The War Terror

by Arthur B. Reeve

  CHAPTER X

  THE CURIO SHOP

  Edwards crumpled up as Kennedy and I faced him. There was no escape. Infact our greatest difficulty was to protect him from Waldon.

  Kennedy's work in the case was over when we had got Edwards ashore andin the hands of the authorities. But mine had just begun and it waslate when I got my story on the wire for the Star.

  I felt pretty tired and determined to make up for it by sleeping thenext day. It was no use, however.

  "Why, what's the matter, Mrs. Northrop?" I heard Kennedy ask as heopened our door the next morning, just as I had finished dressing.

  He had admitted a young woman, who greeted us with nervous,wide-staring eyes.

  "It's--it's about Archer," she cried, sinking into the nearest chairand staring from one to the other of us.

  She was the wife of Professor Archer Northrop, director of thearcheological department at the university. Both Craig and I had knownher ever since her marriage to Northrop, for she was one of the mostattractive ladies in the younger set of the faculty, to which Craignaturally belonged. Archer had been of the class below us in theuniversity. We had hazed him, and out of the mild hazing there had,strangely enough, grown a strong friendship.

  I recollected quickly that Northrop, according to last reports, hadbeen down in the south of Mexico on an archeological expedition. Butbefore I could frame, even in my mind, the natural question in a formthat would not alarm his wife further, Kennedy had it on his lips.

  "No bad news from Mitla, I hope?" he asked gently, recalling one of themain working stations chosen by the expedition and the reportedunsettled condition of the country about it. She looked up quickly.

  "Didn't you know--he--came back from Vera Cruz yesterday?" she askedslowly, then added, speaking in a broken tone, "and--heseems--suddenly--to have disappeared. Oh, such a terrible night ofworry! No word--and I called up the museum, but Doctor Bernardo, thecurator, had gone, and no one answered. And this morning--I couldn'tstand it any longer--so I came to you."

  "You have no idea, I suppose, of anything that was weighing on hismind?" suggested Kennedy.

  "No," she answered promptly.

  In default of any further information, Kennedy did not pursue this lineof questioning. I could not determine from his face or manner whetherhe thought the matter might involve another than Mrs. Northrop, or,perhaps, something connected with the unsettled condition of thecountry from which her husband had just arrived.

  "Have you any of the letters that Archer wrote home?" asked Craig, atlength.

  "Yes," she replied eagerly, taking a little packet from her handbag. "Ithought you might ask that. I brought them."

  "You are an ideal client," commented Craig encouragingly, taking theletters. "Now, Mrs. Northrop, be brave. Trust me to run this thingdown, and if you hear anything let me know immediately."

  She left us a moment later, visibly relieved.

  Scarcely had she gone when Craig, stuffing the letters into his pocketunread, seized his hat, and a moment later was striding along towardthe museum with his habitual rapid, abstracted step which told me thathe sensed a mystery.

  In the museum we met Doctor Bernardo, a man slightly older thanNorthrop, with whom he had been very intimate. He had just arrived andwas already deeply immersed in the study of some new and beautifulcolored plates from the National Museum of Mexico City.

  "Do you remember seeing Northrop here yesterday afternoon?" greetedCraig, without explaining what had happened.

  "Yes," he answered promptly. "I was here with him until very late. Atleast, he was in his own room, working hard, when I left."

  "Did you see him go?"

  "Why--er--no," replied Bernardo, as if that were a new idea. "I lefthim here--at least, I didn't see him go out."

  Kennedy tried the door of Northrop's room, which was at the far end, ina corner, and communicated with the hall only through the main floor ofthe museum. It was locked. A pass-key from the janitor quickly openedit.

  Such a sight as greeted us, I shall never forget. There, in his bigdesk-chair, sat Northrop, absolutely rigid, the most horribly contortedlook on his features that I have ever seen--half of pain, half of fear,as if of something nameless.

  Kennedy bent over. His hands were cold.

  Northrop had been dead at least twelve hours, perhaps longer. All nightthe deserted museum had guarded its terrible secret.

  As Craig peered into his face, he saw, in the fleshy part of the neck,just below the left ear, a round red mark, with just a drop or two ofnow black coagulated blood in the center. All around we could see avast amount of miscellaneous stuff, partly unpacked, partly justopened, and waiting to be taken out of the wrappings by the nowmotionless hands.

  "I suppose you are more or less familiar with what Northrop broughtback?" asked Kennedy of Bernardo, running his eye over the material inthe room.

  "Yes, reasonably," answered Bernardo. "Before the cases arrived fromthe wharf, he told me in detail what he had managed to bring up withhim."

  "I wish, then, that you would look it over and see if there is anythingmissing," requested Craig, already himself busy in going over the roomfor other evidence.

  Doctor Bernardo hastily began taking a mental inventory of the stuff.While they worked, I tried vainly to frame some theory which wouldexplain the startling facts we had so suddenly discovered.

  Mitla, I knew, was south of the city of Oaxaca, and there, in itsruined palaces, was the crowning achievement of the old Zapotec kings.No ruins in America were more elaborately ornamented or richer in lorefor the archeologist.

  Northrop had brought up porphyry blocks with quaint grecques and muchhieroglyphic painting. Already unpacked were half a dozen copper axes,some of the first of that particular style that had ever been broughtto the United States. Besides the sculptured stones and the mosaicswere jugs, cups, vases, little gods, sacrificial stones--enough,almost, to equip a new alcove in the museum.

  Before Northrop was an idol, a hideous thing on which frogs and snakessquatted and coiled. It was a fitting piece to accompany the gruesomeoccupant of the little room in his long, last vigil. In fact, it almostsent a shudder over me, and if I had been inclined to thesuperstitious, I should certainly have concluded that this wasretribution for having disturbed the lares and penates of a dead race.

  Doctor Bernardo was going over the material a second time. By the lookon his face, even I could guess that something was missing.

  "What is it?" asked Craig, following the curator closely.

  "Why," he answered slowly, "there was an inscription--we were lookingat it earlier in the day--on a small block of porphyry. I don't see it."

  He paused and went back to his search before we could ask him furtherwhat he thought the inscription was about.

  I thought nothing myself at the time of his reticence, for Kennedy hadgone over to a window back of Northrop and to the left. It was fullytwenty feet from the downward slope of the campus there, and, as hecraned his neck out, he noted that the copper leader of the rain piperan past it a few feet away.

  I, too, looked out. A thick group of trees hid the window from theavenue beyond the campus wall, and below us, at a corner of thebuilding, was a clump of rhododendrons. As Craig bent over the sill, hewhipped out a pocket lens.

  A moment later he silently handed the glass to me. As nearly as I couldmake out, there were five marks on the dust of the sill.

  "Finger-prints!" I exclaimed. "Some one has been clinging to the edgeof the ledge."

  "In that case," Craig observed quietly, "there would have been onlyfour prints."

  I looked again, puzzled. The prints were flat and well separated.

  "No," he added, "not finger-prints--toe-prints."

  "Toe-prints?" I echoed.

  Before he could reply, Craig had dashed out of the room, around, andunder the window. There, he was carefully going over the soft eartharound the bushes below.

  "What are you looking for?" I asked, joining him.

&n
bsp; "Some one--perhaps two--has been here," he remarked, almost under hisbreath. "One, at least, has removed his shoes. See those shoe-prints upto this point? The print of a boot-heel in soft earth shows theposition and contour of every nail head. Bertillon has made acollection of such nails, certain types, sizes, and shapes used incertain boots, showing often what country the shoes came from. Even thenumber and pattern are significant. Some factories use a fixed numberof nails and arrange them in a particular manner. I have made my owncollection of such prints in this country. These were American shoes.Perhaps the clue will not lead us anywhere, though, for I doubt whetherit was an American foot."

  Kennedy continued to study the marks.

  "He removed his shoes--either to help in climbing or to preventnoise--ah--here's the foot! Strange--see how small it is--and broad,how prehensile the toes--almost like fingers. Surely that foot couldnever have been encased in American shoes all its life. I shall makeplaster casts of these, to preserve later."

  He was still scouting about on hands and knees in the dampness of therhododendrons. Suddenly he reached his long arm in among the shrubs andpicked up a little reed stick. On the end of it was a small cylinder ofbuff brown.

  He looked at it curiously, dug his nail into the soft mass, then rubbedhis nail over the tip of his tongue gingerly.

  With a wry face, as if the taste were extremely acrid, he moistened hishandkerchief and wiped off his tongue vigorously.

  "Even that minute particle that was on my nail makes my tongue tingleand feel numb," he remarked, still rubbing. "Let us go back again. Iwant to see Bernardo."

  "Had he any visitors during the day?" queried Kennedy, as he reenteredthe ghastly little room, while the curator stood outside, completelyunnerved by the tragedy which had been so close to him without hisapparently knowing it. Kennedy was squeezing out from the little woundon Northrop's neck a few drops of liquid on a sterilized piece of glass.

  "No; no one," Bernardo answered, after a moment.

  "Did you see anyone in the museum who looked suspicious?" askedKennedy, watching Bernardo's face keenly.

  "No," he hesitated. "There were several people wandering about amongthe exhibits, of course. One, I recall, late in the afternoon, was alittle dark-skinned woman, rather good-looking."

  "A Mexican?"

  "Yes, I should say so. Not of Spanish descent, though. She was ratherof the Indian type. She seemed to be much interested in the variousexhibits, asked me several questions, very intelligently, too. Really,I thought she was trying to--er--flirt with me."

  He shot a glance at Craig, half of confession, half of embarrassment.

  "And--oh, yes--there was another--a man, a little man, as I recall,with shaggy hair. He looked like a Russian to me. I remember, becausehe came to the door, peered around hastily, and went away. I thought hemight have got into the wrong part of the building and went to directhim right--but before I could get out into the hall, he was gone. Iremember, too, that, as I turned, the woman had followed me and soonwas asking other questions--which, I will admit--I was glad to answer."

  "Was Northrop in his room while these people were here?"

  "Yes; he had locked the door so that none of the students or visitorscould disturb him."

  "Evidently the woman was diverting your attention while the man enteredNorthrop's room by the window," ruminated Craig, as we stood for amoment in the outside doorway.

  He had already telephoned to our old friend Doctor Leslie, the coroner,to take charge of the case, and now was ready to leave. The news hadspread, and the janitor of the building was waiting to lock the campusdoor to keep back the crowd of students and others.

  Our next duty was the painful one of breaking the news to Mrs.Northrop. I shall pass it over. Perhaps no one could have done it moregently than Kennedy. She did not cry. She was simply dazed. Fortunatelyher mother was with her, had been, in fact, ever since Northrop hadgone on the expedition.

  "Why should anyone want to steal tablets of old Mixtec inscriptions?" Iasked thoughtfully, as we walked sadly over the campus in the directionof the chemistry building. "Have they a sufficient value, even onappreciative Fifth Avenue, to warrant murder?"

  "Well," he remarked, "it does seem incomprehensible. Yet people do justsuch things. The psychologists tell us that there is a veritable maniafor possessing such curios. However, it is possible that there may besome deeper significance in this case," he added, his face puckered inthought.

  Who was the mysterious Mexican woman, who the shaggy Russian? I askedmyself. Clearly, at least, if she existed at all, she was one of themillions not of Spanish but of Indian descent in the country south ofus. As I reasoned it out, it seemed to me as if she must have been anaccomplice. She could not have got into Northrop's room either beforeor after Doctor Bernardo left. Then, too, the toe-and shoe-prints werenot hers. But, I figured, she certainly had a part in the plot.

  While I was engaged in the vain effort to unravel the tragic affair bypure reason, Kennedy was at work with practical science.

  He began by examining the little dark cylinder on the end of the reed.On a piece of the stuff, broken off, he poured a dark liquid from abrown-glass bottle. Then he placed it under a microscope.

  "Microscopically," he said slowly, "it consists almost wholly ofminute, clear granules which give a blue reaction with iodine. They arestarch. Mixed with them are some larger starch granules, a few plantcells, fibrous matter, and other foreign particles. And then, there isthe substance that gives that acrid, numbing taste." He appeared to bevacantly studying the floor.

  "What do you think it is?" I asked, unable to restrain myself.

  "Aconite," he answered slowly, "of which the active principle is thedeadly poisonous alkaloid, aconitin."

  He walked over and pulled down a well-thumbed standard work ontoxicology, turned the pages, then began to read aloud:

  Pure aconitin is probably the most actively poisonous substance withwhich we are acquainted and, if administered hypodermically, thealkaloid is even more powerfully poisonous than when taken by the mouth.

  As in the case of most of the poisonous alkaloids, aconitin does notproduce any decidedly characteristic post-mortem appearances. There isno way to distinguish it from other alkaloids, in fact, no reliablechemical test. The physiological effects before death are all that canbe relied on.

  Owing to its exceeding toxic nature, the smallness of the dose requiredto produce death, and the lack of tests for recognition, aconitinpossesses rather more interest in legal medicine than most otherpoisons.

  It is one of the few substances which, in the present state oftoxicology, might be criminally administered and leave no positiveevidence of the crime. If a small but fatal dose of the poison were tobe given, especially if it were administered hypodermically, thechances of its detection in the body after death would be practicallynone.