The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Broad awake in a moment, he lay quite still, simulating slumber.

  For perhaps five minutes—which seemed as many hours—neither sound nor sight rewarded him. Then, all at once, a ghostly little glimmer of light trembled a second in the den off his bedroom. Forrester perceived it quite plainly, from under lids all but closed. He sensed, rather than heard, that some one was moving toward the bedroom door.

  Forrester was a man of hard sense and few nerves; but even so, his heart throbbed faster. None the less, he forced himself to breathe quietly and naturally. He did not try even to switch off the current, but let it prickle.

  Under his pillow, he knew, lay the heavily loaded gun. Close at hand was the button which could flood the apartment with light.

  Silence continued. From the Parkway sounded a faint burr of pebbled tires as some belated motorist broke the speed laws. An amorous cat distantly serenaded his Maria; but in the apartment all was so still that the ticking of the alarm-clock on the shelf was plainly audible. Yet Forrester well knew that a sinister purpose was close at hand, watching, waiting in the dark.

  Forrester lay relaxed, just as he had waked, his right arm bare above the elbow. That arm was outside the coverlet.

  “Rather lucky!” thought he. “Good bait, if what I suspect is true!”

  He remained entirely slack, but with every muscle ready to whip into prompt and swift activity.

  Still the black silence lengthened. Only after what seemed an interminable time of tension heavy with evil possibilities did the unseen presence move forward. A flicker, vaguely white as a will-o’-the-wisp, fingered palely into the bedroom. Some one was entering the room on noiseless soles; some one, with infinite precaution, was drawing near the bed.

  Forrester still played his role of slumber. A moment the unknown presence stood beside him. The tiniest of electric flashes played upon the bed. Its beam stopped on Forrester’s arm. Through concealing lashes, Forrester perceived it. Beyond its little circle, all was black. The effect of that ring of light on his arm, cast by some unseen maleficence, tore at the nerves. Forrester wanted to strike, to leap, to grapple; but he held himself. Not yet was the time ripe. Not yet had the thing been done which he expected, which he longed for.

  The waiting, however, was not long. Forrester knew that the dark presence was bending above him. Then all at once on his bare arm he felt something—something almost impalpable—something like a tiny wet flick—something that, had he been asleep, would never have awakened him.

  Something that, quite to the contrary, would have soothed him to a sleep from Which there is no morrow.

  Forrester moved not, nor gave any slightest sign of consciousness. Again that tiny something fell, and ia third time. Then Forrester knew the light had died; knew that the figure of mystery was turning soundlessly.

  With tensions released like a steel spring, Forrester flung aside the bedclothes and leaped—leaped and struck.

  VI

  At eleven o’clock that morning—an eminently dignified hour to call on the president of a life-insurance and annuity company—the grain merchant sent in his card to Wolcott Edgerton, otherwise Mogul Edgerton, of the Fiduciary.

  “He says he’s sorry,” reported the boy, il but he can’t see nobody this mornin’.”

  Forrester wrote on a slip of paper: “You will see me at once.”

  He signed it and handed the paper to the boy.

  “Take that in,” he commanded.

  In half a minute the youth reappeared.

  “He says come in.”

  Forrester went in and shut the door. He tossed his hat on a table.

  “Well, Forrester!” said Mogul, dangling agitated glasses by a black grosgrain ribbon. “This is rather peremptory, isn’t it?” Even though Forrester now held an annuity in the company, Mogul couldn’t forget that he had once been an employee, a despised agent. “What’s on your chest?”

  “Nothing but a slight cold. There’s something on my arm, however, that may interest you.”

  “Pardon me, but you’re in the wrong department,” replied Edgerton. “If you’ll step into the next office, Dr. Grundlach will advise you. As a policy-holder of any kind in this company, you’re entitled to a reasonable amount of medical attention, gratis. Right in that way, please!”

  Mogul pointed toward the door that led into Dr. Grundlach’s office. He looked a bit uneasy, Forrester thought.

  “Thanks, but I don’t require any more medical attention,” said Forrester. “I’ve been getting rather too much from the Fiduciary recently. Now—”

  “Complaint department is upstairs in Room 1186.”

  Forrester only took off his overcoat and flung it over a chair. Then he walked to the door of Dr. Grundlach’s office and closed it. Within, he caught sight of the doctor’s bald head bent over a desk.

  He returned to Mogul, drew up a chair, and sat down.

  “Now,” said he, “let’s discuss brass tacks!”

  “You’re making rather free here, aren’t you?” demanded the president.

  “Very.” Forrester drew out his pocket-book, produced a little sheaf of clippings, and laid one before Mogul. “Here’s a notice of the death of Dr. Townsend Veazey. He died of heart failure, shortly after having taken out an annuity with you for eighty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Well?” asked Edgerton, fidgeting with the ribbon of his glasses.

  “The Fiduciary cleaned up big on that heart failure. Now, here’s the case of Miss Cynthia Grush. More heart failure—more clean-up!”

  “What do you mean to infer?” demanded Mogul angrily.

  “Now, here’s Willard Rockwood,” smiled Forrester, unmoved. “What singularly bad hearts your annuitants seem to have—especially those carrying large amounts!”

  “See here, Forrester!” cut in Mogul. “If you’ve come here to insult a man who fired you three years ago—”

  “I wouldn’t push that desk-button, if I were you,” advised Forrester. His smile was cold, dangerous. “Here are several more clippings from local and out-of-town papers. I’ve been doing a little collecting lately. Look them over. What extraordinary luck your company seems to be having, just at a time when it’s hard pressed!”

  “Who told you it was hard pressed?” questioned Mogul, flushing.

  “Oh, the proverbial little bird. Of course nobody would ever notice anything about deaths such as these, except a man who’d been in the game, and who knew a good many of your investors—some of them personally—and who could think. Read those clippings, Mr. Edgerton. They’ll interest you.”

  Mogul adjusted his glasses and tried to read, but his attention wandered.

  “I—I’ve been away much of the time since last November,” he hesitated. “I—”

  “Why make excuses? All I’m asking you to do is to read those clippings.”

  Edgerton began again. Forrester watched him keenly. From Dr. Grundlach’s office drifted a slight sound as of a chair being pushed back.

  All at once, Mogul looked up.

  “What the devil are you driving at, anyhow?” he blurted, dully flushed.

  “You know, of course, that I hold an annuity for a hundred thousand dollars in the Fiduciary?”

  “Yes.”

  “I took it as an investment—in two senses. It’s already paid me fully, though I came near dying of heart failure myself, last night!”

  “You? Why, you—you’re the picture of health!”

  “I am; but if I hadn’t acted quick, I’d have been the picture of a fine, full-sized corpse this minute. What’s more, you people would have been a hundred thousand dollars ahead of the game.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” cried Mogul, starting up. His wattles crimsoned like a turkey-cock’s.

  “Keep perfectly calm, Mr. Edgerton,” smiled Forrester. “I’ve still got one more exhibit to show you. See here!” He shoved up his right sleeve. “Does that suggest anything to you?” he demanded.

  “Does what suggest anything to me?” as
ked Edgerton.

  “Those three blisters on my arm,” replied Forrester, indicating a trio of small red marks.

  Mogul peered at them, and—whether he really meant it or whether he was a consummate actor—replied:

  “All they suggest to me is that you’ve been slightly burned in some way.”

  “Intelligent observation!” gibed the commission merchant.

  “Well, why do you ask me? If there’s anything the matter with you, see Dr. Grundlach. I told you that before.”

  “Do you know what burned me?”

  “How the devil should I know?” ejaculated Mogul angrily. “And what the devil do you mean by catechizing me in this manner, anyhow? I don’t think you need to see Dr. Grundlach, after all. A good alienist would be more in your line!”

  “Thank you for the suggestion,” said Forrester icily. “Now let me tell you a little story, which happens to be a true one—the story of these bums.”

  He pulled his sleeve down again and fixed a gimlet-like eye on Edgerton. The president of the Fiduciary braved his look with indignation; but whether that was sincere or only a pose, not even Forrester could tell.

  “I’m not at all interested in your bums, or in you,” said Mogul, “or your clippings, or your story. This is my busy morning.” He reached for the push-button again, “Wait!” commanded Forrester. “I’m giving you one more chance. Touch that button, and the most formidable scandal will be turned loose that ever shook the insurance world. You and the Fiduciary and everybody connected with it will go down in a whirlpool of public indignation. Guilty and innocent will suffer alike. If you are innocent, or have consideration for those that are, wait!”

  “Wha-what d’you mean, sir?” stammered Mogul, his eyes rimmed with white. “Upon my word, sir, I do believe you are insane!”

  “Thank you. And now, listen. At about a quarter past two o’clock this morning I was wakened by a man in my apartment—an intruder. I waited till he had done what he came to do, and then jumped up and tackled him. I hit him at random, as hard as I could, and knocked him flat. He was up in a second, though, before I could do more than turn on the lights. Then we had it hot and heavy; but I crashed a chair over his head, and that held him till I could cover him with my gun. Get all this?”

  “What the deuce has it to do with me, sir?”

  “That’s for you to judge, Mr. Edgerton. I phoned Station K, and they sent up a couple of men on the double-quick. Before they got to my rooms, though, I frisked my prisoner.”

  “Frisked?”

  “Searched him. I took away from him something of unique interest. That man—a slim chap, clever as a cat—is now held on my charge of breaking and entering. I didn’t want to stir things up by entering a charge of attempted murder, till after I’d seen you.”

  “What? What have I to do with it?”

  “You’re either uncommonly ignorant of what’s going on in your own business,” smiled Forrester, “or else you’re missing your real profession by not going on the stage. That man, I’m willing to bet my last pair of boots, is the actual murderer of Dr, Veazey, of Miss Grush, of Mr. Rockwood, and of a number of other annuitants in your company. He’s a specialist in heart failure. Who is his employer? That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  Mr. Edgerton, from red, became a pasty gray. The color drained even from his lips, leaving them bluish. His hand went out shakingly.

  “You—you’re not accusing—”

  “I’m accusing John Doe, as yet unidentified, that’s all; but John’s as guilty as hell! Who is he? Who hired that man to steal into people’s homes with the deadliest rattlesnake of a weapon ever invented, and murder them in a way that nobody could detect unless the fiend was caught in the very act?”

  “What—what weapon do you mean?” tremored Edgerton.

  “This!” exclaimed Forrester. “Here’s something which the very devil himself must have thought out!”

  From his pocket he produced a little flat instrument-case. He snapped open the case, and took from it a small glass-barreled syringe with German silver fittings.

  u This is the infernal thing that’s made a few hundred thousand for your damned company during the last few months!” exclaimed the merchant. “Now look at it!” The president’s eyes bulged as he regarded the syringe that Forrester laid on the desk before him. Within it, a translucent liquid half filled the barrel. Forrester’s eyes were hard and hateful as he studied Edgerton.

  “D’you know what’s in that devilish thing?” he demanded.

  Edgerton shook a tremulous head.

  “So help me God,” he stammered, “I—I never saw that thing before—or heard of it, or in any way knew—anything about it! This is all horrible, incredible news to me! You’re bringing an awful accusation, Mr. Forrester. Are you—are you quite positive—”

  “I’ll say I am! If you’re telling the truth, if you’re really ignorant of the appalling series of crimes that somebody in this company has been putting over, I’ll tell you what’s in this engine of death. It’s a liquefied form of a certain deadly gas, recently discovered—a gas called lewisite. Now do you understand?”

  “No! Lewisite? Never heard of it! What—what does it do?”

  “It kills you, that’s all. If you put three drops on your skin and don’t rub them off, you’ll die, and people will call it heart failure. Three little blisters don’t attract any attention. No doctors, no coroners, have been trained as yet to identify skin-blisters with this deadly gas. It’s an absolutely new thing—safe, quick, certain. That’s the kind of a weapon I was attacked with—three drops of lewisite on my bare arm, while I lay there pretending to be asleep.”

  “But—you’re alive yet!”

  “Yes, because I rubbed the stuff off as soon as I’d settled the hash of my assailant. If I’d left it there, as a sleeping person would—well, you’d have made another hundred thousand dollars, that’s all.”

  “As God lives, I knew absolutely nothing of all this! But tell me, how can you be certain?”

  “Funny thing how poetic justice works out!” laughed Forrester. “Among the pamphlets left to me by Dr. Veazey in his will was one issued by the Chemical Foundation, containing the testimony given by General Fries, chief of the Chemical Warfare Service of the United States Army, before the Dye Embargo Committee of the United States Senate, on August 4, 1921. On page 13, I came across an account of lewisite. I read it about a month ago. When I got hold of that syringe, and saw where I’d been burned, I put two and two together, that’s all. This morning a chemist on India Street analyzed a drop of the stuff for me. Yes, it’s lewisite, all right enough! Now have you anything to offer before I go back to Station K and start a little third-degree stuff that will bring out the connection between those murders and the Fiduciary?”

  “You—you aren’t going to do that? For God’s sake!”

  Forrester laughed and reached for his hat. “Wait, Forrester! Hold on—be reasonable! Think of the scandal—the wreck of this business—the policy-holders who will suffer—the—”

  “I’m thinking of those who have been murdered in cold blood. I’m thinking of those, now living, who may still be murdered if I don’t jam this matter through to a finish!”

  “Yes, but—wait!”

  VII

  “No need to wait!” sounded a voice at the merchant’s back.

  Forrester whipped around. Dr. Grundlach was standing there, an odd smile on his thick, rather sensual lips. Noiselessly he had opened the door and noiselessly he had entered.

  “What?” demanded Edgerton. “You—you’re against me, too? You want to rush this thing through before it’s been sifted? You bring accusations which, true or false, will wreck the company and—”

  “Not at all. I shall bring no accusations except against the guilty man, who is now in this room,”

  “What d’you mean?” ejaculated Edgerton, the veins swelling on his neck, his fist clenched. “Are you accusing me—of murder?”

  “Naturally
I heard something of what was going on in this office,” the doctor said in level tones, ignoring Mogul’s question. “Naturally I knew the whole affair had been discovered; so I came in here to offer terms of compromise. After all, why ruin a long-established business that has been saved by such drastic measures? Why injure a lot of innocent people whose investments have been protected by the death of several others, equally innocent?”

  “Why, indeed?” echoed Forrester, his eyes gleaming. “Doctor, your villainy is equaled only by your hard common sense. What do you offer?”

  “I am a large stockholder in this concern,” said Grundlach, a little unsteadily. He leaned against the table, as if to hold himself up. “The company was in danger of investigation by the State insurance commissioner—possibly of bankruptcy. I am an expert chemist. I applied the resources of science, that is all. My coworker, a clever fellow named Scheffel, who did all the jobs at a reasonable figure, understands perfectly well what to do if given the opportunity to escape the electric chair. Your cleverness, Mr. Forrester, will cooperate to protect the company. As for me, well—” He drew up his right sleeve. Three red spots burned on the forearm, the triple mark of death.

  “My God!” gulped Edgerton. “What—what have you done?”

  “Only the obvious thing. I’ll be gone in thirty minutes or so.” He leaned still more heavily on the table. “We never reckoned on meeting an intelligence superior to our own. We misplayed—that’s all!”

  He paused, breathing heavily, and passed a hand over his eyes, as if to clear away a mist. Edgerton, his face ashen, stared with horror. His lips quivered, but he could utter no word. Forrester leaned a little forward, cool to the marrows.

  “What an extraordinarily interesting case!” he murmured.

  “Is it not?” The doctor smiled grimly. “I ask you, as payment for it, to avoid all publicity. I have—dependents. Their welfare rests on my stock in this company remaining a good investment, as I—have made it. Beyond that, nothing matters to me. Let me go as—just one more case of—heart failure.” Grundlach was panting now, but still holding himself. “Will you, Mr. Forrester, attend to—Scheffel?”