"For, you will take notice that there is movement here--of the heart, of the lungs, of the stomach--faint, imperceptible under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but nevertheless, movement."
He was pointing at the lungs. "A single peristaltic contraction takes place normally in a very few seconds. Here it takes minutes. And the stomach. Notice what the bis.m.u.th mixture shows. There is a very slow series of regular wave-contractions from the fundus to the pylorus.
Ordinarily one wave takes ten seconds to traverse it; here it is so slow as almost to be unnoticed."
What was the implication of his startling, almost gruesome, discovery?
I saw it clearly, yet hung on his words, afraid to admit even to myself the logical interpretation of what I saw.
"Reconstruct the case," continued Craig excitedly. "Mr. Phelps, always a bon vivant and now so situated by marriage that he must be so, comes back to America to find his personal fortune--gone.
"What was left? He did as many have done. He took out a new large policy on his life. How was he to profit by it? Others have committed suicide, have died to win. Cases are common now where men have ended their lives under such circ.u.mstances by swallowing bichloride-of-mercury tablets, a favourite method, it seems, lately.
"But Phelps did not want to die to win. Life was too sweet to him. He had another scheme." Kennedy dropped his voice.
"One of the most fascinating problems in speculation as to the future of the race under the influence of science is that of suspended animation. The usual att.i.tude is one of reserve or scepticism. There is no necessity for it. Records exist of cases where vital functions have been practically suspended, with no food and little air. Every day science is getting closer to the control of metabolism. In the trance the body functions are so slowed as to simulate death. You have heard of the Indian fakirs who bury themselves alive and are dug up days later? You have doubted it. But there is nothing improbable in it.
"Experiments have been made with toads which have been imprisoned in porous rock where they could get the necessary air. They have lived for months in a stupor. In impervious rock they have died. Frozen fish can revive; bears and other animals hibernate. There are all gradations from ordinary sleep to the torpor of death. Science can slow down almost to a standstill the vital processes so that excretions disappear and respiration and heart-beat are almost nil.
"What the Indian fakir does in a cataleptic condition may be duplicated. It is not incredible that they may possess some vegetable extract by which they perform their as yet unexplained feats of prolonged living burial. For, if an animal free from disease is subjected to the action of some chemical and physical agencies which have the property of reducing to the extreme limit the motor forces and nervous stimulus, the body of even a warm-blooded animal may be brought down to a condition so closely resembling death that the most careful examination may fail to detect any signs of life. The heart will continue working regularly at low tension, supplying muscles and other parts with sufficient blood to sustain molecular life, and the stomach would naturally react to artificial stimulus. At any time before decomposition of tissue has set in, the heart might be made to resume its work and life come back.
"Phelps had travelled extensively. In Siberia he must undoubtedly have heard of the Buriats, a tribe of natives who hibernate, almost like the animals, during the winters, succ.u.mbing to a long sleep known as the "leshka." He must have heard of the experiments of Professor Bakhmetieff, who studied the Buriats and found that they subsisted on foods rich in glycogen, a substance in the liver which science has discovered makes possible life during suspended animation. He must have heard of "anabiose," as the famous Russian calls it, by which consciousness can be totally removed and respiration and digestion cease almost completely."
"But--the body--is gone!" some one interrupted. I turned. It was Dana Phelps, now leaning forward in wide-eyed excitement.
"Yes," exclaimed Craig. "Time was pa.s.sing rapidly. The insurance had not been paid. He had expected to be revived and to disappear with Anginette Phelps long before this. Should the confederates of Phelps wait? They did not dare. To wait longer might be to sacrifice him, if indeed they had not taken a long chance already. Besides, you yourself had your suspicions and had written the insurance company hinting at murder."
Dana nodded, involuntarily confessing.
"You were watching them, as well as the insurance investigator, Mr.
Andrews. It was an awful dilemma. What was to be done? He must be resuscitated at any risk.
"Ah--an idea! Rifle the grave--that was the way to solve it. That would still leave it possible to collect the insurance, too. The blackmail letter about the five thousand dollars was only a blind, to lay on the mythical Black Hand the blame for the desecration. Brought into light, humidity, and warmth, the body would recover consciousness and the life-functions resume their normal state after the anabiotic coma into which Phelps had drugged himself.
"But the very first night the supposed ghouls were discovered. Dana Phelps, already suspicious regarding the death of his brother, wondering at the lack of sentiment which Mrs. Phelps showed, since she felt that her husband was not really dead--Dana was there. His suspicions were confirmed, he thought. Montague had been, in reality, murdered, and his murderers were now making away with the evidence. He fought with the ghouls, yet apparently, in the darkness, he did not discover their ident.i.ty. The struggle was bitter, but they were two to one. Dana was bitten by one of them. Here are the marks of teeth--teeth--of a woman."
Anginette Phelps was sobbing convulsively. She had risen and was facing Doctor Forden with outstretched hands.
"Tell them!" she cried wildly.
Forden seemed to have maintained his composure only by a superhuman effort.
"The--body is--at my office," he said, as we faced him with deathlike stillness. "Phelps had told us to get him within ten days. We did get him, finally. Gentlemen, you, who were seeking murderers, are, in effect, murderers. You kept us away two days too long. It was too late.
We could not revive him. Phelps is really dead!"
"The deuce!" exclaimed Andrews, "the policy is incontestible!"
As he turned to us in disgust, his eyes fell on Anginette Phelps, sobered down by the terrible tragedy and nearly a physical wreck from real grief.
"Still," he added hastily, "we"ll pay without a protest."
She did not even hear him. It seemed that the b.u.t.terfly in her was crushed, as Dr. Forden and Miss Tracy gently led her away.
They had all left, and the laboratory was again in its normal state of silence, except for the occasional step of Kennedy as he stowed away the apparatus he had used.
"I must say that I was one of the most surprised in the room at the outcome of that case," I confessed at length. "I fully expected an arrest."
He said nothing, but went on methodically restoring his apparatus to its proper place.
"What a peculiar life you lead, Craig," I pursued reflectively. "One day it is a case that ends with such a bright spot in our lives as the recollection of the Shirleys; the next goes to the other extreme of gruesomeness and one can hardly think about it without a shudder. And then, through it all, you go with the high speed power of a racing motor."
"That last case appealed to me, like many others," he ruminated, "just because it was so unusual, so gruesome, as you call it."
He reached into the pocket of his coat, hung over the back of a chair.
"Now, here"s another most unusual case, apparently. It begins, really, at the other end, so to speak, with the conviction, begins at the very place where we detectives send a man as the last act of our little dramas."
"What?" I gasped, "another case before even this one is fairly cleaned up? Craig--you are impossible. You get worse instead of better."
"Read it," he said, simply. Kennedy handed me a letter in the angular hand affected by many women. It was dated at Sing Sing, or rather Ossining. Craig seemed to appreciate the surprise which my face must have betrayed at the curious combination of circ.u.mstances.
"Nearly always there is the wife or mother of a condemned man who lives in the shadow of the prison," he remarked quietly, adding, "where she can look down at the grim walls, hoping and fearing."
I said nothing, for the letter spoke for itself.
I have read of your success as a scientific detective and hope that you will pardon me for writing to you, but it is a matter of life or death for one who is dearer to me than all the world.
Perhaps you recall reading of the trial and conviction of my husband, Sanford G.o.dwin, at East Point. The case did not attract much attention in New York papers, although he was defended by an able lawyer from the city.
Since the trial, I have taken up my residence here in Ossining in order to be near him. As I write I can see the cold, grey walls of the state prison that holds all that is dear to me. Day after day, I have watched and waited, hoped against hope. The courts are so slow, and lawyers are so technical. There have been executions since I came here, too--and I shudder at them. Will this appeal be denied, also?
My husband was accused of murdering by poison--hemlock, they alleged--his adoptive parent, the retired merchant, Parker G.o.dwin, whose family name he took when he was a boy. After the death of the old man, a later will was discovered in which my husband"s inheritance was reduced to a small annuity. The other heirs, the Elmores, a.s.serted, and the state made out its case on the a.s.sumption, that the new will furnished a motive for killing old Mr. G.o.dwin, and that only by accident had it been discovered.
Sanford is innocent. He could not have done it. It is not in him to do such a thing. I am only a woman, but about some things I know more than all the lawyers and scientists, and I KNOW that he is innocent.
I cannot write all. My heart is too full. Cannot you come and advise me? Even if you cannot take up the case to which I have devoted my life, tell me what to do. I am enclosing a check for expenses, all I can spare at present.
Sincerely yours,
NELLA G.o.dWIN.
"Are you going?" I asked, watching Kennedy as he tapped the check thoughtfully on the desk.
"I can hardly resist an appeal like that," he replied, absently replacing the check in the envelope with the letter.
XXIII