The Adventuress

CHAPTER V

THE WHITE LIGHT CAFÉ

‘AS long as I am back in the city,’ continued Kennedy, while we stared at one another, wondering what next move to make, ‘I think that I had better take the opportunity to make some investigations in my laboratory which would be impossible out at Westport.’

In the meantime Burke had been examining the burglar’s microphone, turning it over and over thoughtfully, as if in the hope that it might furnish some clue.

‘It might have been possible,’ he ruminated, ‘for someone to get into the building at night if the night watchman was off his guard and he had a key to the building. I suppose he might get out again, too, under the same circumstances.’

‘A good lead,’ agreed Kennedy. ‘While you are finding the night watchman and getting anything else along that line of reconstructing what actually did take place it will give me just the chance I need. Let us meet in two or three hours—say, at Mr Hastings’s office. Let me see, I believe your firm is Hastings and Halsey, isn’t it?’

‘Hastings and Halsey,’ repeated the lawyer. ‘You are quite welcome to meet again there. You know where it is, on Wall Street?’

We noted the number and Kennedy and I hurried up-town to the laboratory which we had left only a few short hours before.

Already there were waiting for him, by special messenger, the materials from the autopsy which had been promised by the Westport coroner, who for once had appreciated the importance of a case and had acted with speed and decision.

Kennedy lost no time in throwing off his coat and donning his acid-stained smock. For some minutes I watched him in silence as he arranged his jars and beakers and test-tubes for the study which he had in mind. He had taken some of the material and placed it over a Bunsen burner in an apparatus which looked like a miniature still. Another apparatus which he took from a cabinet was disposed on a table. It seemed to consist primarily of three tubes. In one was a slit, and through the slit evidently rays of light were caused to stream. Inside I saw a lens. Each of the tubes seemed to radiate from a triangular prism of some substance that looked like glass. Two of the radiating tubes had an eye-piece and on one was a sort of scale.

As Kennedy made these rapid preparations he paused now and then to study carefully the slivers of bright metal he had picked up from the carpet in the state-room, while on a porcelain plate he placed the powder which he had scraped from the brass fittings.

‘I’m not doing you a bit of good here, Craig,’ I remarked, at length. ‘Isn’t there something I can do while you are working? I can come back here in time to go down and meet Hastings and Burke with you.’

He paused a moment. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘there is something that you might be doing. I have been wondering just how intimate that little Mexican dancer was with Marshall Maddox and whether Shelby actually knew her in New York before he met her out at Westport the other night. I think you might make some inquiries along that line, and by the time you find anything you may find me more interesting also.’

Glad of the opportunity to be of service, for anything was better than to sit about idle in the present high-keyed state of my nerves, I started out.

My first impulse was to visit the New Amsterdam Club, one of the oldest clubs in the city, of which I knew that Maddox had been a member.

I knew several men who were members, and I was sure that among them I might find someone at the club at that time, and perhaps either from him learn something of Maddox or at least obtain an introduction to someone who did know.

I found that I had not acted without reason. In the big window that overlooked Fifth Avenue, ensconced in the deep leather chairs, looking out on the fashionable throng of shoppers who passed up and down the Avenue, I found several men, among whom was Conigsby, whom I had known for some time as assiduous first-nighter and man about town.

Conigsby welcomed me and I soon saw that the topic of conversation was the reports that all had been reading in the papers about the mystery that shrouded the death of Marshall Maddox.

‘Peculiar fellow, Maddox,’ commented Conigsby. ‘What do the boys down on the Star have to say about the case, Jameson?’

I had no desire to commit myself, yet I wanted to glean as much as I could. For although we are prone to accuse the ladies of gossip, I think most men will back me up when I say that there is no place for the genuine article that cannot be beaten by a comfortable window in a club where congenial spirits have gathered over a succession of brandies and soda.

‘It promises to be the great case of the year,’ I returned guardedly. ‘So far, I understand there is much more in the life of Maddox than even some of his friends suspect.

At the mere suggestion of scandal all eyes were fixed on me. Yet I was determined to speak in riddles and betray nothing, in the hope that some of them might open up a rich vein of inquiry.

Conigsby laughed. ‘Perhaps more than some of his friends imagined—yes,’ he repeated.

‘Why, what was it?’ inquired one of the group. ‘Is there another woman in the case? I thought Maddox was divorced.’

‘So he was,’ returned the clubman. ‘I knew his wife, Irene, before they were married. Really, it was a shame the way that man treated her. I can claim no special virtue,’ he added, with a shrug, ‘but then I haven’t a wife—not so much as a friend who would care whether I was here or in No Man’s Land. But Maddox—well, he was one of those men who have worked hard all their lives, but in middle age seem to begin sowing the wild oats they failed to sow in youth. You know the kind. I guess he must have reached the dangerous age for men, if there is such a thing.’

‘What was it—chorus girls?’ chimed in the other, ever ready for a spicy bit of gossip.

‘Yes—lately cabaret dancers—one in particular—at The White Light—a little Mexican—Paquita.

‘What—Paquita?’ chorused the group, and I could see by the inflection that she was not unknown to several of them. ‘You don’t say. Well, you must admit he was a good picker.’

‘I rather suspect that his acquaintance cost him high, though,’ persisted Conigsby. ‘Paquita has a scale of prices. It costs so much to take dinner with her. She’ll drive out of an afternoon with you—but you must pay. There’s a union scale.’

‘It takes dough to make tarts,’ frivolously suggested another of the group, forgetful of the tragedy that they were discussing.

Indeed, I was amazed at the nonchalant attitude they took. Yet, on analysis, I concluded that it also might be significant. No doubt the estimate of Maddox by his club members was more accurate than that of the world at large.

‘If it had been Shelby,’ put in another man, ‘I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

‘Don’t worry,’ interposed Conigsby. ‘Shelby Maddox is clever. Remember, Shelby is young. Underneath his wildness there is ambition. I think you’ll hear more of that boy before we are through. I know him, and he’s likely to prove a chip of the old Maddox block. Nothing that Shelby does would surprise me.’

‘How about the other sister, Frances?’ inquired another. ‘Do you know her husband, Walcott?’

‘Not very well. You’re more likely to find him on Broad Street than Broadway. You know what I care for Broad Street. I’d never visit it if my bankers were not down there. Walcott has a deuced pretty little sister, though. I hear that Shelby is quite smitten.’

‘Well, whatever you may think of him, I have seen Shelby Maddox with Paquita, too. I’ll lay you a little bet that that little baggage knows something about the case. Remember, the murder was on Shelby’s yacht.’

Conigsby shrugged. ‘Quite possible—another case of notoriety for The White Light.’

‘Notoriety for Paquita, you mean,’ corrected another. ‘I hear she plans to get back into musical comedy this fall. She’s not at The White Light any longer.’

‘Well, I think she’ll make good,’ agreed Conigsby. ‘I wonder who the angel is for her new show?’

The conversation was now hopelessly drifting, and I excused myself. At least I had learned enough to give me an insight into another phase of the life of Marshall Maddox.

Pondering what I had just heard, I decided to wander over towards the café and theatre district, and drop into the cabaret which they had mentioned—The White Light.

As I entered the place in broad daylight I was struck by the sordidness of it. Deserted except by those who were cleaning up for the coming late afternoon and evening, it was positively tawdry. It needed the glamour of bright faces and night life, and even then it must be viewed through the bottom of a glass to wear even the semblance of attraction.

In the main dining-room of the café, grouped about the little dancing floor before the platform on which sat the orchestra when things were in full swing, stood innumerable little white tables. Just now there seemed to be no one there except a man at the piano and a girl who was evidently rehearsing her dance steps.

I paused for a moment and a waiter who had been arranging the tables for the coming crowd moved over to tell me that the place was not yet open.

I satisfied him that it was on other business that I had come, then asked him whether Paquita was at The White Light any more.

‘No, sir,’ he replied brusquely. ‘She hasn’t been here for several days. I’ve heard that she has gone away to the country—has another contract. It is a rehearsal for the girl who is to do her number that is going on now. Is there anything I can do for you?’

I thanked him. It was not the waiter I wanted, but the proprietor, Henri.

In a little office in the rear I at last discovered him, a rather stout, genial Frenchman, who had made a reputation as one of New York’s restaurateurs to the risqué. I had known Henri once when I had the assignment on the Star that covered the theatre and hotel district, and I had no fear that he would not talk.

‘Well, Henri,’ I began cautiously, ‘I suppose you saw in the papers this morning about your friend, Marshall Maddox?’

Henri, who was matching up cheques showing the business done up to an early hour of the morning, shrugged. ‘Monsieur was more the friend of La Paquita than of me,’ he returned, still matching cheques.

‘Still, he came here a great deal,’ I asserted, taking a chance.

‘Oui,’ he agreed, ‘but it was not to see us. Always La Paquita, La Paquita. So different from his brother.’

‘Indeed?’ I queried, quite overjoyed at the turn the conversation was taking. ‘Then you know Shelby, too?’

‘Ver’ well. Oh, yes. He has been here. A fine fellow, but—it is all right. Business is not for him. He is always ready for the good time—a sport, you call it?’

I smiled. ‘Was he a friend of Paquita’s, too?’ I hazarded, watching Henri’s face.

He lifted his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. ‘No more than of the rest,’ he returned, with a deprecating gesture. ‘Pretty faces and figures all look good to Shelby,’ he added, with a smile; then, seriously: ‘But he will settle down. We will see him here no more, some day. Also I know his brother-in-law, Messtair Walcott. I do not like him.’

‘Why?’ I asked, somewhat amused at getting his point of view.

‘Too quiet. He will come in, not often, perhaps, bow, maybe speak, then go away.’

I thought I ‘got’ him. One must be a good spender to appeal to Henri. I could not imagine Johnson Walcott as such. In fact, I could scarcely imagine him coming to Henri’s at all.

‘Paquita was quite intimate with Marshall Maddox, wasn’t she?’ I ventured again.

Henri brought into play his ready shrug. It was not for him to say anything about his patrons, much less about the dead. Still, his very manner gave the impression that his lips would not frame.

‘Did anyone ever seem to be watching him here?’ I asked, the thought of the sallow-faced man at Westport recurring to my mind.

Henri stopped matching his cheques and looked up. Was he growing suspicious of my disinterestedness?

‘Such things are not unusual,’ he answered, showing a fine assortment of ivory beneath his black moustache.

I met his eye frankly. He seemed to understand.

‘Not for the Star, you understand?’ he nodded, still looking at me fixedly.

‘Oh, no, no!’ I hastened, truthfully. ‘I am not playing reporter now, Henri.’

He appeared to be satisfied, and it did not occur to him to inquire why else I should be interested.

‘Yes,’ he went on slowly, ‘he has been watched. I have seen it myself. Several times there was a man who came in, Spanish-looking.’

‘Did Mr Maddox know it?’ I inquired, more eager than ever.

Henri shook his head negatively. ‘Not until one day when La Paquita was talking to the man. Monsieur came in unexpectedly.’

The manager laughed a little to himself.

‘Why do you laugh?’ I asked. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ he returned. ‘It was not what happened. It was what she told him. So clever, too. She said it was a detective set to trail him by Mrs Maddox, that she had flirted with the man and found out.’

‘Then you do not think he was a detective?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘How should I know?’ replied Henri, with another question. ‘It might have been. It might not have been. She is clever.’

‘What did Maddox do?’ I persisted. Was he more cautious?’

Again Henri shook his head. ‘He gave orders that the man was not to be admitted. And we? He was a ver’ wealthy man, Mr Maddox. We could not afford to lose him.’

‘But this Spaniard,’ I reiterated, convinced it was the same man whom we had seen at Westport, ‘isn’t it possible that Mrs Maddox really did pick him out as a detective in the hope that he might get acquainted with Paquita and so report on her husband?’

‘We are just guessing, monsieur,’ dodged Henri. ‘I speak only of the things I know—and not all of them.’

He had evidently told me in substance about all that he was sure of. I knew him of old. Even after he had told his story he liked to leave a sort of ‘continued in our next’ at the close of it, just so that you would not think he was not what Broadway calls a ‘live one.’ I had absorbed about all that he had at first hand. It was enough. It gave me a view of the characters of the chief actors, from an angle which others did not know. I rose nonchalantly, thanked Henri, and sauntered out as I had in the old days when the Star picked on me to expose some new society scandal.

The visit to Henri’s White Light cabaret had shown me one very important thing, however. Shelby Maddox had known Paquita before the night of the gay dinner party preceding the arrival of the Maddox family for the conference on the yacht.

What that might indicate I did not yet venture to guess. And yet I felt sure that it must prove significant. Else why had Paquita arrived at Westport at just that particular time? It seemed as though it must have something to do with the calling of the family conference.

Above all, however, stood forth the strange coincidence of the murder of Marshall Maddox, head of the family, and the stealing of the telautomaton, the most valuable single piece of property that the family owned. There was mystery enough in this case to satisfy even Kennedy.

CHAPTER VI

THE POISON GAS

A GLANCE at my watch was sufficient to assure me that I should have no time for further inquiries if I wanted to meet Kennedy before going down to the office of Hastings. I wanted to do that, too, for I felt sure that Craig would talk more freely to me than to the rest, and my interest in the affair had by this time become insatiable.

Accordingly, I retraced my steps to the laboratory. Kennedy was still at work, partly over some reactions in test-tubes, but mostly using the strange three-tubed instrument I had noted. As I outlined to him rapidly what I had discovered and the plain inferences to be drawn from it, he listened attentively, still working.

‘Very good,’ was Kennedy’s sole comment as I concluded my story. ‘That’s very interesting—possibly very important. It begins to look as though Maddox had been in someone’s way and that that someone was taking no chances in order to “get” him.’

‘What have you discovered so far?’ I hesitated, not sure yet whether he was willing to talk, for Kennedy never said anything, even to me, until he was perfectly sure of his ground.

‘Marshall Maddox was not drowned, at least,’ he vouchsafed.

‘Not drowned?’ I repeated, more to lead him on than because I was surprised.

‘No. Whatever was the cause of his death, he was not killed by drowning. The lungs and stomach show that. In fact, I knew at Westport that he might have died a natural death or might even have been a suicide. But he certainly did not die of drowning. Only more careful tests than either the coroner or I could make at Westport were necessary.’

‘How did it happen, then?’ I continued, emboldened by his apparent readiness to talk.

Kennedy took a bottle with a ground-glass stopper and held it up so that I could see its greenish-yellow contents. Then he pulled out the stopper, covered with vaseline, for an instant and shoved it back again.

The instant was enough. A most unpleasant odour filled the laboratory. I felt a sense of suffocation in the chest, an irritation in the nose and throat, as though by the corrosive action of some gas on the air passages.

‘If we could only have seen him before he died,’ continued Kennedy, ‘I suspect we should have found his face as blue as it was when we did see him, his lips violet, his pulse growing weaker until it was imperceptible, and perhaps he would have been raising blood. It would have been like an acute bronchitis, only worse. Look.’

From a little pin prick which he made on his own thumb Craig squeezed out a drop of blood into a beaker containing some distilled water.

‘This is a spectroscope,’ he explained, touching the instrument I had noticed. ‘I think you are acquainted with it in a general way. Blood in water, diluted, shows the well-known dark bands between what we call “D” and “E.” These are the dark bands of oxyhaemoglobin absorption. Now, I add to this, drop by drop, the water from that bottle which I uncorked. See—the bands gradually fade in intensity and finally disappear, leaving a complete and brilliant spectrum devoid of any bands whatever. In other words, here is a substance that actually affects the red colouring matter in the blood, bleaches it out, and does more—destroys it.’

I listened in amazement at the fiendish nature of his discovery.

‘Marshall Maddox was overcome by the poison gas contained in a thin-shelled bomb that was thrown through his state-room window. The corrosion of the metal in the room gave me a clue to that. Then—’

‘But what is this poison gas?’ I demanded, horrified.

Kennedy looked at me fixedly a moment. ‘Chlorine,’ he replied simply; adding, ‘the spectroscope shows that there is a total absence of pigment in the blood. You can readily see that it is no wonder, if it has this action, that death is sometimes so rapid as to be almost instantaneous. Why, man alive, this thing destroys without the possibility of reconstitution! It is devilish in the quantity he inhaled it.’

I could only gasp with surprise at the discovery.

‘But how was it done?’ I repeated. ‘You think a bomb was thrown through the open port?’

‘Without a doubt. Perhaps, as you guessed, from a boat outside, the roof of a cruiser, anything, as far as that end of it goes. Whoever did it might also have entered the room in the same way.’

‘Entered the room?’ I asked.

‘Yes, wearing a mask composed of several layers of gauze impregnated with glycerinated solution of sodium hypophosphate. That is one of many substances used. All that was necessary was to wet the mask with water and adjust it. It would have served a double purpose—to protect the wearer’s life as well as his identity.’

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