Part 32 (2/2)

”The negative we took from the cameras at Tarrytown,” he explained.

”Also a print from each roll, ready to run. I've been holding this as evidence. Mr. Kennedy wanted me to bring it with me to-day.”

”He's waiting for us at the laboratory,” I remarked.

”He'll straighten everything up in a hurry, won't he?”

”Kennedy's the most high-handed individual I ever knew,” I laughed, ”if he sees a chance of getting his man.” Then I became enthusiastic.

”Often I've seen him gather a group of people in a room, perhaps without the faintest shred of legal right to do so, and there make the guilty person confess simply by marshaling the evidence, or maybe betray himself by some scientific device. It's wonderful, Mackay.”

”Do you think he plans something of that kind this morning?”

I led the way to the door. ”After what happened last night I know that Kennedy will resort to almost anything.”

The district attorney fingered the package under his arm. ”He might get everyone in the projection room then, and make them watch the actual photographic record of Stella's death--the scene where she scratched herself--”

”Let's hurry!” I interrupted.

When we entered the laboratory we found Kennedy vigorously fanning a towel which he had hung up to dry. I recognized it as the one I had discovered in the studio washroom immediately following the first murder.

”This will serve me better as bait than as evidence,” he laughed. ”I have impregnated it with a colorless chemical which will cling to the fibers and enable me to identify the most infinitesimal trace of it. We shall get up to the studio and start, well--I guess you could call it fis.h.i.+ng for the guilty man.” He fingered the folds, then jerked the towel down and flung it to me. ”Here, Walter! It's dry enough. Now I want you to rub the contents of that tiny can of grease, open before you there, into the cloth.”

He hurried over to wash his hands. I spread the towel out on the table and began to work in the stuff indicated by Kennedy. There was no odor and it seemed like some patent ointment in color. At first I was puzzled. Then, absently, I touched the back of one hand with the greasy fingers of the other and immediately an itching set up so annoying that I had to abandon my task.

Kennedy chuckled. ”That's itching salve, Walter. The cuticle pads at your finger tips are too thick, but touch yourself anywhere else!--” He shrugged his shoulders. ”You'd better use soap and water if you want any relief. Then you can start over again.”

At the basin I thought I grasped his little plot.

”You're going to plant the towel,” I asked, ”so that the interested party will try to get hold of it?”

Evidently he thought it unnecessary to reply to me.

”Why couldn't you just put it somewhere without all the preparation,”

Mackay suggested, ”and watch to see who came after it?”

”Because our criminal's too clever,” Kennedy rejoined. ”Our only chance to get it stolen is to make it very plain that it is not being watched.

Whoever steals it, however, possibly will reveal himself on account of the itching salve. In any case I expect to be able to trace the towel to the thief, no matter what efforts are made to destroy it.”

The towel was wrapped in a heavy bit of paper; then placed with a microscope and some other paraphernalia in a small battered traveling bag. Climbing into Mackay's little roadster, we soon were speeding toward the studio.

”Will you be able to help me, to stay with Jameson and myself all day?”

Kennedy asked the district attorney, after perhaps a mile of silence.

”Surely! It's what I was hoping you'd allow me to do. I have no authority down here, though.”

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