The Dream Doctor Part 17

"No," agreed Craig, "no, you are right so far." He added: "I shall be very busy in the laboratory this afternoon, and probably longer.

However, drop in at dinner time, and in the meantime, don't say a word to any one, but just use your position on the Star to keep in touch with anything the police authorities may be doing."

It was not a difficult commission, since they did nothing but issue a statement, the net import of which was to let the public know that they were very active, although they had nothing to report.

Kennedy was still busy when I rejoined him, a little late purposely, since I knew that he would be over his head in work.

"What's this--a zoo?" I asked, looking about me as I entered the sanctum that evening.

There were dogs and guinea pigs, rats and mice, a menagerie that would have delighted a small boy. It did not look like the same old laboratory for the investigation of criminal science, though I saw on a second glance that it was the same, that there was the usual hurly-burly of microscopes, test-tubes, and all the paraphernalia that were so mystifying at first but in the end under his skilful hand made the most complicated cases seem stupidly simple.

Craig smiled at my surprise. "I'm making a little study of intestinal poisons," he commented, "poisons produced by microbes which we keep under more or less control in healthy life. In death they are the little fellows that extend all over the body and putrefy it. We nourish within ourselves microbes which secrete very virulent poisons, and when those poisons are too much for us--well, we grow old. At least that is the theory of Metchnikoff, who says that old age is an infectious chronic, disease. Somehow," he added thoughtfully, "that beautiful white kitchen in the Pitts home had really become a factory for intestinal poisons."

There was an air of suppressed excitement in his manner which told me that Kennedy was on the trail of something unusual.

"Mouth murder," he cried at length, "that was what was being done in that wonderful kitchen. Do you know, the scientific slaying of human beings has far exceeded organised efforts at detection? Of course you expect me to say that; you think I look at such things through coloured gla.s.ses. But it is a fact, nevertheless.

"It is a very simple matter for the police to apprehend the common murderer whose weapon is a knife or a gun, but it is a different thing when they investigate the death of a person who has been the victim of the modern murderer who slays, let us say, with some kind of deadly bacilli. Authorities say, and I agree with them, that hundreds of murders are committed in this country every year and are not detected because the detectives are not scientists, while the slayers have used the knowledge of the scientists both to commit and to cover up the crimes. I tell you, Walter, a murder science bureau not only would clear up nearly every poison mystery, but also it would inspire such a wholesome fear among would-be murderers that they would abandon many attempts to take life."

He was as excited over the case as I had ever seen him. Indeed it was one that evidently taxed his utmost powers.

"What have you found?" I asked, startled.

"You remember my use of the sphygmomanometer?" he asked. "In the first place that put me on what seems to be a clear trail. The most dreaded of all the ills of the cardiac and vascular systems nowadays seems to be arterio-sclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. It is possible for a man of forty-odd, like Mr. Pitts, to have arteries in a condition which would not be encountered normally in persons under seventy years of age.

"The hard or hardening artery means increased blood pressure, with a consequent increased strain on the heart. This may lead, has led in this case, to a long train of distressing symptoms, and, of course, to ultimate death. Heart disease, according to statistics, is carrying off a greater percentage of persons than formerly. This fact cannot be denied, and it is attributed largely to worry, the abnormal rush of the life of to-day, and sometimes to faulty methods of eating and bad nutrition. On the surface, these natural causes might seem to be at work with Mr. Pitts. But, Walter, I do not believe it, I do not believe it. There is more than that, here. Come, I can do nothing more to-night, until I learn more from these animals and the cultures which I have in these tubes. Let us take a turn or two, then dine, and perhaps we may get some word at our apartment from Edward."

It was late that night when a gentle tap at the door proved that Kennedy's hope had not been unfounded. I opened it and let in Edward, the valet, who produced the fragments of a note, torn and crumpled.

"There is nothing new, sir," he explained, "except that Mrs. Pitts seems more nervous than ever, and Mr. Pitts, I think, is feeling a little brighter."

Kennedy said nothing, but was hard at work with puckered brows at piecing together the note which Edward had obtained after hunting through the house. It had been thrown into a fireplace in Mrs. Pitts's own room, and only by chance had part of it been unconsumed. The body of the note was gone altogether, but the first part and the last part remained.

Apparently it had been written the very morning on which the murder was discovered.

It read simply, "I have succeeded in having Thornton declared ..." Then there was a break. The last words were legible, and were,"... confined in a suitable inst.i.tution where he can cause no future harm."

There was no signature, as if the sender had perfectly understood that the receiver would understand.

"Not difficult to supply some of the context, at any rate," mused Kennedy. "Whoever Thornton may be, some one has succeeded in having him declared 'insane,' I should supply. If he is in an inst.i.tution near New York, we must be able to locate him. Edward, this is a very important clue. There is nothing else."

Kennedy employed the remainder of the night in obtaining a list of all the inst.i.tutions, both public and private, within a considerable radius of the city where the insane might be detained.

The next morning, after an hour or so spent in the laboratory apparently in confirming some control tests which Kennedy had laid out to make sure that he was not going wrong in the line of inquiry he was pursuing, we started off in a series of flying visits to the various sanitaria about the city in search of an inmate named Thornton.

I will not attempt to describe the many curious sights and experiences we saw and had. I could readily believe that any one who spent even as little time as we did might almost think that the very world was going rapidly insane. There were literally thousands of names in the lists which we examined patiently, going through them all, since Kennedy was not at all sure that Thornton might not be a first name, and we had no time to waste on taking any chances.

It was not until long after dusk that, weary with the search and dust-covered from our hasty scouring of the country in an automobile which Kennedy had hired after exhausting the city inst.i.tutions, we came to a small private asylum up in Westchester. I had almost been willing to give it up for the day, to start afresh on the morrow, but Kennedy seemed to feel that the case was too urgent to lose even twelve hours over.

It was a peculiar place, isolated, out-of-the-way, and guarded by a high brick wall that enclosed a pretty good sized garden.

A ring at the bell brought a sharp-eyed maid to the door.

"Have you--er--any one here named Thornton--er--?" Kennedy paused in such a way that if it were the last name he might come to a full stop, and if it were a first name he could go on.

"There is a Mr. Thornton who came yesterday," she snapped ungraciously, "but you can not see him, It's against the rules."

"Yes--yesterday," repeated Kennedy eagerly, ignoring her tartness.

"Could I--" he slipped a crumpled treasury note into her hand--"could I speak to Mr. Thornton's nurse?"

The note seemed to render the acidity of the girl slightly alkaline.

She opened the door a little further, and we found ourselves in a plainly furnished reception room, alone.

We might have been in the reception-room of a prosperous country gentleman, so quiet was it. There was none of the raving, as far as I could make out, that I should have expected even in a twentieth century Bedlam, no material for a Poe story of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather.

At length the hall door opened, and a man entered, not a prepossessing man, it is true, with his large and powerful hands and arms and slightly bowed, almost bulldog legs. Yet he was not of that aggressive kind which would make a show of physical strength without good and sufficient cause.

"You have charge of Mr. Thornton?" inquired Kennedy.

"Yes," was the curt response.

"I trust he is all right here?"

"He wouldn't be here if he was all right," was the quick reply. "And who might you be?"

"I knew him in the old days," replied Craig evasively. "My friend here does not know him, but I was in this part of Westchester visiting and having heard he was here thought I would drop in, just for old time's sake. That is all."

"How did you know he was here?" asked the man suspiciously.

"I heard indirectly from a friend of mine, Mrs. Pitts."

"Oh."

The man seemed to accept the explanation at its face value.

"Is he very--very badly?" asked Craig with well-feigned interest.

"Well," replied the man, a little mollified by a good cigar which I produced, "don't you go a-telling her, but if he says the name Minna once a day it is a thousand times. Them drug-dopes has some strange delusions."

"Strange delusions?" queried Craig. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Say," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man. "I don't know you, You come here saying you're friends of Mr. Thornton's. How do I know what you are?"

"Well," ventured Kennedy, "suppose I should also tell you I am a friend of the man who committed him."

"Of Dr. Thompson Lord?"

"Exactly. My friend here knows Dr. Lord very well, don't you, Walter?"

Thus appealed to I hastened to add, "Indeed I do." Then, improving the opening, I hastened: "Is this Mr. Thornton violent? I think this is one of the most quiet inst.i.tutions I ever saw for so small a place."