It was late in the afternoon when Kennedy again visited the G.o.dwin house and examined the camera. Without a word he pulled the detectascope from the wall and carried the whole thing to the developing-room of the local photographer.
There he set to work on the film and I watched him in silence. He seemed very much excited as he watched the film develop, until at last he held it up, dripping, to the red light.
"Some one has entered that room this afternoon and attempted to wipe off the walls and woodwork of that closet, as I expected," he exclaimed.
"Who was it?" I asked, leaning over.
Kennedy said nothing, but pointed to a figure on the film. I bent closer. It was the figure of a woman.
"Miriam!" I exclaimed in surprise.
XXIV
THE FINAL DAY
I looked aghast at him. If it had been either Bradford or Lambert, both of whom we had come to know since Kennedy had interested himself in the case, or even Hollins or Kilgore, I should not have been surprised. But Miriam!
"How could she have any connection with the case?" I asked incredulously.
Kennedy did not attempt to explain. "It is a fatal mistake, Walter, for a detective to a.s.sume that he knows what anybody would do in any given circ.u.mstances. The only safe course for him is to find out what the persons in question did do. People are always doing the unexpected.
This is a case of it, as you see. I am merely trying to get back at facts. Come; I think we might as well not stay over night, after all. I should like to drop off on the way back to the city to see Mrs. G.o.dwin."
As we rode up the hill I was surprised to see that there was no one at the window, nor did any one seem to pay attention to our knocking at the door.
Kennedy turned the k.n.o.b quickly and strode in.
Seated in a chair, as white as a wraith from the grave, was Mrs.
G.o.dwin, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
"What"s the matter?" demanded Kennedy, leaping to her side and grasping her icy hand.
The stare on her face seemed to change slightly as she recognised him.
"Walter--some water--and a little brandy--if there is any. Tell me--what has happened?"
From her lap a yellow telegram had fluttered to the floor, but before he could pick it up, she gasped, "The appeal--it has been denied."
Kennedy picked up the paper. It was a message, unsigned, but not from Kahn, as its wording and in fact the circ.u.mstances plainly showed.
"The execution is set for the week beginning the fifth," she continued, in the same hollow, mechanical voice. "My G.o.d--that"s next Monday!"
She had risen now and was pacing the room.
"No! I"m not going to faint. I wish I could. I wish I could cry. I wish I could do something. Oh, those Elmores--they must have sent it. No one would have been so cruel but they."
She stopped and gazed wildly out of the window at the prison. Neither of us knew what to say for the moment.
"Many times from this window," she cried, "I have seen a man walk out of that prison gate. I always watch to see what he does, though I know it is no use. If he stands in the free air, stops short, and looks up suddenly, taking a long look at every house--I hope. But he always turns for a quick, backward look at the prison and goes half running down the hill. They always stop in that fashion, when the steel door opens outward. Yet I have always looked and hoped. But I can hope no more--no more. The last chance is gone."
"No--not the last chance," exclaimed Craig, springing to her side lest she should fall. Then he added gently, "You must come with me to East Point--immediately."
"What--leave him here--alone--in the last days? No--no--no. Never. I must see him. I wonder if they have told him yet."
It was evident that she had lost faith in Kennedy, in everybody, now.
"Mrs. G.o.dwin," he urged. "Come--you must. It is a last chance."
Eagerly he was pouring out the story of the discovery of the afternoon by the little detectascope.
"Miriam?" she repeated, dazed. "She--know anything--it can"t be.
No--don"t raise a false hope now."
"It is the last chance," he urged again. "Come. There is not an hour to waste now."
There was no delay, no deliberation about Kennedy now. He had been forced out into the open by the course of events, and he meant to take advantage of every precious moment.
Down the hill our car sped to the town, with Mrs. G.o.dwin still protesting, but hardly realising what was going on. Regardless of tolls, Kennedy called up his laboratory in New York and had two of his most careful students pack up the stuff which he described minutely to be carried to East Point immediately by train. Kahn, too, was at last found and summoned to meet us there also.
Miles never seemed longer than they did to us as we tore over the country from Ossining to East Point, a silent party, yet keyed up by an excitement that none of us had ever felt before.
Impatiently we awaited the arrival of the men from Kennedy"s laboratory, while we made Mrs. G.o.dwin as comfortable as possible in a room at the hotel. In one of the parlours Kennedy was improvising a laboratory as best he could. Meanwhile, Kahn had arrived, and together we were seeking those whose connection with, or interest in, the case made necessary their presence.
It was well along toward midnight before the hasty conference had been gathered; besides Mrs. G.o.dwin, Salo Kahn, and ourselves, the three Elmores, Kilgore, and Hollins.
Strange though it was, the room seemed to me almost to have a.s.sumed the familiar look of the laboratory in New York. There was the same clutter of tubes and jars on the tables, but above all that same feeling of suspense in the air which I had come to a.s.sociate with the clearing up of a case. There was something else in the air, too. It was a peculiar mousey smell, disagreeable, and one which made it a relief to have Kennedy begin in a low voice to tell why he had called us together so hastily.
"I shall start," announced Kennedy, "at the point where the state left off--with the proof that Mr. G.o.dwin died of conine, or hemlock poisoning. Conine, as every chemist knows, has a long and well-known history. It was the first alkaloid to be synthesised. Here is a sample, this colourless, oily fluid. No doubt you have noticed the mousey odour in this room. As little as one part of conine to fifty thousand of water gives off that odour--it is characteristic.
"I have proceeded with extraordinary caution in my investigation of this case," he went on. "In fact, there would have been no value in it, otherwise, for the experts for the people seem to have established the presence of conine in the body with absolute certainty."
He paused and we waited expectantly.
"I have had the body exhumed and have repeated the tests. The alkaloid which I discovered had given precisely the same results as in their tests."
My heart sank. What was he doing--convicting the man over again?
"There is one other test which I tried," he continued, "but which I can not take time to duplicate tonight. It was testified at the trial that conine, the active principle of hemlock, is intensely poisonous. No chemical antidote is known. A fifth of a grain has serious results; a drop is fatal. An injection of a most minute quant.i.ty of real conine will kill a mouse, for instance, almost instantly. But the conine which I have isolated in the body is inert!"
It came like a bombsh.e.l.l to the prosecution, so bewildering was the discovery.
"Inert?" cried Kilgore and Hollins almost together. "It can"t be. You are making sport of the best chemical experts that money could obtain.
Inert? Read the evidence--read the books."
"On the contrary," resumed Craig, ignoring the interruption, "all the reactions obtained by the experts have been duplicated by me. But, in addition, I tried this one test which they did not try. I repeat: the conine isolated in the body is inert."