I went out, at Craig's suggestion, eager to discover something more of the interesting bit of gossip which Leslie had hinted at about Vina and Doctor Lathrop. In fact, the relations of this pair interested me only slightly less than those of Honora and Vail Wilford.
Just where to go I was in some doubt, for I had not an extensive acquaintance in the medical profession of the city, in which both Doctor Lathrop and Doctor Leslie stood high in their respective fields. However, I reasoned that Lathrop's social position offered a more promising approach than even his professional connections. Thus, I determined to reassume the r?le of reporter for The Star which I had often used before with success in ferreting out odd bits of information of use to Kennedy.
Accordingly, I soon found that the best point of departure was The Star itself and to the office I went, hoping to find our society reporter, Belle Balcom, whom I knew to be a veritable Social Register and [109] Town Topics combined into one quick-witted personality.
"I suppose, Miss Balcom," I began, as I found her finishing a spicy bit of copy in the reporters' room, while I sat on the edge of her typewriter table—"I suppose you're following this Wilford case closely?"
She nodded vivaciously. "There hasn't been much to follow yet," she replied, eager to get whatever inside news she might for her society column. "Professor Kennedy is on the case, isn't he? You ought to know more about it than I do."
"Yes, he's on it," I replied, trying to head off any inquiry on her part that might be embarrassing. "And already we know that it will be quite involved."
"I know it," she asserted, and, as we chatted, I found, to my surprise, that she did know about the people concerned in the case. "You see," she explained, when I ventured to express my astonishment, "it's my business to be acquainted with what passes as 'news' to the readers of the society page. And then, too, you know that scandal and gossip constitute much of the small talk of the social set which figures in the society notes. By the way, I suppose you know about that little affair between Mrs. Wilford and Mrs. Lathrop out at the Brent Rock Country Club?"
I was at once interested. It was exactly the sort of thing I had sought.
"No," I confessed. "But I can quite appreciate [110] that an encounter between Honora and Vina would be likely to be spirited—and add to our knowledge of the case. What was it?"
Belle Balcom smiled breezily. For, whatever she might say about the smart set, she had been writing their gossip so long that she, too, quite appreciated a choice morsel of scandal. I have noticed that none of my profession ever gets so blasé that a new piece of "inside" news loses its charm—and I confess that in that respect I am quite like my fraternity.
"It seems," she retailed, "that the Wilfords and the Lathrops were at the club at a Saturday-night dance two or three weeks ago. Of course, you know, the attentions that Mr. Wilford had been paying to Mrs. Lathrop had been noticeable for some time, then, and had been the source of a good deal of discussion and comment among various members of their set."
"Of course," I encouraged.
"Well, it was just a bit more noticeable that night than at other times. Mr. Wilford was with her practically all the time. Of course, Honora Wilford had noticed it, not only that night, but many times before. This time, though, she overheard one of the other women who didn't know that she was so near, talking about it and laughing with her partner."
"That was the last straw," I anticipated.
"Exactly. She waited until she saw Vail Wilford for a moment alone. As luck would have it, he was [111] going for a sherbet for Mrs. Lathrop at the time. Mrs. Wilford was cutting. 'I suppose you realize that your wife is present to-night,' she said, icily. 'At least one dance is customary to let the world know that a husband and wife are on speaking terms.'"
"What did he say to that?"
"Oh, of course he mumbled that he had intended to dance with her next—but he went on and got the sherbet. The next dance he was too late."
"Then Hades popped loose," I ventured.
"You might say that. In the middle of the dance, Honora Wilford, who had declined more partners during the evening than most of the other women at the club had accepted, rose and deliberately walked across the dancing-floor, ostentatiously bowing good night to every one as she passed. You couldn't help noticing it. Even if any one had missed it, the summoning of her car would have been enough. It pulled up at the door of the club, with the cut-out open. It was scarcely eleven o'clock, too, and no one was thinking of going home at that time. Not a word was said. There was no scene. Yet that dance almost stopped."
It was interesting, perhaps important for the case, yet not precisely what I had started out to find. "What of Doctor Lathrop?" I asked. "What did he do?"
"He wasn't in the room at the time. He was down in the café. Wilford tried to brazen it out and Vina [112] acted properly surprised. She can be quite an actress, too, when she wants to be. No, Doctor Lathrop didn't pay any attention to it—that is, not so any one saw it. But Vance Shattuck did. I remember him particularly that evening. Of course I know many of the stories back in his life—and a good deal of what they say about him now. He had been one of the partners Honora had persistently refused, but they did sit out a dance together and I'm sure it was she that ended the tête-à-tête, not he. He seemed to have very little interest in any one else there, and I saw him taking in the whole affair. Once he started forward, as if to offer to escort her home, then checked himself. I think he seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at the turn of events in that little affair."
"Playing a deep game?" I suggested.
Belle Balcom shrugged. "I don't know—perhaps. Really, I thought at the time that this was not a triangle, but the making of a fine quadrangle—that is," she laughed breezily, "if you include Vance Shattuck, I guess you would call it a pentangle."
"At any rate, all grist for the society-news mill," I smiled. "Doctor Lathrop really knew of the incident, didn't he?—at least, learned of it afterward?"
"I imagine so."
"You know the talk about the Lathrops?" I hinted.
"I think I do—and I knew it long before this case started people's tongues wagging, too."
[113]
"I understand it wasn't Wilford, after all, that Vina was interested in—but Shattuck himself."
"So they say. Society gets its geometry pretty mixed in some of these angles," she laughed.
"But do you think there is anything in the story about them?" I asked.
"You're a very persistent interviewer," she returned.
"Perhaps—but like the honest Japanese schoolboy, 'I ask to know.' It isn't interviewing for publication, you know. Really, I feel that if you do know anything, it is your duty to tell it. You can never know how valuable it may be to the case."
"Of course—if you put it on a high ethical ground, that's different," she temporized.
"I do. Listen. A crime has been committed. You have no more right to hold back one fact that may help to clear it up than you would to shield the person who committed it, in law, you know."
"You're right. Yes—I'm convinced that it was the case—that she was merely playing with Vail Wilford, using him to get her freedom from the doctor, and that she was convinced that all she needed to do was to set herself to capture Vance Shattuck and he was as good as hers. That might be true of some men—sometimes," she added, "but Mr. Shattuck is too—too sophisticated to fall an easy prey to any one. You know, no woman can pursue him. He is a born pursuer."
She paused a minute and nodded frankly at [114] me. "No woman should trust him—yet many have. Some day, I really believe, such men always meet a woman who is more than a game-fish to an angler. Between you and me, I think Vance Shattuck has met her—and that there is nothing he would stop at to get her. But Vina is not that woman—nor can she understand. Yes, you are absolutely right in what you hinted at regarding Vina. I think you'll do well to watch the Lathrops—but mostly watch Vance Shattuck. There—I've said more than I intended to say, already. And remember, this is not a woman's intuition. I've been watching little things, here and there, and putting what I know together. Now—I've some more items to add to my column—it's short to-day."
"Really, you ought to be a detective," I thanked her, as I turned from the desk. "You've helped me a great deal."
"Flatterer," she returned, picking up a galley proof. "Come back again. If I hear anything more I'll let you know. I like Professor Kennedy."
"Then it's to him you've been talking—not to me?" I asked, quizzically. "Or am I like John Alden—not speaking enough for myself, Priscilla?"
"Please—I must read this proof. No—you're not talking for Miles Standish. Still, I consider you quite harmless. If you don't go now, I'll make you write the notes to take the place of these turned slugs in the proof."
[115]
I departed in better humor, as I always was after a verbal encounter with Belle Balcom. More than that, she had given me enough to put some phases of the case in an entirely new light.
As I hastened back to the laboratory I realized that the scheming of Vina had given an entirely new twist to the case, one which was beyond my own subtlety to interpret.
On the way out of the city room I ran into Brooks, whose assignment was the Police Headquarters.
"Great case your friend Kennedy's on now," he paused to comment, and I knew that he was hinting for information.
"Yes. By the way," I replied, determined not to give it to him, but to sound him before he had a chance to do the same to me, "what do you fellows up at Headquarters know about the Rascon Detective Agency?"
"Rascon?" he answered, quickly, and I could see his mind was working fast and that if we needed any assistance in hounding that gentleman, Brooks would give it voluntarily, hoping to get his own story out of it. "Why, Rascon has a reputation. They say he has pulled some pretty raw deals. The city force doesn't think much of him, I can tell you. Is he mixed up in it?"
"Yes—indirectly," I admitted. "I thought perhaps you might keep an eye on him. There may be a story in him. Only, your word on one thing: Not a sentence is to go into The Star about him until you've got my O. K."
[116]
"I'll promise. What's he done? He does a good deal of shady business, I know."
I was not averse to telling Brooks a bit, for I knew I could trust him. Besides, if the truth is to be told, on a big case it is the newspaper men who do quite as much of the digging out the facts as the police do. The most efficient detectives in the world are the newspaper men—and the regular detectives get a great deal of credit for what the newspaper men do.
"He has been up to a fine piece of double crossing," I replied. "Now all I can tell you is that Wilford hired him to watch Mrs. Wilford. He faked a good deal—meetings with Vance Shattuck and that sort of thing. She gave up to him to suppress some of the fakes. But—well, I'd like to know more. Doyle, I think, has the fellow right. Now be careful. Don't let either of them know I tipped you off—and remember, your typewriter is broken until I tell you it's all right to go ahead."
"Thanks for the tip, Jameson," said Brooks, as I bustled away. "I'll look it up—and let you know."
"Have you found anything yet?" I inquired, half an hour later, as I entered the laboratory and found Kennedy still deeply engaged in the study of the materials which had been brought over by Doctor Leslie.
As I watched him I saw that he was at work over a quantitative analysis, rather than searching blindly for something as yet unknown.
[117]
"Yes," he replied, frankly, to my surprise, though, on second thought, I recalled that only when he was in doubt was Kennedy secretive. "I have. What about you?"
"The hint from Leslie was right," I replied, and as briefly as I could I repeated what Miss Balcom had told me.
Kennedy listened attentively, and when I had finished merely remarked, "That explains some things that I haven't cleared up yet."
"Now tell me what you have found," I urged. "I'm very eager to know."
"It was as I thought," he replied, slowly, "when I talked first with Leslie and Doyle. Wilford was not killed by atropin."
"Then what was it?" I asked, mystified.
"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."
[118]
"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 [119] 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 [120] 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 [121] 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 [122] "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.