The War Terror Page 12

  CHAPTER XII

  THE ARROW POISON

  Far into the night Craig was engaged in some very delicate and minutemicroscopic work in the laboratory.

  We were about to leave when there was a gentle tap on the door. Kennedyopened it and admitted a young man, the operative of the detectiveagency who had been shadowing Bernardo. His report was very brief, but,to me at least, significant. Bernardo, on his return to the museum, hadevidently read the letter, which had agitated him very much, for a fewmoments later he hurriedly left and went downtown to the Prince HenryHotel. The operative had casually edged up to the desk and overheardwhom he asked for. It was Senora Herreria. Once again, later in theevening, he had asked for her, but she was still out.

  It was quite early the next morning, when Kennedy had resumed hiscareful microscopic work, that the telephone bell rang, and he answeredit mechanically. But a moment later a look of intense surprise crossedhis face.

  "It was from Doctor Leslie," he announced, hanging up the receiverquickly. "He has a most peculiar case which he wants me to see--awoman."

  Kennedy called a cab, and, at a furious pace, we dashed across the cityand down to the Metropolitan Hospital, where Doctor Leslie was waiting.He met us eagerly and conducted us to a little room where, lyingmotionless on a bed, was a woman.

  She was a striking-looking woman, dark of hair and skin, and in lifeshe must have been sensuously attractive. But now her face was drawnand contorted--with the same ghastly look that had been on the face ofNorthrop.

  "She died in a cab," explained Doctor Leslie, "before they could gether to the hospital. At first they suspected the cab driver. But heseems to have proved his innocence. He picked her up last night onFifth Avenue, reeling--thought she was intoxicated. And, in fact, heseems to have been right. Our tests have shown a great deal of alcoholpresent, but nothing like enough to have had such a serious effect."

  "She told nothing of herself?" asked Kennedy.

  "No; she was pretty far gone when the cabby answered her signal. All hecould get out of her was a word that sounded like 'Curio-curio.' Hesays she seemed to complain of something about her mouth and head. Herface was drawn and shrunken; her hands were cold and clammy, and thenconvulsions came on. He called an ambulance, but she was past savingwhen it arrived. The numbness seemed to have extended over all herbody; swallowing was impossible; there was entire loss of her voice aswell as sight, and death took place by syncope."

  "Have you any clue to the cause of her death?" asked Craig.

  "Well, it might have been some trouble with her heart, I suppose,"remarked Doctor Leslie tentatively.

  "Oh, she looks strong that way. No, hardly anything organic."

  "Well, then I thought she looked like a Mexican," went on DoctorLeslie. "It might be some new tropical disease. I confess I don't know.The fact is," he added, lowering his voice, "I had my own theory aboutit until a few moments ago. That was why I called you."

  "What do you mean?" asked Craig, evidently bent on testing his owntheory by the other's ignorance.

  Doctor Leslie made no answer immediately, but raised the sheet whichcovered her body and disclosed, in the fleshy part of the upper arm, acurious little red swollen mark with a couple of drops of darkenedblood.

  "I thought at first," he added, "that we had at last a genuine'poisoned needle' case. You see, that looked like it. But I have madeall the tests for curare and strychnin without results."

  At the mere suggestion, a procession of hypodermic-needle andwhite-slavery stories flashed before me.

  "But," objected Kennedy, "clearly this was not a case of kidnaping. Itis a case of murder. Have you tested for the ordinary poisons?"

  Doctor Leslie shook his head. "There was no poison," he said,"absolutely none that any of our tests could discover."

  Kennedy bent over and squeezed out a few drops of liquid from the woundon a microscope slide, and covered them.

  "You have not identified her yet," he added, looking up. "I think youwill find, Leslie, that there is a Senora Herreria registered at thePrince Henry who is missing, and that this woman will agree with thedescription of her. Anyhow, I wish you would look it up and let meknow."

  Half an hour later, Kennedy was preparing to continue his studies withthe microscope when Doctor Bernardo entered. He seemed most solicitousto know what progress was being made on the case, and, although Kennedydid not tell much, still he did not discourage conversation on thesubject.

  When we came in the night before, Craig had unwrapped and tossed downthe Japanese sword and the Ainu bow and arrow on a table, and it wasnot long before they attracted Bernardo's attention.

  "I see you are a collector yourself," he ventured, picking them up.

  "Yes," answered Craig, offhand; "I picked them up yesterday at Sato's.You know the place?"

  "Oh, yes, I know Sato," answered the curator, seemingly without theslightest hesitation. "He has been in Mexico--is quite a student."

  "And the other man, Otaka?"

  "Other man--Otaka? You mean his wife?"

  I saw Kennedy check a motion of surprise and came to the rescue withthe natural question: "His wife--with a beard and mustache?"

  It was Bernardo's turn to be surprised. He looked at me a moment, thensaw that I meant it, and suddenly his face lighted up.

  "Oh," he exclaimed, "that must have been on account of the immigrationlaws or something of the sort. Otaka is his wife. The Ainus are muchsought after by the Japanese as wives. The women, you know, have acustom of tattooing mustaches on themselves. It is hideous, but theythink it is beautiful."

  "I know," I pursued, watching Kennedy's interest in our conversation,"but this was not tattooed."

  "Well, then, it must have been false," insisted Bernardo.

  The curator chatted a few moments, during which I expected Kennedy tolead the conversation around to Senora Herreria. But he did not,evidently fearing to show his hand.

  "What did you make of it?" I asked, when he had gone. "Is he trying tohide something?"

  "I think he has simplified the case," remarked Craig, leaning back, hishands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. "Hello, here's Leslie!What did you find, Doctor?" The coroner had entered with a look of aweon his face, as if Kennedy had directed him by some sort of necromancy.

  "It was Senora Herreria!" he exclaimed. "She has been missing from thehotel ever since late yesterday afternoon. What do you think of it?"

  "I think," replied Kennedy, speaking slowly and deliberately, "that itis very much like the Northrop case. You haven't taken that up yet?"

  "Only superficially. What do you make of it?" asked the coroner.

  "I had an idea that it might be aconitin poisoning," he said.

  Leslie glanced at him keenly for a moment. "Then you'll never proveanything in the laboratory," he said.

  "There are more ways of catching a criminal, Leslie," put in Craig,"than are set down in the medico-legal text-books. I shall depend onyou and Jameson to gather together a rather cosmopolitan crowd hereto-night."

  He said it with a quiet confidence which I could not gainsay, althoughI did not understand. However, mostly with the official aid of DoctorLeslie, I followed out his instructions, and it was indeed a strangeparty that assembled that night. There were Doctor Bernardo; Sato, thecurio dealer; Otaka, the Ainu, and ourselves. Mrs. Northrop, of course,could not come.

  "Mexico," began Craig, after he had said a few words explaining why hehad brought us together, "is full of historical treasure. To allintents and purposes, the government says, 'Come and dig.' But whenthere are finds, then the government swoops down on them for its ownnational museum. The finder scarcely gets a chance to export them.However, now seemed to be the time to Professor Northrop to smuggle hisfinds out of the country.

  "But evidently it could not be done without exciting all kinds ofrumors and suspicions. Stories seem to have spread far and fast aboutwhat he had discovered. He realized the unsettled condition of thecountry--perhaps wanted to confirm his read
ing of a certain inscriptionby consultation with one scholar whom he thought he could trust. At anyrate, he came home."

  Kennedy paused, making use of the silence for emphasis. "You have allread of the wealth that Cortez found in Mexico. Where are the gold andsilver of the conquistadores? Gone to the melting pot, centuries ago.But is there none left? The Indians believe so. There are persons whowould stop at nothing--even at murder of American professors, murder oftheir own comrades, to get at the secret."

  He laid his hand almost lovingly on his powerful little microscope ashe resumed on another line of evidence.

  "And while we are on the subject of murders, two very similar deathshave occurred," he went on. "It is of no use to try to gloss them over.Frankly, I suspected that they might have been caused by aconitepoisoning. But, in the case of such poisoning, not only is the lethaldose very small but our chemical methods of detection are nil. The doseof the active principle, aconitin nitrate, is about one six-hundredthof a grain. There are no color tests, no reactions, as in the case ofthe other organic poisons."

  I wondered what he was driving at. Was there, indeed, no test? Had themurderer used the safest of poisons--one that left no clue? I lookedcovertly at Sato's face. It was impassive. Doctor Bernardo was visiblyuneasy as Kennedy proceeded. Cool enough up to the time of the mentionof the treasure, I fancied, now, that he was growing more and morenervous.

  Craig laid down on the table the reed stick with the little darkenedcylinder on the end.

  "That," he said, "is a little article which I picked up beneathNorthrop's window yesterday. It is a piece of anno-noki, or bushi." Ifancied I saw just a glint of satisfaction in Otaka's eyes.

  "Like many barbarians," continued Craig, "the Ainus from timeimmemorial have prepared virulent poisons with which they charged theirweapons of the chase and warfare. The formulas for the preparations, asin the case of other arrow poisons of other tribes, are known only tocertain members, and the secret is passed down from generation togeneration as an heirloom, as it were. But in this case it is no longera secret. It has now been proved that the active principle of thispoison is aconite."

  "If that is the case," broke in Doctor Leslie, "it is hopeless toconnect anyone directly in that way with these murders. There is notest for aconitin."

  I thought Sato's face was more composed and impassive than ever. DoctorBernardo, however, was plainly excited.

  "What--no test--NONE?" asked Kennedy, leaning forward eagerly. Then, asif he could restrain the answer to his own question no longer, he shotout: "How about the new starch test just discovered by ProfessorReichert, of the University of Pennsylvania? Doubtless you neverdreamed that starch may be a means of detecting the nature of a poisonin obscure cases in criminology, especially in cases where the quantityof poison necessary to cause death is so minute that no trace of it canbe found in the blood.

  "The starch method is a new and extremely inviting subject to me. Thepeculiarities of the starch of any plant are quite as distinctive ofthe plant as are those of the hemoglobin crystals in the blood of ananimal. I have analyzed the evidence of my microscope in this casethoroughly. When the arrow poison is introduced subcutaneously--say, bya person shooting a poisoned dart, which he afterward removes in orderto destroy the evidence--the lethal constituents are rapidly absorbed.

  "But the starch remains in the wound. It can be recovered and studiedmicroscopically and can be definitely recognized. Doctor Reichert haspublished a study of twelve hundred such starches from all sorts ofplants. In this case, it not only proves to be aconitin but the starchgranules themselves can be recognized. They came from this piece ofarrow poison."

  Every eye was fixed on him now.

  "Besides," he rapped out, "in the soft soil beneath the window ofProfessor Northrop's room, I found footprints. I have only to comparethe impressions I took there and those of the people in this room, toprove that, while the real murderer stood guard below the window, hesent some one more nimble up the rain pipe to shoot the poisoned dartat Professor Northrop, and, later, to let down a rope by which he, theinstigator, could gain the room, remove the dart, and obtain the key tothe treasure he sought."

  Kennedy was looking straight at Professor Bernardo.

  "A friend of mine in Mexico has written me about an inscription," heburst out. "I received the letter only to-day. As nearly as I cangather, there was an impression that some of Northrop's stuff would bevaluable in proving the alleged kinship between Mexico and Japan,perhaps to arouse hatred of the United States."

  "Yes--that is all very well," insisted Kennedy. "But how about thetreasure?"

  "Treasure?" repeated Bernardo, looking from one of us to another.

  "Yes," pursued Craig relentlessly, "the treasure. You are an expert inreading the hieroglyphics. By your own statement, you and Northrop hadbeen going over the stuff he had sent up. You know it."

  Bernardo gave a quick glance from Kennedy to me. Evidently he saw thatthe secret was out.

  "Yes," he said huskily, in a low tone, "Northrop and I were to followthe directions after we had plotted them out and were to share ittogether on the next expedition, which I could direct as a Mexicanwithout so much suspicion. I should still have shared it with his widowif this unfortunate affair had not exposed the secret."

  Bernardo had risen earnestly.

  "Kennedy," he cried, "before God, if you will get back that stone andkeep the secret from going further than this room, I will prove what Ihave said by dividing the Mixtec treasure with Mrs. Northrop and makingher one of the richest widows in the country!"

  "That is what I wanted to be sure of," nodded Craig. "Bernardo, SenoraHerreria, of whom your friend wrote to you from Mexico, has beenmurdered in the same way that Professor Northrop was. Otaka was sent byher husband to murder Northrop, in order that they might obtain theso-called 'Pillar of Death' and the key to the treasure. Then, when thesenora was no doubt under the influence of sake in the pretty littleOriental bower at the curio shop, a quick jab, and Otaka had removedone who shared the secret with them."

  He had turned and faced the pair.

  "Sato," he added, "you played on the patriotism of the senora until youwormed from her the treasure secret. Evidently rumors of it had spreadfrom Mexican Indians to Japanese visitors. And then, Otaka, alljealousy over one whom she, no doubt, justly considered a rival,completed your work by sending her forth to die, unknown, on thestreet. Walter, ring up First Deputy O'Connor. The stone is hiddensomewhere in the curio shop. We can find it without Sato's help. Thequicker such a criminal is lodged safely in jail, the better forhumanity."

  Sato was on his feet, advancing cautiously toward Craig. I knew thedangers, now, of anno-noki, as well as the wonders of jujutsu, and,with a leap, I bounded past Bernardo and between Sato and Kennedy.

  How it happened, I don't know, but, an instant later, I was sprawling.

  Before I could recover myself, before even Craig had a chance to pullthe hair-trigger of his automatic, Sato had seized the Ainu arrowpoison from the table, had bitten the little cylinder in half, and hadcrammed the other half into the mouth of Otaka.