Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The (42 page)

  'Mr Close,' began Kennedy, 'if you and Mr Lawrence will sit over here on this side of the room while Dr Gregory and Mr Asche sit on the opposite side with Mr Jameson in the middle, I think both of you opposing parties will be better suited. For I apprehend that at various stages in what I am about to say both you, Mr Close, and you, Dr Gregory, will want to consult your attorneys. That, of course, would be embarrassing, if not impossible, should you be sitting near each other. Now, if we are ready, I shall begin.'

  Kennedy placed a small leaden casket on the table of his lecture hall. 'In this casket,' he commenced solemnly, 'there is a certain substance which I have recovered from the dust swept up by a vacuum cleaner in the room of Mrs Close.'

  One could feel the very air of the room surcharged with excitement. Craig drew on a pair of gloves and carefully opened the casket. With his thumb and forefinger he lifted out a glass tube and held it gingerly at arm's length. My eyes were riveted on it, for the bottom of the tube glowed with a dazzling point of light.

  Both Gregory and his attorney and Close and Lawrence whispered to each other when the tube was displayed, as indeed they did throughout the whole exhibition of Kennedy's evidence.

  'No infernal machine was ever more subtle,' said Craig, 'than the tube which I hold in my hand. The imagination of the most sensational writer of fiction might well be thrilled with the mysteries of this fatal tube and its power to work fearful deeds. A larger quantity of this substance in the tube would produce on me, as I now hold it, incurable burns, just as it did on its discoverer before his death. A smaller amount, of course, would not act so quickly. The amount in this tube, if distributed about, would produce the burns inevitably, providing I remained near enough for a long-enough time.'

  Craig paused a moment to emphasise his remarks.

  'Here in my hand, gentlemen, I hold the price of a woman's beauty.'

  He stopped again for several moments, then resumed.

  'And now, having shown it to you, for my own safety I will place it back in its leaden casket.'

  Drawing off his gloves, he proceeded.

  'I have found out by a cablegram to-day that seven weeks ago an order for one hundred milligrams of radium bromide at thirty-five dollars a milligram from a certain person in America was filled by a corporation dealing in this substance.'

  Kennedy said this with measured words, and I felt a thrill run through me as he developed his case.

  'At that same time, Mrs Close began a series of treatments with an X-ray specialist in New York,' pursued Kennedy. 'Now, it is not generally known outside scientific circles, but the fact is that in their physiological effects the X-ray and radium are quite one and the same. Radium possesses this advantage, however, that no elaborate apparatus is necessary for its use. And, in addition, the emanation from radium is steady and constant, whereas the X-ray at best varies slightly with changing conditions of the current and vacuum in the X-ray tube. Still, the effects on the body are much the same.

  'A few days before this order was placed I recall the following despatch which appeared in the New York papers. I will read it.

  'Liege, Belgium, Oct. –, 1910. What is believed to be the first criminal case in which radium figures as a death-dealing agent is engaging public attention at this university town. A wealthy old bachelor, Pailin by name, was found dead in his flat. A stroke of apoplexy was at first believed to have caused his death, but a close examination revealed a curious discolouration of his skin. A specialist called in to view the body gave as his opinion that the old man had been exposed for a long time to the emanations of X-ray or radium. The police theory is that M. Pailin was done to death by a systematic application of either X-rays or radium by a student in the university who roomed next to him. The student has disappeared.

  'Now here, I believe, was the suggestion which this American criminal followed, for I cut it out of the paper rather expecting sooner or later that some clever person would act on it. I have thoroughly examined the room of Mrs Close. She herself told me she never wanted to return to it, that her memory of sleepless nights in it was too vivid. That served to fix the impression that I had already formed from reading this clipping. Either the X-ray or radium had caused her dermatitis and nervousness. Which was it? I wished to be sure that I would make no mistake. Of course I knew it was useless to look for an X-ray machine in or near Mrs Close's room. Such a thing could never have been concealed. The alternative? Radium! Ah! that was different. I determined on an experiment. Mrs Close's maid was prevailed on to sleep in her mistress's room. Of course radiations of brief duration would do her no permanent harm, although they would produce their effect, nevertheless. In one night the maid became extremely nervous. If she had stayed under them several nights no doubt the beginning of a dermatitis would have affected her, if not more serious trouble. A systematic application, covering weeks and months, might in the end even have led to death.

  'The next day I managed, as I have said, to go over the room thoroughly with a vacuum cleaner – a new one of my own which I had bought myself. But tests of the dust which I got from the floors, curtains, and furniture showed nothing at all. As a last thought I had, however, cleaned the mattress of the bed and the cracks and crevices in the brass bars. Tests of that dust showed it to be extremely radioactive. I had the dust dissolved, by a chemist who understands that sort of thing, recrystallised, and the radium salts were extracted from the refuse. Thus I found that I had recovered all but a very few milligrams of the radium that had been originally purchased in London. Here it is in this deadly tube in the leaden casket.

  'It is needless to add that the night after I had cleaned out this deadly element the maid slept the sleep of the just – and would have been all right when next I saw her but for the interference of the unjust on whom I had stolen a march.'

  Craig paused while the lawyers whispered again to their clients. Then he continued: 'Now three persons in this room had an opportunity to secrete the contents of this deadly tube in the crevices of the metal work of Mrs Close's bed. One of these persons must have placed an order through a confidential agent in London to purchase the radium from the English Radium Corporation. One of these persons had a compelling motive, something to gain by using this deadly element. The radium in this tube in the casket was secreted, as I have said, in the metal work of Mrs Close's bed, not in large enough quantities to be immediately fatal, but mixed with dust so as to produce the result more slowly but no less surely, and thus avoid suspicion. At the same time Mrs Close was persuaded – I will not say by whom – through her natural pride, to take a course of X-ray treatment for a slight defect. That would further serve to divert suspicion. The fact is that a more horrible plot could hardly have been planned or executed. This person sought to ruin her beauty to gain a most selfish and despicable end.'

  Again Craig paused to let his words sink into our minds.

  'Now I wish to state that anything you gentlemen may say will be used against you. That is why I have asked you to bring your attorneys. You may consult with them, of course, while I am getting ready my next disclosure.'

  As Kennedy had developed his points in the case I had been more and more amazed. But I had not failed to notice how keenly Lawrence was following him.

  With half a sneer on his astute face, Lawrence drawled: 'I cannot see that you have accomplished anything by this rather extraordinary summoning of us to your laboratory. The evidence is just as black against Dr Gregory as before. You may think you're clever, Kennedy, but on the very statement of facts as you have brought them out there is plenty of circumstantial evidence against Gregory – more than there was before. As for anyone else in the room, I can't see that you have anything on us – unless perhaps this new evidence you speak of may implicate Asche, or Jameson,' he added, including me in a wave of his hand, as if he were already addressing a jury. 'It's my opinion that twelve of our peers would be quite as likely to bring in a verdict of guilty against them as against anyone else even remotely connected with this case, except Gregory. No, you'll have to do better than this in your next case, if you expect to maintain that so-called reputation of yours for being a professor of criminal science.'

  As for Close, taking his cue from his attorney, he scornfully added: 'I came to find out some new evidence against the wretch who wrecked the beauty of my wife. All I've got is a tiresome lecture on X-rays and radium. I suppose what you say is true.

  'Well, it only bears out what I thought before. Gregory treated my wife at home, after he saw the damage his office treatments had done. I guess he was capable of making a complete job out of it – covering up his carelessness by getting rid of the woman who was such a damning piece of evidence against his professional skill.'

  Never a shade passed Craig's face as he listened to this tirade. 'Excuse me a moment,' was all he said, opening the door to leave the room. 'I have just one more fact to disclose. I will be back directly.'

  Kennedy was gone several minutes, during which Close and Lawrence fell to whispering behind their hands, with the assurance of those who believed that this was only Kennedy's method of admitting a defeat. Gregory and Asche exchanged a few words similarly, and it was plain that Asche was endeavouring to put a better interpretation on something than Gregory himself dared hope.

  As Kennedy re-entered, Close was buttoning up his coat preparatory to leaving, and Lawrence was lighting a fresh cigar.

  In his hand Kennedy held a notebook. 'My stenographer writes a very legible shorthand; at least I find it so – from long practice, I suppose. As I glance over her notes I find many facts which will interest you later – at the trial. But – ah, here at the end – let me read:

  '"Well, he's very clever, but he has nothing against me, has he?"

  '"No, not unless he can produce the agent who bought the radium for you."

  '"But he can't do that. No one could ever have recognised you on your flying trip to London disguised as a diamond merchant who had just learned that he could make his faulty diamonds good by applications of radium and who wanted a good stock of the stuff."

  '"Still, we'll have to drop the suit against Gregory after all, in spite of what I said. That part is hopelessly spoiled."

  '"Yes, I suppose so. Oh, well, I'm free now. She can hardly help but consent to a divorce now, and a quiet settlement. She brought it on herself – we tried every other way to do it, but she – she was too good to fall into it. She forced us to it."

  '"Yes, you'll get a good divorce now. But can't we shut up this man Kennedy? Even if he can't prove anything against us, the mere rumour of such a thing coming to the ears of Mrs Tulkington would be unpleasant."

  '"Go as far as you like, Lawrence. You know what the marriage will mean to me. It will settle my debts to you and all the rest."

  '"I'll see what I can do, Close. He'll be back in a moment."'

  Close's face was livid. 'It's a pack of lies!' he shouted, advancing toward Kennedy, 'a pack of lies! You are a fakir and a blackmailer. I'll have you in jail for this, by God – and you too, Gregory.'

  'One moment, please,' said Kennedy calmly. 'Mr Lawrence, will you be so kind as to reach behind your chair? What do you find?'

  Lawrence lifted up the plain black box and with it he pulled up the wires which I had so carefully concealed in the cracks of the floor.

  'That,' said Kennedy, 'is a little instrument called the microphone. Its chief merit lies in the fact that it will magnify a sound sixteen hundred times, and carry it to any given point where you wish to place the receiver. Originally this device was invented for the aid of the deaf, but I see no reason why it should not be used to aid the law. One needn't eavesdrop at the keyhole with this little instrument about. Inside that box there is nothing but a series of plugs from which wires, much finer than a thread, are stretched taut. Yet a fly walking near it will make a noise as loud as a draft-horse. If the microphone is placed in any part of the room, especially if near the persons talking – even if they are talking in a whisper – a whisper such as occurred several times during the evening and particularly while I was in the next room getting the notes made by my stenographer – a whisper, I say, is like shouting your guilt from the housetops.

  'You two men, Close and Lawrence, may consider yourselves under arrest for conspiracy and whatever other indictments will lie against such creatures as you. The police will be here in a moment. No, Close, violence won't do now. The doors are locked – and see, we are four to two.'