Part 15

Evidently, Kennedy was content to let the seed which he had planted during this visit germinate. Or was he reluctant to allow McCabe over the dictagraph hear more that might be reported to Doyle on which Doyle might continue to base wrong conclusions? Desperately I clung to this last explanation.

As far as Honora was concerned, now, there was no use in our staying longer. Kennedy had deliberately thrown away a chance to drive her into further admissions. The interval had given her the time she needed. Now she was keenly on guard and mistress again of herself.

Secretly I was rather glad. It was better to let the information and suspicion that had been aroused work of itself.

"You are not yourself, Mrs. Wilford," suddenly apologized Kennedy. "It is not fair to you. Think over some of the things I have been forced to say to you. Perhaps you will see matters in another light. Good-by."

I do not know whether his keen questioning or this sudden quiet change of tone and the idea of leaving her at such a time had a greater effect. She shot him one startled look, then bowed in silence as we, in turn, bowed ourselves out. She even denied herself the final glance of curiosity, lest she might betray sudden relief changed to deep-seated fear at the sudden departure of Kennedy, with his cool assumption of power.

Outside, we encountered Celeste, who had been hovering in the hall, apparently listening. Quietly Kennedy beckoned her down the hall, away from the door we had just left, while he paused a moment to question her.

"I wish you would refresh your memory, mademoiselle," he began, suddenly. "Are you sure--absolutely sure that on the night Mr. Wilford was murdered madame was here--that she was not out--at all?"

His tone was such as to imply, not suspicion, but certainty that Celeste had been lying, that Mrs. Wilford had been out.

"Oh, but yes, monsieur," Celeste replied, glibly. "I was with madame all the evening. No--no--she was not out. She was here--all the evening--waiting for him. I can swear it. How many times must I swear it--to you--to those--those beasts!"

Celeste nodded outside. Kennedy smiled.

"Who should know better than I what madame was doing?" continued Celeste, vehemently.

Kennedy did not pursue the subject.

"You love madame, don't you, Celeste?" he asked, simply.

"Why--yes!" replied the girl, startled by the unexpectedness of the question.

"Good day," nodded Kennedy, simply, as a lawyer might dismiss a witness.

"Methinks she doth protest too much," I quoted, as I remembered the "Aussage test" again and its proof of the unreliability of Celeste.

Kennedy did not attempt further to shake the girl's story, and I was forced to conclude that he had another purpose in view. Perhaps it was that he knew that she would report to Honora what he had asked.

Kennedy turned to go out. But he did not close the door tightly as we went out. Sure enough, no sooner had he seemed to shut the door than he could see that she had darted into the room we had just left.

Kennedy smiled and closed the door softly.

XVIII

THE CONFESSION

Little happened during the rest of the day, which I spent in the laboratory, while Craig checked up the results of his previous observations on the case.

Toward the end of the afternoon I strolled out, uncertain just what to do. On the street I saw a boy selling papers and I called to him.

As my eye fell on a black head-line I fairly jumped with surprise. I read it again, hardly able to believe it. It was a startling bit of news that stared me in the face.

Vina Lathrop had committed suicide at the Sainte-Germaine!

Practically the whole story was told in the head-lines--that is, all except what little we knew. I turned the pages quickly. Belle Balcom had got in her brief interview with Vina, but it contained nothing new, either.

As I hastened back to the laboratory there ran through my mind the swift succession of events of the morning--our learning of the separation, the visit to the hotel, the meeting, the coming of Belle Balcom, and finally the appearance of Doyle. Without a doubt it was this succession of events that had convinced Vina that there was no escape from the social disgrace that awaited her after the action of Doctor Lathrop.

"What do you think?" I almost shouted, as I burst into the laboratory and threw the paper before Craig, who was still at work in his acid-stained smock. "And, do you know, often I had almost come to regard Vina as a possible suspect in the case, too! Could I have been right? Is it a confession?"

Kennedy read the news item, then tore off his smock and reached for his hat and coat.

"I'll admit that suicide might be taken as a confession, as a general rule," he exclaimed. "But it's not so in this case. Come--we must get over to the hotel. I doubt whether half the story can be known, even by this time. I wish I had been informed of this earlier. However, maybe it won't make any difference."

It did not take us many minutes to get down to the fashionable hotel, nor long to get up to the room from which, in spite of the demands of the hotel people, the body had not been removed.

Leslie, already notified in the course of the city routine, had arrived perhaps five minutes before us.

"I was out on a case," he explained. "When I got back to the office I saw the police notification. But you had already left when I tried to call you up."

I looked about. There was great excitement among the guests and employees on the floor on which Vina had taken her rather cheap and unpretentious room. But in all the group I could not see one familiar face, except that of Doyle, who had arrived just a few moments before Leslie.

"Has Doctor Lathrop been told?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes, but he didn't show any emotion. He has given orders that everything necessary must be done. But he absolutely refuses to allow the funeral to take place from his apartment. He insists that it must be from a private establishment. Even in death he will not forgive her. Said he would be over--but he hasn't come yet. I doubt whether he will. Her relatives live in the Middle West. He did give orders that they were to be notified."

"What was the cause of death?" asked Craig.

Leslie looked at him significantly. "I wanted your advice on that," he remarked. "Look."

He had led Kennedy over to the white bed on which the body of Vina lay.

"The eyes show the characteristic contraction of the pupils that I have come to recognize as from physostigmine. In fact, I don't think there can be much doubt about it in this case. What do you think?"

Kennedy bent over and examined the body.

"I quite agree with you," he added, as he rose. "It is a case of the same poisoning--only I think not by the bean this time, but by the pure drug."

"Where do you suppose she got it?" asked Doyle. "I'll try to trace it in some of the drugstores to make sure."

"Craig," I exclaimed, "do you recall that Doctor Lathrop said he had no use for the bean itself, but that naturally in his medicine-chest he had the drug? She heard us talking the thing over that time when we visited them. Without a doubt it was where she got it--that is," I corrected, "where she might have got it."

Kennedy nodded.

"No doubt you are right. It's a case of suicide by suggestion. She heard of the drug--and tried it. It's the way they all do. Suicide is a sort of insanity. If one person uses bichloride tablets, you find that a dozen, learning of it, do the same. It's a curious bit of psychology."

"I agree with you," chimed in Leslie. "This was a case of the use of the pure alkaloid. Nothing else could have acted so swiftly--and everything indicates swift action. The chambermaid had been in the room only a few minutes before. Then when she knocked on the door again she got no answer. She thought there was something strange about it, for she was sure that Mrs. Lathrop had not gone out. So she tried the door. It was locked. But through the keyhole she could see that Vina had fallen across the foot of the bed. She screamed and then they got the pass key and opened the door."

Kennedy had gone over to the window and was looking out. On a little roof below he pointed out something gleaming. Even from where we were we could see that it was a plain little vial.

"More than likely she took some of the drug from her husband's office," he commented. "By every indication the act was premeditated--or at least she contemplated doing it."

We glanced at each other, then at the former lovely form on the lonely bed, as the undertaker, sent by her husband, prepared to carry out the last offices, now that Doctor Leslie had given his permission.

"What about this new development?" asked Leslie at length of Kennedy. "Does it affect your plans at all?"

"Very much," asserted Kennedy, energetically. "It forces my hand. Now I must act immediately."

For a moment he stood, planning hastily just what to do.

"I'm going to try a little piece of psychology," he decided, finally, turning to us. "There are many things I need to know yet. For one thing, I'm not exactly sure just how much Mrs. Wilford actually knew about her husband and Vina Lathrop--not what she suspected or guessed. Oh, there are innumerable points that must be cleared up. I know no better or quicker way than to get them all together at once at my laboratory. Then I am sure that we can straighten this thing out quickly."

He paused and looked about us.

"Now," he added, assuming direction of affairs, with the tacit consent of both Doyle and Leslie, "I want each of you to help me. You, Walter, perhaps will be the best one to go after Mrs. Wilford. But don't, for Heaven's sake, tell her anything--except that it has been discovered that Vina Lathrop is a suicide.

"Doyle, you have worked some parts of the case up to a final point--in your own mind. I delegate you to go after Mr. Shattuck and bring him to the laboratory."

"Very well," agreed Doyle, with alacrity. "I don't mind that duty." He almost grinned.

Nor did I imagine that he did. Shattuck had made himself particularly obnoxious to Doyle and I fancied that Doyle would take a particular pleasure in this errand, especially as it might lead to the humiliation, or worse, of Shattuck.

"You, Leslie, as a doctor, I think would be the best to go after Doctor Lathrop," ordered Kennedy. "And all of you are to remember you are not to talk of the case, but merely to compel the attendance of the persons you are sent after. If they refuse or resist, you know where to get the authority to coerce them. But I don't think any of them will. It would look badly."

As we parted, I jumped into a taxicab. I felt sure now that something must break. In spite of all the discouragements, I saw that Kennedy had been biding his time. He had seemed to be quite willing to wait, much more so than either Doyle or Leslie. I had realized some time before what his game was. Anything might have happened to unmask some one. The death of Vina was that thing. Now was the time to follow up his surprise attack.

While we were gone, Craig hurried to the laboratory and there completed some simple preparations for our reception. From his cabinet he took and adjusted several little instruments, with an attachment that could be placed about the wrist, like a cuff or strap. These cuffs were hollow and from each ran a tube attached to an indicator. Both the hollow cuffs and the tubes were filled with a colored liquid which registered on a scale on the indicator part. But I anticipate my story.

I found my end of the duty far from pleasant, although under other circumstances, suspicion or not of Honora, I should have enjoyed an opportunity to meet her.

In spite of her feeling against Vina, the first news as I broke it to her came as a shock which she could not conceal. Yet, I felt, it would have taken more than even the practised eye of Kennedy to determine just what underlay her feelings in the matter.

When, however, I informed her that my orders were to take her to the laboratory, she demurred vigorously. It was more by threat than anything else that I managed to get her to go. She finally assented, nervously. Her whole attitude was one of not knowing what to expect this time.

In silence I escorted her in the taxicab to the laboratory, arriving there last of all, due to the cajolery I had been compelled to use to avoid forcing the issue.

Leslie and Lathrop were waiting already. As we entered, Honora bowed to Doctor Lathrop, who returned the bow courteously. Clearly, I thought, this is merely the relation of physician and patient. Doyle had returned, but McCabe was not with him. Shattuck had almost fought against coming, but only a direct threat of arrest on the part of Doyle had succeeded with him. Doyle was correspondingly watchful of his prey. Shattuck bowed to Honora, and I saw that she returned the bow, a slight flush spread over her face. What was it--fear for him or of him?

Perhaps Shattuck misinterpreted the action. At any rate, he seemed not content with a mere bow. He stepped forward.

"I hope, Honora," he remarked, in a low voice, but not so low that I could not catch it, "that you will not think this unpleasantness is in any way due to anything I've done."

For a moment Honora stared at Shattuck, then at Doyle, and finally at Kennedy.

"Not at all," she murmured. "It seems that I no longer have anything whatever to say about my own actions."

She said it with a sarcasm that was cutting, and at the same time with a keen observation of the rest of us. It was as though she were trying to read our minds. Kennedy, at least, gave her no chance.

As she entered, he greeted her blandly, and one would never have known from the look on his face or from his manner that it was he who had ordered them all assembled in his laboratory. He was the coolest of us all.

"I am going to try a little affair here that may or may not yield some results," he remarked, picking up one of the cuff attachments that lay before him on the table. "It is a simple enough thing. You merely slip this cuff over the wrist--so," he illustrated.

He drew the thing off again and turned to me. "I'm going to put the first one on you, Walter," he remarked. "You will be my 'control' in the experiment, as we call it."

Carefully he adjusted the thing on my wrist, and as he did so I realized that his purpose had been rather to get them familiar with what he was going to do than for any reason directed at me as a control. I watched the liquid in the indicator pulsing minutely as he finished.

Next he had turned and adjusted one after another of the instruments on the others, first Honora, then Shattuck, and finally Lathrop. When he came to Leslie and Doyle he paused and finally decided that as a "control" I was sufficient.

It was interesting to see how each of them took it. Honora accepted it with her previous passivity. Naturally Shattuck rebelled and it was only after a lengthy argument in which Doyle moved over ominously that he accepted. Lathrop viewed it, naturally, with the interest of a man of science.

"Of course, as you all realize," remarked Craig, as he finished adjusting the instruments, whatever they were, "there have been many very strange ramifications to this case. It began in tragedy and it seems to continue in tragedy. Crime is like the train of powder. When the match is touched to it the fire runs along rapidly until it reaches the magazine--which it will explode unless the fire is stamped out at some point along the line."

As he said it he glanced about at the faces before him, as though to see what each indicated. Even Doctor Lathrop, in spite of the suicide of his wife, showed no emotion.

"There is no use for me to rehearse the strange circumstances that root back into the past," Craig continued. "They are well known in general to all of you--the society gossip, the scandals that have been repeated widely. Motives enough for everybody have appeared in this case as I have delved into it. What we want now is _facts_."

He paused and leaned forward earnestly.

"It has always been a theorem with me that one might reason out by all sorts of logical means that a certain person could not have done a certain act at a certain time and place. And yet, when it has been reasoned out perfectly to the satisfaction of the reasoner--you may find that the person actually did it. Therefore, I am a sort of modern Gradgrind. What I want is facts--facts--facts."

As he finished he turned toward the table. Nor did he seem disposed to add anything immediately. Still, we could see what he was doing and such was the attention riveted on him that I am sure none of us missed a movement of his.

Casually he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew forth the peculiar bean which I had picked up on the floor of Wilford's office. He stood there for a moment, as though absent-mindedly toying with it, his back toward us.

I glanced about. The action was not lost on any of them, but I watched the face of Honora more especially. She started forward, then caught herself. For the moment I thought she might have fainted. But she did not.

"What's the idea, Kennedy?" burst out Shattuck, impatiently, observing. "Is it just some little theatricals--or is it a little Spanish Inquisition stuff?"

"Just a moment, Shattuck," interrupted Doyle, who needed not very much provocation to boil over. "Mrs. Wilford," he shot out, suddenly, before she had recovered her composure, "you have not been frank, either with the police or with Mr. Kennedy. Some one besides you and your husband was in that office that night."

"I--in the office?" she repeated, blankly.

"Yes--in the office. We know there was a woman there."

"I was not there," she asserted, positively.

"Some one besides you and your husband--a man--was there," reiterated Doyle, ignoring her denial.

Kennedy was still half turned away. Nor did he show any disposition to interrupt Doyle. I looked at Doyle, wondering why Kennedy did not interrupt the detective's third degree.

Remorselessly Doyle pressed home his questioning.

"We know much more than you think, Mrs. Wilford," exclaimed Doyle, menacingly. "We have not been idle. There are more sources of information open to the police than maids that earn their pay from their mistresses," he hinted, darkly.

"Celeste told the truth," returned Honora, quietly. "Surely you have had chance enough to have found out about me from her, if there had been anything to find out."

Doyle was not to be placated by a soft answer.

"There were other people about that office that night," he added, confidently. "Mr. Wilford was not the only tenant in that building. Much can be overheard in the stillness after business hours. Don't forget that. Why did you tell him to give her up--that she never had loved him, did not, and never could love him?"

Honora flushed slightly at the reference implied by Doyle to Vina. She seemed about to reply hotly, then checked herself. She looked about the room as though seeking help from some one, but not finding it.

"If you were really there," interrupted Kennedy, quietly, for the first time, "tell."

I saw Shattuck scowl blackly at Kennedy for lending the weight of his support even thus mildly to Doyle's bulldozing. Almost I hated Craig for doing it, myself. Honora's friendlessness appealed to me as it had often before. However, I reasoned, sentiment is a dangerous thing in a murder case.

"It is your duty to tell," urged Kennedy. "It is ours to find out. As Doyle says, we have found out much. _Some one_--two people--were in that office, besides your husband!"

There was silence.

"A man was there--came later--at the time when the murder must have been committed!"

An instant she faltered and gazed wildly from one to the other of us beside her.

The strain was too great. It was as though something snapped under it.

"No!" she cried, half sobbing, half defiant. "There was no one in that office! I--"

It was too much for Shattuck.

Out of the corner of my eye I had seen his glance riveted on Kennedy's hands as Craig twirled the Calabar bean nonchalantly.

He turned suddenly and looked at Honora--then strode a step forward.

"Professor Kennedy," he exclaimed, in a husky voice, "she was not there. It was I who was in the office. I will tell all!"

XIX

THE LIE-DETECTOR

I do not know whether Kennedy was as startled as I at the unexpected confession of Shattuck. At any rate, his face did not betray it.

It was Honora, however, whom I watched most closely. Her color came and went. One moment she seemed as pale as death; the next her face was flushed and burning. Yet she said nothing, though I knew she could have shrieked.

What did it mean? Had she told the truth? Or had she confessed to something, in the hope of saving him?

For the moment Shattuck was the calmest in the room, as generally happens in a crisis of this nature with the principal actor in the scene.

"Let me tell you exactly what happened," he began, deliberately, avoiding as much as possible the mocking gaze of Doyle, who seemed delighted at the course of events.

Shattuck paused and cleared his throat, as though to gain time to think out the correct order of events.

"I came to the office," he continued, slowly. "It was quite late, but I found Vail Wilford there and alone," he emphasized the word. "As I entered, he was sitting at his desk. He turned and spoke to me. I don't recall just what it was that he said, but that doesn't make any difference now.

"I had thought the whole thing out before. I knew perfectly what I was there for. The situation--the wide scandal between himself and Vina Lathrop--had become intolerable. As for me, I may as well confess that the growing unhappiness of Mrs. Wilford preyed on my mind--until I was almost mad."

I heard Honora take a sharp breath, as though to control her feelings. She was leaning forward now, her cheeks burning, her eyes fixed on the face of the man who was speaking. With every word, I could see her emotions rising higher. Never had I dreamed that it was in this woman to show such depth of feeling. It was as though she were passing through some transformation which she herself did not understand, but which was changing her own soul and making a new creature of her.

"I cannot recall just what passed between us," went on Shattuck, as though eager to hasten on and have it over with. "It was about his wife and what I thought his duties were. Every moment I could see that he was growing more and more angry--which was what I intended. Finally he rose, threatening. Wilford was a powerful man and no mean antagonist--but I had come prepared. I had my gun at his breast before he knew it. I forced him back into his chair.

"'Honora is being driven mad by the way things are going,' I remember I shouted at him. 'One or the other of us must get out of her life.'

"I could have shot him as he sat there, facing me before his desk--but I did not."

Shattuck was talking calmly now, and earnestly, though underneath there was a depth of passion.

"Then what?" demanded Doyle, as though fearful that something might even yet arise to stop the story.

"I took one of those things, those beans that Kennedy has been talking about," he answered, pointing at the bean Kennedy was still holding in his hand.

"Where did you get it?"

"In Africa, of course," he hastened. "Where else?"

"Have you any more?" demanded Doyle.

"Yes--I think so," came back quickly. "I may have used the last one, though--or rather two, that is. You see, I must have dropped one and lost it. Then I must have forgotten about it in the excitement--that one Kennedy has."

"I see," nodded Doyle. "Always there is some loophole you people leave open, some place where the cleverest of you fall down and get caught."

Shattuck suppressed a quick retort that was on his lips.