If she had stayed under them several nights no doubt the beginning of a dermat.i.tis would have affected her, if not more serious trouble. A systematic application, covering weeks and months, might in the end even have led to death.

"The next day I managed, as I have said, to go over the room thoroughly with a vacuum cleaner--a new one of my own which I had bought myself. But tests of the dust which I got from the floors, curtains, and furniture showed nothing at all. As a last thought I had, however, cleaned the mattress of the bed and the cracks and crevices in the bra.s.s bars. Teats of that dust showed it to be extremely radioactive. I had the dust dissolved, by a chemist who understands that sort of thing, recrystallized, and the radium salts were extracted from the refuse. Thus I found that I had recovered all but a very few milligrams of the radium that had been originally purchased in London. Here it is in this deadly tube in the leaden casket.

"It is needless to add that the night after I had cleaned out this deadly element the maid slept the sleep of the just--and would have been all right when next I saw her but for the interference of the unjust on whom I had stolen a march."

Craig paused while the lawyers whispered again to their clients. Then he continued: "Now three persons in this room had an opportunity to secrete the contents of this deadly tube in the crevices of the metal work of Mrs. Close's bed. One of these persons must have placed an order through a confidential agent in London to purchase the radium from the English Radium Corporation. One of these persons had a compelling motive, something to gain by using this deadly element.

"The radium in this tube in the casket was secreted, as I have said, in the metal work of Mrs. Close's bed, not in large enough quant.i.ties to be immediately fatal, but mixed with dust so as to produce the result more slowly but no less surely, and thus avoid suspicion.

At the same time Mrs. Close was persuaded--I will not say by whom--through her natural pride, to take a course of X-ray treatment for a slight defect. That would further serve to divert suspicion. The fact is that a more horrible plot could hardly have been planned or executed. This person sought to ruin her beauty to gain a most selfish and despicable end."

Again Craig paused to let his words sink into our minds.

"Now I wish to state that anything you gentlemen may say will be used against you. That is why I have asked you to bring your attorneys. You may consult with them, of course, while I am getting ready my next disclosure."

As Kennedy had developed his points in the case I had been more and more amazed. But I had not failed to notice how keenly Lawrence was following him.

With half a sneer on his astute face, Lawrence drawled: "I cannot see that you have accomplished anything by this rather extraordinary summoning of us to your laboratory. The evidence is just as black against Dr. Gregory as before. You may think you're clever, Kennedy, but on the very statement of facts as you have brought them out there is plenty of circ.u.mstantial evidence against Gregory--more than there was before. As for anyone else in the room, I can't see that you have anything on us--unless perhaps this new evidence you speak of may implicate Asche, or Jameson," he added, including me in a wave of his hand, as if he were already addressing a jury. "It's my opinion that twelve of our peers would be quite as likely to bring in a verdict of guilty against them as against anyone else even remotely connected with this case, except Gregory. No, you'll have to do better than this in your next case, if you expect to maintain that so-called reputation of yours for being a professor of criminal science."

As for Close, taking his cue from his attorney, he scornfully added: "I came to find out some new evidence against the wretch who wrecked the beauty of my wife. All I've got is a tiresome lecture on X-rays and radium. I suppose what you say is true. Well, it only bears out what I thought before. Gregory treated my wife at home, after he saw the damage his office treatments had done. I guess he was capable of making a complete job of it--covering up his carelessness by getting rid of the woman who was such a d.a.m.ning piece of evidence against his professional skill."

Never a shade pa.s.sed Craig's face as he listened to this tirade.

"Excuse me a moment," was all he said, opening the door to leave the room. "I have just one more fact to disclose. I will be back directly."

Kennedy was gone several minutes, during which Close and Lawrence fell to whispering behind their hands, with the a.s.surance of those who believed that this was only Kennedy's method of admitting a defeat.

Gregory and Asche exchanged a few words similarly, and it was plain that Asche was endeavoring to put a better interpretation on something than Gregory himself dared hope.

As Kennedy re-entered, Close was b.u.t.toning up his coat preparatory to leaving, and Lawrence was lighting a fresh cigar.

In his hand Kennedy held a notebook. "My stenographer writes a very legible shorthand; at least I find it so--from long practice, I suppose. As I glance over her notes I find many facts which will interest you later--at the trial. But--ah, here at the end--let me read:

"'Well, he's very clever, but he has nothing against me, has he?'

"'No, not unless he can produce the agent who bought the radium for you.'

"'But he can't do that. No one could ever have recognized you on your flying trip to London disguised as a diamond merchant who had just learned that he could make his faulty diamonds good by applications of radium and who wanted a good stock of the stuff.'

"'Still, we'll have to drop the suit against Gregory after all, in spite of what I said. That part is hopelessly spoiled.'

"'Yes, I suppose so. Oh, well, I'm free now. She can hardly help but consent to a divorce now, and a quiet settlement. She brought it on herself--we tried every other way to do it, but she--she was too good to fall into it. She forced us to it.'

"'Yes, you'll get a good divorce now. But can't we shut up this man Kennedy? Even if he can't prove anything against us, the mere rumor of such a thing coming to the ears of Mrs. Tulkington would be unpleasant."

Go as far as you like, Lawrence. You know what the marriage will mean to me. It will settle my debts to you and all the rest.'

"'I'll see what I can do, Close. He'll be back in a moment.'"

Close's face was livid. "It's a pack of lies!" he shouted, advancing toward Kennedy, "a pack of lies! You are a fakir and a blackmailer.

I'll have you in jail for this, by G.o.d--and you too, Gregory."

"One moment, please," said Kennedy calmly. "Mr. Lawrence, will you be so kind as to reach behind your chair? What do you find?"

Lawrence lifted up the plain black box and with it he pulled up the wires which I had so carefully concealed in the cracks of the floor.

"That," said Kennedy, "is a little instrument called the microphone.

Its chief merit lies in the fact that it will magnify a sound sixteen hundred times, and carry it to any given point where you wish to place the receiver. Originally this device was invented for the aid of the deaf, but I see no reason why it should not be used to aid the law.

One needn't eavesdrop at the key-hole with this little instrument about. Inside that box there is nothing but a series of plugs from which wires, much finer than a thread, are stretched taut. Yet a fly walking near it will make a noise as loud as a draft-horse. If the microphone is placed in any part of the room, especially if near the persons talking--even if they are talking in a whisper--a whisper such as occurred several times during the evening and particularly while I was in the next room getting the notes made by my stenographer--a whisper, I say, is like shouting your guilt from the house-tops.

"You two men, Close and Lawrence, may consider yourselves under arrest for conspiracy and whatever other indictments will lie against such creatures as you. The police will be here in a moment. No, Close, violence won't do now. The doors are locked--and see, we are four to two."

THE BLACK HAND

BY ARTHUR B. REEVE

Kennedy and I had been dining rather late one evening at Luigi's, a little Italian restaurant on the lower West Side. We had known the place well in our student days, and had made a point of visiting it once a month since, in order to keep in practice in the fine art of gracefully handling long shreds of spaghetti. Therefore we did not think it strange when the proprietor himself stopped a moment at our table to greet us. Glancing furtively around at the other diners, mostly Italians, he suddenly leaned over and whispered to Kennedy:

"I have heard of your wonderful detective work, Professor. Could you give a little advice in the case of a friend of mine?"

"Surely, Luigi. What is the case?" asked Craig, leaning back in his chair.

Luigi glanced around again apprehensively and lowered his voice. "Not so loud, sir. When you pay your check, go out, walk around Washington Square, and come in at the private entrance. I'll be waiting in the hall. My friend is dining privately upstairs."

We lingered a while over our chianti, then quietly paid the check and departed.

True to his word, Luigi was waiting for us in the dark hall. With a motion that indicated silence, he led us up the stairs to the second floor, and quickly opened a door into what seemed to be a fair-sized private dining-room. A man was pacing the floor nervously. On a table was some food, untouched. As the door opened I thought he started as if in fear, and I am sure his dark face blanched, if only for an instant. Imagine our surprise at seeing Gennaro, the great tenor, with whom merely to have a speaking acquaintance was to argue oneself famous.

"Oh, it is you, Luigi," he exclaimed in perfect English, rich and mellow. "And who are these gentlemen?"

Luigi merely replied, "Friends," in English also, and then dropped off into a voluble, lowtoned explanation in Italian.

I could see, as we waited, that the same, idea had flashed over Kennedy's mind as over my own. It was now three or four days since the papers had reported the strange kidnapping of Gennaro's five-year-old daughter Adelina, his only child, and the sending of a demand for ten thousand dollars ransom, signed, as usual, with the mystic Black Hand--a name to conjure with in blackmail and extortion.

As Signor Gennaro advanced toward us, after his short talk with Luigi, almost before the introductions were over, Kennedy antic.i.p.ated him by saying: "I understand, Signor, before you ask me. I have read all about it in the papers. You want someone to help you catch the criminals who are holding your little girl."

"No, no!" exclaimed Gennaro excitedly. "Not that. I want to get my daughter first. After that, catch them if you can--yes, I should like to have someone do it. But read this first and tell me what you think of it. How should I act to get my little Adelina back without harming a hair of her head?" The famous singer drew from a capacious pocketbook a dirty, crumpled letter, scrawled on cheap paper.

Kennedy translated it quickly. It read:

Honorable sir: Your daughter is in safe hands. But, by the saints, if you give this letter to the police as you did the other, not only she but your family also, someone near to you, will suffer. We will not fail as we did Wednesday. If you want your daughter back, go yourself, alone and without telling a soul, to Enrico Albano's Sat.u.r.day night at the twelfth hour. You must provide yourself with $10,000 in bills hidden in Sat.u.r.day's _Il Progresso Italiano_. In the back room you will see a man sitting alone at a table. He will have a red flower on his coat. You are to say, "A fine opera is 'I Pagliacci.'" If he answers, "Not without Gennaro," lay the newspaper down on the table.

He will pick it up, leaving his own, the _Bolletino_. On the third page you will find written the place where your daughter has been left waiting for you. Go immediately and get her. But, by the G.o.d, if you have so much as a shadow of the police near Enrico's your daughter will be sent to you in a box that night. Do not fear to come. We pledge our word to deal fairly if you deal fairly. This is a last warning. Lest you shall forget we will show one other sign of our power to-morrow.

LA MANO NERA.