Chapter 9

“Who was it that gave the prescription to Mrs. Vandam originally? She is dead and cannot tell. The others won't tell, for the person who gave her that prescription was the person who later substituted the fatal capsule in place of the harmless. The original prescription is here. I have been able to discover from it nothing at all by examining the handwriting. Nor does the texture of the paper indicate anything to me. But the ink--ah, the ink.

“Most inks seem very similar, I suppose, but to a person who has made a study of the chemical composition of ink they are very different. Ink is composed of iron tannate, which on exposure to air gives the black of writing. The original pigment--say blue or blue-black ink--is placed in the ink, to make the writing visible at first, and gradually fades, giving place to the black of the tannate which is formed. The dyestuffs employed in the commercial inks of to-day vary in colour from pale greenish blue to indigo and deep violet. No two give identical reactions--at all events not when mixed with the iron tannate to form the pigment in writing.

“It is owing to the difference in these provisional colouring matters that it is possible to distinguish between writing written with different kinds of ink. I was able easily to obtain samples of the inks used by the Vandams, by Mrs. Popper, by Mr. Farrington, and by the druggist. I have compared the writing of the original prescription with a colour scale of my own construction, and I have made chemical tests. The druggist's ink conforms exactly to the writing on the two pill-boxes, but not to the prescription. One of the other three inks conforms by test absolutely to the ink in that prescription signed 'Dr. C. W. H.' as a blind. In a moment my chain of evidence against the owner of that bottle of ink will be complete.”

I could not help but think of the two pendulums on the shelf behind the curtain, but Craig said nothing for a moment to indicate that he referred to that apparatus. We sat dazed. Farrington seemed nervous and ill at ease. Mrs. Popper, who had not recovered from the hysterical condition of her exposure, with difficulty controlled her emotion. Vandam was crushed.

“I have not only arranged this laboratory so as to reproduce Mrs. Popper's seance-room,” began Craig afresh, “but I have had the cabinet placed in relatively the same position a similar cabinet occupies in Mr. Vandam's private seance-room in the Vandam mansion.

“One night, Mr. Jameson and myself were visiting Mr. Vandam. At precisely twelve-thirty we heard most unaccountable rappings from that cabinet. I particularly noted the position of the cabinet. Back of it ran a hallway. That is duplicated here. Back of this cabinet is a hallway. I had heard of these rappings before we went, but was afraid that it would be impossible for me to catch the ghost red handed. There is a limit to what you can do the first time you enter a man's house, and, besides, that was no time to arouse suspicion in the mind of anyone. But science has a way out of every dilemma. I determined to learn something of these rappings.”

Craig paused and glanced first at Farrington, then at Mrs. Popper, and then at Mr. Vandam.

“Mr. Jameson,” he resumed, “will escort the doctor, the inspector, Mr. Farrington, Mrs. Popper, and Mr. Vandam into my imitation hall of the Vandam mansion. I want each of you in turn to tiptoe up that hall to a spot indicated on the wall, back of the cabinet, and strike that spot several sharp blows with your knuckles.”

I did as Craig instructed tiptoeing up myself first so that they could not mistake his meaning. The rest followed separately, and after a moment we returned silently in suppressed excitement to the room.

Craig was still standing by the table, but now the pendulums with the magnets and needles and the drums worked by clockwork were before him.

“Another person outside the Vandam family had a key to the Vandam mansion,” he began gravely. “That person, by the way, was the one who waited, night by night, until Mrs. Vandam took the fatal capsule, and then when she had taken it apprised the old man of the fact and strengthened an already blind faith in the shadow world.”

You could have heard a pin drop. In fact you could almost have felt it drop.

“That other person who, unobserved, had free access to the house,” he continued in the breathless stillness, “is in this room now.”

He was looking at O'Connor as if for corroboration. O'Connor nodded. “Information derived from the butler,” he muttered.

“I did not know this until yesterday,” Kennedy continued, “but I suspected that something of the sort existed when I was first told by Dr. Hanson of the rappings. I determined to hear those rappings, and make a record of them. So, the night Mr. Jameson and I visited Mr. Vandam, I carried this little instrument with me.”

Almost lovingly he touched the pendulums on the table. They were now at rest and kept so by means of a lever that prevented all vibration whatever.

“See, I release this lever--now, let no one in the room move. Watch the needles on the paper as the clockwork revolves the drums. I take a step--ever so lightly. The pendulums vibrate, and the needles trace a broken line on the paper on each drum. I stop; the lines are practically straight. I take another step and another, ever so lightly. See the delicate pendulums vibrate? See, the lines they trace are jagged lines.”

He stripped the paper off the drums and laid it flat on the table before him, with two other similar pieces of paper.

“Just before the time of the rapping I placed this instrument in the corner of the Vandam cabinet, just as I placed it in this cabinet after Mr. Jameson conducted you from the room. In neither case were suspicions aroused. Everything in both cases was perfectly normal--I mean the 'ghost' was in ignorance of the presence, if not the very existence, of this instrument.

“This is an improved seismograph,” he explained, “one after a very recent model by Prince Galitzin of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. The seismograph, as you know, was devised to register earthquakes at a distance. This one not only measures the size of a distant earthquake, but the actual direction from which the earth-tremors come. That is why there are two pendulums and two drums.

“The magnetic arrangement is to cut short the vibrations set up in the pendulums, to prevent them from continuing to vibrate after the first shock. Thus they are ready in an instant to record another tremor. Other seismographs continue to vibrate for a long time as a result of one tremor only. Besides, they give little indication of the direction from which the tremors come.

“I think you must all appreciate that your tiptoeing up the hall must cause a far greater disturbance in this delicate seismograph than even a very severe earthquake thousands of miles away, which it was built to record.”

He paused and examined the papers sharply.

“This is the record made by the 'ghost's' walk the other night,” he said, holding up two of them in his left hand. “Here on the table, on two other longer sheets, I have records of the vibrations set up by those in this room walking to-night.

“Here is Mr. Jameson's--his is not a bit like the ghost's. Nor is Mr. Vandam's. Least of all are Dr. Hanson's and Inspector O'Connor's, for they are heavy men.

“Now here is Mr. Farrington's”--he bent down closely, “he is a light man, and the ghost was light.”

Craig was playing with his victim like a cat with a mouse.

Suddenly I felt something brush by me, and with a swish of air and of garments I saw Mrs. Popper fling herself wildly at the table that bore the incriminating records. In another instant Farrington was on his feet and had made a wild leap in the same direction.

It was done so quickly that I must have acted first and thought afterward. I found myself in the midst of a melee with my hand at his throat and his at mine. O'Connor with a jiu-jitsu movement bent Farrington's other arm until he released me with a cry of pain.

In front of me I saw Craig grasping Mrs. Popper's wrists as in a vise. She was glaring at him like a tigress.

“Do you suppose for a moment that that toy is going to convince the world that Henry Vandam has been deceived and that the spirit which visited him was a fraud? Is that why you have lured me here under false pretences, to play on my feelings, to insult me, to take advantage of a lone, defenceless woman, surrounded by hostile men? Shame on you,” she added contemptuously. “You call yourself a gentleman, but I call you a coward.”

Kennedy, always calm and collected, ignored the tirade. His voice was as cold as steel as he said: “It would do little good, Mrs. Popper, to destroy this one link in the chain I have forged. The other links are too heavy for you. Don't forget the evidence of the ink. It was your ink. Don't forget that Henry Vandam will not any longer conceal that he has altered his will in favour of you. To-night he goes from here to his lawyer's to draw up a new will altogether. Don't forget that you have caused the Vandams separately to have the prescription filled, and that you are now caught in the act of a double murder. Don't forget that you had access to the Vandam mansion, that you substituted the deadly for the harmless capsules. Don't forget that your rappings announced the death of one of your victims and urged the other, a cruelly wronged and credulous old man, to leave millions to you who had deceived and would have killed him.

“No, the record of the ghost on the seismograph was not Mr. Farrington's, as I implied at the moment when you so kindly furnished this additional proof of your guilt by trying to destroy the evidence. The ghost was you, Mrs. Popper, and you are at liberty to examine the markings as minutely as you please, but you must not destroy them. You are an astute criminal, Mrs. Popper, but to-night you are under arrest for the murder of Mary Vandam and the attempted murder of Henry Vandam.”

VI. The Diamond Maker

“I've called, Professor Kennedy, to see if we can retain you in a case which I am sure will tax even your resources. Heaven knows it has taxed ours.”

The visitor was a large, well-built man. He placed his hat on the table and, without taking off his gloves, sat down in an easy chair which he completely filled.

“Andrews is my name--third vice-president of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company. I am the nominal head of the company's private detective force, and though I have some pretty clever fellows on my staff we've got a case that, so far, none of us has been able to unravel. I'd like to consult you about it.”

Kennedy expressed his entire willingness to be consulted, and after the usual formalities were over, Mr. Andrews proceeded.

“I suppose you are aware that the large insurance companies maintain quite elaborate detective forces and follow very keenly such of the cases of their policy-holders as look at all suspicious. This case which I wish to put in your hands is that of Mr. Solomon Morowitch, a wealthy Maiden Lane jeweller. I suppose you have read something in the papers about his sudden death and the strange robbery of his safe?”

“Very little,” replied Craig. “There hasn't been much to read.”

“Of course not, of course not,” said Mr. Andrews with some show of gratification. “I flatter myself that we have pulled the wires so as to keep the thing out of the papers as much as possible. We don't want to frighten the quarry till the net is spread. The point is, though, to find out who is the quarry. It's most baffling.”

“I am at your service,” interposed Craig quietly, “but you will have to enlighten me as to the facts in the case. As to that, I know no more than the newspapers.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly. That is to say, you know nothing at all and can approach it without bias.” He paused and then, seeming to notice something in Craig's manner, added hastily: “I'll be perfectly frank with you. The policy in question is for one hundred thousand dollars, and is incontestable. His wife is the beneficiary. The company is perfectly willing to pay, but we want to be sure that it is all straight first. There are certain suspicious circumstances that in justice to ourselves we think should be cleared up. That is all--believe me. We are not seeking to avoid an honest liability.”

“What are these suspicious circumstances?” asked Craig, apparently satisfied with the explanation.

“This is in strict confidence, gentlemen,” began Mr. Andrews. “Mr. Morowitch, according to the story as it comes to us, returned home late one night last week, apparently from his office, in a very weakened, a semiconscious, condition. His family physician, Doctor Thornton, was summoned, not at once, but shortly. He pronounced Mr. Morowitch to be suffering from a congestion of the lungs that was very like a sudden attack of pneumonia.

“Mr. Morowitch had at once gone to bed, or at least was in bed, when the doctor arrived, but his condition grew worse so rapidly that the doctor hastily resorted to oxygen, under which treatment he seemed to revive. The doctor had just stepped out to see another patient when a hurry call was sent to him that Mr. Morowitch was rapidly sinking. He died before the doctor could return. No statement whatever concerning the cause of his sudden illness was made by Mr. Morowitch, and the death-certificate, a copy of which I have, gives pneumonia as the cause of death. One of our men has seen Doctor Thornton, but has been able to get nothing out of him. Mrs. Morowitch was the only person with her, husband at the time.”

There was something in his tone that made me take particular note of this last fact, especially as he paused for an instant.

“Now, perhaps there would be nothing surprising about it all, so far at least, were it not for the fact that the following morning, when his junior partner, Mr. Kahan, opened the place of business, or rather went to it, for it was to remain closed, of course, he found that during the night someone had visited it. The lock on the great safe, which contained thousands of dollars' worth of diamonds, was intact; but in the top of the safe a huge hole was found--an irregular, round hole, big enough to put your foot through. Imagine it, Professor Kennedy, a great hole in a safe that is made of chrome steel, a safe that, short of a safety-deposit vault, ought to be about the strongest thing on earth.

“Why, that steel would dull and splinter even the finest diamond-drill before it made an impression. The mere taking out and refitting of drills into the brace would be a most lengthy process. Eighteen or twenty hours is the time by actual test which it would take to bore such a hole through those laminated plates, even if there were means of exerting artificial pressure. As for the police, they haven't even a theory yet.”

“And the diamonds”

“All gone--everything of any value was gone. Even the letter-files were ransacked. His desk was broken open, and papers of some nature had been taken out of it. Thorough is no name for the job. Isn't that enough to arouse suspicion?”

“I should like to see that safe,” was all Kennedy said.

“So you shall, so you shall,” said Mr. Andrews. “Then we may retain you in our service? My car is waiting down-stairs. We can go right down to Maiden Lane if you wish.”

“You may retain me on one condition,” said Craig without moving. “I am to be free to get at the truth whether it benefits or hurts the company, and the case is to be entirely in my hands.”

“Hats on,” agreed Mr. Andrews, reaching in his vest pocket and pulling out three or four brevas. “My chauffeur is quite a driver. He can almost beat the subway down.”

“First, to my laboratory,” interposed Craig. “It will take only a few minutes.”

We drove up to the university and stopped on the campus while Craig hurried into the Chemistry Building to get something.

“I like your professor of criminal science;” said Andrews to me, blowing a huge fragrant cloud of smoke.

I, for my part, liked the vice-president. He was a man who seemed thoroughly to enjoy life, to have most of the good things, and a capacity for getting out of them all that was humanly possible. He seemed to be particularly enjoying this Morowitch case.

“He has solved some knotty cases,” was all I said. “I've come to believe there is no limit to his resourcefulness.”

“I hope not. He's up against a tough one this trip, though, my boy.”

I did not even resent the “my boy.” Andrews was one of those men in whom we newspaper writers instinctively believe. I knew that it would be “pens lifted” only so long as the case was incomplete. When the time comes with such men they are ready to furnish us the best “copy” in the world.

Kennedy quickly rejoined us, carrying a couple of little glass bottles with ground-glass stoppers.

Morowitch & Co. was, of course, closed when we arrived, but we had no trouble in being admitted by the Central Office man who had been detailed to lock the barn door after the horse was stolen. It was precisely as Mr. Andrews had said. Mr. Kahan showed us the safe. Through the top a great hole had been made--I say made, for at the moment I was at a loss to know whether it had been cut, drilled, burned, blown out, or what-not.

Kennedy examined the edges of the hole carefully, and just the trace of a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face as he did so. Without saying a word he took the glass stopper out of the larger bottle which he had brought and poured the contents on the top of the safe near the hole. There it lay, a little mound of reddish powder.

Kennedy took a little powder of another kind from the other bottle and lighted it with a match.

“Stand back--close to the wall,” he called as he dropped the burning mass on the red powder. In two or three leaps he joined us at the far end of the room.

Almost instantly a dazzling, intense flame broke out, and sizzled and crackled. With bated breath we watched. It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could still see the reflection of the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for itself in the top of the safe.

At last it fell through into the safe--fell as the burning roof of a frame building would fall into the building. No one spoke a word, but as we cautiously peered over the top of the safe we instinctively turned to Kennedy for an explanation. The Central Office man, with eyes as big as half-dollars, acted almost as if he would have liked to clap the irons on Kennedy. For there in the top of the safe was another hole, smaller but identical in nature with the first one.

“Thermit,” was all Kennedy said.

“Thermit?” echoed Andrews, shifting the cigar which he had allowed to go out in the excitement.

“Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen, Germany. It is a compound of iron oxide, such as comes off a blacksmith's anvil or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered metallic aluminum. You could thrust a red-hot bar into it without setting it off, but when you light a little magnesium powder and drop it on thermit, a combustion is started that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidising agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface. You see how it ate its way through the steel. Either black or red thermit will do the trick equally well.”

No one said anything. There was nothing to say.

“Someone uncommonly clever, or instructed by someone uncommonly clever, must have done that job,” added Craig. “Well, there is nothing more to be done here,” he added, after a cursory look about the office. “Mr. Andrews, may I have a word with you? Come on, Jameson. Good day, Mr. Kahan. Good day, Officer.”

Outside we stopped for a moment at the door of Andrews's car.

“I shall want to see Mr. Morowitch's papers at home,” said Craig, “and also to call on Doctor Thornton. Do you think I shall have any difficulty?”

“Not at all,” replied Mr. Andrews, “not at all. I will go with you myself and see that you have none. Say, Professor Kennedy,” he broke out, “that was marvellous. I never dreamed such a thing was possible. But don't you think you could have learned something more up there in the office by looking around?”

“I did learn it,” answered Kennedy. “The lock on the door was intact--whoever did the job let himself in by a key. There is no other way to get in.”

Andrews gave a low whistle and glanced involuntarily up at the window with the sign of Morowitch & Co. in gold letters several floors above.

“Don't look up. I think that was Kahan looking out at us,” he said, fixing his eyes on his cigar. “I wonder if he knows more about this than he has told! He was the 'company,' you know, but his interest in the business was only very slight. By George--”

“Not too fast, Mr. Andrews,” interrupted Craig. “We have still to see Mrs. Morowitch and the doctor before we form any theories.”

“A very handsome woman, too,” said Andrews, as we seated ourselves in the car: “A good deal younger than Morowitch. Say, Kahan isn't a bad-looking chap, either, is he? I hear he was a very frequent visitor at his partner's house. Well, which first, Mrs. M. or the doctor?”

“The house,” answered Craig.

Mr. Andrews introduced us to Mrs. Morowitch, who was in very deep mourning, which served, as I could not help noticing, rather to heighten than lessen her beauty. By contrast it brought out the rich deep colour of her face and the graceful lines of her figure. She was altogether a very attractive young widow.

She seemed to have a sort of fear of Andrews, whether merely because he represented the insurance company on which so much depended or because there were other reasons for fear, I could not, of course, make out. Andrews was very courteous and polite, yet I caught myself asking if it was not a professional rather than a personal politeness. Remembering his stress on the fact that she was alone with her husband when he died, it suddenly flashed across my mind that somewhere I had read of a detective who, as his net was being woven about a victim, always grew more and more ominously polite toward the victim. I know that Andrews suspected her of a close connection with the case. As for myself, I don't know what I suspected as yet.

No objection was offered to our request to examine Mr. Morowitch's personal effects in the library, and accordingly Craig ransacked the desk and the letter-file. There was practically nothing to be discovered.

“Had Mr. Morowitch ever received any threats of robbery?” asked Craig, as he stood before the desk.

“Not that I know of,” replied Mrs. Morowitch. “Of course every jeweller who carries a large stock of diamonds must be careful. But I don't think my husband had any special reason to fear robbery. At least he never said anything about it. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing. I merely thought there might be some hint as to the motives of the robbery,” said Craig. He was fingering one of those desk-calendars which have separate leaves for each day with blank spaces for appointments.

“'Close deal Poissan,'” he read slowly from one of the entries, as if to himself. “That's strange. It was the correspondence under the letter 'P' that was destroyed at the office, and there is nothing in the letter-file here, either. Who was Poissan?”

Mrs. Morowitch hesitated, either from ignorance or from a desire to evade the question. “A chemist, I think,” she said doubtfully. “My husband had some dealings with him--some discovery he was going to buy. I don't know anything about it. I thought the deal was off.”

“The deal?”