Unseen Hands/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII
THE FINAL CLUE
FOR the rest of the day Odell pondered over the reluctant admission which he had dragged from the attorney and its possible significance in relation to the hint which Mrs. Gael had given him; but although he studied the members of the family with whom he came in contact he could read nothing in their expressions or speech which pointed to the slightest irrationality.
Mrs. Traymore herself arrived with her son to take Nan home with her, and after some urging the young girl consented to go. Cissie remained in her room with her aunt in constant attendance upon her; so that Odell had opportunity for only a brief talk with the older woman, but short as it was it temporarily quieted his uneasiness.
Miss Meade's face was drawn with fatigue, but her eyes shone as she told him that Cissie had confided to her the end of her sorry romance and thanked him for their deliverance from Drew's pernicious influence. As for Cissie's indisposition, she had often suffered in the same way after too great an indulgence in sweets, and would doubtless be quite recovered on the morrow.
Rannie had locked himself in his room and was unapproachable; but before he departed for the night Odell had a long talk with Gene and his stepfather, which removed his last lingering doubts as to the latter's complete innocence.
He retired no wiser than on the previous night; but with the morning a fresh decision had come, and he was back at the Meade house before the family had breakfasted.
Cissie was no better. He learned that she had passed a very bad night and her suffering and nausea had increased. With a very grave face the detective went to Rannie's door and knocked authoritatively. This time the familiar, querulous voice bade him enter; and he found the boy curled up upon the couch with a book, which he hastily thrust under the pillows at Odell's appearance.
"So you spoiled Gerda's little game." Rannie smiled his twisted smile. "I'm curious to know how you found out who she was."
"That was not difficult," the detective responded with an answering smile. "She told me at my first interview with her that she had been in a certain rather unusual place at a certain time; and when I learned that Mrs. Gael had been there also I put two and two together. I don't think you will see her or Farley Drew again. Have you had another bad turn?"
Rannie stiffened against the sympathy in the friendly voice.
"Nothing unusual," he replied in a surly tone. "I only want to be let alone."
"I'm sorry. I won't stay long, my boy; but I want you to help me." Odell drew up a chair beside the couch and seated himself. "I don't know how good a toxicologist you are as well as a bacteriologist, but I fancy you have our friend Doctor Adams beaten a mile."
"Oh, Adams is a pettifogging old ass," the boy returned carelessly. Then his eyes narrowed. "What's the game?"
"Just this." The detective leaned forward suddenly until his eyes were almost on a level with the dark, sardonic ones upturned morosely to him. "Suppose that I knew no more about poisons than—well, than I could learn from glancing through these books of yours at odd times or asking casual questions of some family practitioner. What poison would it be easiest for me to obtain without comment in any drugstore?"
The boy shrugged.
"Carbolic, or any of the acids for eradicating spots or verdigris, I suppose. They'd be pretty average deadly; but none of them would have worked, if you are still harping on my mother's case."
"I don't mean anything of that sort," Odell explained. "I have in mind some poison which would work gradually and be practically tasteless; something which could be given in the victim's food, perhaps, and produce symptoms which might easily be mistaken for those resulting from some trivial indisposition."
Rannie's eyes widened and their morose stare gave place to one of grudging admiration.
"So you're on that tack, are you?" he asked. "I was only waiting till I was sure before springing it on you myself. This is an old house, you know; there are plenty of mice and rats in the walls, and there is a certain white powder which exterminates them quicker than anything else, and which would be sold without question for that purpose in any drugstore if one's appearance and manner didn't arouse suspicion. It is funny, but I was reading up about it when you came in."
He reached under the cushions and drew forth the book, which he opened at a certain page and handed without further remark to the detective.
"Arsenic!" Odell read. "Tri-oxide, eh? 'The crude oxide yields a white, crystalline powder, odorless but with a faint, metallic, sweetish taste. Small quantities produce poisoning.'—Humph! I wonder how small a quantity would produce a noticeable effect in, say, a few days, and what that effect would be."
Rannie reached out his hand for the book, closed it, and placed it once more beneath the cushions.
"Three-quarters of a grain—a mere pinch on the end of a knife—if given twice a day would have a very decided effect in less than a week," he said slowly. "I told you once that I would not take the trouble to put any of my precious family out of the way; but I didn't mean that I wouldn't lift a finger to stop someone else from killing even the most disagreeable of them. The symptoms, Sergeant, are flushing, puffed eyelids, pain, and nausea."
Odell started from his chair.
"How long have you known this?" he demanded.
"I suspected yesterday; I had only convinced myself when you came."
"And the antidote? Quick! Tell me the antidote!"
"An emetic, anything that will remove it from the system. However, that won't prevent the next dose from being administered." Rannie had dragged himself to his feet. "Bring Cissie in here, if you like. I'll see that no one gets to her, and I guess Dad and I are off your list of suspects this time; we haven't either of us left our rooms sines Saturday. It rather looks as though our family nemesis were working overtime, doesn't it?"
"Don't mention this to anyone else," Odell cautioned as he started hastily for the door. "It may be the very means of trapping the person we are after."
He passed out into the hall but paused for a moment, lost in thought. If Cissie was indeed being slowly poisoned, and the would-be murderer suspected that his secret was known, he would instantly cease his efforts, and the opportunity of proving his guilt would be irretrievably lost. Yet the girl must be protected and an antidote given to relieve her suffering. It might even be that one more dose would prove fatal! Dare he attempt dissimulation when her very life was perhaps in danger?
He advanced slowly to her closed door, and even as he paused before it with his hand uplifted to knock he heard her faint groans and Miss Meade's soothing voice in response. Another sound reached his ears also, the soft pad of feet up the back stairs; and he turned to find Peters coming toward him with a tray upon which a cup of broth steamed invitingly.
With instant decision the detective advanced and held out his hand.
"That's for Miss Chalmers, isn't it, Peters?" he asked carelessly. "I'm just going to ask Miss Meade if she can spare a minute, and I'll hand it in to her myself."
He watched the butler narrowly, but Peters relinquished the tray without a moment's hesitation, and turning went downstairs again at his usual dignified gait.
Odell waited until he heard him descend the second flight to the kitchen, then put the tray down hastily on a chair near Rannie's door, and raised the cup to his lips. It contained beef tea undoubtedly, but beef tea with a sweetish, metallic taste; and the detective replaced the cup and softly opened Rannie's door.
"Have you a bottle or some small receptacle that is perfectly clean and sterilized?" he demanded in hushed tones.
"Several in the medicine-chest.—Here, wait a minute." Rannie made his way slowly and painfully to the bathroom, and returned with a tiny vial in his hand. "What is it? You haven't got hold of some of the stuff already, have you?"
Without waiting to reply Odell dashed back, and filling the vial with the beef tea, he deliberately overturned the cup. Then he dashed down the front stairs and out the entrance door, beckoning to the ubiquitous Blake, who was still upon his post at the corner.
"Take this as quickly as you can up to Villard's laboratory; tell him to put aside everything else and analyze it at once. Say that I suggested the surest test he knows of for arsenic and wait for his report."
As the operative pocketed the vial and started down the steps he almost collided with Doctor Adams, who greeted Odell with a certain decorous triumph in his tones.
"I have just come from the autopsy on the body of Mrs. Lorne," he announced. "It revealed nothing but what we anticipated; pyemic focci in the kidneys and liver. You see, my dear Sergeant Odell, it was a clear case of septicemia, after all."
"Doctor Adams," the detective brushed the statement aside as of small moment, "yesterday you diagnosed Miss Chalmers's case as ordinary stomachache, I believe; instead she is suffering from what is thought to be arsenical poisoning, given with criminal intent. Her life and your professional reputation are at stake—"
"Impossible!" the physician gasped. "Who would attempt such a dastardly—"
"The same person who has already murdered two of her family and tried to kill two more," Odell interrupted. "Think for yourself, Doctor. What are the symptoms of white-arsenic poisoning? Do they differ in any way from those Miss Chalmers exhibited yesterday?"
"This—this is frightful!" The physician put a shaking hand to his head. "If this is true my reputation is indeed at stake; but I never thought, I never dreamed of further foul play. Who is it, Sergeant? Who is keeping up these fearful attacks upon the family?"
"I mean to find that out before another day passes, Doctor, and I count upon your help," Odell replied earnestly. "I must ask you to follow my directions absolutely or you will be refused admittance to the house."
"Sir!" Doctor Adams drew himself up indignantly. "The young lady has been my patient since her birth—"
"And she would have been murdered before your eyes, as her mother was, if I had not interfered," retorted Odell sternly. "I am willing to protect you in this matter and give you the credit of discovering her true condition, if you obey my instructions; if not, a police doctor will take your place, and your diagnosis of yesterday will be given the publicity it deserves."
Doctor Adams leaned suddenly back against the vestibule wall, and his face whitened.
"I am quite willing to assist the authorities in every possible way, but I must be assured that the diagnosis which has been made in contradiction to my own is the correct one," he asserted with an assumption of dignity. "Of course, in any event an emetic will do no harm—"
"Everything must be done to relieve her at once, but I desire above all else that no one in the household be allowed to suspect that we have discovered the truth; no one at all. Doctor, not even her aunt or her stepfather; for they might innocently enough mention it in the hearing of the guilty person." Odell spoke rapidly in an undertone. "You will be informed as soon as you enter the house that Miss Chalmers is no better, and you will naturally proceed at once to her bedside. I want you to pretend that you have in no way changed your opinion of yesterday; and whatever measures you take to relieve her suffering must seem to be in the line of treatment you would ordinarily prescribe for the case you believed it to be originally."
"That should not be difficult to arrange," the physician murmured. "Should your suspicions be unfounded after all, Sergeant, the treatment will only cause temporary discomfort to my patient."
Odell could have throttled the pedantic little man for his tenacious obstinacy, but he continued patiently to elucidate his plan.
"After you have concluded your treatment I wish you to make some excuse to remain with your patient for the rest of the day if need be; at any rate until I require your presence no longer. Do not leave her bedside nor permit anyone to approach her on any pretext, and see that nothing but your medicine passes her lips." He paused as a quick thought came to him. "Would it be possible to give her some powerful opiate which could not harm her and yet would throw her into an immediate and profound sleep which might be depended upon to last at least for some hours?"
"It would, of course," the physician assented.
"I hope you will administer it then as soon as you can make some pretext to be absolutely alone with her. That will preclude in a plausible manner any suggestion of nourishment for her until I have had time to perfect my plan.—Come now, please, Doctor. I will slip in first and close the door. After I have had time to get upstairs, ring and ask whoever admits you how Miss Chalmers is."
Odell suited the action to the word, and from the seclusion of Rannie's half-closed door had the satisfaction of seeing the doctor enter Cissie Chalmers's room.
He had noticed as he passed the hall chair that the tray was gone, and now he turned questioningly to Rannie.
"Aunt Effie came out looking for Peters with the broth, and I didn't think you wanted even her to know what you had discovered just yet, so I told her that I had heard you out in the hall and gone out to speak to you just as you stood there with the tray in your hand; said I had spoken so suddenly that you had upset the cup," the boy explained with his twisted grin. "It would be kind of a fierce thing for her to realize that she had probably been feeding Cissie poison with her own hands, wouldn't it? Aunt Effie's the squeamish sort; can't bear to see anybody hurt. They say she nearly went crazy when she dropped me and found that my back would never be straight again; she's nearly smothered me with devotion ever since.—Did you tip off old Adams?"
"He's following my instructions now," Odell replied, wondering as he did so why he was giving this strange boy such complete confidence. If Rannie could in some way have slipped off downstairs and unseen dropped the poison into that cup before the broth was placed in it, his audacity and queer, warped sense of humor would have found rare sport in hoodwinking the man who had set himself to solve the problem.
Rannie chuckled.
"I'd like to have seen his face when he found out what was going on," he exclaimed. "Have you any idea yet as to who is doing this thing, Sergeant? I don't believe Cissie is in any more danger now that you have discovered what ails her; but Aunt Effie, Nan, and I are the only ones left of the family who have not received the attentions of our enemy, and I am curious to know where the lightning will strike next."
"We will soon see," Odell said. "There is your aunt going downstairs now; I want to speak to her."
But Miss Meade had already reached the ground floor and was starting toward the pantry as he descended the stairs, and Odell decided to wait for her return. He seated himself on the settle in the hall and gave himself up to the contemplation of the fresh problem which confronted him. Miss Meade herself and Richard Lome were as obviously beyond question as was the supposition that Cissie was poisoning herself. Nan was away and Gerda had gone. Of the household there remained only Rannie and Gene, Peters, the cook, and the housemaid. Could it be that he had taken the servants too much for granted, and that among them the guilty person might be found?
Miss Meade did not return; and for the better part of an hour he sat there deep in thought, when all at once the bell rang. Recognizing Blake's silhouette through the frosted glass, he opened the door himself and ushered the operative quickly into the library.
"What did Villard say?" he demanded without preamble.
"You had that sample doped out right, Sergeant" Blake grinned. "Villard told me to tell you that he used the Marsh test, and I watched him; I know a little about chemistry myself. He treated that stuff you gave me in the bottle with dilute sulphuric acid and metallic zinc in the gas generator and when the arsine formed he passed it through a glass tube and heated it. The metallic arsenic showed up all right and formed a mirror near the open end of the tube. There wasn't the chance of a mistake."
"Very good, Blake. Go and get your lunch and then relieve Shaw. I'll give you further instructions later."
He let the operative out quietly and started to ascend to the second floor, meaning to summon the doctor for a moment from the sickroom and acquaint him with what he had just learned, but paused. Someone was going up the second flight of stairs to the third floor; and a certain stealthy, cat-like quality in the creeping footsteps made him halt and listen. Could it be Peters, and if so, what was he doing up there when he should have been making his preparations for lunch?
Whoever it was, the objective was evidently the servants' quarters; for the steps did not halt outside Gene's door but kept on, and on an impulse Odell followed.
Up yet another flight and past the servants' rooms the tread continued softly but steadily to the last staircase, which led to the very top of the house; and all at once there returned to the detective's mind the story which Peters had told at Headquarters of the figure which had passed his door at the hour of Mrs. Lorne's death and the voice which had sounded from somewhere in the darkness about him.
With the utter soundlessness of an Indian upon the trail Odell crept on until he too reached the top floor. He had caught no glimpse of the figure which had ascended before him; but a sharp, scraping noise, as of some heavy object being pulled over bare boards, sounded from the front room on the right, and he recalled that Gene had spoken of an "attic" or trunkroom.
Slowly feeling his way, that no creaking board would betray his presence, the detective approached the door and peered cautiously within. He saw a spacious apartment piled high with trunks and disused articles of furniture, and lighted dimly by two windows, which were heavily barred.
Surely this must be the room in which the aged lunatic, Joshua Meade, had been confined! Not a cheerful place even in daylight; and where was the person who had preceded him?
Odell's gaze wandered about the shadowy corners of the room and then halted as if transfixed, and his eyes widened; while for all his trained self-possession the blood ebbed slowly from his face.
The next moment he had turned and slipped as silently as a shadow down the stairs.