Part 52 (1/2)

Having nothing better to do, I wandered out about town in the hope of running across some one with whom to while away the hours until Kennedy returned. I found out that, since yesterday, Broadway had woven an entirely new background for the mystery. Now it was rumored that the lawyer Minturn himself had been on very intimate terms with Mrs.

Pearcy. I did not pay much attention to the rumor, for I knew that Broadway is const.i.tutionally unable to believe that anybody is straight.

Kennedy had commissioned me to keep in touch with Josephson and I finally managed to get around to the Baths, to find them still closed.

As I was talking with him, a very muddy and dusty car pulled up at the door and a young man whose face was marred by the red congested blood vessels that are in some a mark of dissipation burst in on us.

”What--closed up yet--Joe?” he asked. ”Haven't they taken Minturn's body away?”

”Yes, it was sent up to Stratfield to-day,” replied the ma.s.seur, ”but the coroner seems to want to worry me all he can.”

”Too bad. I was up almost all last night, and to-day I have been out in my car--tired to death. Thought I might get some rest here. Where are you sending the boys--to the Longacre?”

”Yes. They'll take good care of you till I open up again. Hope to see you back again, then, Mr. Pearcy,” he added, as the young man turned and hurried out to his car again. ”That was that young Pearcy, you know. Nice boy--but living the life too fast. What's Kennedy doing--anything?”

I did not like the jaunty bravado of the ma.s.seur which now seemed to be returning, since nothing definite had taken shape. I determined that he should not pump me, as he evidently was trying to do. I had at least fulfilled Kennedy's commission and felt that the sooner I left Josephson the better for both of us.

I was surprised at dinner to receive a wire from Craig saying that he was bringing down Dr. Gunther, Mrs. Pearcy and Isabel to New York and asking me to have Warner Pearcy and Josephson at the laboratory at nine o'clock.

By strategy I managed to persuade Pearcy to come, and as for Josephson, he could not very well escape, though I saw that as long as nothing more had happened, he was more interested in ”fixing” the police so that he could resume business than anything else.

As we entered the laboratory that night, Kennedy, who had left his party at a downtown hotel to freshen up, met us each at the door.

Instead of conducting us in front of his laboratory table, which was the natural way, he led us singly around through the narrow s.p.a.ce back of it.

I recall that as I followed him, I half imagined that the floor gave way just a bit, and there flashed over me, by a queer a.s.sociation of ideas, the recollection of having visited an amus.e.m.e.nt park not long before where merely stepping on an innocent-looking section of the flooring had resulted in a tremendous knocking and banging beneath, much to the delight of the lovers of slap-stick humor. This was serious business, however, and I quickly banished the frivolous thought from my mind.

”The discovery of poison, and its identification,” began Craig at last when we had all arrived and were seated about him, ”often involves not only the use of chemistry but also a knowledge of the chemical effect of the poison on the body, and the gross as well as microscopic changes which it produces in various tissues and organs--changes, some due to mere contact, others to the actual chemicophysiological reaction between the poison and the body.”

His hand was resting on the poles of a large battery, as he proceeded: ”Every day the medical detective plays a more and more important part in the detection of crime, and I might say that, except in the case of crime complicated by a lunacy plea, his work has earned the respect of the courts and of detectives, while in the case of insanity the discredit is the fault rather of the law itself. The ways in which the doctor can be of use in untangling the facts in many forms of crime have become so numerous that the profession of medical detective may almost be called a specialty.”

Kennedy repeated what he had already told me about electrolysis, then placed between the poles of the battery a large piece of raw beef.

He covered the negative electrode with blotting paper and soaked it in a beaker near at hand.

”This solution,” he explained, ”is composed of pota.s.sium iodide. In this other beaker I have a mixture of ordinary starch.”

He soaked the positive electrode in the starch and then jammed the two against the soft red meat. Then he applied the current.

A few moments later he withdrew the positive electrode. Both it and the meat under it were blue!

”What has happened?” he asked. ”The iodine ions have actually pa.s.sed through the beef to the positive pole and the paper on the electrode.

Here we have starch iodide.”

It was a startling idea, this of the introduction of a substance by electrolysis.

”I may say,” he resumed, ”that the medical view of electricity is changing, due in large measure to the genius of the Frenchman, Dr.

Leduc. The body, we know, is composed largely of water, with salts of soda and potash. It is an excellent electrolyte. Yet most doctors regard the introduction of substances by the electric current as insignificant or nonexistent. But on the contrary the introduction of drugs by electrolysis is regular and far from being insignificant may very easily bring about death.