Chapter 10

He held it up carefully and poured three or four cubic centimetres of it into the first tube so that it ran carefully down the side in a manner such as to form a sharp line of contact between the heavier culture with the acid and the lighter nitrite solution.

“You see,” he said, “the reaction is very clear cut if you do it this way. The ordinary method in the laboratory and the text-books is crude and uncertain.”

“What is it?” asked Pitts eagerly, leaning forward with unwonted strength and noting the pink colour that appeared at the junction of the two liquids, contrasting sharply with the portions above and below.

“The ring or contact test for indol,” Kennedy replied, with evident satisfaction. “When the acid and the nitrites are mixed the colour reaction is unsatisfactory. The natural yellow tint masks that pink tint, or sometimes causes it to disappear, if the tube is shaken. But this is simple, clear, delicate—unescapable. There was indol in that food of yours, Mr. Pitts.”

“Indol?” repeated Pitts.

“Is,” explained Kennedy, “a chemical compound—one of the toxins secreted by intestinal bacteria and responsible for many of the symptoms of senility. It used to be thought that large doses of indol might be consumed with little or no effect on normal man, but now we know that headache, insomnia, confusion, irritability, decreased activity of the cells, and intoxication are possible from it. Comparatively small doses over a long time produce changes in organs that lead to serious results.

“It is,” went on Kennedy, as the full horror of the thing sank into our minds, “the indol-and phenol-producing bacteria which are the undesirable citizens of the body, while the lactic-acid producing germs check the production of indol and phenol. In my tests here to-day, I injected four one-hundredths of a grain of indol into a guinea-pig. The animal had sclerosis or hardening of the aorta. The liver, kidneys, and supra-renals were affected, and there was a hardening of the brain. In short, there were all the symptoms of old age.”

We sat aghast. Indol! What black magic was this? Who put it in the food?

“It is present,” continued Craig, “in much larger quantities than all the Metchnikoff germs could neutralise. What the chef was ordered to put into the food to benefit you, Mr. Pitts, was rendered valueless, and a deadly poison was added by what another—”

Minna Pitts had been clutching for support at the arms of her chair as Kennedy proceeded. She now threw herself at the feet of Emery Pitts.

“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “I can stand it no longer. I had tried to keep this thing about Thornton from you. I have tried to make you happy and well—oh—tried so hard, so faithfully. Yet that old skeleton of my past which I thought was buried would not stay buried. I have bought Thornton off again and again, with money—my money—only to find him threatening again. But about this other thing, this poison, I am as innocent, and I believe Thornton is as—”

Craig laid a gentle hand on her lips. She rose wildly and faced him in passionate appeal.

“Who—who is this Thornton?” demanded Emery Pitts.

Quickly, delicately, sparing her as much as he could, Craig hurried over our experiences.

“He is in the next room,” Craig went on, then facing Pitts added: “With you alive, Emery Pitts, this blackmail of your wife might have gone on, although there was always the danger that you might hear of it—and do as I see you have already done—forgive, and plan to right the unfortunate mistake. But with you dead, this Thornton, or rather some one using him, might take away from Minna Pitts her whole interest in your estate, at a word. The law, or your heirs at law, would never forgive as you would.”

Pitts, long poisoned by the subtle microbic poison, stared at Kennedy as if dazed.

“Who was caught in your kitchen, Mr. Pitts, and, to escape detection, killed your faithful chef and covered his own traces so cleverly?” rapped out Kennedy. “Who would have known the new process of healing wounds? Who knew about the fatal properties of indol? Who was willing to forego a one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize in order to gain a fortune of many hundreds of thousands?”

Kennedy paused, then finished with irresistibly dramatic logic; “Who else but the man who held the secret of Minna Pitts’s past and power over her future so long as he could keep alive the unfortunate Thornton—the up-to-date doctor who substituted an elixir of death at night for the elixir of life prescribed for you by him in the daytime—Dr. Lord.”

Kennedy had moved quietly toward the door. It was unnecessary. Dr. Lord was cornered and knew it. He made no fight. In fact, instantly his keen mind was busy outlining his battle in court, relying on the conflicting testimony of hired experts.

“Minna,” murmured Pitts, falling back, exhausted by the excitement, on his pillows, “Minna—forgive? What is there to forgive? The only thing to do is to correct. I shall be well—soon now—my dear. Then all will be straightened out.”

“Walter,” whispered Kennedy to me, “while we are waiting, you can arrange to have Thornton cared for at Dr. Hodge’s Sanitarium.”

He handed me a card with the directions where to take the unfortunate man. When at last I had Thornton placed where no one else could do any harm through him, I hastened back to the laboratory.

Craig was still there, waiting alone.

“That Dr. Lord will be a tough customer,” he remarked. “Of course you’re not interested in what happens in a case after we have caught the criminal. But that often is really only the beginning of the fight. We’ve got him safely lodged in the Tombs now, however.”

“I wish there was some elixir for fatigue,” I remarked, as we closed the laboratory that night.

“There is,” he replied. “A homeopathic remedy—more fatigue.”

We started on our usual brisk roundabout walk to the apartment. But instead of going to bed, Kennedy drew a book from the bookcase.

“I shall read myself to sleep to-night,” he explained, settling deeply in his chair.

As for me, I went directly to my room, planning that to-morrow I would take several hours off and catch up in my notes.

That morning Kennedy was summoned downtown and had to interrupt more important duties in order to appear before Dr. Leslie in the coroner’s inquest over the death of the chef. Dr. Lord was held for the Grand Jury, but it was not until nearly noon that Craig returned.

We were just about to go out to luncheon, when the door buzzer sounded.

“A note for Mr. Kennedy,” announced a man in a police uniform, with a blue anchor edged with white on his coat sleeve.

Craig tore open the envelope quickly with his forefinger. Headed “Harbour Police, Station No. 3, Staten Island,” was an urgent message from our old friend Deputy Commissioner O’Connor.

“I have taken personal charge of a case here that is sufficiently out of the ordinary to interest you,” I read when Kennedy tossed the note over to me and nodded to the man from the harbour squad to wait for us. “The Curtis family wish to retain a private detective to work in conjunction with the police in investigating the death of Bertha Curtis, whose body was found this morning in the waters of Kill van Kull.”

Kennedy and I lost no time in starting downtown with the policeman who had brought the note.

The Curtises, as we knew, were among the prominent families of Manhattan and I recalled having heard that at one time Bertha Curtis had been an actress, in spite of the means and social position of her family, from whom she had become estranged as a result.

At the station of the harbour police, O’Connor and another man, who was in a state of extreme excitement, greeted us almost before we had landed.

“There have been some queer doings about here,” exclaimed the deputy as he grasped Kennedy’s hand, “but first of all let me introduce Mr. Walker Curtis.”

In a lower tone as we walked up the dock O’Connor continued, “He is the brother of the girl whose body the men in the launch at the station found in the Kill this morning. They thought at first that the girl had committed suicide, making it doubly sure by jumping into the water, but he will not believe it and,—well, if you’ll just come over with us to the local undertaking establishment, I’d like to have you take a look at the body and see if your opinion coincides with mine.

“Ordinarily,” pursued O’Connor, “there isn’t much romance in harbour police work nowadays, but in this case some other elements seem to be present which are not usually associated with violent deaths in the waters of the bay, and I have, as you will see, thought it necessary to take personal charge of the investigation.

“Now, to shorten the story as much as possible, Kennedy, you know of course that the legislature at the last session enacted laws prohibiting the sale of such drugs as opium, morphine, cocaine, chloral and others, under much heavier penalties than before. The Health authorities not long ago reported to us that dope was being sold almost openly, without orders from physicians, at several scores of places and we have begun a crusade for the enforcement of the law. Of course you know how prohibition works in many places and how the law is beaten. The dope fiends seem to be doing the same thing with this law.

“Of course nowadays everybody talks about a ‘system’ controlling everything, so I suppose people would say that there is a ‘dope trust.’ At any rate we have run up against at least a number of places that seem to be banded together in some way, from the lowest down in Chinatown to one very swell joint uptown around what the newspapers are calling ‘Crime Square.’ It is not that this place is pandering to criminals or the women of the Tenderloin that interests us so much as that its patrons are men and women of fashionable society whose jangled nerves seem to demand a strong narcotic.

“This particular place seems to be a headquarters for obtaining them, especially opium and its derivatives.

“One of the frequenters of the place was this unfortunate girl, Bertha Curtis. I have watched her go in and out myself, wild-eyed, nervous, mentally and physically wrecked for life. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty persons visit the place each day. It is run by a man known as ‘Big Jack’ Clendenin who was once an actor and, I believe, met and fascinated Miss Curtis during her brief career on the stage. He has an attendant there, a Jap, named Nichi Moto, who is a perfect enigma. I can’t understand him on any reasonable theory. A long time ago we raided the place and packed up a lot of opium, pipes, material and other stuff. We found Clendenin there, this girl, several others, and the Jap. I never understood just how it was but somehow Clendenin got off with a nominal fine and a few days later opened up again. We were watching the place, getting ready to raid it again and present such evidence that Clendenin couldn’t possibly beat it, when all of a sudden along came this—this tragedy.”

We had at last arrived at the private establishment which was doing duty as a morgue. The bedraggled form that had been bandied about by the tides all night lay covered up in the cold damp basement. Bertha Curtis had been a girl of striking beauty once. For a long time I gazed at the swollen features before I realised what it was that fascinated and puzzled me about her. Kennedy, however, after a casual glance had arrived at at least a part of her story.

“That girl,” he whispered to me so that her brother could not hear, “has led a pretty fast life. Look at those nails, yellow and dark. It isn’t a weak face, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing, the Oriental glamour and all that, fascinated her as much as the drug.”

So far the case with its heartrending tragedy had all the earmarks of suicide.

XI

THE OPIUM JOINT

O’Connor drew back the sheet which covered her and in the calf of the leg disclosed an ugly bullet hole. Ugly as it was, however, it was anything but dangerous and seemed to indicate nothing as to the real cause of her death. He drew from his pocket a slightly misshapen bullet which had been probed from the wound and handed it to Kennedy, who examined both the wound and the bullet carefully. It seemed to be an ordinary bullet except that in the pointed end were three or four little round, very shallow wells or depressions only the minutest fraction of an inch deep.

“Very extraordinary,” he remarked slowly. “No, I don’t think this was a case of suicide. Nor was it a murder for money, else the jewels would have been taken.”

O’Connor looked approvingly at me. “Exactly what I said,” he exclaimed. “She was dead before her body was thrown into the water.”

“No, I don’t agree with you there,” corrected Craig, continuing his examination of the body. “And yet it is not a case of drowning exactly, either.”

“Strangled?” suggested O’Connor.

“By some jiu jitsu trick?” I put in, mindful of the queer-acting Jap at Clendenin’s.

Kennedy shook his head.

“Perhaps the shock of the bullet wound rendered her unconscious and in that state she was thrown in,” ventured Walker Curtis, apparently much relieved that Kennedy coincided with O’Connor in disagreeing with the harbour police as to the suicide theory.

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and looked at the bullet again. “It is very extraordinary,” was all he replied. “I think you said a few moments ago, O’Connor, that there had been some queer doings about here. What did you mean?”

“Well, as I said, the work of the harbour squad isn’t ordinarily very remarkable. Harbour pirates aren’t murderous as a rule any more. For the most part they are plain sneak thieves or bogus junk dealers who work with dishonest pier watchmen and crooked canal boat captains and lighter hands.

“But in this instance,” continued the deputy, his face knitting at the thought that he had to confess another mystery to which he had no solution, “it is something quite different. You know that all along the shore on this side of the island are old, dilapidated and, some of them, deserted houses. For several days the residents of the neighbourhood have been complaining of strange occurrences about one place in particular which was the home of a wealthy family in a past generation. It is about a mile from here, facing the road along the shore, and has in front of it and across the road the remains of an old dock sticking out a few feet into the water at high tide.

“Now, as nearly as any one can get the story, there seems to have been a mysterious, phantom boat, very swift, without lights, and with an engine carefully muffled down which has been coming up to the old dock for the past few nights when the tide was high enough. A light has been seen moving on the dock, then suddenly extinguished, only to reappear again. Who carried it and why, no one knows. Any one who has tried to approach the place has had a scare thrown into him which he will not easily forget. For instance, one man crept up and though he did not think he was seen he was suddenly shot at from behind a tree. He felt the bullet pierce his arm, started to run, stumbled, and next morning woke up in the exact spot on which he had fallen, none the worse for his experience except that he had a slight wound that will prevent his using his right arm for some time for heavy work.

“After each visit of the phantom boat there is heard, according to the story of the few neighbours who have observed it, the tramp of feet up the overgrown stone walk from the dock and some have said that they heard an automobile as silent and ghostly as the boat. We have been all through the weird old house, but have found nothing there, except enough loose boards and shutters to account for almost any noise or combination of noises. However, no one has said there was anything there except the tramp of feet going back and forth on the old pavements outside. Two or three times shots have been heard, and on the dock where most of the alleged mysterious doings have taken place we have found one very new exploded shell of a cartridge.”

Craig took the shell which O’Connor drew from another pocket and trying to fit the bullet and the cartridge together remarked “both from a .44, probably one of those old-fashioned, long-barrelled makes.”

“There,” concluded O’Connor ruefully, “you know all we know of the thing so far.”

“I may keep these for the present?” inquired Kennedy, preparing to pocket the shell and the bullet, and from his very manner I could see that as a matter of fact he already knew a great deal more about the case than the police. “Take us down to this old house and dock, if you please.”

Over and over, Craig paced up and down the dilapidated dock, his keen eyes fastened to the ground, seeking some clue, anything that would point to the marauders. Real persons they certainly were, and not any ghostly crew of the bygone days of harbour pirates, for there was every evidence of some one who had gone up and down the walk recently, not once but many times.

Suddenly Kennedy stumbled over what looked like a sardine tin can, except that it had no label or trace of one. It was lying in the thick long matted grass by the side of the walk as if it had tumbled there and had been left unnoticed.

Yet there was nothing so very remarkable about it in itself. Tin cans were lying all about, those marks of decadent civilisation. But to Craig it had instantly presented an idea. It was a new can. The others were rusted.

He had pried off the lid and inside was a blackish, viscous mass.

“Smoking opium,” Craig said at last.

We retraced our steps pondering on the significance of the discovery.

O’Connor had had men out endeavouring all day to get a clue to the motor car that had been mentioned in some of the accounts given by the natives. So far the best he had been able to find was a report of a large red touring car which crossed from New York on a late ferry. In it were a man and a girl as well as a chauffeur who wore goggles and a cap pulled down over his head so that he was practically unrecognisable. The girl might have been Miss Curtis and, as for the man, it might have been Clendenin. No one had bothered much with them; no one had taken their number; no one had paid any attention where they went after the ferry landed. In fact, there would have been no significance to the report if it had not been learned that early in the morning on the first ferry from the lower end of the island to New Jersey a large red touring car answering about the same description had crossed, with a single man and driver but no woman.

“I should like to watch here with you to-night, O’Connor,” said Craig as we parted. “Meet us here. In the meantime I shall call on Jameson with his well-known newspaper connections in the white light district,” here he gave me a half facetious wink, “to see what he can do toward getting me admitted to this gilded palace of dope up there on Forty-fourth Street.”

After no little trouble Kennedy and I discovered our “hop joint” and were admitted by Nichi Moto, of whom we had heard. Kennedy gave me a final injunction to watch, but to be very careful not to seem to watch.

Nichi Moto with an eye to business and not to our absorbing more than enough to whet our descriptive powers quickly conducted us into a large room where, on single bamboo couches or bunks, rather tastefully made, perhaps half a dozen habitues lay stretched at full length smoking their pipes in peace, or preparing them in great expectation from the implements on the trays before them.

Kennedy relieved me of the responsibility of cooking the opium by doing it for both of us and, incidentally, dropping a hint not to inhale it and to breathe as little of it as possible. Even then it made me feel badly, though he must have contrived in some way to get even less of the stuff than I. A couple of pipes, and Kennedy beckoned to Nichi.

“Where is Mr. Clendenin?” he asked familiarly. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

The Japanese smiled his engaging smile. “Not know,” was all he said, and yet I knew the fellow at least knew better English, if not more facts.

Kennedy had about started on our faking a third “pipe” when a new, unexpected arrival beckoned excitedly to Nichi. I could not catch all that was said but two words that I did catch were “the boss” and “hop toy,” the latter the word for opium. No sooner had the man disappeared without joining the smokers than Nichi seemed to grow very restless and anxious. Evidently he had received orders to do something. He seemed anxious to close the place and get away. I thought that some one might have given a tip that the place was to be raided, but Kennedy, who had been closer, had overheard more than I had and among other things he had caught the word, “meet him at the same place.”

It was not long before we were all politely hustled out.

“At least we know this,” commented Kennedy, as I congratulated myself on our fortunate escape, “Clendenin was not there, and there is something doing to-night, for he has sent for Nichi.”

We dropped into our apartment to freshen up a bit against the long vigil that we knew was coming that night. To our surprise Walker Curtis had left a message that he wished to see Kennedy immediately and alone, and although I was not present I give the substance of what he said. It seemed that he had not wished to tell O’Connor for fear that it would get into the papers and cause an even greater scandal, but it had come to his knowledge a few days before the tragedy that his sister was determined to marry a very wealthy Chinese merchant, an importer of tea, named Chin Jung. Whether or not this had any bearing on the case he did not know. He thought it had, because for a long time, both when she was on the stage and later, Clendenin had had a great influence over her and had watched with a jealous eye the advances of every one else. Curtis was especially bitter against Clendenin.

As Kennedy related the conversation to me on our way over to Staten Island I tried to piece the thing together, but like one of the famous Chinese puzzles, it would not come out. I had to admit the possibility that it was Clendenin who might have quarrelled over her attachment to Chin Jung, even though I have never yet been able to understand what the fascination is that some Orientals have over certain American girls.

All that night we watched patiently from a vantage point of an old shed near both the house and the decayed pier. It was weird in the extreme, especially as we had no idea what might happen if we had success and saw something. But there was no reward for our patience. Absolutely nothing happened. It was as though they knew, whoever they were, that we were there. During the hours that passed O’Connor whiled away the time in a subdued whisper now and then in telling us of his experiences in Chinatown which he was now engaged in trying to clean up. From Chinatown, its dens, its gamblers and its tongs we drifted to the legitimate business interests there, and I, at least, was surprised to find that there were some of the merchants for whom even O’Connor had a great deal of respect. Kennedy evidently did not wish to violate in any way the confidence of Walker Curtis, and mention of the name of Chin Jung, but by a judicious question as to who the best men were in the Celestial settlement he did get a list of half a dozen or so from O’Connor. Chin Jung was well up in the list. However, the night wore away and still nothing happened.

It was in the middle of the morning when we were taking a snatch of sleep in our own rooms uptown that the telephone began to ring insistently. Kennedy, who was resting, I verily believe, merely out of consideration for my own human frailties, was at the receiver in an instant. It proved to be O’Connor. He had just gone back to his office at headquarters and there he had found a report of another murder.

“Who is it?” asked Kennedy, “and why do you connect it with this case?”