It was wonderful what Kennedy was getting out of those, to us, blurred and indistinct skiagraphs. I studied the faces before me. None seemed to indicate any disposition to break down. Kennedy saw it, too, and evidently determined to go to the bitter end in hammering out the truth of the mystery.

"One moment more, please," he resumed. "The radiograph shows even more than that. It shows the possibility of detecting a signature that has been painted over, in order to disarm suspicion. The detection is easier in proportion to the density of the pigment used for the signature and the lack of density of the superposed coat."

He had laid the radiographs on the table before him, with a finger on the corner of each, as he faced us.

"At the bottom of each of the paintings in question," he shot out, leaning forward, "you will find nothing in the way of a signature. But here, in radiograph number two, for instance, barely discernible, are the words, "R. Fleming," quite invisible to the eye, but visible to the X-ray. These words have been painted over. Why? Was it to prevent anyone from thinking that the owner had ever had any connection with Rhoda Fleming?"

I was following Kennedy, but not so closely that I missed a fearful glance of Rita from Faber to Jacot. What it meant, I did not know. The others were too intent on Kennedy's exposure to notice. I wondered whether someone had sought to conceal the fact that he had a copy of the famous Watteau, made by Miss Fleming?

"Look at the bottom of the other radiograph, number one, further toward the left," pursued Kennedy resistlessly. "There you will discover traces of an 'A' and a 'W,' which do not appear on the painting. Between these two are marks which can also be deciphered by the X-ray--'Antoine Watteau.' Perhaps it was painted over lightly so that an original could be smuggled in as a copy. More likely it was done so that a thief and murderer could not be traced."

As Kennedy's voice rang out, more and more accusatory, Rita Tourville became more and more uncontrollably nervous.

"It was suggested," modulated Kennedy, playing with his little audience as a cat might with a mouse, "that someone murdered Rhoda Fleming with the little-understood poison, ergot, because of an infatuation for the picture itself. But the modern crook has an eye for pictures, just as for other valuables. The spread of the taste for art has taught these fellows that such things as old masters are worth money, and they will even murder now to get them. No, that radiograph which I have labeled number one is not a copy. It is of the genuine old master--the real Watteau.

"Someone, closely a.s.sociated with Miss Fleming, had found out that she had the original. That person, in order to get it, went even so far as to--"

Rita Tourville jumped up, wildly, facing Craig and crying out, "No, no--his _is_ the copy--the copy by Miss Fleming. It was I who told him to paint over the signature. It was I who called him away--both nights--on a pretext--when he was dining with her--alone--called him because--I--I loved him and I knew--"

Faber was on his feet beside her in a moment, his face plainly showing his feelings toward her. As he laid his hand on her arm to restrain her, she turned and caught a penetrating glance from Jacot's hypnotic eye.

Slowly she collapsed into her chair, covering her face with her hands, sobbing. For a moment a look of intense scorn and hatred blazed in Leila's face, then was checked.

Craig waved the radiograph of the real Watteau as he emphasized his last words.

"In spite of Rita Tourville's unexpected love for Faber, winning him from your victim, and with the aid of your wife, Leila, in the role of maid, the third member of your unique gang of art thieves, you are convicted infallibly by my X-ray detective," thundered Craig as he pointed his finger at the now cowering Jacot.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ABSOLUTE ZERO

"Isn't there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? You _must_ come out to Briar Lake."

When a handsome woman like Mrs. Fraser Ferris pleads, she is irresistible. Not only that, but the story which she had not trusted either to a message or a messenger was deeply interesting, for, already, it had set agog the fashionable country house colony.

Mrs. Ferris had come to us not as the social leader now, but as a mother. Only the night before her son, young Fraser, had been arrested by the local authorities at Briar Lake on the charge of homicide. I had read the meager dispatch in the morning papers and had wondered what the whole story might be.

"You see, Professor Kennedy," she began in an agitated voice as soon as she arrived at the laboratory and introduced herself to us, "day before yesterday, Fraser was boxing at the Country Club with another young man, Irving Evans."

Kennedy nodded. Both of them were well known. Ferris had been the All-America tackle on the University football team a couple of years previous and Evans was a crack pitcher several years before.

"Irving," she continued, adding, "of course I call him Irving, for his mother and I were schoolgirls together--Irving, I believe, fell unconscious during the bout. I'm telling you just what Fraser told me.

"The other men in the Club gymnasium at the time carried him into the locker-room and there they all did what they could to revive him. They succeeded finally, but when he regained consciousness he complained of a burning sensation in his stomach, or, rather, as Fraser says, just below the point where his ribs come together. They say, too, that there was a red spot on his skin, about the size of a half-dollar.

"Finally," she continued with a sigh, "the other men took Irving home--but he lapsed into a half-comatose condition. He never got better.

He--he died the next day--yesterday."

It was evidently a great effort for Mrs. Ferris to talk of the affair which had involved her son, but she had made up her mind to face the necessity and was going through it bravely.

"Of course," she resumed a moment later, "the death of Irving Evans caused a great deal of talking. It was natural in a community like Briar Lake. But I don't think anything would have been thought about it, out of the way, if the afternoon after his death--yesterday--the body of one of the Club's stewards, Benson, had not been found jammed into a trunk.

Apparently, it had been dumped off an automobile in one of the most lonely sections of the country.

"In fact," she went on, "it was the sort of thing that might have taken place, one would say, in the dark alleys of a big city. But in a country resort like Briar Lake, the very uncommonness of such a case called added attention to it."

"I understand," agreed Craig, "but why did they suspect your son?"

"That's the ridiculous part of it, at least to me," hastened the mother to her son's defense. "Both Irving and my son, as you know, were former University athletic stars, and, as in all country clubs, I suppose, that meant popularity. Irving was engaged to Anita Allison. Anita is one of the most beautiful and popular girls in the younger set, a splendid golfer, charming and clever, the life of the Club at the dances and teas."

Mrs. Ferris paused as though she would convey to us just the social status of everyone concerned.

"Of course," she threw in parenthetically, "you know the Allisons are reputed to be quite well off. When old Mr. Allison died, Anita's brother, Dean, several years older than herself, inherited the brokerage business of his father and, according to the will, a.s.sumed the guardianship of his younger sister."

She seemed to be considering something, then suddenly to make up her mind to tell it. "I suppose everyone knows it," she resumed, "and you ought to know it, too. Fraser was--er--one of Anita's unsuccessful suitors. In fact, Anita had been sought by nearly all of the most eligible young fellows of the Club. I don't think there were many who had not at some time or other offered her his whole heart as well as his fortune.

"I didn't encourage Fraser--or try to discourage him. But I could see that it lay between Fraser and Irving."

"And the rather strange circ.u.mstances of the death of Evans, as well as of the steward, occasioned a good deal of gossip, I suppose," chimed in Kennedy.

"Yes. Somehow, people began to whisper that it was revenge or hate or jealousy that had prompted the blow,--that perhaps the steward, Benson, who was very popular with the young men, knew or had seen something that made him dangerous.

"Anyhow, gossip grew until it seemed that, in some way which no one has ever said definitely, a deliberate attempt was made on Irving Evans's life, and finally the local authorities, rather glad to take up a scandal in the Club set, took action and arrested my Fraser--under a charge of homicide."

She blurted the words out fiercely and defiantly, but it was all a.s.sumed. Underneath, one could see the woman fighting loyally with every weapon for her son, keenly alive to the disgrace that even the breath of scandal unrefuted might bring to his name.

"How about the other admirers?" asked Craig quickly.

"That's another queer thing," she replied eagerly. "You see, they have all suddenly become very busy and have made perfect alibis. But there was Allan Wyndham--he's a friend of the Allisons,--why shouldn't they suspect him? In fact, there was quite a group of young fellows closely a.s.sociated with Dean Allison in speculation. Irving Evans was one. But,"

she added, with a glance at Kennedy as if she realized that it was like catching at a straw, "with Fraser, of course,--there is that blow. We can't deny that."

"What does Miss Allison think?" queried Craig.

"Oh, I believe Anita is all broken up by the tragedy to her fiance. She was at the Club at the time--in the tea room. No one dared to tell her until Irving had been taken home. Then her brother, who was in the gymnasium when the thing happened and had been one of those to carry Irving into the locker-room, was naturally chosen by the rest, after they had done all they could to revive Irving, to break the news as gently as he could to his sister. She took it calmly. But I think it would have been better if she had given way to her real feelings. They say she has secluded herself in the Allison house and won't see a soul."

Kennedy's brow puckered in thought.

"You can't imagine what a terrible shock this thing has been to me,"

pleaded Mrs. Ferris. "Oh, the horror of it all! You _must_ come out to Briar Lake with me!"

There was, naturally, no doubt of the poignancy of her feelings as she looked from Kennedy to myself, imploringly. As for Craig, he did not need to betray the sympathy he felt not only for the young man who had been arrested and his mother, but for the poor girl whose life might be blasted by the tragedy and the unhappy victim who had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away so suddenly almost on the very eve of happiness.

It was not half an hour later, that, with a very grateful mother, we were on our way out to Briar Lake in Mrs. Ferris's touring car.

As we whirled along past the city limits, Kennedy leaned back on the cushions and for some minutes seemed absorbed in thought.