The War Terror Page 28

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE FAMILY SKELETON

  Surprised though we were at the unmasking of Dr. Coleman, there wasnothing to do but to follow the thing out. In such cases we usually raninto the greatest difficulty--organized vice. This was no exception.

  Even when cases involved only a clever individual or a prominentfamily, it was the same. I recall, for example, the case of awell-known family in a New York suburb, which was particularlydifficult. It began in a rather unusual manner, too.

  "Mr. Kennedy--I am ruined--ruined."

  It was early one morning that the telephone rang and I answered it. Avery excited German, breathless and incoherent, was evidently at theother end of the wire.

  I handed the receiver to Craig and picked up the morning paper lying onthe table.

  "Minturn--dead?" I heard Craig exclaim. "In the paper this morning?I'll be down to see you directly."

  Kennedy almost tore the paper from me. In the next to the end columnwhere late news usually is dropped was a brief account of the suddendeath of Owen Minturn, one of the foremost criminal lawyers of thecity, in Josephson's Baths downtown.

  It ended: "It is believed by the coroner that Mr. Minturn was shockedto death and evidence is being sought to show that two hundred andforty volts of electricity had been thrown into the attorney's bodywhile he was in the electric bath. Joseph Josephson, the proprietor ofthe bath, who operated the switchboard, is being held, pending thecompletion of the inquiry."

  As Kennedy hastily ran his eye over the paragraphs, he became more andmore excited himself.

  "Walter," he cried, as he finished, "I don't believe that that was anaccident at all."

  "Why?" I asked.

  He already had his hat on, and I knew he was going to Josephson'sbreakfastless. I followed reluctantly.

  "Because," he answered, as we hustled along in the early morning crowd,"it was only yesterday afternoon that I saw Minturn at his office andhe made an appointment with me for this very morning. He was a verysecretive man, but he did tell me this much, that he feared his lifewas in danger and that it was in some way connected with that Pearcycase up in Stratfield, Connecticut, where he has an estate. You haveread of the case?"

  Indeed I had. It had seemed to me to be a particularly inexplicableaffair. Apparently a whole family had been poisoned and a few daysbefore old Mr. Randall Pearcy, a retired manufacturer, had died after abrief but mysterious illness.

  Pearcy had been married a year or so ago to Annette Oakleigh, aBroadway comic opera singer, who was his second wife. By his firstmarriage he had had two children, a son, Warner, and a daughter, Isabel.

  Warner Pearcy, I had heard, had blazed a vermilion trail along theGreat White Way, but his sister was of the opposite temperament,interested in social work, and had attracted much attention byorganizing a settlement in the slums of Stratfield for the uplift ofthe workers in the Pearcy and other mills.

  Broadway, as well as Stratfield, had already woven a fantasticbackground, for the mystery and hints had been broadly made thatAnnette Oakleigh had been indiscreetly intimate with a young physicianin the town, a Dr. Gunther, a friend, by the way, of Minturn. "Therehas been no trial yet," went on Kennedy, "but Minturn seems to haveappeared before the coroner's jury at Stratfield and to have assertedthe innocence of Mrs. Pearcy and that of Dr. Gunther so well that,although the jury brought in a verdict of murder by poison by some oneunknown, there has been no mention of the name of anyone else. Thecoroner simply adjourned the inquest so that a more careful analysismight be made of the vital organs. And now comes this second tragedy inNew York."

  "What was the poison?" I asked. "Have they found out yet?"

  "They are pretty sure, so Minturn told me, that it was lead poisoning.The fact not generally known is," he added in a lower tone, "that thecases were not confined to the Pearcy house. They had even extended toMinturn's too, although about that he said little yesterday. Theestates up there adjoin, you know."

  Owen Minturn, I recalled, had gained a formidable reputation by hissuccessful handling of cases from the lowest strata of society to thehighest. Indeed it was a byword that his appearance in court indicatedtwo things--the guilt of the accused and a verdict of acquittal.

  "Of course," Craig pursued as we were jolted from station to stationdowntown, "you know they say that Minturn never kept a record of acase. But written records were as nothing compared to what that manmust have carried only in his head."

  It was a common saying that, if Minturn should tell all he knew, hemight hang half a dozen prominent men in society. That was not strictlytrue, perhaps, but it was certain that a revelation of the thingsconfided to him by clients which were never put down on paper wouldhave caused a series of explosions that would have wrecked at leastsome portions of the social and financial world. He had heard much andtold little, for he had been a sort of "father confessor."

  Had Minturn, I wondered, known the name of the real criminal?

  Josephson's was a popular bath on Forty-second Street, where many ofthe "sun-dodgers" were accustomed to recuperate during the day fromtheir arduous pursuit of pleasure at night and prepare for theresumption of their toil during the coming night. It was more thanthat, however, for it had a reputation for being conducted really on ahigh plane.

  We met Josephson downstairs. He had been released under bail, thoughthe place was temporarily closed and watched over by the agents of thecoroner and the police. Josephson appeared to be a man of someeducation and quite different from what I had imagined from hearing himover the telephone.

  "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," he exclaimed, "who now will come to my baths? Lastnight they were crowded, but to-day--"

  He ended with an expressive gesture of his hands.

  "One customer I have surely lost, young Mr. Pearcy," he went on.

  "Warner Pearcy?" asked Craig. "Was he here last night?"

  "Nearly every night," replied Josephson, now glib enough as his firstexcitement subsided and his command of English returned. "He was aneighbor of Mr. Minturn's, I hear. Oh, what luck!" growled Josephson asthe name recalled him to his present troubles.

  "Well," remarked Kennedy with an attempt at reassurance as if to gainthe masseur's confidence, "I know as well as you that it is oftenamazing what a tremendous shock a man may receive and yet not bekilled, and no less amazing how small a shock may kill. It all dependson circumstances."

  Josephson shot a covert look at Kennedy. "Yes," he reiterated, "but Icannot see how it COULD be. If the lights had become short-circuitedwith the bath, that might have thrown a current into the bath. But theywere not. I know it."

  "Still," pursued Kennedy, watching him keenly, "it is not all aquestion of current. To kill, the shock must pass through a vitalorgan--the brain, the heart, the upper spinal cord. So, a small shockmay kill and a large one may not. If it passes in one foot and out bythe other, the current isn't likely to be as dangerous as if it passesin by a hand or foot and then out by a foot or hand. In one case itpasses through no vital organ; in the other it is very likely to do so.You see, the current can flow through the body only when it has a placeof entrance and a place of exit. In all cases of accident from electriclight wires, the victim is touching some conductor--damp earth, saltyearth, water, something that gives the current an outlet and--"

  "But even if the lights had been short-circuited," interruptedJosephson, "Mr. Minturn would have escaped injury unless he had touchedthe taps of the bath. Oh, no, sir, accidents in the medical use ofelectricity are rare. They don't happen here in my establishment," hemaintained stoutly. "The trouble was that the coroner, without anyknowledge of the physiological effects of electricity on the body,simply jumped at once to the conclusion that it was the electric baththat did it."

  "Then it was for medical treatment that Mr. Minturn was taking thebath?" asked Kennedy, quickly taking up the point.

  "Yes, of course," answered the masseur, eager to explain. "You areacquainted with the latest treatment for lead poisoning by means of theelectric bath?
"

  Kennedy nodded. "I know that Sir Thomas Oliver, the English authoritywho has written much on dangerous trades, has tried it with markedsuccess."

  "Well, sir, that was why Mr. Minturn was here. He came here introducedby a Dr. Gunther of Stratfield."

  "Indeed?" remarked Kennedy colorlessly, though I could see that itinterested him, for evidently Minturn had said nothing of being himselfa sufferer from the poison. "May I see the bath?"

  "Surely," said Josephson, leading the way upstairs.

  It was an oaken tub with metal rods on the two long sides, from whichdepended prismatic carbon rods. Kennedy examined it closely.

  "This is what we call a hydro-electric bath," Josephson explained."Those rods on the sides are the electrodes. You see there are no metalparts in the tub itself. The rods are attached by wiring to a wallswitch out here."

  He pointed to the next room. Kennedy examined the switch with care.

  "From it," went on Josephson, "wires lead to an accumulator battery ofperhaps thirty volts. It uses very little current. Dr. Gunther testedit and found it all right."

  Craig leaned over the bath, and from the carbon electrodes scraped offa white powder in minute crystals.

  "Ordinarily," Josephson pursued, "lead is eliminated by the skin andkidneys. But now, as you know, it is being helped along byelectrolysis. I talked to Dr. Gunther about it. It is his opinion thatit is probably eliminated as a chloride from the tissues of the body tothe electrodes in the bath in which the patient is wholly or partlyimmersed. On the positive electrodes we get the peroxide. On thenegative there is a spongy metallic form of lead. But it is only asmall amount."

  "The body has been removed?" asked Craig.

  "Not yet," the masseur replied. "The coroner has ordered it kept hereunder guard until he makes up his mind what disposition to have made ofit."

  We were next ushered into a little room on the same floor, at the doorof which was posted an official from the coroner.

  "First of all," remarked Craig, as he drew back the sheet and began, aminute examination of the earthly remains of the great lawyer, "thereare to be considered the safeguards of the human body against thepassage through it of a fatal electric current--the high electricresistance of the body itself. It is particularly high when the currentmust pass through joints such as wrists, knees, elbows, and quite highwhen the bones of the head are concerned. Still, there might have beenan incautious application of the current to the head, especially whenthe subject is a person of advanced age or latent cerebral disease,though I don't know that that fits Mr. Minturn. That's strange," hemuttered, looking up, puzzled. "I can find no mark of a burn on thebody--absolutely no mark of anything."

  "That's what I say," put in Josephson, much pleased by what Kennedysaid, for he had been waiting anxiously to see what Craig discovered onhis own examination. "It's impossible."

  "It's all the more remarkable," went on Craig, half to himself andignoring Josephson, "because burns due to electric currents are totallyunlike those produced in other ways. They occur at the point ofcontact, usually about the arms and hands, or the head. Electricity ismuch to be feared when it involves the cranial cavity." He completedhis examination of the head which once had carried secrets whichthemselves must have been incandescent.

  "Then, too, such burns are most often something more than superficial,for considerable heat is developed which leads to massive destructionand carbonization of the tissues to a considerable depth. I have seenactual losses of substance--a lump of killed flesh surrounded byhealthy tissues. Besides, such burns show an unexpected indolence whencompared to the violent pains of ordinary burns. Perhaps that is due tothe destruction of the nerve endings. How did Minturn die? Was healone? Was he dead when he was discovered?"

  "He was alone," replied Josephson, slowly endeavoring to tell itexactly as he had seen it, "but that's the strange part of it. Heseemed to be suffering from a convulsion. I think he complained atfirst of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a twitching of themuscles of his hands and feet. Anyhow, he called for help. I was uphere and we rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and then hadgone away, after introducing him, and showing him the bath."

  Josephson proceeded slowly, evidently having been warned that anythinghe said might be used against him. "We carried him, when he was thisway, into this very room. But it was only for a short time. Then came aviolent convulsion. It seemed to extend rapidly all over his body. Hislegs were rigid, his feet bent, his head back. Why, he was resting onlyon his heels and the back of his head. You see, Mr. Kennedy, thatsimply could not be the electric shock."

  "Hardly," commented Kennedy, looking again at the body. "It looks morelike a tetanus convulsion. Yet there does not seem to be any trace of arecent wound that might have caused lockjaw. How did he look?"

  "Oh, his face finally became livid," replied Josephson. "He had aghastly, grinning expression, his eyes were wide, there was foam on hismouth, and his breathing was difficult."

  "Not like tetanus, either," revised Craig. "There the convulsionusually begins with the face and progresses to the other muscles. Hereit seems to have gone the other way."

  "That lasted a minute or so," resumed the masseur. "Then he sankback--perfectly limp. I thought he was dead. But he was not. A coldsweat broke out all over him and he was as if in a deep sleep."

  "What did you do?" prompted Kennedy.

  "I didn't know what to do. I called an ambulance. But the moment thedoor opened, his body seemed to stiffen again. He had one otherconvulsion--and when he grew limp he was dead."