The Social Gangster Part 47

Then he opened our door and caught sight of Burke's face.

"That's strange, Burke," he began, before he realized what the expression on his face meant. "There's a woman--what? You don't mean to tell me that you knew her?"

"Why, yes," hastened Burke. "There was a rich old planter, Henri Aux Cayes, aboard, too. She's his ward, Mademoiselle Collette."

"That's right," nodded Craig in surprise.

"She's the woman I was telling you about. She may be a little dark, but she's a beauty, all right. I heard what she said. No wonder she was so frantic, then."

"What do you know of the bankers, Forsythe & Co.?" asked Craig.

"Forsythe & Co.?" considered Burke. "Well, not much, perhaps. But for a long time, I believe, they've been the bankers and promoters of defunct Caribbean islands, reaping a rich harvest out of the troubles of those decrepit governments, playing one against the other."

"H-m," mused Kennedy. "Can you go over to Brooklyn with me now?"

"Of course," agreed Burke, brightening up. "That was what I hoped you'd do."

Kennedy and I were just about to leave the laboratory with Burke when an idea seemed to occur to Craig. He excused himself and went back to a cabinet where I saw him place a little vial and a hypodermic needle in his vest pocket.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE FLUORISCINE TEST

Our trip over to the other borough was uneventful except for the toilsome time we had to get to the docks where South and Central American ships were moored. We boarded the _Haytien_ at last and Burke led us along the deck toward a cabin. I looked about curiously. There seemed to be the greatest air of suppressed excitement. Everyone was talking, in French, too, which seemed strange to me in people of their color. Yet everything seemed to be in whispers as if they were in fear.

We entered the cabin after our guide. There in the dim light lay the body of Leon in a bunk. There were several people in the room, already, among them the beautiful Mademoiselle Collette. She pretended not to recognize Kennedy until we were introduced, but I fancied I saw her start at finding him in company with Burke. Yet she did not exhibit anything more than surprise, which was quite natural.

Burke turned the sheet down from the face of the figure in the bunk.

Leon had been a fine-looking specimen of his race, with good features, strong, and well groomed. Kennedy bent over and examined the body carefully.

"A very strange case," remarked the ship's surgeon, whom Burke beckoned over a moment later.

"Quite," agreed Craig absently, as he drew the vial and the hypodermic from his pocket, dipped the needle in and shot a dose of the stuff into the side of the body.

"I can't find out that there is any definite cause of death," resumed the surgeon.

Before Craig could reply someone else entered the darkened cabin. We turned and saw Collette run over to him and take his hand.

"My guardian, Monsieur Aux Cayes," she introduced, then turned to him with a voluble explanation of something in French.

Aux Cayes was a rather distinguished looking Haytian, darker than Collette, but evidently of the better cla.s.s and one who commanded respect among the natives.

"It is quite extraordinary," he said with a marked accent, taking up the surgeon's remark. "As for these people--" he threw out his hands in a deprecating gesture--"one cannot blame them for being perplexed when your doctors disagree."

Kennedy had covered up Leon's face again and Collette was crying softly.

"Don't, my dear child," soothed Aux Cayes, patting her shoulder gently.

"Please, try to calm thyself."

It was evident that he adored his beautiful ward and would have done anything to relieve her grief. Kennedy evidently thought it best to leave the two together, as Aux Cayes continued to talk to her in diminutives and familiar phrases from the French.

"Were there any other people on the boat who might be worth watching?"

he asked as we rejoined Burke, who was looking about at the gaping crowd.

Burke indicated a group. "Well, there was an old man, Castine, and the woman he calls his wife," he replied. "They were the ones who really kept the rest from throwing the body overboard."

"Oh, yes," a.s.sented Kennedy. "She told me about them. Are they here now?"

Burke moved over to the group and beckoned someone aside toward us.

Castine was an old man with gray hair, and a beard which gave him quite an appearance of wisdom, besides being a matter of distinction among those who were beardless. With him was Madame Castine, much younger and not unattractive for a negress.

"You knew Monsieur Leon well?" asked Kennedy.

"We knew him in Port au Prince, like everybody," replied Castine, without committing himself to undue familiarity.

"Do you know of any enemies of his on the boat?" cut in Burke. "You were present when they were demanding that his body be thrown over, were you not? Who was foremost in that?"

Castine shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory manner. "I do not speak English very well," he replied. "It was only those who fear the dead."

There was evidently nothing to be gained by trying on him any of Burke's third degree methods. He had always that refuge that he did not understand very well.

I turned and saw that Collette and Aux Cayes had come out of the cabin to the deck together, he holding her arm while she dabbed the tears away from her wonderful eyes.

At the sight of us talking to Castine and the other woman, she seemed to catch her breath. She did not speak to us, but I saw the two women exchange a glance of appraisal, and I determined that "Madame" Castine was at least worth observing.

By the att.i.tude of the group from which we had drawn them, Castine, it seemed, exercised some kind of influence over all, rich and poor, revolutionist and government supporter.

The appearance of Collette occasioned a buzz of conversation and glances, and it was only a moment before she retreated into the cabin again. Apparently she did not wish to lose anything, as long as Kennedy and Burke were about.

Kennedy did not seem to be so much interested in quizzing Castine just yet, now that he had seen him, as he was in pa.s.sing the time profitably for a few minutes. He looked at his watch, snapped it back into his pocket, and walked deliberately into the cabin again.

There he drew back the cover over Leon's face, bent over it, raised the lids of the eyes, and gazed into them.

Collette, who had been standing near him, watching every motion, drew back with an exclamation of horror and surprise.

"The voodoo sign is on him!" she cried. "It must be that!"

Almost in panic she fled, dragging her guardian with her.

I, too, looked. The man's eyes were actually green, now. What did it mean?

"Burke," remarked Kennedy decisively, "I shall take the responsibility of having the body transferred to my laboratory where I can observe it.

I'll leave you to attend to the formalities with the coroner. Then I want you to get in touch with Forsythe & Co. Watch them without letting them know you are doing so--and watch their visitors, particularly."