The War Terror

by Arthur B. Reeve

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY

  We had by this time swung around to the side of the houseboat. Irealized as we mounted the ladder that the marine gasoline engine hadmaterially changed the old-time houseboat from a mere scow or bargewith a low flat house on it, moored in a bay or river, and only withdifficulty and expense towed from one place to another. Now thehouseboat was really a fair-sized yacht.

  The Lucie was built high in order to give plenty of accommodation forthe living quarters. The staterooms, dining rooms and saloon werereally rooms, with seven or eight feet of head room, and furnished justas one would find in a tasteful and expensive house.

  Down in the hull, of course, was the gasoline motor which drove thepropeller, so that when the owner wanted a change of scene all that wasnecessary was to get up anchor, start the motor and navigate theyacht-houseboat to some other harbor.

  Edwards himself met us on the deck. He was a tall man, with a red face,a man of action, of outdoor life, apparently a hard worker and a hardplayer. It was quite evident that he had been waiting for the return ofWaldon anxiously.

  "You find us considerably upset, Professor Kennedy," he greeted Craig,as his brother-in-law introduced us.

  Edwards turned and led the way toward the saloon. As he entered andbade us be seated in the costly cushioned wicker chairs I noticed howsumptuously it was furnished, and particularly its mechanical piano,its phonograph and the splendid hardwood floor which seemed to inviteone to dance in the cool breeze that floated across from one set ofopen windows to the other. And yet in spite of everything, there wasthat indefinable air of something lacking, as in a house from which thewoman is gone.

  "You were not here last night, I understand," remarked Kennedy, takingin the room at a glance.

  "Unfortunately, no," replied Edwards, "Business has kept me with mynose pretty close to the grindstone this summer. Waldon called me up inthe middle of the night, however, and I started down in my car, whichenabled me to get here before the first train. I haven't been able todo a thing since I got here except just wait--wait--wait. I confessthat I don't know what else to do. Waldon seemed to think we ought tohave some one down here--and I guess he was right. Anyhow, I'm glad tosee you."

  I watched Edwards keenly. For the first time I realized that I hadneglected to ask Waldon whether he had seen the unfinished letter. Thequestion was unnecessary. It was evident that he had not.

  "Let me see, Waldon, if I've got this thing straight," Edwards went on,pacing restlessly up and down the saloon. "Correct me if I haven't.Last night, as I understand it, there was a sort of little family partyhere, you and Miss Verrall and your mother from the Nautilus, and Mrs.Edwards and Dr. Jermyn."

  "Yes," replied Waldon with, I thought, a touch of defiance at the words"family party." He paused as if he would have added that the Nautiluswould have been more congenial, anyhow, then added, "We danced a littlebit, all except Lucie. She said she wasn't feeling any too well."

  Edwards had paused by the door. "If you'll excuse me a minute," hesaid, "I'll call Jermyn and Mrs. Edwards' maid, Juanita. You ought togo over the whole thing immediately, Professor Kennedy."

  "Why didn't you say anything about the letter to him?" asked Kennedyunder his breath.

  "What was the use?" returned Waldon. "I didn't know how he'd take it.Besides, I wanted your advice on the whole thing. Do you want to showit to him?"

  "Perhaps it's just as well," ruminated Kennedy. "It may be possible toclear the thing up without involving anybody's name. At any rate, someone is coming down the passage this way."

  Edwards entered with Dr. Jermyn, a clean-shaven man, youthful inappearance, yet approaching middle age. I had heard of him before. Hehad studied several years abroad and had gained considerable reputationsince his return to America.

  Dr. Jermyn shook hands with us cordially enough, made some passingcomment on the tragedy, and stood evidently waiting for us to discloseour hands.

  "You have been Mrs. Edwards' physician for some time, I believe?"queried Kennedy, fencing for an opening.

  "Only since her marriage," replied the doctor briefly.

  "She hadn't been feeling well for several days, had she?" venturedKennedy again.

  "No," replied Dr. Jermyn quickly. "I doubt whether I can add much towhat you already know. I suppose Mr. Waldon has told you about herillness. The fact is, I suppose her maid Juanita will be able to tellyou really more than I can."

  I could not help feeling that Dr. Jermyn showed a great deal ofreluctance in talking.

  "You have been with her several days, though, haven't you?"

  "Four days, I think. She was complaining of feeling nervous andtelegraphed me to come down here. I came prepared to stay over night,but Mr. Edwards happened to run down that day, too, and he asked me ifI wouldn't remain longer. My practice in the summer is such that I caneasily leave it with my assistant in the city, so I agreed. Really,that is about all I can say. I don't know yet what was the matter withMrs. Edwards, aside from the nervousness which seemed to be of sometime standing."

  He stood facing us, thoughtfully stroking his chin, as a very prettyand petite maid nervously entered and stood facing us in the doorway.

  "Come in, Juanita," encouraged Edwards. "I want you to tell thesegentlemen just what you told me about discovering that Madame hadgone--and anything else that you may recall now."

  "It was Juanita who discovered that Madame was gone, you know," put inWaldon.

  "How did you discover it?" prompted Craig.

  "It was very hot," replied the maid, "and often on hot nights I wouldcome in and fan Madame since she was so wakeful. Last night I went tothe door and knocked. There was no reply. I called to her, 'Madame,madame.' Still there was no answer. The worst I supposed was that shehad fainted. I continued to call."

  "The door was locked?" inquired Kennedy.

  "Yes, sir. My call aroused the others on the boat. Dr. Jermyn came andhe broke open the door with his shoulder. But the room was empty.Madame was gone."

  "How about the windows?" asked Kennedy.

  "Open. They were always open these nights. Sometimes Madame would sitby the window when there was not much breeze."

  "I should like to see the room," remarked Craig, with an inquiringglance at Edwards.

  "Certainly," he answered, leading the way down a corridor.

  Mrs. Edwards' room was on the starboard side, with wide windows insteadof portholes. It was furnished magnificently and there was little aboutit that suggested the nautical, except the view from the window.

  "The bed had not been slept in," Edwards remarked as we looked aboutcuriously.

  Kennedy walked over quickly to the wide series of windows before whichwas a leather-cushioned window seat almost level with the window,several feet above the level of the water. It was by this window,evidently, that Juanita meant that Mrs. Edwards often sat. It was adelightful position, but I could readily see that it would becomparatively easy for anyone accidentally or purposely to fall.

  "I think myself," Waldon remarked to Kennedy, "that it must have beenfrom the open window that she made her way to the outside. It seemsthat all agree that the door was locked, while the window was wideopen."

  "There had been no sound--no cry to alarm you?" shot out Kennedysuddenly to Juanita.

  "No, sir, nothing. I could not sleep myself, and I thought of Madame."

  "You heard nothing?" he asked of Dr. Jermyn.

  "Nothing until I heard the maid call," he replied briefly.

  Mentally I ran over again Kennedy's first list of possibilities--takenoff by another boat, accident, drugs, suicide, murder.

  Was there, I asked myself, sufficient reason for suicide? The letterseemed to me to show too proud a spirit for that. In fact the lastsentence seemed to show that she was contemplating the surest method ofrevenge, rather than surrender. As for accident, why should a personfall overboard from a large houseboat into a perfectly calm harbor?Then, too, there had been no outcry. Somehow, I coul
d not seem to fitany of the theories in with the facts. Evidently it was like manyanother case, one in which we, as yet, had insufficient data for aconclusion.

  Suddenly I recalled the theory that Waldon himself had advancedregarding the wireless, either from the boat itself or from thewireless station. For the moment, at least, it seemed plausible thatshe might have been seated at the window, that she might have beenaffected by escaped wireless, or by electrolysis. I knew that somephysicians had described a disease which they attributed to wireless, asort of anemia with a marked diminution in the number of red corpusclesin the blood, due partly to the over etherization of the air by reasonof the alternating currents used to generate the waves.

  "I should like now to inspect the little wireless plant you have hereon the Lucie," remarked Kennedy. "I noticed the mast as we wereapproaching a few minutes ago."

  I had turned at the sound of his voice in time to catch Edwards and Dr.Jermyn eyeing each other furtively. Did they know about the letter,after all, I wondered? Was each in doubt about just how much the otherknew?

  There was no time to pursue these speculations. "Certainly," agreed Mr.Edwards promptly, leading the way.

  Kennedy seemed keenly interested in inspecting the little wirelessplant, which was of a curious type and not exactly like any that I hadseen before.

  "Wireless apparatus," he remarked, as he looked it over, "is dividedinto three parts, the source of power whether battery or dynamo, themaking and sending of wireless waves, including the key, spark,condenser and tuning coil, and the receiving apparatus, headtelephones, antennae, ground and detector."

  Pedersen, the engineer, came in while we were looking the plant over,but seemed uncommunicative to all Kennedy's efforts to engage him inconversation.

  "I see," remarked Kennedy, "that it is a very compact system withfacilities for a quick change from one wave length to another."

  "Yes," grunted Pedersen, as averse to talking, evidently, as others onthe Lucie.

  "Spark gap, quenched type," I heard Kennedy mutter almost to himself,with a view to showing Pedersen that he knew something about it. "Breaksystem relay--operator can overhear any interference whiletransmitting--transformation by a single throw of a six-point switchwhich tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance. Veryclever--very efficient. By the way, Pedersen, are you the only personaboard who can operate this?"

  "How should I know?" he answered almost surlily.

  "You ought to know, if anybody," answered Kennedy unruffled. "I knowthat it has been operated within the past few days."

  Pedersen shrugged his shoulders. "You might ask the others aboard," wasall he said. "Mr. Edwards pays me to operate it only for himself, whenhe has no other operator."

  Kennedy did not pursue the subject, evidently from fear of saying toomuch just at present.

  "I wonder if there is anyone else who could have operated it," saidWaldon, as we mounted again to the deck.

  "I don't know," replied Kennedy, pausing on the way up. "You haven't awireless on the Nautilus, have you?"

  Waldon shook his head. "Never had any particular use for it myself," heanswered.

  "You say that Miss Verrall and her mother have gone back to the city?"pursued Kennedy, taking care that as before the others were out ofearshot.

  "Yes."

  "I'd like to stay with you tonight, then," decided Kennedy. "Might wego over with you now? There doesn't seem to be anything more I can dohere, unless we get some news about Mrs. Edwards."

  Waldon seemed only too glad to agree, and no one on the Lucie insistedon our staying.

  We arrived at the Nautilus a few minutes later, and while we werelunching Kennedy dispatched the tender to the Marconi station with anote.

  It was early in the afternoon when the tender returned with severalpackages and coils of wire. Kennedy immediately set to work on theNautilus stretching out some of the wire.

  "What is it you are planning?" asked Waldon, to whom every action ofKennedy seemed to be a mystery of the highest interest.

  "Improvising my own wireless," he replied, not averse to talking to theyoung man to whom he seemed to have taken a fancy. "For shortdistances, you know, it isn't necessary to construct an aerial pole oreven to use outside wires to receive messages. All that is needed is touse just a few wires stretched inside a room. The rest is just theapparatus."

  I was quite as much interested as Waldon. "In wireless," he went on,"the signals are not sent in one direction, but in all, so that aperson within range of the ethereal disturbance can get them if only hehas the necessary receiving apparatus. This apparatus need not be soelaborate and expensive as used to be thought needful if a sensitivedetector is employed, and I have sent over to the station for a newpiece of apparatus which I knew they had in almost any Marconi station.Why, I've got wireless signals using only twelve feet of numbereighteen copper wire stretched across a room and grounded with a waterpipe. You might even use a wire mattress on an iron bedstead."

  "Can't they find out by--er, interference?" I asked, repeating the termI had so often heard.

  Kennedy laughed. "No, not for radio apparatus which merely receivesradiograms and is not equipped for sending. I am setting up only oneside of a wireless outfit here. All I want to do is to hear what isbeing said. I don't care about saying anything."

  He unwrapped another package which had been loaned to him by the radiostation and we watched him curiously as he tested it and set it up.Some parts of it I recognized such as the very sensitive microphone,and another part I could have sworn was a phonograph cylinder, thoughCraig was so busy testing his apparatus that now we could not askquestions.

  It was late in the afternoon when he finished, and we had just time torun up to the dock at Seaville and stop off at the Lucie to see ifanything had happened in the intervening hours before dinner. There wasnothing, except that I found time to file a message to the Star andmeet several fellow newspaper men who had been sent down by otherpapers on the chance of picking up a good story.

  We had the Nautilus to ourselves, and as she was a very comfortablelittle craft, we really had a very congenial time, a plunge over herside, a good dinner, and then a long talk out on deck under the stars,in which we went over every phase of the case. As we discussed it,Waldon followed keenly, and it was quite evident from his remarks thathe had come to the conclusion that Dr. Jermyn at least knew more thanhe had told about the case.

  Still, the day wore away with no solution yet of the mystery.