As I looked at the little silver thing and at Kennedy"s face, which betrayed nothing, I felt that here indeed was a mystery. What new scientific engine of death was that little hollow cylinder?
"Next I should like to visit the laboratory," he remarked simply.
Fortunately, the laboratory had been shut and nothing had been disturbed except by the undertaker and his men who had carried the body away. Strong had left word that he had gone to Boston, where, in a safe deposit box, was a sealed envelope in which Cushing kept a copy of the combination of his safe, which had died with him. There was, therefore, no hope of seeing the a.s.sistant until the morning.
Kennedy found plenty to occupy his time in his minute investigation of the laboratory. There, for instance, was the pool of blood leading back by a thin dark stream to the workbench and its terrible figure, which I could almost picture to myself lying there through the silent hours of the night before, with its life blood slowly oozing away, unconscious, powerless to save itself. There were spurts of arterial blood on the floor and on the nearby laboratory furniture, and beside the workbench another smaller and isolated pool of blood.
On a table in a corner by the window stood a microscope which Cushing evidently used, and near it a box of fresh sterilised slides. Kennedy, who had been casting his eye carefully about taking in the whole laboratory, seemed delighted to find the slides. He opened the box and gingerly took out some of the little oblong pieces of gla.s.s, on each of which he dropped a couple of minute drops of blood from the arterial spurts and the venous pools on the floor.
Near the workbench were circular marks, much as if some jars had been set down there. We were watching him, almost in awe at the matter of fact manner in which, he was proceeding in what to us was nothing but a hopeless enigma, when I saw him stoop and pick up a few little broken pieces of gla.s.s. There seemed to be blood spots on the gla.s.s, as on other things, but particularly interesting to him.
A moment later I saw that he was holding in his hand what were apparently the remains of a little broken vial which he had fitted together from the pieces. Evidently it had been used and dropped in haste.
"A vial for a local anesthetic," he remarked. "This is the sort of thing that might be injected into an arm or leg and deaden the pain of a cut, but that is all. It wouldn"t affect the consciousness or prevent any one from resisting a murderer to the last. I doubt if that had anything directly to do with his death, or perhaps even that this is Cushing"s blood on it."
Unlike Winslow I had seen Kennedy in action so many times that I knew it was useless to speculate. But I was fascinated, for the deeper we got into the case, the more unusual and inexplicable it seemed. I gave that end of it up, but the fact that Strong had gone to secure the combination of the safe suggested to me to examine that article. There was certainly no evidence of robbery or even of an attempt at robbery there.
"Was any doctor called?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes," he replied. "Though I knew it was of no use I called in Dr.
Howe, who lives up the street from the laboratory. I should have called Dr. Harris, who used to be my own physician, but since his return from Africa with the Borland expedition, he has not been in very good health and has practically given up his practice. Dr. Howe is the best practising physician in town, I think."
"We shall call on him to-morrow," said Craig, snapping his watch, which already marked far after midnight. Dr. Howe proved, the next day, to be an athletic-looking man, and I could not help noticing and admiring his powerful frame and his hearty handshake, as he greeted us when we dropped into his office with a card from Winslow.
The doctor"s theory was that Cushing had committed suicide.
"But why should a young man who had invented a new method of polymerising isoprene, who was going to become wealthy, and was engaged to a beautiful young girl, commit suicide?"
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. It was evident that he, too, belonged to the "natural rubber set" which dominated Goodyear.
"I haven"t looked into the case very deeply, but I"m not so sure that he had the secret, are you?"
Kennedy smiled. "That is what I"d like to know. I suppose that an expert like Mr. Borland could tell me, perhaps?"
"I should think so."
"Where is his office?" asked Craig. "Could you point it out to me from the window?"
Kennedy was standing by one of the windows of the doctor"s office, and as he spoke he turned and drew a little field gla.s.s from his pocket.
"Which end of the rubber works is it?"
Dr. Howe tried to direct him but Kennedy appeared unwarrantably obtuse, requiring the doctor to raise the window, and it was some moments before he got his gla.s.ses on the right spot.
Kennedy and I thanked the doctor for his courtesy and left the office.
We went at once to the office of Dr. Harris, to whom Winslow had also given us cards. We found him an anaemic man, half asleep. Kennedy tentatively suggested the murder of Cushing.
"Well, if you ask me my opinion," snapped out the doctor, "although I wasn"t called into the case, from what I hear, I"d say that he was murdered."
"Some seem to think it was suicide," prompted Kennedy.
"People who have brilliant prospects and are engaged to pretty girls don"t usually die of their own accord," rasped Harris.
"So you think he really did have the secret of artificial rubber?"
asked Craig.
"Not artificial rubber. Synthetic rubber. It was the real thing, I believe."
"Did Mr. Borland and his new chemist Lathrop believe it, too?"
"I can"t say. But I should surely advise you to see them." The doctor"s face was twitching nervously.
"Where is Borland"s office?" repeated Kennedy, again taking from his pocket the field gla.s.s and adjusting it carefully by the window.
"Over there," directed Harris, indicating the corner of the works to which we had already been directed.
Kennedy had stepped closer to the window before him and I stood beside him looking out also.
"The cut was a very peculiar one," remarked Kennedy, still adjusting the gla.s.ses. "An artery and a vein had been placed together so that the endothelium, or inner lining of each, was in contact with the other, giving a continuous serous surface. Which window did you say was Borland"s? I wish you"d step to the other window and raise it, so that I can be sure. I don"t want to go wandering all over the works looking for him."
"Yes," the doctor said as he went, leaving him standing beside the window from which he had been directing us, "yes, you surely should see Mr. Borland. And don"t forget that young chemist of his, Lathrop, either, If I can be of any more help to you, come back again."
It was a long walk through the village and factory yards to the office of Lewis Borland, but we were amply repaid by finding him in and ready to see us. Borland was a typical Yankee, tall, thin, evidently predisposed to indigestion, a man of tremendous mental and nervous energy and with a hidden wiry strength.
"Mr. Borland," introduced Kennedy, changing his tactics and adopting a new role, "I"ve come down to you as an authority on rubber to ask you what your opinion is regarding the invention of a townsman of yours named Cushing."
"Cushing?" repeated Borland in some surprise. "Why--"
"Yes," interrupted Kennedy, "I understand all about it. I had heard of his invention in New York and would have put some money into it if I could have been convinced. I was to see him to-day, but of course, as you were going to say, his death prevents it. Still, I should like to know what you think about it."
"Well," Borland added, jerking out his words nervously, as seemed to be his habit, "Cushing was a bright young fellow. He used to work for me until he began to know too much about the rubber business."
"Do you know anything about his scheme?" insinuated Kennedy.
"Very little, except that it was not patented yet, I believe, though he told every one that the patent was applied for and he expected to get a basic patent in some way without any interference."
"Well," drawled Kennedy, affecting as nearly as possible the air of a promoter, "if I could get his a.s.sistant, or some one who had authority to be present, would you, as a practical rubber man, go over to his laboratory with me? I"d join you in making an offer to his estate for the rights to the process, if it seemed any good."
"You"re a cool one," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Borland, with a peculiar avaricious twinkle in the corners of his eyes. "His body is scarcely cold and yet you come around proposing to buy out his invention and--and, of all persons, you come to me."
"To you?" inquired Kennedy blandly.
"Yes, to me. Don"t you know that synthetic rubber would ruin the business system that I have built up here?"
Still Craig persisted and argued.
"Young man," said Borland rising at length as if an idea had struck him, "I like your nerve. Yes, I will go. I"ll show you that I don"t fear any compet.i.tion from rubber made out of fusel oil or any other old kind of oil." He rang a bell and a boy answered. "Call Lathrop," he ordered.
The young chemist, Lathrop, proved to be a bright and active man of the new school, though a good deal of a rubber stamp. Whenever it was compatible with science and art, he readily a.s.sented to every proposition that his employer laid down.