by Graeme Davis
“This is my mechanical detective,” said Craig proudly. “It was devised by Bertillon‡ himself, and he personally gave me permission to copy his own machine. You see, it is devised to measure pressure. Now let’s take an ordinary jimmy and see just how much pressure it takes to duplicate those marks on this door.”
Craig laid the piece of steel on the dynamometer in the position it had occupied in the safe, and braced it tightly. Then he took a jimmy and pressed on it with all his strength. The steel door was connected with the indicator, and the needle spun around until it indicated a pressure such as only a strong man could have exerted. Comparing the marks made in the steel in the experiment and by the safe-cracker, it was evident that no such pressure had been necessary. Apparently the lock on the door was only a trifling affair, and the steel itself was not very tough. The safe-makers had relied on the first line of defence to repel attack.
Craig tried again and again, each time using less force. At last he got a mark just about similar to the original marks on the steel.
“Well, well, what do you think of that?” he exclaimed reflectively. “A child could have done that part of the job.”
Just then the lights went off for the night. Craig lighted the oil-lamp, and sat in silence until the electric light plant foreman appeared with the card-record, which showed a curve practically identical with that of the night before.
A few moments later Professor Fletcher’s machine came up the driveway, and he joined us with a worried and preoccupied look on his face that he could not conceal. “She’s terribly broken up by the suddenness of it all,” he murmured as he sank into an armchair. “The shock has been too much for her. In fact, I hadn’t the heart to tell her anything about the robbery, poor girl.” Then in a moment he asked, “Any more clues yet, Kennedy?”
“Well, nothing of first importance. I have only been trying to reconstruct the story of the robbery so that I can reason out a motive and a few details; then when the real clues come along we won’t have so much ground to cover. The cracksman was certainly clever. He used an electric drill to break the combination and ran it by the electric light current.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the professor, “is that so? He must have been above the average. That’s interesting.”
“By the way, Fletcher,” said Kennedy, “I wish you would introduce me to your fiancée to-morrow. I would like to know her.”
“Gladly,” Fletcher replied, “only you must be careful what you talk about. Remember, the death of uncle has been quite a shock to her—he was her only relative besides myself.”
“I will,” promised Kennedy, “and by the way, she may think it strange that I’m out here at a time like this. Perhaps you had better tell her I’m a nerve specialist or something of that sort—anything not to connect me with the robbery, which you say you haven’t told her about.”
The next morning found Kennedy out bright and early, for he had not had a very good chance to do anything during the night except reconstruct the details. He was now down by the back gate with his camera, where I found him turning it end-down and photographing the road. Together we made a thorough search of the woods and the road about the gate, but could discover absolutely nothing.
After breakfast I improvised a dark room and developed the films, while Craig went down the back lane along the shore “looking for clues,” as he said briefly. Toward noon he returned, and I could see that he was in a brown study. So I said nothing, but handed him the photographs of the road. He took them and laid them down in a long line on the library floor. They seemed to consist of little ridges of dirt on either side of a series of regular round spots, some of the spots very clear and distinct on the sides, others quite obscure in the centre. Now and then where you would expect to see one of the spots, just for the symmetry of the thing, it was missing. As I looked at the line of photographs on the floor I saw that they were a photograph of the track made by the tire of an automobile, and I suddenly recalled what the gardener had said.
Next Craig produced the results of his morning’s work, which consisted of several dozen sheets of white paper, carefully separated into three bundles. These he also laid down in long lines on the floor, each package in a separate line. Then I began to realise what he was doing, and became fascinated in watching him on his hands and knees eagerly scanning the papers and comparing them with the photographs. At last he gathered up two of the sets of papers very decisively and threw them away. Then he shifted the third set a bit, and laid it closely parallel to the photographs.
“Look at these, Walter,” he said. “Now take this deep and sharp indentation. Well, there’s a corresponding one in the photograph. So you can pick them out one for another. Now here’s one missing altogether on the paper. So it is in the photograph.”
Almost like a schoolboy in his glee, he was comparing the little round circles made by the metal insertions in an “anti-skid” automobile tire. Time and again I had seen imprints like that left in the dust and grease of an asphalted street or the mud of a road. It had never occurred to me that they might be used in any way. Yet here Craig was, calmly tracing out the similarity before my very eyes, identifying the marks made in the photograph with the prints left on the bits of paper.
As I followed him, I had a most curious feeling of admiration for his genius. “Craig,” I cried, “that’s the thumb-print of an automobile.”
“There speaks the yellow journalist,”§ he answered merrily. “‘Thumb Print System Applied to Motor Cars’—I can see the Sunday feature story you have in your mind with that headline already. Yes, Walter, that’s precisely what this is. The Berlin police have used it a number of times with the most startling results.”
“But, Craig,” I exclaimed suddenly, “the paper prints, where did you get them? What machine is it?”
“It’s one not very far from here,” he answered sententiously, and I saw he would say nothing more that might fix a false suspicion on anyone. Still, my curiosity was so great that if there had been an opportunity I certainly should have tried out his plan on all the cars in the Fletcher garage.
Kennedy would say nothing more, and we ate our luncheon in silence. Fletcher, who had decided to lunch with the Greenes, called Kennedy up on the telephone to tell him it would be all right for him to call on Miss Bond later in the afternoon.
“And I may bring over the apparatus I once described to you to determine just what her nervous condition is?” he asked. Apparently the answer was yes, for Kennedy hung up the receiver with a satisfied, “Good-bye.”
“Walter, I want you to come along with me this afternoon as my assistant. Remember I’m now Dr. Kennedy, the nerve specialist, and you are Dr. Jameson, my colleague, and we are to be in consultation on a most important case.”
“Do you think that’s fair?” I asked hotly, “to take that girl off her guard, to insinuate yourself into her confidence as a medical adviser, and worm out of her some kind of fact incriminating someone? I suppose that’s your plan, and I don’t like the ethics, or rather the lack of ethics, of the thing.”
“Now think a minute, Walter. Perhaps I am wrong; I don’t know. Certainly I feel that the end will justify the means. I have an idea that I can get from Miss Bond the only clue that I need, one that will lead straight to the criminal. Who knows? I have a suspicion that the thing I’m going to do is the highest form of your so-called ethics. If what Fletcher tells us is true that girl is going insane over this thing. Why should she be so shocked over the death of an uncle she did not live with? I tell you she knows something about this case that it is necessary for us to know, too. If she doesn’t tell someone, it will eat her mind out. I’ll add a dinner to the box of cigars we have already bet on this case that what I’m going to do is for the best—for her best.”
Again I yielded, for I was coming to have more and more faith in the old Kennedy I had seen made over into a first-class detective, and together we started for the Greenes’, Craig carrying something in one of those long black
handbags which physicians use.
Fletcher met us on the driveway. He seemed to be very much affected, for his face was drawn, and he shifted from one position to another nervously, from which we inferred that Miss Bond was feeling worse. It was late afternoon, almost verging on twilight, as he led us through the reception-hall and thence onto a long porch overlooking the bay and redolent with honeysuckle.
Miss Bond was half reclining in a wicker chair us we entered. She started to rise to greet us, but Fletcher gently restrained her, saying, as he introduced us, that he guessed the doctors would pardon any informality from an invalid.
Fletcher was a pretty fine fellow, and I had come to like him; but I soon found myself wondering what he had ever done to deserve winning such a girl as Helen Bond. She was what I should describe as the ideal type of “new” woman,—tall and athletic, yet without any affectation of mannishness. The very first thought that struck me was the incongruousness of a girl of her type suffering from an attack of “nerves,” and I felt sure it must be as Craig had said, that she was concealing a secret that was having a terrible effect on her. A casual glance might not have betrayed the true state of her feelings, for her dark hair and large brown eyes and the tan of many suns on her face and arms betokened anything but the neurasthenic.¶ One felt instinctively that she was, with all her athletic grace, primarily a womanly woman.
The sun sinking toward the hills across the bay softened the brown of her skin and, as I observed by watching her closely, served partially to conceal the nervousness which was wholly unnatural in a girl of such poise. When she smiled there was a false note in it; it was forced and it was sufficiently evident to me that she was going through a mental hell of conflicting emotions that would have killed a woman of less self-control.
I felt that I would like to be in Fletcher’s shoes—doubly so when, at Kennedy’s request, he withdrew, leaving me to witness the torture of a woman of such fine sensibilities, already hunted remorselessly by her own thoughts.
Still, I will give Kennedy credit for a tactfulness that I didn’t know the old fellow possessed. He carried through the preliminary questions very well for a pseudo-doctor, appealing to me as his assistant on inconsequential things that enabled me to “save my face” perfectly. When he came to the critical moment of opening the black bag, he made a very appropriate and easy remark about not having brought any sharp shiny instruments or nasty black drugs.
“All I wish to do, Miss Bond, is to make a few, simple little tests of your nervous condition. One of them we specialists call reaction time, and another is a test of heart action. Neither is of any seriousness at all, so I beg of you not to become excited, for the chief value consists in having the patient perfectly quiet and normal. After they are over I think I’ll know whether to prescribe absolute rest or a visit to Newport.”
She smiled languidly, as he adjusted a long, tightly fitting rubber glove on her shapely forearm and then encased it in a larger, absolutely inflexible covering of leather. Between the rubber glove and the leather covering was a liquid communicating by a glass tube with a sort of dial. Craig had often explained to me how the pressure of the blood was registered most minutely on the dial, showing the varied emotions as keenly as if you had taken a peep into the very mind of the subject. I think the experimental psychologists called the thing a “plethysmograph.”#
Then he had an apparatus which measured association time. The essential part of this instrument was the operation of a very delicate stop-watch, and this duty was given to me. It was nothing more nor less than measuring the time that elapsed between his questions to her and her answers, while he recorded the actual questions and answers and noted the results which I worked out. Neither of us was unfamiliar with the process, for when we were in college these instruments were just coming into use in America. Kennedy had never let his particular branch of science narrow him, but had made a practice of keeping abreast of all the important discoveries and methods in other fields. Besides, I had read articles about the chronoscope,** the plethysmograph, the sphygmograph,†† and others of the new psychological instruments. Craig carried it off, however, as if he did that sort of thing as an every-day employment.
“Now, Miss Bond,” he said, and his voice was so reassuring and persuasive that I could see she was not made even a shade more nervous by our simple preparations, “the game—it is just like a children’s parlour game—is just this: I will say a word—take ‘dog,’ for instance. You are to answer back immediately the first word that comes into your mind suggested by it—say ‘cat.’ I will say ‘chain,’ for example, and probably you will answer ‘collar,’ and so on. Do you catch my meaning? It may seem ridiculous, no doubt, but before we are through I feel sure you’ll see how valuable such a test is, particularly in a simple case of nervousness such as yours.”
I don’t think she found any sinister interpretation in his words, but I did, and if ever I wanted to protest it was then, but my voice seemed to stick in my throat.
He was beginning. It was clearly up to me to give in and not interfere. As closely as I was able I kept my eyes riveted on the watch and other apparatus, while my ears and heart followed with mingled emotions the low, musical voice of the girl.
I will not give all the test, for there was much of it, particularly at the start, that was in reality valueless, since it was merely leading up to the “surprise tests.” From the colourless questions Kennedy suddenly changed. It was done in an instant, when Miss Bond had been completely disarmed and put off her guard.
“Night,” said Kennedy. “Day,” came back the reply from Miss Bond.
“Automobile.” “Horse.”
“Bay.” “Beach.”
“Road.” “Forest.”
“Gate.” “Fence.”
“Path.” “Shrubs.”
“Porch.” “House.”
Did I detect or imagine a faint hesitation?
“Window.” “Curtain.”
Yes, it was plain that time. But the words followed one another in quick succession. There was no rest. She had no chance to collect herself. I noted the marked difference in the reaction time and, in my sympathy, damned this cold, scientific third degree.
“Paris.” “France.”
“Quartier Latin.” “Students.”
“Apaches.” Craig gave it its Gallicised pronunciation, “Apash.” “Really, Dr. Kennedy,” she said, “there is nothing I can associate with them—well, yes, les vaches, I believe. You had better count that question out. I’ve wasted a good many seconds.”
“Very well, let us try again,” he replied with a forced unconcern, though the answer seemed to interest him, for “les vaches” meant “the cows,” otherwise known as the police.
No lawyer could have revelled in an opportunity for putting leading questions more ruthlessly than did Kennedy. He snapped out his words sharply and unexpectedly.
“Chandelier.” “Light.”
“Electric light,” he emphasised. “Broadway,” she answered, endeavouring to force a new association of ideas to replace one which she strove to conceal.
“Safe.” “Vaults.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the indicator showed a tremendously increased heart action. As for the reaction time, I noted that it was growing longer and more significant. Remorselessly he pressed his words home. Mentally I cursed him.
“Rubber.” “Tire.”
“Steel.” “Pittsburg,” she cried at random.
“Strong-box,” No answer.
“Lock.” Again no answer. He hurried his words. I was leaning forward, tense with excitement and sympathy.
“Key.” Silence and a fluttering of the blood pressure indicator.
“Will.”
As the last word was uttered her air of frightened defiance was swept away. With a cry of anguish, she swayed to her feet. “No, no, doctor, you must not, you must not,” she cried with outstretched arms. “Why do you pick out those words of all others? Can it be—” If I had not caught he
r I believe she would have fainted.
The indicator showed a heart alternately throbbing with feverish excitement and almost stopping with fear. What would Kennedy do next, I wondered, determined to shut him off as soon as I possibly could. From the moment I had seen her I had been under her spell. Mine should have been Fletcher’s place, I knew, though I cannot but say that I felt a certain grim pleasure in supporting even momentarily such a woman in her time of need.
“Can it be that you have guessed what no one in the world, no, not even dear old Jack, dreams? Oh, I shall go mad, mad, mad!”
Kennedy was on his feet in an instant, advancing toward her. The look in his eyes was answer enough for her. She knew that he knew, and she paled and shuddered, shrinking away from him.
“Miss Bond,” he said in a voice that forced attention—it was low and vibrating with feeling—“Miss Bond, have you ever told a lie to shield a friend?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes meeting his.
“So can I,” came back the same tense voice, “when I know the truth about that friend.”
Then for the first time tears came in a storm. Her breath was quick and feverish. “No one will ever believe, no one will understand. They will say that I killed him, that I murdered him.”
Through it all I stood almost speechless, puzzled. What did it all mean?
“No,” said Kennedy, “no, for they will never know of it.”
“Never know?”
“Never—if in the end justice is done. Have you the will? Or did you destroy it?”
It was a bold stroke.
“Yes. No. Here it is. How could I destroy it, even though it was burning out my very soul?”
She literally tore the paper from the bosom of her dress and cast it from her in horror and terror.
Kennedy picked it up, opened it, and glanced hurriedly through it. “Miss Bond,” he said, “Jack shall never know a word of this. I shall tell him that the will has been found unexpectedly in John Fletcher’s desk among some other papers. Walter, swear on your honour as a gentleman that this will was found in old Fletcher’s desk.”
