropping into the chair. Then, straightening up, he indicated the big flat-topped desk in the middle of the room. "The two glasses were on this desk--one of them here, the other over there."

As he pointed the spots out, one of them near where he was, the other near the outer edge of the desk, Kennedy's eye fell on the desk calendar.

"I removed the pages I told you about," supplied Leslie, noticing the direction of Craig's glance. "It's a loose-leaf affair, as you see. Here they are."

Leslie drew from his pocket the leaves for the various days, and we looked at them again, with their notations--one reading, "Prepare papers in proposed case of Lathrop _vs._ Lathrop." Others read, "Vina at four," and other dates, with hours attached. There were several of them, more than would seem to have been necessary were the relation merely that of lawyer and client for so brief a time. There were none for the day of the murder however.

Kennedy continued the search, now rummaging the papers, now directing either Leslie or myself to bring him objects.

He had asked me for a letter-file, and I was turning from a cabinet to hand it to him when my foot kicked some small, soft object lying along the edge of the rug. The thing, whatever it was, flew over and hit the baseboard.

Mechanically I reached down and picked the object up, holding it in the palm of my hand.

It seemed to be a rough-coated, grayish-brown bean, of irregular, kidney shape, about an inch long and half an inch thick, with two margins, one short and concave, the other long and convex. The surfaces were rounded slightly, but flattened. The coat of the bean was glossy.

Kennedy, with quick eye, had noted that I had picked up something and was over at my side in a moment.

"What's that?" he asked quickly, taking the thing from my hand as I turned to him.

He looked at it critically for a moment. Then he pressed the hard outer coat until it parted slightly, disclosing inside two creamy white cotyledons. He studied them for some time, then pressed the bean back into shape again as it had been before.

I was about to ask what he thought it was, and where it came from, when there was a noise in the direction of the door. We turned to see that it was a man in overalls shuffling in, his cap in his hand.

"Oh, beggin' your pardon, Doctor," he addressed Leslie, "I heard some one here. I didn't know it was you."

It was the night watchman who had been off the job on perhaps the only occasion in years when it would have meant much for him to have been on it, but was making up for his laxity now by excessive vigilance.

"Pete," demanded Leslie, sharply, "did you see a woman here that night?"

"N-no, sir--that is, sir--I don't know. There was some one here--but Mr. Wilford, he kept such late hours and irregular that I thought nothing of it. I thought it was all right, sir. Later, when I didn't hear any voices, I thought they had gone home. I didn't see the lights burnin'--you wouldn't ha' noticed that, except from the other side of the street. I s'pose that's why they didn't discover the body till mornin'. But a woman here--no, sir, I can't say as I'd say that, sir."

Whatever else there might have been said about Pete, it was evident that he was perfectly honest. He even confessed his lack of observation and his inefficiency with utter frankness. There did not seem to be a hope of obtaining anything by questioning Pete. He had told all he really knew. Others might have embellished the story had they been in his place, and so have led us astray. At least he had the merit of not doing that.

"So--here you are," exclaimed a deep voice at the door.

It was Doyle, flushed and excited.

"You may go, Pete," nodded Leslie to the janitor, who backed out of the room, still pulling at his cap.

Alone, Doyle turned to us.

"Confound Shattuck!" he exclaimed. "That man is the limit. I'll get him, if he doesn't look out. He's a game bird--but he flies funny."

"Why, what has he done now?" asked Kennedy.

"Done?" fumed Doyle. "Done? Been threatening, I hear, to have me 'broke'--that's all. I don't care about that, not a whoop--even if he had the influence with the administration. What I care about is that he is putting every obstacle in the way of my finding out anything from that woman. She's hard enough to manage, Heaven knows, without his butting in."

"What about that bean Jameson picked up here?" asked Leslie, impatiently, as Doyle paused. "Have you any idea what it may be?"

"A bean?" inquired Doyle, looking from one of us to the other and not understanding. "A bean? Picked up here? Why, what do you mean?"

I was inclined to be vexed at Leslie for having mentioned it, but I soon saw that Kennedy betrayed no traces of annoyance. On the contrary, he seemed rather eager to answer, as he drew the thing from his pocket, where he had placed it when Pete came in.

"Just something Jameson happened to find on the very edge of the rug, quite by accident, over by the letter-files," Craig explained, with a certain gusto at showing Doyle a thing that he had overlooked. "Ever see anything like it?"

Doyle took the bean, but it was evident that both it and its discovery meant nothing to him.

"No," he admitted, reluctantly. "What is it?"

"Without a doubt it is one of the famous so-called 'ordeal beans' of Calabar," replied Kennedy, offhand.

"Calabar?" I repeated, in surprise. "Why, that's a place on the west coast of Africa, isn't it? What would a Calabar bean be lying on the floor here for?"

"What do you mean--ordeal bean?" questioned Doyle, somewhat incredulously, while Leslie maintained a discreet silence.

"In the Calabar, where these things grow," explained Kennedy, not put out for an instant, "as you perhaps know, they have a strange form of dueling with these seeds. Two opponents divide a bean. Each eats a half. It is some religious ceremony--voodoo, or some such thing, I suppose--a superstition. Sometimes both die--for the bean contains physostigmine and is the chief source from which this drug is obtained."

"You mean they _eat_ it--a poison?" I asked.

"Certainly. Over there, the natives believe that God will decide who is guilty and who is innocent, and that he will miraculously spare the innocent. I suppose that sometimes one gets a half a bean that doesn't contain so high a percentage of the poison--or else some people are not so susceptible to its toxin, or something like that. Anyhow, that's one way they use it."

"Why," I exclaimed, "that is primitive justice, you might say--the duel by poison!"

"Exactly," Craig nodded.

Doyle stared, amazed and puzzled.

"No worse than some of the things our ancestors did, not many centuries ago," reminded Craig. "They used to have all sorts of ordeals, by fire and water and what not. We haven't progressed so far over the savages, after all. Civilization is only a veneer, and pretty thin, sometimes. Underneath we're quite like the savage--only we substitute mechanical war for brute strength and high finance for highway robbery. The caveman and the cavewoman are in all of us--only we manage either to control them or conceal them--except when something happens that means calling in either Doyle or myself."

"What's this--phy--physos--what you call it?" demanded Doyle, forgetting to conceal his ignorance in his curiosity.

"A drug," replied Kennedy. "One effect it has is to contract the pupil of the eye. Both Leslie and I have discovered considerable traces of it in Wilford's stomach. In such quantities, it would be very poisonous. By the way, this bean would account also for those starch grains I found, Walter," added Kennedy.

"Then you mean you think that Wilford ate one of these things?" queried Leslie.

"That there was a--duel by poison?" demanded Doyle, hesitating over the words I had used.

"I know he must have eaten one of those beans," asserted Kennedy. "What else could it have been? He certainly didn't eat this one, though. There must have been more. This one must have dropped on the floor in the excitement and have been overlooked. You didn't find any traces of others about, did you?" he added, looking from Doyle to Leslie.

Leslie shook his head negatively. Doyle's puzzled face was answer enough from him.

I considered a moment as an idea struck me, offering a refuge from an unpleasant implication of Kennedy's remarks which I foresaw and which I knew would occur to Doyle, if not directly, at least very soon.

"Shattuck has traveled widely," I remarked, reflectively. "He himself told us, you recall, that he had hunted big game in Africa. Perhaps he has been in the Calabar, too--at any rate somewhere on that continent where he might have learned of these beans and the use to which the natives put them."

Kennedy nodded again, cautiously.

"A good many such beans are imported for medical purposes to obtain the physostigmine from them," Craig remarked, carefully. "It's the source of the drug. Don't jump too hastily at your conclusions, Walter. Remember, physostigmine is a drug that is known and used by oculists, too, for its effect on the pupil of the eye, the opposite of belladonna."

I could have sworn at Kennedy for that. It was just the idea that I had wanted to keep away from Doyle. I had known that he would pounce on it like a hawk. Now I was sure that he would use it against Honora.

"Oh--oculists use it, do they?" repeated Doyle, running true to form. "Ah--I see."

He looked about, from one to the other of us, knowingly. No one said anything as he continued to gaze with superior slyness at us, regarding us as poor simpletons who were unable to see through a millstone with a hole in it.

"I see--I see," he added. "Honora--Chappelle. That was her name before she was married. Her father was a Frenchman, Honore Chappelle--an oculist--well known in the city before he died. Oh, that's very important, then, that about this bean and the physostigmine, or whatever you call it. And, Leslie, you say you've discovered that some one--a woman--was here early in the evening. Can't we put two and two together? She's lying when she says she wasn't out of that house, she is. So is that Celeste, the hussy. Depend on it, she was here. I'm on the right track, all right," Doyle concluded with a cocksure shake of the head that was more irritating than any amount of ignorance on his part would have been.

I did not reply. I understood the purport of the broad insinuation that Doyle was making. Also, I saw the real reason of Kennedy's remark to me, cautioning me to make haste slowly in deducing anything from the, as yet, slender facts of the case.

I thought a moment. Far from eliminating anybody, the discovery of the Calabar bean left us scarcely a bit ahead of where we had been before. With a keen repulsion against the very idea and its implications as seen by the astute Doyle, I still was forced to admit that Honora Wilford's father had been an oculist and that it was perfectly true that she had every opportunity to have learned of the ordeal bean and its drug. Yet I kept asking myself what, after all, that might mean.

Purposely Kennedy reverted to the Calabar bean and the remarks of Doyle that had started the conversation.

"If Shattuck gets too brash," hinted Kennedy, "spring this information on him. Perhaps it might interest him."

As he said it, I remembered what Craig had said in the laboratory only a short time before--that he was going to tell part of what he had found, as he went along, in the hope that the actions of each suspect who heard it might perhaps betray some thing. There was some crumb of comfort in that, I felt, as far as Honora herself was concerned. Yet I felt uncomfortable and misgiving.

We parted from Leslie and Doyle, and as we went up-town again I could not help remarking that somehow the apparent effort of Shattuck to hamper us was suspicious. Kennedy said very little, but when we got off at the station on the Subway just before our own, I saw that he was not yet through.

It did not take long to elicit from him the information that, while he felt he could trust Doyle to convey the information about the discovery and the drug to both Shattuck and Honora before long, the case was different as far as Vina and Doctor Lathrop were concerned.

As we entered Doctor Lathrop's office, we found that not only was he there, but that his wife was there also. However, it was quite evident that they had been having words, and all was not as serene between them as they would have us wish, by the forced looks on their faces. In short, they had been quarreling.

I could have guessed what it was about, but Kennedy affected not to notice that anything was wrong and I fancied that Vina, at least, wore a look of relief as she saw that he was not paying any attention to it.

Briefly, Kennedy outlined what we had found--the physostigmine in the stomach, the poison, the bean itself, which he took particular pains to describe along with the circumstances under which it had been found.

"Did you ever have any of these ordeal beans?" asked Kennedy, displaying the one we had found.

"I have had them," admitted Lathrop.

I thought I caught a covert look at his wife, as if to see how she was taking the discovery. As for Vina, I knew that she was far too clever to betray anything, especially before us.

"They're comparatively easy to obtain in New York," went on Lathrop, with greater ease. "Drug importers get them in quantities to derive the drug from them. However, now I employ the drug itself, the few times I have any occasion to use it. I suppose I've got some in my medicine-chest."

As we talked, I saw that Vina was really listening, keen and silent. If actions for which we had no immediate explanation had bearing on the question of guilt, I felt that her very manner was incriminatory in itself. Why should she try to conceal under a cloak of indifference her real interest in the thing? And yet, even with Vina, I was loath to jump at a conclusion. Somehow or other her preoccupied manner and the stress of her suppressed attention aroused my suspicions most strongly against her, after what other things I knew of her private affairs.

As we left them and hurried toward the laboratory, I found myself wondering whether she might not have been the visitor to Wilford whom the tenant had overheard talking in Wilford's office. As for the why of such a visit, I was forced to admit I had no explanation.

I reacted against the deduction that perhaps Honora had known of the properties of the Calabar bean and had been able to obtain some of them. Yet it was clearly that that was in Kennedy's mind as we approached his workshop.

We had scarcely entered the hall when I saw that there was some one waiting for us near the door. It was Brooks, of _The Star_.

Brooks wore a very important air of secrecy, as though he had been doing a bit of gumshoeing and was proud of it.

"Something about Rascon?" I asked, jumping to the conclusion, after I had introduced Brooks to Craig.

"Yes," he replied, eagerly, "I've got a clue."

"A clue? Why, we've got Rascon--at least Doyle can get him whenever we want him. What do you mean?" I asked.

"How about those reports?" answered Brooks, pointedly. "You know he did a good deal of work for Wilford and wrote a good many of them. The reports are gone--Doyle told me."

"Where are they?" asked Kennedy, quickly appreciating the possible importance of the matter. "Is that what you've found out?"

Brooks looked knowing. "Ah--that's just it. You see, I decided to trail the trailers, so to speak. There's one very trusted operative of Rascon's--he calls him Number Six--that's his denomination, I believe, in the Rascon records. Well, that fellow has double-crossed him. He has stolen the reports, I hear. Or perhaps it's part of Rascon's plan to cover himself. I don't know. At any rate, I've traced Number Six to a river-front saloon--you may know of the place, a tough joint called 'The Ship,' on Water Street. Without a doubt there's something there."

Brooks was speaking earnestly and I looked questioningly at Kennedy.

"I believe it's worth following up," decided Craig, not even stopping to unlock the laboratory door, as we turned away with Brooks. "If we had those records it might point up the case very closely."

XI

THE RASCON REPORTS

We found The Ship Café, which Brooks had already investigated, on a river-front street in the outskirts of the Greenwich Village section of the city.

"The Ship" was a disreputable-looking frame building, a tavern of several generations ago, once historically famous, but now, like a decayed man about town, relegated to the company of those whom formerly he would have scorned.

Not many months ago it had been a saloon. Now a big sign declared that only soft drinks were sold in it. Even that change did not seem to have done much for the respectability of the place. The neighborhood was still quite as tough and squalid and "The Ship," itself, with a coat of paint, had not become even a whited sepulcher.

Kennedy, Brooks, and myself entered and passed into a typical, low-ceilinged back room of the old days. There at a number of greasy, dirty round tables sat a miscellaneous collection of river-rats, some talking and smoking ill-favored pipes, others reading newspapers. I felt sure that they were drinking something other than soft drinks, and wondered whence the stuff had come. Had it been smuggled in on vessels from the near-by wharves?

We sat down and for some moments Brooks and I did most of the talking, being careful to cover ourselves and pose neither as detectives nor even as newspaper men, lest the slightest slip might excite suspicion among the evil-looking customers of the den.

We had been sitting thus for some time, Kennedy saying very little, when Brooks leaned over toward me and whispered, in reality to Kennedy: "The fellow I discovered--the one they call Number Six--has a room up-stairs. If we could only register here we might get a room--and a chance to search the other rooms."

Kennedy nodded non-committally, but made no effort to put the suggestion into execution, and I saw that he was merely waiting for something to turn up.

For almost an hour we remained talking at the table, endeavoring to ingratiate ourselves with the waiter of the place, a rather burly fellow, who seemed to regard us with suspicion as strangers. Yet, as long as we did nothing or asked nothing indiscreet our burly waiter seemed unable to do anything else than tolerate us.

I was becoming impatient, when a furtive-looking individual entered from what had formerly been the bar. Brooks winked sidewise at us and I gathered that the new-comer was the redoubtable "Number 6," the operative of the Rascon Agency whom Brooks had located.

He cast his furtive eyes around and his glance caught Brooks, who nodded, beckoning him over to the table.

The former operative sidled over and sat down, eying us suspiciously, in spite of Brooks's effort to handle him with tact.

We fell into conversation, beginning on the weather and progressing to the usual topic of the evil times into which prohibition was throwing us.

Gradually Brooks led around to more intimate subjects and finally the name of Rascon was mentioned.

At once the former operative flew into a towering rage.

"Say," he ejaculated, "if I should tell you of all the crooked deals that fellow was in--"

He checked himself in spite of his anger, and at once a look of suspicion crossed his face as he glanced doubtfully at us. At least I felt there could be no question that the operative had really double-crossed Rascon. As to whether we might profit by it or not, that was another matter.

"Fair enough," interposed Kennedy, trying to reassure the fellow. "Now we're not friends of his exactly. To come right down to brass tacks," he added, lowering his voice, "this gentleman here tells me that you have something to sell. The question is--what do you want and how are you going to deliver the goods--I mean in the way that's safest for you, of course."

Kennedy was leaning over frankly toward the fellow. The operative's eyes narrowed and a look of low cunning came over his face. He looked about at the other tables, as though not quite sure of even those about him.

"How do I know you come from _her_?" he shot out. "Maybe you're bulls."

Kennedy quickly reassured him. "You can arrange the matter any way that's safest to you," he repeated.

I had been so intent on our own little affair that I had not noticed that a couple of new-comers had entered from the side door and were at a table not far from us.

It had not escaped the shifty eyes of our customer. He gave a perceptible start and in an instant was as dumb as an oyster.

Kennedy's cold steel eye seemed to bore right into the gaze of our man now as he leaned forward and whispered to him something I did not hear until, as Craig drew back, I could catch the last of it--"And as sure as the Lord made little apples, I'll shoot if you don't take me up to where you've got the goods. If you do--you get the money."