“I suppose,” Siler burst out finally with growing curiosity which even the presence of the inspector could not restrain, “I haven’t got any business to ask what all this machinery is for?”
“I was about to explain,” Trant answered.
The psychologist rested his hands lightly on the plates upon the table; and, as he did so, a slight and, in fact, imperceptible current passed through him from the battery; but it was enough to slightly move the light reflected upon the screen.
“This apparatus,” the psychologist continued, as he saw even Walker stare strangely at this result, “is the newest electric psychometer—or ‘the soul machine,’ as it is already becoming popularly known. It is made after the models of Dr. Peterson, of Columbia University, and of the Swiss psychologist Jung, of Zurich, and is probably the most delicate and efficient instrument there is for detecting and registering human emotion—such as anxiety, fear, and the sense of guilt. Like the galvanometer which you saw me use to catch Caylis, the Bronson murderer, in the first case where I worked with the police, Inspector Walker,” the psychologist turned to his tall friend, “this psychometer—which is really an improved and much more spectacular galvanometer—is already in use by physicians to get the truth from patients when they don’t want to tell it. No man can control the automatic reflexes which this apparatus was particularly designed to register when the subject is examined with his hands merely resting upon these two plates! As you see,” he placed his hands in the test position again, “these are arranged so that the very slight current passing through my arms—so slight that I can not feel it at all—moves that mirror and swings the reflected light upon the screen according to the amount of current coming through me. As you see now, the light stays almost steady in the center of the screen, because the amount of current coming through me is very slight, as I am not under any stress or emotion of any sort. But if I were confronted suddenly with an object to arouse fear—if, for instance, it reminded me of a crime I was trying to conceal—I might be able to control every other evidence of my fright, but I could not control the involuntary sweating of my glands and the automatic changes in the blood pressure which allow the electric current to flow more freely through me. The light would then register immediately the amount of my emotion by the distance it swung along the screen. But I will give you a much more perfect demonstration of the instrument,” the psychologist concluded, while all three examined it with varying degrees of interest and respect, “during the next half hour while I am making the test that I have planned to determine the murderer of Walter Newberry.”
“You mean,” cried Siler, “you are going to test the woman?”
“I might have thought it necessary to test Mrs. Newberry,” Trant answered, “if the evidence at the house of the presence of a third person who was the murderer had not been so plain as to make any test of her useless.”
“Then you—you still stick to that?” Siler demanded derisively.
“Thanks to Mr. Ferris, who is a special agent of the United States government,” Trant motioned to the slight, dark man who was the fourth member of the party, “I have been able to fix upon four men, one of whom, I feel absolutely certain, shot and killed young Newberry through the window of the billiard-room that night. Inspector Walker has had all four arrested and brought here. Mr. Ferris’s experience and thorough knowledge enabled me to lay my hands on them much more easily than I had feared, though I was able to go to him with information which would have made their detection almost certain sooner or later.”
“You mean information you got at the house?” asked Siler, less derisively, as he caught the attentive attitude of the inspector.
“Just so, Siler; and it was as much at your disposal as mine,” Trant replied. “It seemed to mean nothing to you that Walter Newberry knew the hour at which he was to die—which made it seem more like an execution than a murder; or that in his terror he raved that ‘he would not do it—that they could not make him do it’—plainly meaning commit suicide. Perhaps you don’t know that it is an Oriental custom, under certain conditions, to allow a man who has been sentenced to death, the alternative of carrying out the decree upon himself before a certain day and hour that has been decided upon. But certainly his ravings, as told us by his wife, ought to have given you a clew, if you had heard only that sentence which she believed an injunction not to sing loudly, but which was in reality a name—Sing lo!”
“Then—it was a Chinaman!” cried Siler, astounded.
“It could hardly have been any other sort of man, Siler. For there is no other to whom it could be commended as a matter of such vital importance whether his mother had small feet or large, as was shown in the other sentence Mrs. Newberry repeated to us. But to a Chinaman that fact is of prime importance; for it indicates whether he is of low birth, when his mother would have had large feet, or of high, in which case his women of the last generation would have had their feet bound and made artificially smaller. It was that sentence that sent me to Mr. Ferris.”
“I see—I see!” exclaimed the crest-fallen detective. “But if it was a Chinaman, then, even with that thing,” he pointed to the instrument Trant had just finished arranging, “you’ll never get the truth out of him. You can’t get anything out of a Chinaman! Inspector Walker will tell you that!”
“I know, Siler,” Trant answered, “that it is absolutely hopeless to expect a confession from a Chinaman; they are so accustomed to control the obvious signs of fear, guilt, the slightest trace or hint of emotion, even under the most rigid examination, that it had come to be regarded as a characteristic of the race. But the new psychology does not deal with those obvious signs; it deals with the involuntary reactions in the blood and glands which are common to all men alike—even to Chinamen! We have in here,” the psychologist looked to the door of an inner room, “the four Chinamen—Wong Bo, Billy Lee, Sing Lo, and Sin Chung Ming.
“My first test is to see which of them—if any—were acquainted with Walter Newberry; and next who, if any of them, knew where he lived. For this purpose I have brought here Newberry’s photograph and a view of his father’s house, which I had taken yesterday.” He stooped to one of his suit-cases, and took out first a dozen photographs of young men, among them Newberry’s; and about twenty views of different houses, among which he mixed the one of the Newberry house. “If you are ready, inspector, I will go ahead with the test.”
The psychologist threw open the door of the inner room, showing the four Celestials in a stolid group, and summoned first Wong Bo, who spoke English.
Trant, pushing a chair to the table, ordered the Oriental to sit down and place his hands upon the plates at the table’s edge before him. The Chinaman obeyed passively, as if expecting some sort of torture. Immediately the light moved to the center of the screen, where it had moved when Trant was touching the plates, then kept on toward the next line beyond. But as Wong Bo’s first suspicious excitement—which the movement of the light betrayed—subsided as he felt nothing, the light returned to the center of the screen.
“You know why you have been brought here, Wong Bo? “Trant demanded of the Chinaman.
“No,” the Chinaman answered shortly, the light moving six inches as he did so.
“You know no reason at all why you should be brought here?”
“No,” the Chinaman answered calmly again, while the light moved about six inches. Trant waited till it returned to its normal position in the center of the screen.
“Do you know an American named Paul Tobin, Wong Bo?”
“No,” the Chinaman answered. This time the light remained stationary.
“Nor one named Ralph Murray?”
“No.” Still the light stayed stationary.
“Hugh Larkin, Wong Bo?”
“No.” Calmly again, and with the light quiet in the center of the screen.
“Walter Newberry?” the psychologist asked in precisely
the same tone as he had put the preceding question.
“No,” the Chinaman answered laconically again; but before he answered and almost before the name was off Trant’s lips, the light—which had stayed almost still at the recital of the other names—jumped quickly to one side across the screen, crossed the first division line and moved on toward the second and stayed there. It had moved over a foot! But the face of the Oriental was as quiet, patient, and impassive as before. The psychologist made no comment; but waited for the light slowly to return to its normal position. Then he took up his pile of portrait photographs.
“You say you do not know any of these men, Wong Bo,” Trant said quietly, but with the effect of sending the light swinging half the distance again, “You may know them, but not by name, so I want you to look at these pictures.” Trant showed him the first. “Do you know that man, Wong Bo?”
“No,” the Chinaman answered patiently. Trant glanced quickly to see that the light stayed steady; then showed him four more pictures of young men, getting the same answer and precisely the same effect. He showed the sixth picture—the photograph of Walter Newberry.
“You know him?” Trant asked precisely in the same tone as the others.
“No,” Wong Bo answered with precisely the same patient impassiveness. Not a muscle of his face changed nor an eyelash quivered; but as soon as Trant had displayed this picture and the Chinaman’s eyes fell upon it, the light on the screen again jumped a space and settled near the second line to the left! Trant put aside the portraits and took up the pictures of the houses. He waited again till the light slowly resumed its central position on the screen.
“You have never gone to this house, Wong Bo?” he showed a large, stone mansion, not at all like the Newberry’s.
“No,” the Chinaman replied, impassive as ever. The light remained steady.
“Nor to this—or this—or this?” Trant showed three more with the same result. “Nor this?” he displayed now a rear view of the Newberry house.
“No,” quietly again; but, as when Newberry’s name was mentioned and his picture shown, the light swung swiftly to one side and stood trembling, again a foot and a half to the left of its normal position when shown the other pictures!
“That will do for the present,” Trant dismissed Wong Bo. “Send him back to his cell, away from the others,” he said to Walker, with flashing eyes. “We will try the rest—in turn!”
And rapidly, and with precisely the same questions and test he examined Billy Lee and Sing Lo. Each man made precisely the same denials and in the same manner as Wong Bo, but to the increasing wonder and surprise of Walker and the utter astonishment of Siler, for each man the light stayed steady when they were asked if they knew the other Americans named; while for each the light swung suddenly wide and trembling when Walter Newberry’s name was mentioned and when his picture was shown. And for Sing Lo also—precisely as for Wong Bo—the light wavered suddenly and swung, quivering, a foot and a half to the left when they were shown the Newberry home.
“Bring in Sin Chung Ming!” the psychologist commanded with subdued fire shining in his eyes; but he hid all signs of excitement himself, as the government agent handed the last Oriental over to him. Trant set the yellow hands over the plates and started his questions in the same quiet tone as before. For the first two questions the light moved three times, as it had done with the others—and as even Ferris and Siler now seemed to be expecting it to move—only this time it seemed even to the police officers to swing a little wider. And at Walter Newberry’s name, for the first time in any of the tests, it crossed the second dividing line at the first impulse; moved toward the third and stayed there.
Even Siler now waited with bated breath, as Trant took up his pile of pictures; and, as he came to the picture of the murdered man and the house where he had lived, for the second and third time in that single test the light—stationary when Sin Chung Ming glanced at the other photographs—trembled across the screen to the third dividing line. For the others it had moved hardly eighteen inches, but when Sin Chung Ming saw the pictured face of the murdered man it had swung almost three feet.
“Inspector Walker,” Trant drew the giant officer aside, “this is the man, I think, for the final test. You will carry it out as I arranged with you?”
“Sin Chung Ming,” the psychologist turned back to the Chinaman swiftly, as the inspector, without comment, left the room, “you have been watching the little light, have you not? You saw it move? It moved when you lied, Sin Chung Ming! It will always move when you lie. It moved when you said you did not know Walter Newberry; it moved when you saw his picture, and pretended not to know it; it moved when you saw the picture of his house, which you said you did not know! Look how it is moving now, as you grow afraid that you have betrayed your secret to us now, Sin Chung Ming—as you have and will,” Trant pointed to the swinging light in triumph.
A low knock sounded on the door; but Trant, watching the light now slowly returning to its normal place, waited an instant more. Then he himself rapped gently on the table. The door to the next room—directly opposite the Chinaman’s eyes—swung slowly open; and through it they could see the scene which Trant and the inspector had prepared. In the middle of the floor knelt young Mrs. Newberry, her back toward them, her hands pressed against her face; and six feet beyond a man stood, facing her. Ferris and Siler looked in astonishment at Trant, for there was no meaning in this scene to them at first. Then Siler remembered suddenly, and Ferris guessed, that such must have been the scene in the billiard room that night at the Newberry’s; thus it must have been seen by the man who fired through the window at young Newberry that night—and to him, but to that man only—it would bring a shock of terror. And appreciating this, they stared swiftly, first at the Chinaman’s passionless and immobile face; then at the light upon the screen and saw it leap across bar after bar. And, as the Chinaman saw it, and knew that it was betraying him, it leaped and leaped again; swung wider and wider; until at last the impassiveness of the Celestial’s attitude was for an instant broken, and Sin Chung Ming snatched his hands from the metal plates.
“I had guessed that anyway, Sin Chung Ming,” Trant swiftly closed the door, as Walker returned to the room, “for your feeling at sound of Walter Newberry’s name and the sight of his picture was so much deeper than any of the rest. So, it was you that fired the shot, after watching the house with Sing Lo and Wong Bo, as their fright when they saw the picture of the house showed, while Billy Lee was not needed at the house that night and has never seen it, though he knew what was to be done. That is all I need of you now, Sin Chung Ming; for I have learned what I wanted to know.”
As the fourth of the Chinamen was led away to his cell, Trant turned back to Inspector Walker and Siler.
“I must acknowledge my debt to Mr. Ferris,” he said with a glance toward the man of whom he spoke, “for help in solving this case, without which I could not have brought it to a conclusion without giving much more time to the investigation. Mr. Ferris, as you already know, Inspector Walker, as special agent for the Government, has for years been engaged in the enforcement of the Chinese exclusion laws. The sentence repeated to us by Mrs. Newberry, in which her husband, delirious with fright, seemed warning some one that to acknowledge that his mother had large feet would prevent him from ‘getting in,’ seemed to me to establish a connection between young Newberry’s terror and an evasion of the exclusion laws. I went at once to Mr. Ferris to test this idea, and he recognized its application at once.
“As the exclusion laws against all but a very small class of Chinese are being more strictly enforced than ever before, there has been a large and increasing traffic among the Chinese in bogus papers to procure entry into this country of Chinese belonging to the excluded classes. And in addition to being supplied with forged official papers for entry, as Ferris can tell you, the applicants of the classes excluded are supplied with regular ‘coaching papers�
�� so that they can correctly answer the questions asked them at San Francisco or Seattle. The injunction to ‘say your mother had small feet’ was recognized at once by Ferris as one of the instructions of the ‘coaching paper’ to get a laborer entered as a man of the merchant class.
“Mr. Ferris and I together investigated the career of Walter Newberry after his return from China, where he had spent nearly the whole of his life, and we were able to establish, as we expected we might, a connection between him and the Sing Lo Trading Company—a Chinese company which Mr. Ferris had long suspected of dealing in fraudulent admission papers, though he had never been able to bring home to them any proof. We found, also, that young Newberry had spent and gambled away much more money in the last few months than he had legitimately received. And we were able to make certain that this money had come to him through the Sing Lo Company, though obviously not for such uses. As it is not an uncommon thing for Chinese engaged in the fraudulent bringing in of their countrymen to confide part of the business to unprincipled Americans—especially as all papers have to be vised by American consuls and disputes settled in American courts—we became certain that young Newberry had been serving the Sing Lo Company in this capacity. It was plain that he had diverted a large amount of money from the ends for which the members of the Sing Lo Company had intended it to be used and his actions as described by his wife, made it equally certain that he had been sentenced by the members of the Company to death, and given the Oriental alternative of committing suicide before eleven o’clock on Sunday night, or else the company would take the carrying out of the sentence into their own hands. Now whether it will be possible to convict all four of the Chinamen we had here for complicity in his murder, or whether Sin Chung Ming, who fired the shot will be the only one tried, I do not know. But the others, in any case, will be turned over to Mr. Ferris for prosecution for their evasions of the exclusion laws.”
The Mystery & Suspense Novella Page 46
