Part 9

"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."

I glanced about hastily and saw that Kennedy's hand was hidden in his pocket, which bulged as if something metallic were held there under cover.

The fellow glanced sullenly from us to the new arrivals, as though in a quandary.

"You got the money with you?" he asked, rather shakily.

"Yes," Kennedy cut short.

"'Cause I'll have to beat it the back way--and we got to work fast," he explained, his eyes roving from the burly bartender, who had just gone out to the couple at the other table, apparently oblivious to us.

"The faster the better. You can make your get-away with the coin as soon as those reports are in my hands."

"All right," he agreed, nervously, then added to me, "and if you fellows see any one try to follow us--you stop 'em. See?"

I nodded for both myself and Brooks.

"Come on," indicated the former crook detective to Kennedy. "Quick!"

Kennedy rose and followed the fellow to a door to a hallway that looked as if it led up-stairs.

No sooner had the two risen than our strangers at the other table were alert. I swung around in my chair suddenly toward them, and as I did so my hand went to my hip pocket, as though in search of a gun. For just an instant they paused in their attention to Kennedy.

Out of the tail of my eye I caught sight of Kennedy and the operative at the hall door. Framed in the doorway now stood our burly waiter, snarling some remark.

"What do youse want?" growled the waiter.

Before there was a change for a reply a shot rang out from the other side of the room and the place was instantly in Cimmerian darkness as the bullet smashed the one light in the room.

There was a rush and a scuffle. I flung one fellow off, only to be tackled in the blackness by some one else. Swiftly thoughts crowded through my mind as the place was in an uproar.

Had we been followed here? Was it a trap? Was Rascon ready to risk anything rather than to have those reports pass into unfriendly hands?

The moment the light winked out, Kennedy had swung on the burly waiter and had sprung back toward us as we fought our way toward where we had last seen him. I did not know whether my second assailant was one of the two strangers at the other table or not. Over and over we rolled, knocking down tables and chairs, the air torrid with oaths from all sides.

What had become of Kennedy and Brooks I didn't know. I am sure that I would have mastered the situation in my own private little fight if, at that moment, there had not been the crash of glass from another door, followed by a shrill cry.

"The bulls!" I heard some harsh voice growl.

It seemed as if new men were coming from all directions. My man squirmed out from my grasp and before I knew it, in the darkness, I found myself in the anomalous position of being held firmly by the collar by a policeman, while all about I could hear the impact of billies on crass skulls, resounding in a manner that was awe-inspiring. My own captor needed only a word to bring his own club down on my head, and, needless to say, I was not going to say that word.

An instant later some one found a wall light and turned it on. In the half-light, I could hear a laugh behind me. I turned.

It was Doyle!

"How did you come here?" I gasped, breathlessly, as Doyle released my collar and I stretched my neck to remove the kinks, in so doing catching sight of Kennedy standing over the unconscious form of the waiter in the doorway as he held the redoubtable No. 6 by the collar.

"Kennedy thought it was a trap--tipped me off," laughed Doyle, swinging his club as he shouted orders to his men to dive into command of each door or window exit.

"Did you locate Rascon?" panted Kennedy, twisting just a bit tighter the collar of the operative whom he was holding.

"Sure," returned Doyle, already beginning to line up his prisoners against a blank wall on one side. "He'll be here in a minute. But don't wait for him, if that's your man. Search the place--and, see here, you," he menaced the former operative, "no monkey-shines. You give Mr. Kennedy them papers--or--" Doyle trailed off in one of his picturesque oaths.

While Doyle's men completed the line-up against the wall, Kennedy led the now quaking No. 6 into the hall, followed by Doyle, Brooks, and myself.

We mounted the stairs, looking into every closet and cranny. Hundreds of cases of "wet" goods must have been concealed in the place, which later we discovered was more than a "speak-easy," for it proved to be a veritable moonshine still almost in the heart of the city.

Our search was not long. The stress of threat and circumstance broke down the former crook detective, who now was as keen to clear himself, gratis, and hang something on Rascon, as before he had been to collect his graft and get away with it.

Directed by him, in a hall bedroom, under the worn carpet, we loosened a board of the floor and took from the lath and plaster of the ceiling below a flat packet done up in oiled silk.

At last we had the purloined Rascon letters.

Doyle's eyes widened at the sight of what Craig had uncovered. Here was a whole set of reports such as that which we had already obtained, only of far greater value.

Kennedy was immersed in reading them already.

"What's in them?" asked Doyle, reaching eagerly for the sheaf of precious tissue-paper carbon copies.

Kennedy did not stop reading, but merely motioned to be let alone, as, quickly, he ran his eye over one after another.

"Honora had evidently been trailed all over the city," he commented, as he read.

It was a few moments later that Kennedy's eyes narrowed as he reached another of the reports.

"Here's one that is very interesting," he muttered, half to himself.

We crowded around and read the report that was rather lengthy, while Kennedy turned the pages slowly.

I shall not attempt to quote it, but rather give the gist of it.

"Starts out as though it were a report on Vina and Shattuck," commented Kennedy, "but as you read on, it seems more as though it were a report on Honora."

It seemed that the events had happened, or were alleged to have happened, in a resort in Greenwich Village, known as the Orange and Blue Tea-room. As we read the name, Brooks nodded wisely.

"I know the place," he remarked, "run by a young lady of very advanced ideas--Zona Dare."

However, none of us paid much attention to the interruption at the time, but kept on reading. For, it seemed that one night, scarcely a fortnight before, Vina Lathrop had arrived at the Orange and Blue, according to Rascon's operative, when shortly afterward Shattuck had dropped in, saw her, and wandered over to her table. Later Honora Wilford came in, observed them, but did not sit with them. Instead, she remained alone at another table watching the couple very jealously.

"There's a queer break in the report at this point," remarked Kennedy, turning the page. "Nothing further is said about this meeting, but see how it resumes."

Apparently, Honora, as she watched, had become more and more nervous, for Rascon went on to detail a stormy meeting between the two women, in which Honora faced Vina with biting sarcasm and at which Vina replied in a manner usually described as "catty."

Shattuck had tried to act as peacemaker and to smooth things over. But evidently explanations were useless and only made matters worse. It seemed that whatever it was he said pleased neither woman, and finally, after Honora, with a parting shot at Vina, had swept out of the tea-room, Shattuck very apologetically placed Vina in a cab, then took another himself, and all three had departed in separate ways.

"Who is this Zona Dare, did you say?" asked Kennedy of Brooks, when we had all finished reading.

"One of the well-known Villagers," returned Brooks. "I believe she has some reputation as an interpreter of Freud--you know, the dream doctor? They put on a one-act play down there last winter that she wrote."

"Indeed?" returned Kennedy, interested, but non-committal.

I could not help but think that we had struck pay dirt in this report, knowing, as I did, Washington Square and its fondness for whatever is "new," like Freud.

Had Vina and Shattuck, as well, been dabbling in the new dream philosophy? I felt sure that Honora knew next to nothing about it. At least, so far, her actions had betrayed little knowledge and less suspicion. Or, it suddenly occurred to me, was Honora deeper than I suspected, and was her seeming ignorance only a pose? Did she know that Kennedy knew, know that to Doyle and the rest Freud was not even a name, and that she must play a clever game to match wits with Kennedy in this matter?

Above all, was the report true? If so, judged by Village standards, was it a hint, a strange example of the so-called "new morality"? On the one side was Shattuck, seeking to break up the relations between Honora and her husband. At the same time was he playing a game with Vina Lathrop? As for Vina, her own relations with her husband were strained. Had she known of Shattuck's regard for Honora and had that aroused in her a desire to break it up, for her own advantage?

To cap it all, what of Honora? Was this the jealous soul mate pursuing her affinity and finding him false?

What, indeed, was the viewpoint--according to the "new morality"? I could not but reflect on what a tangle things had been brought into--once the old morality was thrown overboard and the old immorality renamed.

Suddenly there flashed over my mind the recollection of some of the conversation that had been overheard in Wilford's office with the unknown woman visitor.

"Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?"

Had it been said by Vina of Honora--or by Honora of Vina? Either of them, according to her own philosophy of life, might have said it of the other. In the "new morality" there was surely scope for the play of mysterious excuses for passions.

"It's easy to see," I remarked, "that Wilford, through these Rascon reports and in other ways, had been laying a foundation not only for Vina's divorce, but his own."