Doctor Burr hurried out into the corridor while Miss Giles was looking out of the door.

Quickly Kennedy reached over and abstracted several drops from a bottle of tonic on the table, pouring it into his handkerchief, which he rolled up tightly and stuffed into his pocket. Mrs. Cranston watched him pleadingly, and clasped her hands in mute appeal, with a hasty glance at Miss Giles.

Kennedy said nothing, either, but rapidly folded up a page of the note-book on which he had been writing and shoved it into Mrs. Cranston's hand, together with something he had taken from his pocket. She understood, and quickly placed it in her corsage.

"Read it—when you are absolutely alone," he whispered, just as Miss Giles shut the door and turned to us.

The excitement subsided almost as quickly as it had arisen, but it had been sufficient to put a stop to any further study of the case along those lines. Miss Giles's keen eyes missed no action or movement of her patient.

Doctor Burr returned shortly. It was evident from his manner that he wished to have the visit terminated, and Kennedy seemed quite willing to take the hint. He thanked Mrs. Cranston, and we withdrew quietly, after bidding her good-by in a manner as reassuring as we could make it under the circumstances.

"You see," remarked Doctor Burr, as we walked down the hall, "she is quite unstrung still. Mr. Cranston comes up here once in a while, and we notice that after these visits she is, if anything, worse."

Down the hall a door had been left open, and we could catch a glimpse of a patient rolled in a blanket, while two nurses forced something down his throat. Doctor Burr hastily closed the door as we passed.

"That is the condition Mrs. Cranston might have got into if she had not come to us when she did," he said. "As it is, she is never violent and is one of the most tractable patients we have."

We left shortly, without finding out whether Doctor Burr suspected us of anything or not. As we made our way back to the city, I could not help the feeling of depression such as Poe mentioned at seeing the private madhouse in France.

"That glimpse we had into the other room almost makes one recall the soothing system of Doctor Maillard. Is Doctor Burr's system better?" I asked.

"A good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now," returned Kennedy. "I think you are already familiar with the theory of dreams that has been developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud, of Vienna. But perhaps you are not aware of the fact that Freud's contribution to the study of insanity is of even greater scientific value than his dream theories taken by themselves.

"Hers, I feel sure now, is what is known as one of the so-called 'border-line cases,'" he continued. "It is clearly a case of hysteria—not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly, but the condition which scientists know as such. We trace the impulses from which hysterical conditions arise, penetrate the disguises which these repressed impulses or wishes must assume in order to appear in the consciousness. Such transformed impulses are found in normal people, too, sometimes. The hysteric suffers mostly from reminiscences which, paradoxically, may be completely forgotten.

"Obsessions and phobias have their origin, according to Freud, in sexual life. The obsession represents a compensation or substitute for an unbearable sexual idea and takes its place in consciousness. In normal sexual life, no neurosis is possible, say the Freudists. Sex is the strongest impulse, yet subject to the greatest repression, and hence the weakest point of our cultural development. Hysteria arises through the conflict between libido and sex-repression. Often sex-wishes may be consciously rejected but unconsciously accepted. So when they are understood every insane utterance has a reason. There is really method in madness.

"When hysteria in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place, and, in a sense, may be said to be desirable. The great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Breuer and Freud, is that certain symptoms of hysteria disappear when the hidden causes are brought to light and the repressed desires are gratified."

"How does that apply to Mrs. Cranston?" I queried.

"Mrs. Cranston," he replied, "is suffering from what the psychanalysts call a psychic trauma—a soul-wound, as it were. It is the neglect, in this case, of her husband, whom she deeply loves. That, in itself, is sufficient to explain her experience wandering through the country. It was the region which she associated with her first love-affair, as she told us. The wave of recollection that swept over her engulfed her mind. In other words, reason could no longer dominate the cravings for a love so long suppressed. Then, when she saw, or imagined she saw, one who looked like her lover the strain was too great."

It was the middle of the afternoon when we reached the laboratory. Kennedy at once set to work studying the drops of tonic which had been absorbed in the handkerchief. As Kennedy worked, I began thinking over again of what we had seen at the Belleclaire Sanatorium. Somehow or other, I could not get out of my mind the recollection of the man rolled in the blanket and trussed up as helpless as a mummy. I wondered whether that alone was sufficient to account for the quickness with which he had been pacified. Then I recalled Mrs. Cranston's remark about her mental alertness and physical weakness. Had it anything to do with the "tonic"?

"Suppose, while I am waiting," I finally suggested to Craig, "I try to find out what Cranston does with his time since his wife has been shut off from the world."

"That's a very good idea," acquiesced Kennedy. "Don't take too long, however, for I may strike something important here any minute."

After several inquiries over the telephone, I found that since his wife had been in Montrose Cranston had closed his apartment and was living at one of his clubs. Having two or three friends who were members, I did not hesitate to drop around.

Unfortunately, none of my friends happened to be there, and I was forced, finally, to ask for Cranston himself, although all that I really wanted to know was whether he was there or not. One of the clerks told me that he had been in, but had left in a taxicab only a short time before.

As there was a cab-stand outside the club, I determined to make an inquiry and perhaps discover the driver who had had him. The starter knew him, and when I said that it was very important business on which I wanted to see him he motioned to a driver who had just pulled up.

A chance for another fare and a generous tip were all that was necessary to induce him to drive me to the Trocadero, a fashionable restaurant and cabaret, where he had taken Cranston a short time before. It was crowded when I entered, and, avoiding the headwaiter, I stood by the door a few minutes and looked over the brilliant and gay throng. Finally, I managed to catch a glimpse of Cranston's head at a table in a far corner. As I made my way down the line of tables, I was genuinely amazed to see that he was with a woman. It was Julia Giles!

She must have come down on the next train after we did, but, at any rate, it looked as though she had lost no time in seeking out Cranston after our visit. I took a seat at a table next them.

They were talking about Kennedy, and, during a lull in the music, I overheard him asking her just what Craig had done.

"It was certainly very clever in him to play both you and Doctor Burr the way he did. He told Doctor Burr that you had sent him, and told you that Doctor Burr had sent him. By whom do you suppose he really was sent?"

"Could it have been my wife?"

"It must have been, but how she did it is more than I can imagine."

"How is she, anyway?" he asked.

"Sometimes she seems to be getting along finely, and then, other days, I feel quite discouraged about her. Her case is very obstinate."

"Perhaps I had better go out and see Burr," he considered. "It is early in the evening. I'll drive you out in my car. I'll stay at the sanatorium tonight, and then, perhaps, I'll know a little better what we can do."

It was his tone rather than his words which gave me the impression that he was more interested in being with Miss Giles than with Mrs. Cranston. I wondered whether it was a plot of Cranston's and Miss Giles's. Had he been posing before Kennedy, and were they really trying to put Mrs. Cranston out of the way?

As the music started up again, I heard her say, "Can't we have just one more dance?" A moment later they were lost in the gay whirl on the dancing-floor. They made a handsome couple, and it was evident that it was not the first time that they had dined and danced together. The music ceased, and they returned to their places reluctantly, while Cranston telephoned for his car to be brought around to the cabaret.

I hastened back to the laboratory to inform Craig what I had seen. As I told my story he looked up at me with a sudden flash of comprehension.

"I am glad to know where they will all be tonight," he said. "Some one has been giving her henbane—hyoscyamin. I have just discovered it in the tonic."

"What's henbane?" I asked.

"It is a drug derived from the hyoscyamus plant, much like belladonna, though more distinctly sedative. It is a hypnotic used often in mania and mental excitement. The feeling which Mrs. Cranston described is one of its effects. You recall the brightness of her eyes? That is one of the effects of the mydriatic alkaloids, of which this is one. The ancients were familiar with several of its peculiar properties, as they knew of the closely allied poison hemlock.

"Many of the text-books at the present time fail to say anything about the remarkable effect produced by large doses of this terrible alkaloid. This effect can be described technically so as to be intelligible, but no description can convey, even approximately, the terrible sensation produced in many insane patients by large doses. In a general way, it is the condition of paralysis of the body without the corresponding paralysis of the mind."

"And it's this stuff that somebody has been putting into her tonic?" I asked, startled. "Do you suppose that is part of Burr's system, or did Miss Giles lighten her work by putting it into the tonic?"

Kennedy did not betray his suspicion, but went on describing the drug which was having such a serious effect on Mrs. Cranston.

"The victim lies in an absolutely helpless condition sometimes with his muscles so completely paralyzed that he cannot so much as move a finger, cannot close his lips or move his tongue to moisten them. This feeling of helplessness is usually followed by unconsciousness and then by a period of depression. The combined feeling of helplessness and depression is absolutely unlike any other feeling imaginable, if I may judge from the accounts of those who have experienced it. Other sensations, such as pain, may be judged, in a measure, by comparison with other painful sensations, but the sensation produced by hyoscyamin in large doses seems to have no basis for comparison. There is no kindred feeling. Practically every institution for the insane used it a few years ago for controlling patients, but now better methods have been devised."

"The more I think of what I saw at the Trocadero," I remarked, "the more I wonder if Miss Giles has been seeking to win Cranston herself."

"In large-enough doses and repeated often enough," continued Kennedy, "I suppose the toxic effect of the drug might be to produce insanity. At any rate, if we are going to do anything, it might better be done at once. They are all out there now. If we act to-night, surely we shall have the best chance of making the guilty person betray himself."

Kennedy telephoned for a fast touring-car, and in half an hour, while he gathered some apparatus together, the car was before the door. In it he placed a couple of light silk-rope ladders, some common wooden wedges, and an instrument which resembled a surveyor's transit with two conical horns sticking out at the ends.

We made the trip out of New York and up the Boston post-road, following the route which Cranston and Miss Giles must have taken some hours before us. In the town of Montrose, Kennedy stopped only long enough to get a bite to eat and to study up in the roads in the vicinity.

It was long after midnight when we struck up into the country. The night was very dark, thick, and foggy. With the engine running as muffled as possible and the lights dimmed, Kennedy quietly jammed on the brakes as we pulled up along the side of the road.

A few rods farther ahead I could make out the Belleclaire Sanatorium surrounded by its picketed stone wall. Not a light was visible in any of the windows.

"Now that we're here," I whispered, "what can we do?"

"You remember the paper I gave Mrs. Cranston when the excitement in the hall broke loose?"

"Yes," I nodded, as we moved over under the shadow of the wall.

"I wrote on a sheet from my note-book," said Kennedy, "and told her to be ready when she heard a pebble strike the window; and I gave her a piece of string to let down to the ground."

Kennedy threw the silk ladder up until it caught on one of the pickets; then, with the other ladder and the wedges, he reached the top of the wall, followed by me. We pulled the first ladder up as we clung to the pickets, and let it down again inside. Noiselessly we crossed the lawn.

Above was Mrs. Cranston's window. Craig picked up some bits of broken stone from a walk about the house and threw them gently against the pane. Then we drew back into the shadow of the house, lest any prying eyes might discover us. In a few minutes the window on the second floor was stealthily opened. The muffled figure of Mrs. Cranston appeared in the dim light; then a piece of string was lowered.

To it Kennedy attached a light silk ladder and motioned in pantomime for her to draw it up. It took her some time to fasten the ladder to one of the heavy pieces of furniture in the room. Swaying from side to side, but clinging with frantic desperation to the ladder while we did our best to steady it, she managed to reach the ground. She turned from the building with a shudder, and whispered:

"This terrible place! How can I ever thank you for getting me out of it?"

Kennedy did not pause long enough to say a word, but hurried her across to the final barrier, the wall.

Suddenly there was a shout of alarm from the front of the house under the columns. It was the night watchman, who had discovered us.

Instantly Kennedy seized a chair from a little summer-house.

"Quick, Walter," he cried, "over the wall with Mrs. Cranston, while I hold him! Then throw the ladder back on this side. I'll join you in a moment, as soon as you get her safely over."

A chair is only an indifferent club, if that is all one can think of using it for. Kennedy ran squarely at the watchman, holding it out straight before him. Only once did I cast a hasty glance back. There was the man pinned to the wall by the chair, with Kennedy at the other end of it and safely out of reach.

Mrs. Cranston and I managed to scramble over the wall, although she tore her dress on the pickets before we reached the other side. I hustled her into the car and made everything ready to start. It was only a couple of minutes after I threw the ladder back before Craig rejoined us.

"How did you get away from the watchman?" I demanded, breathlessly, as we shot away.

"I forced him back with the chair into the hall and slammed the door. Then I jammed a wedge under it," he chuckled. "That will hold it better than any lock. Every push will jam it tighter."

Above the hubbub, inside now, we could hear a loud gong sounding insistently. All about were lights flashing up at the windows and moving through the passageways. Shouts came from the back of the house as a door was finally opened there. But we were off now, with a good start.

I could imagine the frantic telephoning that was going on in the sanatorium. And I knew that the local police of Montrose and every other town about us were being informed of the escape. They were required by the law to render all possible assistance, and, as the country boasted several institutions quite on a par with Belleclaire, an attempt at an escape was not an unusual occurrence.

The post-road by which we had come was therefore impossible, and Kennedy swung up into the country, in the hope of throwing off pursuit long enough to give us a better chance.

"Take the wheel, Walter," he muttered. "I'll tell you what turns to make. We must get to the State line of New York without being stopped. We can beat almost any car. But that is not enough. A telephone message ahead may stop us, unless we can keep from being seen."

I took the wheel, and did not stop the car as Kennedy climbed over the seat. In the back of the car, where Mrs. Cranston was sitting, he hastily adjusted the peculiar apparatus.

"Sounds at night are very hard to locate," he explained. "Up this side road, Walter; there is some one coming ahead of us."

I turned and shot up the detour, stopping in the shadow of some trees, where we switched off every light and shut down the engine. Kennedy continued to watch the instrument before him.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"A phonometer," he replied. "It was invented to measure the intensity of sound. But it is much more valuable as an instrument that tells with precision from what direction a sound comes. It needs only a small dry battery and can be carried around easily. The sound enters the two horns of the phonometer, is focused at the neck, and strikes on a delicate diaphragm, behind which is a needle. The diaphragm vibrates and the needle moves. The louder the sound the greater the movement of this needle.

"At this end, where it looks as though I were sighting like a surveyor, I am gazing into a lens, with a tiny electric bulb close to my eye. The light of this bulb is reflected in a mirror which is moved by the moving needle. When the sound is loudest the two horns are at right angles to the direction whence it comes. So it is only necessary to twist the phonometer about on its pivot until the sound is received most loudly in the horns and the band of light is greatest. I know then that the horns are at right angles to the direction from which the sound proceeds, and that, as I lift my head, I am looking straight toward the source of the sound. I can tell its direction to a few degrees."

I looked through it myself to see how sound was visualized by light.

"Hush!" cautioned Kennedy.

Down on the main road we could see a car pass along slowly in the direction of Montrose, from which we had come. Without the phonometer to warn us, it must inevitably have met us and blocked our escape over the road ahead.

That danger passed, on we sped. Five minutes, I calculated, and we should cross the State line to New York and safety.

We had been going along nicely when, "Bang!" came a loud report back of us.

"Confound it!" muttered Kennedy; "a blowout always when you least expect it."

We climbed out of the car and had the shoe off in short order.

"Look!" cried Janet Cranston, in a frightened voice, from the back of the car.

The light of the phonometer had flashed up. A car was following us.

"There's just one chance!" cried Kennedy, springing to the wheel. "We might make it on the rim."

Banging and pounding, we forged ahead, straining our eyes to watch the road, the distance, the time, and the phonometer all at once.

It was no use. A big gray roadster was overtaking us. The driver crowded us over to the very edge of the road, then shot ahead, and, where the road narrowed down, deliberately pulled up across the road in such a way that we had to run into him or stop.

Quickly Craig's automatic gleamed in the dim beams from the side lights.

"Just a minute," cautioned a voice. "It was a plot against me, quite as much as it was against her—the nurse to lead me on, while the doctor got a rich patient. I suspected all was not right. That's why I gave you the card. I knew you didn't come from Burr. Then, when I heard nothing from you, I let the Giles woman think I was coming to Montrose to be with her. But, really, I wanted to beat that fake asylum—"

Two piercing headlights shone down the road back of us. We waited a moment until they, too, came to a stop.

"Here they are!" shouted the voice of a man, as he jumped out, followed by a woman.

Kennedy stepped forward, waving his automatic menacingly.

"You are under arrest for conspiracy—both of you!" he cried, as we recognized Doctor Burr and Miss Giles.

A little cry behind me startled me, and I turned. Janet Cranston had flung herself into the arms of the only person who could heal her wounded soul.



IV

THE MYSTIC POISONER

"It's almost as though he had been struck down by a spirit hand, Kennedy."

Grady, the house detective of the Prince Edward Charles Hotel, had routed us out of bed in the middle of the night with a hurried call for help, and now met us in the lobby of the fashionable hostelry. All that he had said over the wire was that there had been a murder—"an Englishman, a Captain Shirley."

"Why," exclaimed Grady, lowering his voice as he led us through the lobby, "it's the most mysterious thing, I think, that I've ever seen!"

"In what way?" prompted Kennedy.

"Well," continued Grady, "it must have been just a bit after midnight that one of the elevator-boys heard what sounded like a muffled report in a room on the tenth floor. There were other employees and some guests about at the time, and it was only a matter of seconds before they were on the spot. Finally, the sound was located as having come probably from Captain Shirley's room. But the door was locked—on the inside. There was no response, although some one had seen him ride up in the elevator scarcely five minutes before. By that time they had sent for me. We broke in. There was Shirley, alone, fully dressed, lying on the floor before a writing-table. His face was horribly set, as though he had perhaps seen something that frightened and haunted him—though I suppose it might have been the pain that did it. I think he must have heard something, jumped from the chair, perhaps in fear, then have fallen down on the floor almost immediately.

"We hurried over to him. He was still alive, but could not speak. I turned him over, tried to rouse him and make him comfortable. It was only then that I saw that he was really conscious. But it seemed as if his tongue and most of his muscles were paralyzed. Somehow he managed to convey to us the idea that it was his heart that troubled him most.

"Really, at first I thought it was a case of suicide. But there was no sign of a weapon about and not a trace of poison—no glass, no packet. There was no wound on him, either—except a few slight cuts and scratches on his face and hands. But none of them looked to be serious. And yet, before we could get the house physician up to him he was dead."

"And with not a word?" queried Kennedy.

"That's the strangest part of it. No; not a word spoken. But as he lay there, even in spite of his paralyzed muscles, he was just able to motion with his hands. I thought he wanted to write, and gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. He clutched at them, but here is all he was able to do."

Grady drew from his pocket a piece of paper and handed it to us. On it were printed in trembling, irregular characters, "G A D," the "D" scarcely finished and trailing off into nothing.

What did it all mean? How had Shirley met his death, and why?

"Tell me something about him," said Kennedy, studying the paper with a frown. Grady shrugged his shoulders.

"An Englishman—that's about all I know. Looked like one of the younger sons who so frequently go out to seek their fortunes in the colonies. By his appearance, I should say he had been in the Far East—India, no doubt. And I imagine he had made good. He seemed to have plenty of money. That's all I know about him."

"Is anything missing from his room?" I asked. "Could it have been a robbery?"

"I searched the room hastily," replied Grady. "Apparently not a thing had been touched. I don't think it was robbery."

By this time we had made our way through the lobby and were in the elevator.

"I've kept the room just as it was," went on Grady to Kennedy, lowering his voice. "I've even delayed a bit in notifying the police, so that you could get here first."

A moment later we entered the rooms, a fairly expensive suite, consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bath. Everything was in a condition to indicate that Shirley had just come in when the shot, if shot it had been, was fired.

There, on the floor, lay his body, still in the same attitude in which he had died and almost as Grady had found him gasping. Grady's description of the horrible look on his face was, if anything, an understatement.

As I stood with my eyes riveted on the horror-stricken face on the floor, Kennedy had been quietly going over the furniture and carpet about the body.

"Look!" he exclaimed at last, scarcely turning to us. On the chair, the writing-table, and even on the walls were little pitted marks and scratches. He bent down over the carpet. There, reflecting the electric light, scattered all about, were little fine pieces of something that glittered.

"You have a vacuum cleaner, I suppose?" inquired Craig, rising quickly.

"Certainly—a plant in the cellar."

"No; I mean one that is portable."

"Yes; we have that, too," answered Grady, hurrying to the room telephone to have the cleaner sent up.

Kennedy now began to look through Shirley's baggage. There was, however, nothing to indicate that it had been rifled.

I noted, among other things, a photograph of a woman in Oriental dress, dusky, languorous, of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence. On it something was written in native characters.

Just then a boy wheeled the cleaner down the hall, and Kennedy quickly shoved the photograph into his pocket.

First, Kennedy removed the dust that was already in the machine. Then he ran the cleaner carefully over the carpet, the upholstery, everything about that corner of the room where the body lay. When he had finished he emptied out the dust into a paper and placed it in his pocket. He was just finishing when there came a knock at the door, and it was opened.

"Mr. Grady?" said a young man, entering hurriedly.

"Oh, hello, Glenn! One of the night clerks in the office, Kennedy," introduced the house detective.

"I've just heard of the—murder," Glenn began. "I was in the dining-room, being relieved for my little midnight luncheon as usual, when I heard of it, and I thought that perhaps you might want to know something that happened just before I went off duty."

"Yes; anything," broke in Kennedy.

"It was early in the evening," returned the clerk, slowly, "when a messenger left a little package for Captain Shirley—said that Captain Shirley had had it sent himself and asked that it be placed in his room. It was a little affair in a plain, paper- wrapped parcel. I sent one of the boys up with it and a key, and told him to put the package on the writing-desk tip here."

Kennedy looked at me. That, then, was the way something, whatever it might be, was introduced into the room.

"When the captain came in," resumed the night clerk, "I saw there was a letter for him in the mailbox and handed it to him. He stood before the office desk while he opened it. I thought he looked queer. The contents seemed to alarm him."

"What was in it?" asked Kennedy. "Could you see?"

"I got one glimpse. It seemed to be nothing but a little scarlet bead with a black spot on it. In his surprise, he dropped a piece of paper from the envelope in which the bead had been wrapped up. I thought it was strange, and, as he hurried over to the elevator, I picked it up. Here it is."

The clerk handed over a crumpled piece of notepaper. On it was scrawled the word "Gadhr," and underneath, "Beware!" I spelled out the first strange word. It had an ominous sound—"Gadhr." Suddenly there flashed through my mind the letters Shirley had tried to print but had not finished, "G A D."

Kennedy looked at the paper a moment.

"Gadhr!" he exclaimed, in a low, tense tone. "Revolt—the native word for unrest in India, the revolution!"

We stared at each other blankly. All of us had been reading lately in the despatches about the troubles there, hidden under the ban of the censorship. I knew that the Hindu propaganda in America was as yet in its infancy, although several plots and conspiracies had been hatched here.

"Is there any one in the hotel whom you might suspect?" asked Kennedy.

Grady cleared his throat and looked at the night clerk significantly.

"Well," he answered, thoughtfully, "across the hall there is a new guest who came to-day—or, rather, yesterday—a Mrs. Anthony. We don't know anything about her, except that she looks like a foreigner. She did not come directly from abroad, but must have been living in New York for some time. They tell me she asked for a room on this floor, at this end of the hall."

"H'm!" considered Kennedy. "I'd like to see her—without being seen."

"I think I can arrange that," acquiesced Grady. "You and Jameson stay in the bedroom. I'll ask her to come over here, and then you can get a good look at her."

The plan satisfied Kennedy, and together we entered the bedroom, putting out the light and leaving the door just a trifle ajar.

A moment later Mrs. Anthony entered. I heard a suppressed gasp from Kennedy.

"The woman in the photograph!" he whispered to me.

I studied her face minutely from our coign of vantage. There was, indeed, a resemblance, too striking to be mere coincidence.

In the presence of Grady, she seemed to be nervous and on guard, as though she knew, intuitively, that she was suspected.

"Did you know Captain Shirley?" shot out Grady.

Kennedy looked over at me and frowned. I knew that something more subtle than New York police methods would be necessary in order to get anything from a woman like this.

"No," she replied, quietly. "You see, I just came here to-day." Her voice had an English accent.

"Did you hear a shot?"

"No," she replied. "The voices in the hall wakened me, though I did not know what was the matter until just now."

"Then you made no effort to find out?" inquired Grady, suspiciously.

"I am alone here in the city," she answered, simply. "I was afraid to intrude."

Throughout she gave the impression that she was strangely reticent about herself. Evidently Kennedy had not much faith that Grady would elicit anything of importance. He tiptoed to the door that led from the bedroom to the hall and found that it could be opened from the inside.

While Grady continued his questioning, Craig and I slipped out into the hall to the room which Mrs. Anthony occupied.

It was a suite much plainer than that occupied by Shirley. Craig switched on the light and looked about hastily and keenly.

For a moment he stood before a dressing-table on which were several toilet articles. A jewel-case seemed to attract his attention, and he opened it. Inside were some comparatively trifling trinkets. The thing that caused him to exclaim, however, was a necklace, broken and unstrung. I looked, too. It was composed of little crimson beads, each with a black spot on it!

Quickly he drew from his pocket the photograph he had taken from Shirley's baggage. As I looked at it again there could be no doubt now in my mind of the identity of the original. It was the same face. And about the neck, in the picture, was a necklace, plainly the same as that before us.

"What are the beads?" I asked, fingering them. "I've never seen anything like them."

"Not beads at all," he replied. "They are Hindu prayer-beans, sometimes called ruttee, jequirity beans, seeds of the plant known to science as Abrus precatorius. They produce a deadly poison— abrin." He slipped four or five of them into his pocket. Then he resumed his cursory search of the room. There, on a writing-pad, was a note which Mrs. Anthony had evidently been engaged in writing. Craig pored over it for some time, while I fidgeted. It was nothing but a queer jumble of letters:

SOWC FSSJWA EKNLFFBY WOVHLX IHWAJYKH 101MLEL EPJNVPSL WCLURL GHIHDA ELBA.

"Come," I cautioned; "she may return any moment."

Quickly he copied off the letters.

"It's a cipher," he said, simply, "a new and rather difficult one, too, I imagine. But I may be able to decipher it."

Kennedy withdrew from the room and, instead of going back to Shirley's, rode down in the elevator to find the night clerk.

"Had Captain Shirley any friends in the city?" asked Craig.

Glenn shrugged his shoulders.

"He was out most of the time," he replied. "He seemed to be very occupied about something. No, I don't think I ever saw him speak to a soul here, except a word to the waiters and the boys. Once, though," he recollected, "he was called up by a Mrs. Beekman Rogers."

"Mrs. Beekman Rogers," repeated Kennedy, jotting the name down and looking it up in the telephone-book. She lived on Riverside Drive, and, slender though the information was, Kennedy seemed glad to get it.

Grady joined us a moment later, having been wondering where we had disappeared.

"You saw her?" he asked. "What did you think of her?"

"Worth watching," was all Kennedy would say. "Did you get anything out of her?"

Grady shook his head.

"But I am convinced she knows something," he insisted.

Kennedy was about to reply when he was interrupted by the arrival of a couple of detectives from the city police, tardily summoned by Grady.

"I shall let you know the moment I have discovered anything," he said, as he bade Grady good-by. "And thank you for letting me have a chance at the case before all the clues had been spoiled."

Late though it was, in the laboratory Kennedy set to work examining the dust which he had swept up by the vacuum cleaner, as well as the jequirity beans he had taken from Mrs. Anthony's jewel-case.

I do not know how much sleep he had, but I managed to snatch a few hours' rest, and early in the morning I found him at work again, examining the cipher message which he had copied.

"By the way," he said, scarcely looking up as he saw me again, "there is something quite important which you can do for me." Rather pleased to be of some use, I waited eagerly. "I wish you'd go out and see what you can find out about that Mrs. Beekman Rogers," he continued. "I've some work here that will keep me for several hours; so come back to me here."

It was such a commission as he had often given me before, and, through my connection with the Star, I found no difficulty in executing it.

I found that Mrs. Rogers was well known in a certain circle of society in the city. She was wealthy and had the reputation of having given quite liberally to many causes that had interested her. Just now, her particular fad was Oriental religions, and some of her bizarre beliefs had attracted a great deal of attention. A couple of years before she had made a trip around the world, and had lived in India for several months, apparently fascinated by the life and attracted to the mysteries of Oriental faiths.

With my budget of information I hastened back again to join Kennedy at the laboratory. I could see that the cipher was still unread. From that, I conjectured that it was, as he had guessed, constructed on some new and difficult plan.

"What do you think of Mrs. Rogers?" I asked, as I finished reciting what I had learned. "Is it possible that she can be in this revolutionary propaganda?" He shook his head doubtfully.

"Much of the disaffection that exists in India to-day," he replied, "is due to the encouragement and financial assistance which it has received from people here in this country, although only a fraction of the natives of India have ever heard of us. Much of the money devoted to the cause of revolution and anarchy in India is contributed by worthy people who innocently believe that their subscriptions are destined to promote the cause of native enlightenment. I prefer to believe that there is some such explanation in her case. At any rate, I think that we had better make a call on Mrs. Rogers."

Early that afternoon, accordingly, we found ourselves at the door of the large stone house on Riverside Drive in which Mrs. Rogers lived. Kennedy inquired for her, and we were admitted to a large reception-room, the very decorations of which showed evidence of her leaning toward the Orient. Mrs. Rogers proved to be a widow of baffling age, good-looking, with a certain indefinable attractiveness.

Kennedy's cue was obvious. It was to be an eager neophyte in the mysteries of the East, and he played the part perfectly without overdoing it.

"Perhaps you would like to come to some of the meetings of our Cult of the Occult," she suggested.

"Delighted, I am sure," returned Kennedy. She handed him a card.

"We have a meeting this afternoon at four," she explained. "I should be glad to welcome you among us."

Kennedy thanked her and rose to go, preferring to say nothing more just then about the problems which vexed us in the Shirley case, lest it should make further investigation more difficult.

Nothing more had happened at the hotel, as we heard from Grady a few minutes later, and, as there was some time before the cult met, we returned to the laboratory.

Things had evidently progressed well, even in the few hours that he had been studying his meager evidence. Not only was he making a series of delicate chemical tests, but, in cases, he had several guinea-pigs which he was using also.

He now studied through a microscope some of the particles of dust from the vacuum cleaner.

"Little bits of glass," he said, briefly, taking his eye from the eyepiece. "Captain Shirley was not shot."

"Not shot?" I repeated. "Then how was he killed?"

Kennedy eyed me gravely.

"Shirley was murdered by a poisoned bomb!"

I said nothing, for the revelation was even more startling than I had imagined.

"In that package which was placed in his room," he went on, "must have been a little infernal machine of glass, constructed so as to explode the moment the wrapper was broken. The flying pieces of glass injected the poison as by a myriad of hypodermic needles— the highly poisonous toxin of abrin, product of the jequirity, which is ordinarily destroyed in the stomach but acts powerfully if injected into the blood. Shirley died of jequirity poisoning, or rather of the alkaloid in the bean. It has been used in India for criminal poisoning for ages. Only, there it is crushed, worked into a paste, and rolled into needle-pointed forms which prick the skin. Abrin is composed of two albuminous bodies, one of which resembles snake-venom in all its effects, attacking the heart, making the temperature fall rapidly, and leaving the blood fluid after death. It is a vegetable toxin, quite comparable with ricin from the castor-oil bean."

In spite of my horror at the diabolical plot that had been aimed at Shirley, my mind ran along, keenly endeavoring to piece together the scattered fragments of the case. Some one, of course, had sent the package while he was out and had it placed in his room. Had it been the same person who had sent the single jequirity bean? My mind instantly reverted to the strange woman across the hall, the photograph in his luggage, and the broken necklace in the jewel-case.

Kennedy continued looking at the remainder of the jequirity beans and a liquid he had developed from some of them. Finally, with a glance at his watch, he placed a tube of the liquid in a leather case in his pocket.

"This may not be the only murder," he remarked, sententiously. "It is best to be prepared. Come; we must get up to that meeting."

We journeyed up-town and arrived at the little private hall which the Cult of the Occult had hired somewhat ahead of the time set for the meeting, as Kennedy had aimed to do. Mrs. Rogers was already there and met us at the door.

"So glad to see you," she welcomed, leading us in.

As we entered we could breathe the characteristic pervading odor of sandalwood. Rich Oriental hangings were on the walls, interspersed with cabalistic signs, while at one end was a raised dais.

Mrs. Rogers introduced us to a rather stout, middle-aged, sallow- faced individual in a turban and flowing robes of rustling purple silk. His eyes were piercing, small, and black. The plump, unhealthy, milk-white fingers of his hands were heavy with ornate rings. He looked like what I should have imagined a swami to be, and such, I found, was indeed his title.

"The Swami Rajmanandra," introduced Mrs. Rogers.

He extended his flabby hand in welcome, while Kennedy eyed him keenly. We were not permitted many words with the swami, however, for Mrs. Rogers next presented us to a younger but no less interesting-looking Oriental who was in Occidental dress.

"This is Mr. Singh Bandematarain," said Mrs. Rogers. "You know, he has been sent here by the nizam of his province to be educated at the university."

Mrs. Rogers then hastened to conduct us to seats as, one by one, the worshipers entered. They were mostly women of the aristocratic type who evidently found in this cult a new fad to occupy their jaded craving for the sensational. In the dim light, there was something almost sepulchral about the gathering, and their complexions seemed as white as wax.

Again the door opened and another woman entered. I felt the pressure of Kennedy's hand on my arm and turned my eyes unobtrusively. It was Mrs. Anthony.

Quietly she seemed to glide over the floor toward the swami and, for a moment, stood talking to him. I saw Singh eye her with a curious look. Was it fear or suspicion?

I had come expecting to see something weird and wild, perhaps the exhibition of an Indian fakir—I know not what. In that, at least, I was disappointed. The Swami Rajmanandra, picturesque though he was, talked most fascinatingly about his religion, but either the theatricals were reserved for an inner circle or else we were subtly suspected, for I soon found myself longing for the meeting to close so that we could observe those whom we had come to watch.

I had almost come to the conclusion that our mission had been a failure when the swami concluded and the visitors swarmed forward to talk with the holy man from the East. Kennedy managed to make his way about the circle to Mrs. Rogers and soon was in an animated conversation.

"Were you acquainted with a Captain Shirley?" he asked, finally, as she opened the way for the question by a remark about her life in Calcutta.

"Y-yes," she replied, hesitating; "I read in the papers this morning that he was found dead, most mysteriously. Terrible, wasn't it? Yes, I met him in Calcutta while I was there. Why, he was on his way to London, and came to New York and called on me."

My eye followed the direction of Mrs. Rogers's. She was talking to us, but really her attention was centered on Mrs. Anthony and the swami together. As I glanced back at her I caught sight of Singh, evidently engaged in watching the same two that I was. Did he have some suspicion of Mrs. Anthony? Why was he watching Mrs. Rogers? I determined to study the two women more closely. I saw that Kennedy had already noticed what I had seen.

"One very peculiar thing," he said, deliberately modulating his voice so that it could be heard by those about us, "was that, just before he was killed, some one sent a prayer-bean from a necklace to him."

At the mention of the necklace I saw that Mrs. Rogers was all attention. Involuntarily she shot a glance at Mrs. Anthony, as if she noted that she was not wearing the necklace now.

"Is that Englishwoman a member of the cult?" queried Kennedy, a moment later, as, quite naturally, he looked over at Mrs. Anthony. "Who is she?"

"Oh," replied Mrs. Rogers, quickly, "she isn't an Englishwoman at all. She is a Hindu—I believe, a former nautch-girl, daughter of a nautch-girl. She passes by the name of Mrs. Anthony, but really her name is Kalia Dass. Every one in Calcutta knew her."

Kennedy quietly drew his card-case from his pocket and handed a card to Mrs. Rogers.

"I should like to talk to you about her some time," he said, in a careful whisper. "If anything happens—don't hesitate to call on me."

Before Mrs. Rogers could recover from her surprise Kennedy had said good-by and we were on our way to the laboratory.

"That's a curious situation," I observed. "Can you make it out? How does Shirley fit into this thing?"

Craig hesitated a moment, as though debating whether to say anything, even to me, about his suspicions.

"Suppose," he said, slowly, "that Shirley was a secret agent of the British government, charged with the mission of finding out whether Mrs. Rogers was contributing—unknowingly, perhaps—to hatching another Indian mutiny? Would that suggest anything to you?"

"And the nautch-girl whom he had known in Calcutta followed him, hoping to worm from him the secrets which he—"

"Not too fast," he cautioned. "Let us merely suppose that Shirley was a spy. If I am not mistaken, we shall see something happen soon, as a result of what I said to Mrs. Rogers."

Excited now by the possibilities opened up by his conjecture regarding Shirley, which I knew must have amounted to a certainty in his mind, I watched him impatiently, as he calmly set to work cleaning up the remainder of the laboratory investigation in the affair.

It was scarcely half an hour later that a car drove up furiously to our door and Mrs. Rogers burst in, terribly agitated.

"You remember," she cried, breathlessly, "you said that a jequirity bean was sent to Captain Shirley?"

"Yes," encouraged Kennedy.

"Well, after you left, I was thinking about it. That Kalia Dass used to wear a necklace of them, but she didn't have it on to-day. I began thinking about it. While she was talking to the swami I went over. I've noticed how careful she always is of her hand-bag. So I managed to catch my hand in the loop about her wrist. It dropped on the floor. We both made a dive for it, but I got it. I managed, also, to open the catch and, when I picked it up to hand to her, with an apology, what should roll out but a score of prayer-beans! Some papers dropped out, too. She almost tore them from my hands; in fact, one of them did tear. After it was over I had this scrap, a corner torn off one of them."

Kennedy took the scrap which she handed to him and studied it carefully, while we looked over his shoulder. On it was a queer alphabetical table. Across the first line were the letters singly, each followed by a dash. Then, in squares underneath, were pairs of letters—AA, BA, CA, DA, and so on, while, vertically, the column on the left read: AA, AB, AC, AD, and so on.

"Thank you, Mrs. Rogers," Craig said, rising. "This is very important."

She seemed reluctant to go, but, as there was no excuse for staying longer, she finally left. Kennedy immediately set to work studying the scrap of paper and the cipher message he had copied, while I stifled my impatience as best I could.

I could do nothing but reflect on the possibility of what a jealous woman might do. Mrs. Rogers had given us one example. Did the same explanation shed any light on the mystery of the nautch- girl and the jequirity bean sent to Shirley? There was no doubt now that Shirley had known her in Calcutta—intimately, also. Perhaps the necklace had some significance. At least, he must have remembered it, as his agitation over the single bean and the word "Gadhr" seemed to indicate. If she had sent it to him, was it as a threat? To all appearance, he had not known that she was in New York, much less that she was at the same hotel and on the same floor. Why had she followed him? Had she misinterpreted his attentions to Mrs. Rogers?

Longing to ask Kennedy the myriad questions that flashed through my mind, I turned to him as he scowled at the scrap of paper and the cipher before him.

Presently he glanced up at me, still scowling.

"It's no use, Walter," he said; "I can't make it out without the key—at least, it will take so long to discover the key that it may be useless."

Just then the telephone-bell rang and he sprang to it eagerly. As I listened I gathered that it was another hurried call from Grady.

"Something has happened to Mrs. Anthony!" cried Craig, as he hooked up the receiver and seized his hat.

A second time we posted to the Prince Edward Charles, spurred by the mystery that surrounded the case. No one met us in the lobby this time, and we rode up directly in the elevator to Mrs. Anthony's room.

As we came down the hall and Grady met us at the door, he did not need to tell us that something was wrong. One experience like that with Shirley had put the hotel people on guard, and the house physician was already there, administering stimulants to Mrs. Anthony, who was lying on the bed.

"It's just like the other case," whispered Grady. "There are the same scratches on her face and hands."

The doctor glanced about at us. By the look on his face, I read that it was a losing fight. Kennedy bent down. The floor about the door was covered with little glittering slivers of glass. On Mrs. Anthony's face was the same drawn look as on Shirley's.

Was it a suicide? Had we been getting too close on her trail, or had Mrs. Anthony been attacked? Had some one been using her, and now was afraid of her and sought to get her out of the way for safety?

What was the secret locked in her silent lips? The woman was plainly dying. Would she carry the secret with her, after all?

Kennedy quickly drew from his pocket the vial which I had seen him place there in the laboratory early in the day. From the doctor's case he selected a hypodermic and coolly injected a generous dose of the stuff into her arm.

"What is it?" asked the doctor, as we all watched her face anxiously.

"The antitoxin to abrin," he replied. "I developed some of it at the same time that I was studying the poison. If an animal that is immune to a toxin is bled and the serum collected, the antitoxin in it may be injected into a healthy animal and render it immune. Ricin and abrin are vegetable protein toxins of enormous potency and exert a narcotic action. Guinea-pigs fed on them in proper doses attain such a degree of immunity that, in a short time, they can tolerate four hundred times the fatal dose. The serum also can be used to neutralize the toxin in another animal, to a certain extent."

We crowded about Kennedy and the doctor, our eyes riveted on the drawn face before us. Would the antitoxin work?

Meanwhile, Kennedy moved over to the writing-table which he had examined on our first visit to the room. Covered up in the writing-pad was still the paper which he had copied. Only, Mrs. Anthony had added much more to it. He looked at it desperately. What good would it do if, after hours, his cleverness might solve the cipher—too late?

Mrs. Anthony seemed to be struggling bravely. Once I thought she was almost conscious. Glazed though her eyes looked, she saw Kennedy vaguely, with the paper in his hand. Her lips moved. Kennedy bent down, though whether he heard or read her lip movements I do not know.

"Her pocket-book!" he exclaimed.

We found it crushed under her coat which she had taken off when she entered. Craig opened it and drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper from which a corner had been torn. It exactly fitted the scrap that Mrs. Rogers had given us. There, contained within twenty-seven horizontal and twenty-seven vertical lines, making in all six hundred and seventy-six squares, was every possible combination of two letters of the alphabet.

Kennedy looked up, still in desperation. It did him no good. He could have completed the table himself.

"In—the—lining." Her lips managed to frame the words.

Kennedy literally tore the bag apart. There was nothing but a plain white blank card. With a superhuman effort she moved her lips again.

"Smelling-salts," she seemed to say.

I looked about. On the dressing-table stood a little dark-green bottle. I pulled the ground-glass stopper from it and a most pungent odor of carbonate of ammonia filled the room. Quickly I held it under her nose, but she shook her head weakly.

Kennedy seemed to understand. He snatched the bottle from me and held the card directly over its mouth. As the fumes of the ammonia poured out, I saw faintly on the card the letters HR.

We turned to Mrs. Anthony. The effort had used up her strength. She had lapsed again into unconsciousness as Craig bent over her.

"Will she live?" lasted.

"I think so," he replied, adding a hasty word to the doctor.

"What's that? Look!" I exclaimed, pointing to the card from which the letters HR had already faded as mysteriously as they had appeared, leaving the card blank again.

"It is the key!" he cried, excitedly. "Written in sympathetic ink. At last we have it all."

On the queer alphabetical table which the two pieces of paper made, he now wrote quickly the alphabet again, horizontally across the top, starting with H, and vertically down the side, starting with R, thus:

H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G R a- b- c- d- e- f- g- h- i- j- k- l- m- n- o- p- q- r- s- t- u- v- w- x- y- z- S aa ba ca da ea fa ga ha ia ja ka la ma na oa pa qa ra sa ta ua va wa xa ya za T ab bb cb db eb fb gb hb ib jb kb lb mb nb ob pb qb rb sb tb ub vb wb xb yb zb U ac bc cc dc ec fc gc hc ic jc kc lc mc nc oc pc qc rc sc tc uc vc wc xc yc zc V ad bd cd dd ed fd gd hd id jd kd ld md nd od pd qd rd sd td ud vd wd xd yd zd W ae be ce de ee fe ge he ie je ke le me ne oe pe qe re se te ue ve we xe ye ze X af bf cf df ef ff gf hf if jf kf lf mf nf of pf qf rf sf tf uf vf wf xf yf zf Y ag bg cg dg eg fg gg hg ig jg kg lg mg ng og pg qg rg sg tg ug vg wg xg yg zg Z ah bh ch dh eh fh gh hh ih jh kh lh mh nh oh ph qh rh sh th uh vy wh xh yh zh & ai bi ci di ei fi gi hi ii ji ki li mi ni oi pi qi ri si ti ui vi wi xi yi zi A aj bj cj dj ej fj gj hj ij jj kj lj mj nj oj pj qj rj sj tj uj vj wj xj yj zj B ak bk ck dk ek fk gk hk ik jk kk lk mk nk ok pk qk rk sk tk uk vk wk xk yk zk C al bl cl dl el fl gl hl il jl kl ll ml nl ol pl ql rl sl tl ul vl wl xl yl zl D am bm cm dm em fm gm hm im jm km lm mm nm om pm qm rm sm tm um vm wm xm ym zm E an bn cn dn en fn gn hn in jn kn ln mn nn on pn qn rn sn tn un vn wn xn yn zn F ao bo co do eo fo go ho io jo ko lo mo no oo po qo ro so to uo vo wo xo yo zo G ap bp cp dp ep fp gp hp ip jp kp lp mp np op pp qp rp sp tp up vp wp xp yp zp H aq bq cq dq eq fq gq hq iq jq kq lq mq nq oq pq qq rq sq tq uq vq wq xq yq zq I ar br cr dr er fr gr hr ir jr kr lr mr nr or pr qr rr sr tr ur vr wr xr yr zr J as bs cs ds es fs gs hs is js ks ls ms ns os ps qs rs ss ts us vs ws xs ys zs K at bt ct dt et ft gt ht it jt kt lt mt nt ot pt qt rt st tt ut vt wt xt yt zt L au bu cu du eu fu gu hu iu ju ku lu mu nu ou pu qu ru su tu uu vu wu xu yu zu M av bv cv dv ev fv gv hv iv jv kv lv mv nv ov pv qv rv sv tv uv vv wv xv yv zv N aw bw cw dw ew fw gw hw iw jw kw lw mw nw ow pw qw rw sw tw uw vw ww xw yw zw O ax bx cx dx ex fx gx hx ix jx kx lx mx nx ox px qx rx sx tx ux vx wx xx yx zx P ay by cy dy ey fy gy hy iy jy ky ly my ny oy py qy ry sy ty uy vy wy xy yy zy Q az bz cz dz ez fz gz hz iz jz kz lz mz nz oz pz qz rz sz tz uz vz wz xz yz zz

"See!" exclaimed Kennedy, triumphantly, working rapidly. "Take the word 'war' for instance. The square which contains WA is in line S, column D. So I put down SD. The odd letter R, with a dash, is in line R, column Y. So I put down RY. WAR thus becomes SDRY. Working it backward from SDRY, I take the two letters SD. In line S, column D, I find WA in the square, and in line R, column Y, I find just R—making the translation of the cipher read 'War.' Now," he went on, excitedly, "take the message we have:

"SOWC FSSJWA EKNLFFBY WOVHLX IHWAJYKH 101MLEL EPJNVPSL WCLURL GHIHDA ELBA.

"I translate each pair of letters as I come to them." He was writing rapidly. There was the message:

Have located New York headquarters at 101 Eveningside Avenue, Apartment K. Kennedy did not pause, but dashed from the room, followed by Grady and myself.

As our taxi pulled up on the avenue, we saw that the address was a new but small apartment-house. We entered and located Apartment K.

Casting about for a way to get in, Craig discovered that the fire- escape could be reached from a balcony by the hall window. He swung himself over the gap, and we followed. It was the work of only a minute to force the window-latch. We entered. No one was there.

As we pressed after him, he stopped short and flashed his electric bull's-eye about with an exclamation of startled surprise. There was a fully equipped chemical and electrical laboratory. There were explosives enough to have blown not only us but a whole block to kingdom come. More than that, it was a veritable den of poisons. On a table stood beakers and test-tubes in which was crushed a paste that still showed parts of the red ruttee beans.

"Some one planned here to kill Shirley, get him out of the way," reconstructed Kennedy, gazing about; "some one working under the cloak of Oriental religion."

"Mrs. Anthony?" queried Grady. Kennedy shook his head.

"On the contrary, like Shirley, she was an agent of the Indian Secret Service. The rest of the cipher shows it. She was sent to watch some one else, as he was sent to watch Mrs. Rogers. Neither could have known that the other was on the case. She found out, first, that the package with the prayer-bean and the word 'Gadhr' was an attempt to warn and save Shirley, whom she had known in Calcutta and still loved, but feared to compromise. She must have tried to see him, but failed. She hesitated to write, but finally did. Then some one must have seen that she was dangerous. Another poisoned bomb was sent to her. No; the nautch-girl is innocent."

"'Sh!" cautioned Grady.

Outside we could hear the footsteps of some one coming along the hall. Kennedy snapped off his light. The door opened.

"Stand still! One motion and I will throw it!"

As Kennedy's voice rang out from the direction of the table on which stood the half-finished glass bombs, Grady and I flung ourselves forward at the intruder, not knowing what we would encounter.

A moment later Kennedy had found the electric switch and flashed up the lights.

It was Singh, who had used both Mrs. Rogers's money and Raimanandra's religion to cover his conspiracy of revolt.



V

THE PHANTOM DESTROYER

"Guy Fawkes himself would shudder in that mill. Think of it—five explosions on five successive days, and not a clue!"

Our visitor had presented a card bearing the name of Donald MacLeod, chief of the Nitropolis Powder Company's Secret Service. It was plain that he was greatly worried over the case about which he had at last been forced to consult Kennedy.

As he spoke, I remembered having read in the despatches about the explosions, but the accounts had been so meager that I had not realized that there was anything especially unusual about them, for it was at the time when accidents in and attacks on the munitions-plants were of common occurrence.

"Why," went on MacLeod, "the whole business is as mysterious as if there were some phantom destroyer at work! The men are so frightened that they threaten to quit. Several have been killed. There's something strange about that, too. There are ugly rumors of poisonous gases being responsible, quite as much as the explosions, though, so far, I've been able to find nothing in that notion."

"What sort of place is it?" asked Kennedy, interested at once.

"Well, you see," explained MacLeod, "since the company's business has increased so fast lately, it has been forced to erect a new plant. Perhaps you have heard of the Old Grove Amusement Park, which failed? It's not far from that."

MacLeod looked at us inquiringly, and Kennedy nodded to go on, though I am sure neither of us was familiar with the place.

"They've called the new plant Nitropolis—rather a neat name for a powder-works, don't you think?" resumed MacLeod. "Everything went along all right until a few days ago. Then one of the buildings, a storehouse, was blown up. We couldn't be sure that it was an accident, so we redoubled our precautions. It was of no use. That started it. The very next day another building was blown up, then another, until now there have been five of them. What may happen to-day Heaven only knows! I want to get back as soon as I can."

"Rather too frequent, I must admit, to be coincidences," remarked Kennedy.

"No; they can't all be accidents," asserted MacLeod, confidently. "There's too great regularity for that. I think I've considered almost everything. I don't see how they can be from bombs placed by workmen. At least, it's not a bit likely. Besides, the explosions all occur in broad daylight, not at night. We're very careful about the men we employ, and they're watched all the time. The company has a guard of its own, twenty-five picked men, under me—all honorably discharged United States army men."

"You have formed no theory of your own?" queried Kennedy.

MacLeod paused, then drew from his pocket the clipping of a despatch from the front in which one of the war correspondents reported the destruction of wire entanglements with heat supposed to have been applied by the use of reflecting mirrors.

"I'm reduced to pure speculation," he remarked. "To-day they seem to be reviving all the ancient practices. Maybe some one is going at it like Archimedes."

"Not impossible," returned Craig, handing back the clipping. "Buffon tested the probability of the achievement of Archimedes in setting fire to the ships of Marcellus with mirrors and the sun's rays. He constructed a composite mirror of a hundred and twenty- eight plane mirrors, and with it he was able to ignite wood at two hundred and ten feet. However, I shrewdly suspect that, even if this story is true, they are using hydrogen or acetylene flares over there. But none of these things would be feasible in your case. You'd know it."

"Could it be some one who is projecting a deadly wireless force which causes the explosions?" I put in, mindful of a previous case of Kennedy's. "We all know that inventors have been working for years on the idea of making explosives obsolete and guns junk. If some one has hit on a way of guiding an electric wave through the air and concentrating power at a point, munitions-plants could be wiped out."

MacLeod looked anxiously from me to Kennedy, but Craig betrayed nothing by his face except his interest.

"Sometimes I have imagined I heard a peculiar, faint, whirring noise in the air," he remarked, thoughtfully. "I thought of having the men on the watch for air-ships, but they've never seen a trace of one. It might be some power either like this," he added, shaking the clipping, "or like that which Mr. Jameson suggests."

"It's something like that you meant, I presume, when you called it a 'phantom destroyer' a moment ago?" asked Kennedy.

MacLeod nodded.

"If you're interested," he pursued, hastily, "and feel like going down there to look things over, I think the best place for you to go would be to the Sneddens'. They're some people who have seen a chance to make a little money out of the boom. Many visitors are now coming and going on business connected with the new works. They have started a boarding-house—or, rather, Mrs. Snedden has. There's a daughter, too, who seems to be very popular." Kennedy glanced whimsically at me.

"Well, Walter," he remarked, tentatively, "entirely aside from the young lady, this ought to make a good story for the Star."

"Indeed it ought!" I replied, enthusiastically.

"Then you'll go down to Nitropolis?" queried MacLeod, eagerly. "You can catch a train that will get you there about noon. And the company will pay you well."

"MacLeod, with the mystery, Miss Snedden, and the remuneration, you are irresistible," smiled Kennedy.

"Thank you," returned the detective. "You won't regret it. I can't tell you how much relieved I feel to have some one else, and, above all, yourself, on the case. You can get a train in half an hour. I think it would be best for you to go as though you had no connection with me—at least for the present."

Kennedy agreed, and MacLeod excused himself, promising to be on the train, although not to ride with us, in case we should be the target of too inquisitive eyes.

For a few moments, while our taxicab was coming, Kennedy considered thoughtfully what the company detective had said. By the time the vehicle arrived he had hurriedly packed up some apparatus in two large grips, one of which it fell to my lot to carry.

The trip down to Nitropolis was uninteresting, and we arrived at the little station shortly after noon. MacLeod was on the train, but did not speak to us, and it was perhaps just as well, for the cabmen and others hanging about the station were keenly watching new arrivals, and any one with MacLeod must have attracted attention. We selected or were, rather, selected by one of the cabmen and driven immediately to the Snedden house. Our cover was, as Craig and I had decided, to pose as two newspaper men from New York, that being the easiest way to account for any undue interest we might show in things.

The powder-company's plant was situated on a large tract of land which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, six feet high and constructed in a manner very similar to the fences used in protecting prison-camps in war-times. At various places along the several miles of fence gates were placed, with armed guards. Many other features were suggestive of war-times. One that impressed us most was that each workman had to carry a pass similar, almost, to a passport. This entire fence, we learned, was patrolled day and night by armed guards.

A mile or so from the plant, or just outside the main gate, quite a settlement had grown up, like a mushroom, almost overnight—the product of a flood of new money. Originally, there had been only one house for some distance about—that of the Sneddens. But now there were scores of houses, mostly those of officials and managers, some of them really pretentious affairs. MacLeod himself lived in one of them, and we could see him ahead of us, being driven home.

The workmen lived farther along the line, in a sort of company town, which at present greatly resembled a Western mining-camp, though ultimately it was to be a bungalow town.

Just at present, however, it was the Snedden house that interested us most, for we felt the need of getting ourselves established in this strange community. It was an old-fashioned farm-house and had been purchased very cheaply by Snedden several years before. He had altered it and brought it up to date, and the combination of old and new proved to be typical of the owner as well as of the house.

Kennedy carried off well the critical situation of our introduction, and we found ourselves welcomed rather than scrutinized as intruders.

Garfield Snedden was much older than his second wife, Ida. In fact, she did not seem to be much older than Snedden's daughter Gertrude, whom MacLeod had already mentioned—a dashing young lady, never intended by nature to vegetate in the rural seclusion that her father had sought before the advent of the powder-works. Mrs. Snedden was one of those capable women who can manage a man without his knowing it. Indeed, one felt that Snedden, who was somewhat of both student and dreamer, needed a manager.

"I'm glad your train was on time," bustled Mrs. Snedden. "Luncheon will be ready in a few moments now."

We had barely time to look about before Gertrude led us into the dining-room and introduced us to the other boarders.

Knowing human nature, Kennedy was careful to be struck with admiration and amazement at everything we had seen in our brief whirl through Nitropolis. It was not a difficult or entirely assumed feeling, either, when one realized that, only a few short months before, the region had been nothing better than an almost hopeless wilderness of scrub-pines.

We did not have to wait long before the subject uppermost in our minds was brought up—the explosions.

Among the boarders there were at least two who, from the start, promised to be interesting as well as important. One was a tall, slender chap named Garretson, whose connection with the company, I gathered from the conversation, took him often on important matters to New York. The other was an older man, Jackson, who seemed to be connected with the management of the works, a reticent fellow, more given to listening to others than to talking himself.

"Nothing has happened so far to-day, anyhow," remarked Garretson, tapping the back of his chair with his knuckle, as a token of respect for that evil spirit who seems to be exorcised by knocking wood.

"Oh," exclaimed Gertrude, with a little half-suppressed shudder, "I do hope those terrible explosions are at last over!"

"If I had my way," asserted Garretson, savagely, "I'd put this town under martial law until they WERE over."

"It may come to that," put in Jackson, quietly.

"Quite in keeping with the present tendency of the age," agreed Snedden, in a tone of philosophical disagreement.

"I don't think it makes much difference how you accomplish the result, Garfield," chimed in his wife, "as long as you accomplish it, and it is one that should be accomplished."

Snedden retreated into the refuge of silence. Though this was only a bit of the conversation, we soon found out that he was an avowed pacifist. Garretson, on the other hand, was an ardent militarist, a good deal of a fire-eater. I wondered whether there might not be a good deal of the poseur about him, too.

It needed no second sight to discover that both he and Gertrude were deeply interested in each other. Garretson was what Broadway would call "a live one," and, though there is nothing essentially wrong in that, I fancied that I detected, now and then, an almost maternal solicitude on the part of her stepmother, who seemed to be watching both the young man and her husband alternately. Once Jackson and Mrs. Snedden exchanged glances. There seemed to be some understanding between them.

The time to return to the works was approaching, and we all rose. Somehow, Gertrude and Garretson seemed naturally to gravitate toward the door together.

Some distance from the house there was a large barn. Part of it had been turned into a garage, where Garretson kept a fast car. Jackson, also, had a roadster. In fact, in this new community, with its superabundant new wealth, everybody had a car.

Kennedy and I sauntered out after the rest. As we turned an angle of the house we came suddenly upon Garretson in his racer, talking to Gertrude. The crunch of the gravel under our feet warned them before we saw them, but not before we could catch a glimpse of a warning finger on the rosy lips of Gertrude. As she saw us she blushed ever so slightly.

"You'll be late!" she cried, hastily. "Mr. Jackson has been gone five minutes."

"On foot," returned Garretson, nonchalantly. "I'll overtake him in thirty seconds." Nevertheless, he did not wait longer, but swung up the road at a pace which was the admiration of all speed-loving Nitropolitans.

Craig had ordered our taxicab driver to stop for us after lunch, and, without exciting suspicion, managed to stow away the larger part of the contents of our grips in his car.

Still without openly showing our connection with MacLeod, Kennedy sought out the manager of the works, and, though scores of correspondents and reporters from various newspapers had vainly applied for permission to inspect the plant, somehow we seemed to receive the freedom of the place and without exciting suspicion. Craig's first move was to look the plant over. As we approached it our attention was instantly attracted to the numerous one-story galvanized-iron buildings that appeared to stretch endlessly in every direction. They seemed to be of a temporary nature, though the power-plants, offices, and other necessary buildings were very substantially built. The framework of the factory-buildings was nothing but wood, covered by iron sheathing, and even the sides seemed to be removable. The floors, however, were of concrete.

"They serve their purpose well," observed Kennedy, as we picked our way about. "Explosions at powder-mills are frequent, anyhow. After an explosion there is very little debris to clear away, as you may imagine. These buildings are easily repaired or replaced, and they keep a large force of men for these purposes, as well as materials for any emergency."

One felt instinctively the hazard of the employment. Everywhere were signs telling what not and what to do. One that stuck in my mind was, "It is better to be careful than sorry." Throughout the plant at frequent intervals were first-aid stations with kits for all sorts of accidents, including respirators, for workmen were often overcome by ether or alcohol fumes. Everything was done to minimize the hazard, yet one could not escape the conviction that human life and limb were as much a cost of production in this industry as fuel and raw material.

Once, in our wanderings about the plant, I recall we ran across both Garretson and Jackson in one of the offices. They did not see us, but seemed to be talking very earnestly about something. What it was we could not guess, but this time it seemed to be Jackson who was doing most of the talking. Kennedy watched them as they parted.

"There's something peculiar under the surface with those people at the boarding-house," was all he observed. "Come; over there, about an eighth of a mile, I think I see evidences of the latest of the explosions. Let's look at it."

MacLeod had evidently reasoned that, sooner of later, Kennedy would appear in this part of the grounds, and as we passed one of the shops he joined us.

"You mentioned something about rumors of poisonous gases," hinted Craig, as we walked along.

"Yes," assented MacLeod; "I don't know what there is in it. I suppose you know that there is a very poisonous gas, carbon monoxide, or carbonic oxide, formed in considerable quantity by the explosion of several of the powders commonly used in shells. The gas has the curious power of combining with the blood and refusing to let go, thus keeping out the oxygen necessary for life. It may be that that is what accounts for what we've seen— that it is actual poisoning to death of men not killed by the immediate explosion."

We had reached the scene of the previous day's disaster. No effort had yet been made to clear it up. Kennedy went over it carefully. What it was he found I do not know, but he had not spent much time before he turned to me.

"Walter," he directed, "I wish you would go back to the office near the gate, where I left that paraphernalia we brought down. Carry it over—let me see—there's an open space there on that knoll. I'll join you there."

Whatever was in the packages was both bulky and heavy, and I was glad to reach the hillside he had indicated.

Craig was waiting for me there with MacLeod, and at once opened the packages. From them he took a thin steel rod, which he set up in the center of the open space. To it he attached a frame and to the frame what looked like four reversed megaphones. Attached to the frame, which was tubular, was an oak box with a little arrangement of hard rubber and metal which fitted into the ears. For some time Kennedy's face wore a set, far-away expression, as if he were studying something.

"The explosions seem always to occur in the middle of the afternoon," observed MacLeod, fidgeting apprehensively.

Kennedy motioned petulantly for silence. Then suddenly he pulled the tubes out of his ears and gazed about sharply.

"There's something in the air!" he cried. "I can hear it!"

MacLeod and I strained our eyes. There was nothing visible.

"This is an anti-aircraft listening-post, such as the French use," explained Craig, hurriedly. "Between the horns and the microphone in the box you can catch the hum of an engine, even when it is muffled. If there's an aeroplane or a Zeppelin about, this thing would locate it."

Still, there was nothing that we could see, though now the sound was just perceptible to the ear if one strained his attention a bit. I listened. It was plain in the detector; yet nothing was visible. What strange power could it be that we could not see or feel in broad daylight?

Just then came a low rumbling, and then a terrific roar from the direction of the plant. We swung about in time to see a huge cloud of debris lifted literally into the air above the tree-tops and dropped to earth again. The silence that succeeded the explosion was eloquent. The phantom destroyer had delivered his blow again.

"The distillery—where we make the denatured alcohol!" cried MacLeod, gazing with tense face as from other buildings, we could see men pouring forth, panic-stricken, and the silence was punctured by shouts. Kennedy bent over his detector.

"That same mysterious buzzing," he muttered, "only fainter."

Together we hastened now toward the distillery, another of those corrugated-iron buildings. It had been completely demolished. Here and there lay a dark, still mass. I shuddered. They were men!

As we ran toward the ruin we crossed a baseball-field which the company had given the men. I looked back for Kennedy. He had paused at the wire backstop behind the catcher. Something caught in the wires interested him. By the time I reached him he had secured it—a long, slender metal tube, cleverly weighted so as to fall straight.

"Not a hundred per cent. of hits, evidently," he muttered. "Still, one was enough."

"What is it?" asked MacLeod.

"An incendiary pastille. On contact, the nose burns away anything it hits, goes right through corrugated iron. It carries a charge of thermit ignited by this piece of magnesium ribbon. You know what thermit will penetrate with its thousands of degrees of heat. Only the nose of this went through the netting and never touched a thing. This didn't explode anything, but another one did. Thousands of gallons of alcohol did the rest."

Kennedy had picked up his other package as we ran, and was now busily unwrapping it. I looked about at the crowd that had collected, and saw that there was nothing we could do to help. Once I caught sight of Gertrude's face. She was pale, and seemed eagerly searching for some one. Then, in the crowd, I lost her. I turned to MacLeod. He was plainly overwhelmed. Kennedy was grimly silent and at work on something he had jammed into the ground.

"Stand back!" he cautioned, as he touched a match to the thing. With a muffled explosion, something whizzed and shrieked up into the air like a sky-rocket.

Far above, I could now see a thing open out like a parachute, while below it trailed something that might have been the stick of the rocket. Eagerly Kennedy followed the parachute as the wind wafted it along and it sank slowly to the earth. When, at last, he recovered it I saw that between the parachute and the stick was fastened a small, peculiar camera.

"A Scheimpflug multiple camera," he explained as he seized it almost ravenously. "Is there a place in town where I can get the films in this developed quickly?"

MacLeod, himself excited now, hurried us from the scene of the explosion to a local drug-store, which combined most of the functions of a general store, even being able to improvise a dark- room in which Kennedy could work.

It was some time after the excitement over the explosion had quieted down that MacLeod and I, standing impatiently before the drug-store, saw Snedden wildly tearing down the street in his car. He saw us and pulled up at the curb with a jerk.

"Where's Gertrude?" he shouted, wildly. "Has any one seen my daughter?"

Breathlessly he explained that he had been out, had returned to find his house deserted, Gertrude gone, his wife gone, even Jackson's car gone from the barn. He had been to the works. Neither Garretson nor Jackson had been seen since the excitement of the explosion, they told him. Garretson's racer was gone, too. There seemed to have been a sort of family explosion, also.

Kennedy had heard the loud talking and had left his work to the druggist to carry on and joined us. There was no concealment now of our connection with MacLeod, for it was to him that every one in town came when in trouble.

In almost no time, so accurately did he keep his fingers on the fevered pulse of Nitropolis, MacLeod had found out that Gertrude had been seen driving away from the company's grounds with some one in Garretson's car, probably Garretson himself. Jackson had been seen hurrying down the street. Some one else had seen Ida Snedden in Jackson's car, alone.

Meanwhile, over the wire, MacLeod had sent out descriptions of the four people and the two cars, in the hope of intercepting them before they could be plunged into the obscurity of any near-by city. Not content with that, MacLeod and Kennedy started out in the former's car, while I climbed in with Snedden, and we began a systematic search of the roads out of Nitropolis.

As we sped along, I could not help feeling, though I said nothing, that, somehow, the strange disappearances must have something to do with the mysterious phantom destroyer. I did not tell even Snedden about the little that Kennedy had discovered, for I had learned that it was best to let Craig himself tell, at his own time and in his own way. But the man seemed frantic in his search, and I could not help the impression that there was something, perhaps only a suspicion, that he knew which might shed some light.

We were coming down the river, or, rather, the bay, after a fruitless search of unfrequented roads and were approaching the deserted Old Grove Amusement Park, to which excursions used, years ago, to come in boats. No one could make it pay, and it was closed and going to ruin. There had been some hint that Garretson's racer might have disappeared down this unfrequented river road.

As we came to a turn in the road, we could see Kennedy and MacLeod in their car, coming up. Instead of keeping on, however, they turned into the grove, Kennedy leaning far over the running-board as MacLeod drove slowly, following his directions, as though Craig were tracing something.

With a hurried exclamation of surprise, Snedden gave our car the gas and shot ahead, swinging around after them. They were headed, following some kind of tire-tracks, toward an old merry-go-round that was dismantled and all boarded up. They heard us coming and stopped.

"Has any one told you that Garretson's car went down the river road, too?" called Snedden, anxiously.

"No; but some one thought he saw Jackson's car come down here," called back MacLeod.

"Jackson's?" exclaimed Snedden.

"Maybe both are right," I ventured, as we came closer. "What made you turn in here?'"

"Kennedy thought he saw fresh tire-tracks running into the grove."

We were all out of our cars by this time, and examining the soft roadway with Craig. It was evident to any one that a car had been run in, and not so very long ago, in the direction of the merry- go-round.

We followed the tracks on foot, bending about the huge circle of a building until we came to the side away from the road. The tracks seemed to run right in under the boards.

Kennedy approached and touched the boards. They were loose. Some one had evidently been there, had taken them down, and put them up. In fact, by the marks on them, it seemed as though he had made a practice of doing so.

MacLeod and Kennedy unhooked the boarding, while Snedden looked on in a sort of daze. They had taken down only two or three sections, which indicated that that whole side might similarly be removed, when I heard a low, startled exclamation from Snedden.

We peered in. There, in the half-light of the gloomy interior, we could see a car. Before we knew it Snedden had darted past us. An instant later I distinguished what his more sensitive eye had seen—a woman, all alone in the car, motionless.

"Ida!" he cried.

There was no answer.

"She—she's dead!" he shouted.

It was only too true. There was Ida Snedden, seated in Jackson's car in the old deserted building, all shut up—dead.

Yet her face was as pink as if she were alive and the blood had been whipped into her cheeks by a walk in the cold wind.

We looked at one another, at a loss. How did she get there—and why? She must have come there voluntarily. No one had seen any one else with her in the car.

Snedden was now almost beside himself.

"Misfortunes never come singly," he wailed. "My daughter Gertrude gone—now my wife dead. Confound that young fellow Garretson—and Jackson, too! Where are they? Why have they fled? The scoundrels— they have stolen my whole family. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?"

Trying to quiet Snedden, at the same time we began to look about the building. On one side was a small stove, in which were still the dying coals of a fire. Near by were a work-bench, some tools, pieces of wire, and other material. Scattered about were pieces of material that looked like celluloid. Some one evidently used the place as a secret workshop. Kennedy picked up a piece of the celluloid-like stuff and carefully touched a match to it. It did not burn rapidly as celluloid does, and Craig seemed more than ever interested. MacLeod himself was no mean detective. Accustomed to action, he had an idea of what to do.

"Wait here!" he called back, dashing out. "I'm going to the nearest house up the road for help. I'll be back in a moment."

We heard him back and turn his car and shoot away. Meanwhile, Kennedy was looking over carefully Jackson's roadster. He tapped the gas-tank in the rear, then opened it. There was not a drop of gas in it. He lifted up the hood and looked inside at the motor. Whatever he saw there, he said nothing. Finally, by siphoning some gas from Snedden's tank and making some adjustments, he seemed to have the car in a condition again for it to run. He was just about to start it when MacLeod returned, carrying a canary-bird in a cage.

"I've telephoned to town," he announced. "Some one will be here soon now. Meanwhile, an idea occurred to me, and I borrowed this bird. Let me see whether the idea is any good."

Kennedy, by this time, had started the engine. MacLeod placed the bright little songster near the stove on the work-bench and began to watch it narrowly.

More than ever up in the air over the mystery, I could only watch Kennedy and MacLeod, each following his own lines.

It might, perhaps, have been ten minutes after MacLeod returned, and during that time he had never taken his eyes off the bird, when I began to feel a little drowsy. A word from MacLeod roused me.

"There's carbon monoxide in the air, Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "You know how this gas affects birds."

Kennedy looked over intently. The canary had begun to show evident signs of distress over something.

"It must be that this stove is defective," pursued MacLeod, picking up the poor little bird and carrying it quickly into the fresh air, where it could regain its former liveliness. Then, when he returned, he added, "There must be some defect in the stove or the draught that makes it send out the poisonous gas."

"There's some gas," agreed Kennedy. "It must have cleared away mostly, though, or we couldn't stand it ourselves."

Craig continued to look about the car and the building, in the vain hope of discovering some other clue. Had Mrs. Snedden been killed by the carbonic oxide? Was it a case of gas poisoning? Then, too, why had she been here at all? Who had shut her up? Had she been overcome first and, in a stupor, been unable to move to save herself? Above all, what had this to do with the mysterious phantom slayer that had wrecked so much of the works in less than a week?

It was quite late in the afternoon when, at last, people came from the town and took away both the body of Mrs. Snedden and Jackson's car. Snedden could only stare and work his fingers, and after we had seen him safely in the care of some one we could trust Kennedy, MacLeod, and I climbed into MacLeod's car silently.

"It's too deep for me," acknowledged MacLeod. "What shall we do next?"

"Surely that fellow must have my pictures developed by this time," considered Kennedy. "Shoot back there."

"They came out beautifully—all except one," reported the druggist, who was somewhat of a camera fiend himself. "That's a wonderful system, sir."

Kennedy thanked him for his trouble and took the prints. With care he pieced them together, until he had several successive panoramas of the country taken from various elevations of the parachute. Then, with a magnifying-glass, he went over each section minutely.