"That's the handwriting of a woman--a jealous woman," remarked Kennedy, handing to
me a dainty note on plain paper which had come in the morning mail.
I did not stop to study the writing, for the contents of the letter were more fascinating
than even Kennedy's new science of graphology.
You don't know me [the note read], but I know of your work of scientific investigation.
Let me inform you of something that ought to interest you.
In the Forum Apartments you will find that there is some strange disease affecting the
Wardlaw family. It is a queer disease of the nerves. One is dead. Others are dying.
Look into it.
A FRIEND.
As I read it I asked myself vainly what it could mean. There was no direct accusation
against any one, yet the implication was plain. A woman had been moved by one of the
primal passions to betray--some one.
I looked up from the note on the table at Craig. He was still studying the handwriting.
"It's that peculiar vertical, angular hand affected by many women," he commented, half to
himself. "Even at a glance you can see that it's written hastily, as if under the stress of
excitement and sudden resolution. You'll notice how those capitals--" The laboratory
door opened, interrupting him.
"Hello, Kennedy," greeted Doctor Leslie, our friend, the coroner's physician, who had
recently been appointed Health Commissioner of the city.
It was the first time we had seen him since the appointment and we hastened to
congratulate him. He thanked us absently, and it was evident that there was something on
his mind, some problem which, in his new office, he felt that he must solve if for no other
purpose than to justify his reputation. Craig said nothing, preferring to let the
commissioner come to the point in his own way.
"Do you know, Kennedy," he said, at length, turning in his chair and facing us, "I believe
we have found one of the strangest cases in the history of the department."
The commissioner paused, then went on, quickly, "It looks as if it were nothing less than
an epidemic of beriberi--not on a ship coming into port as so often happens, but actually
in the heart of the city."
"Beriberi--in New York?" queried Craig, incredulously.
"It looks like it," reiterated Leslie, "in the family of a Doctor Wardlaw, up-town here, in
the Forum--"
Kennedy had already shoved over the letter he had just received. Leslie did not finish the
sentence, but read the note in amazement.
"What are the symptoms?" inquired Craig.
"What makes you think it is beriberi, of all things?"
"Because they show the symptoms of beriberi," persisted Leslie, doggedly. "You know
what they are like. If you care to go into the matter I think I can convince you."
The commissioner was still holding the letter and gazing, puzzled, from it to us. It
seemed as if he regarded it merely as confirming his own suspicions that something was
wrong, even though it shed no real light on the matter.
"How did you first hear of it?" prompted Kennedy.
Leslie answered frankly. "It came to the attention of the department as the result of a
reform I have inaugurated. When I went in office I found that many of the death
certificates were faulty, and in the course of our investigations we ran across one that
seemed to be most vaguely worded. I don't know yet whether it was ignorance--or
something worse. But it started an inquiry. I can't say that I'm thoroughly satisfied with
the amended certificate of the physician who attended Mrs. Marbury, the mother of
Doctor Wardlaw's wife, who died about a week ago--Doctor Aitken."
"Then Wardlaw didn't attend her himself?" asked Kennedy.
"Oh no. He couldn't, under the circumstances, as I'll show you presently, aside from the
medical ethics of the case. Aitken was the family physician of the Marburys."
Kennedy glanced at the note. "One is dead. Others are dying," he read. "Who are the
others? Who else is stricken?"
"Why," continued Leslie, eager to unburden his story, "Wardlaw himself has the marks of
a nervous affection as plainly as the eye can see it. You know what it is in this disease, as
though the nerves were wasting away. But he doesn't seem half as badly affected as his
wife. They tell me Maude Marbury was quite a beauty once, and photographs I have seen
prove it. She's a wreck now. And, of course, the old lady must have been the most
seriously affected of them all."
"Who else is there in the household?" inquired Kennedy, growing more and more
interested.
"Well," answered Leslie, slowly, "they've had a nurse for some time, Natalie Langdale.
Apparently she has escaped."
"Any servants?"
"Some by the day; only one regularly--a Japanese, Kato. He goes home at night, too.
There's no evidence of the disease having affected him."
I caught Leslie's eye as he gave the last information. Though I did not know much about
beriberi, I had read of it, and knew that it was especially prevalent in the Orient. I did not
know what importance to attach to Kato and his going home at night.
"Have you done any investigating yourself?" asked Kennedy.
Leslie hesitated a moment, as though deprecating his own efforts in that line, though
when he spoke I could see no reason why he should, except that it had so often happened
that Kennedy had seen the obvious which was hidden from most of those who consulted
him.
"Yes," he replied, "I thought perhaps there might be some motive back of it all which I
might discover. Possibly it was old Mrs. Marbury's fortune--not a large one, but
substantial. So it occurred to me that the will might show it. I have been to the surrogate."
"And?" prompted Kennedy, approvingly.
"Mrs. Marbury's will has already been offered for probate. It directs, among other things,
that twenty-five thousand dollars be given by her daughter, to whom she leaves the bulk
of her fortune, to Doctor Aitken, who had been Mr. Marbury's physician and her own."
Leslie looked at us significantly, but Kennedy made no comment.
"Would you like to go up there and see them?" urged the commissioner, anxious to get
Craig's final word on whether he would co-operate in the affair.
"I certainly should," returned Kennedy, heartily, folding up the letter which had first
attracted his interest. "It looks as if there were more to this thing than a mere disease,
however unusual."
Doctor Leslie could not conceal his satisfaction, and without delaying a moment more
than was necessary hurried us out into one of the department cars, which he had left
waiting outside, and directed the driver to take us to the Forum Apartments, one of the
newest and most fashionable on the Drive.
Miss Langdale met us at the door and admitted us into the apartment. She was a striking
type of trained nurse, one of those who seem bubbling over with health and vivacity. She
seemed solicitous of her patients and reluctant to have them disturbed, yet apparently not
daring to refuse to admit Doctor Leslie. There was nothing in her solicitude, however,
that one could take exception to.
Miss Langdale conducted us softly down a hallway through the middle of the apartment,
and I noted quickly how it was laid out. On one side we passed a handsomely furnished
parlor and dining- room, opposite which were the kitchen and butler's pantry, and, farther
along, a bedroom and the bath. On down the hall, on the right, was Doctor Wardlaw's
study, or rather den, for it was more of a library than an office.
The nurse led the way, and we entered. Through the windows one caught a beautiful vista
of the Drive, the river, and the Jersey shore. I gazed about curiously. Around the room
there were bookcases and cabinets, a desk, some easy-chairs, and in the corner a table on
which were some of Wardlaw's paraphernalia, for, although he was not a practising
physician, he still specialized in his favorite branches of eye and ear surgery.
Miss Langdale left us a moment, with a hasty excuse that she must prepare Mrs. Wardlaw
for the unexpected visit. The preparation, however, did not take long, for a moment later
Maude Wardlaw entered, supported by her nurse.
Her lips moved mechanically as she saw us, but we could not hear what she said. As she
walked, I could see that she had a peculiar gait, as though she were always lifting her feet
over small obstacles. Her eyes, too, as she looked at us, had a strange squint, and now and
then the muscles of her face twitched. She glanced from Leslie to Kennedy inquiringly,
as Leslie introduced us, implying that we were from his office, then dropped into the
easy-chair. Her breathing seemed to be labored and her heart action feeble, as the nurse
propped her up comfortably.
As Mrs. Wardlaw's hand rested on the arm of the chair I saw that there was a peculiar
flexion of her wrist which reminded me of the so-called "wrist-drop" of which I had
heard. It was almost as if the muscles of her hands and arms, feet and legs, were weak
and wasting. Once she had been beautiful, and even now, although she seemed to be a
wreck of her former self, she had a sort of ethereal beauty that was very touching.
"Doctor is out--just now," she hesitated, in a tone that hinted at the loss of her voice. She
turned appealingly to Miss Langdale. "Oh," she murmured, "I feel so badly this morning-
-as if pins and needles were sticking in me--vague pains in all my limbs--"
Her voice sank to a whisper and only her lips moved feebly. One had only to see her to
feel sympathy. It seemed almost cruel to intrude under the circumstances, yet it was
absolutely necessary if Craig were to accomplish anything. Maude Wardlaw, however,
did not seem to comprehend the significance of our presence, and I wondered how
Kennedy would proceed.
"I should like to see your Japanese servant, Kato," he began, directly, somewhat to my
surprise, addressing himself rather to Miss Langdale than to Mrs. Wardlaw.
The nurse nodded and left the room without a word, as though appreciating the
anomalous position in which she was placed as temporary mistress of the household.
A few moments later Kato entered. He was a typical specimen of the suave Oriental, and
I eyed him keenly, for to me East was East and West was West, and I was frankly
suspicious, especially as I saw no reason to be otherwise in Kennedy's manner. I waited
eagerly to see what Craig would do.
"Sit here," directed Kennedy, indicating a straight-backed chair, on which the Japanese
obediently sat. "Now cross your knees."
As Kato complied, Kennedy quickly brought his hand, held flat and palm upward,
sharply against the Jap's knee just below the kneecap. There was a quick reflex jerk of the
leg below the knee in response.
"Quite natural," Kennedy whispered, turning to Leslie, who nodded.
He dismissed Kato without further questioning, having had an opportunity to observe
whether he showed any of the symptoms that had appeared in the rest of the family. Craig
and the Health Commissioner exchanged a few words under their breath, then Craig
crossed the room to Mrs. Wardlaw. The entrance of Kato had roused her momentarily
and she had been watching what was going on.
"It is a simple test," explained Kennedy, indicating to Miss Langdale that he wished to
repeat it on her patient.
Mrs. Wardlaw's knee showed no reflex! As he turned to us, we could see that Kennedy's
face was lined deeply with thought, and he paced up and down the room once or twice,
considering what he had observed.
I could see that even this simple interview had greatly fatigued Mrs. Wardlaw. Miss
Langdale said nothing, but it was plainly evident that she objected strongly to the strain
on her patient's strength.
"That will be sufficient," nodded Craig, noticing the nurse. "Thank you very much. I
think you had better let Mrs. Wardlaw rest in her own room."
On the nurse's arm Mrs. Wardlaw withdrew and I looked inquiringly from Kennedy to
Doctor Leslie. What was it that had made this beautiful woman such a wreck? It seemed
almost as though the hand of fate had stretched out against one who had all to make her
happy--wealth, youth, a beautiful home--for the sullen purpose of taking away what had
been bestowed so bounteously.
"It is polyneuritis, all right, Leslie," Craig agreed, the moment we were alone.
"I think so," coincided Leslie, with a nod. "It's the CAUSE I can't get at. Is it polyneuritis
of beriberi--or something else?" Kennedy did not reply immediately.
"Then there are other causes?" I inquired of Leslie.
"Alcohol," he returned, briefly. "I don't think that figures in this instance. At least I've
seen no evidence."
"Perhaps some drug?" I hazarded at a venture.
Leslie shrugged.
"How about the food?" inquired Craig. "Have you made any attempt to examine it?"
"I have," replied the commissioner. "When I came up here first I thought of that. I took
samples of all the food that I could find in the ice-box, the kitchen, and the butler's
pantry. I have the whole thing, labeled, and I have already started to test them out. I'll
show you what I have done when we go down to the department laboratory."
Kennedy had been examining the books in the bookcase and now pulled out a medical
dictionary. It opened readily to the heading, "Polyneuritis--multiple neuritis."
I bent over and read with him. In the disease, it seemed, the nerve fibers themselves in the
small nerves broke down and the affection was motor, sensory, vasomotor, or endemic.
All the symptoms described seemed to fit what I had observed in Mrs. Wardlaw.
"Invariably," the article went on, "it is the result of some toxic substance circulating in
the blood. There is a polyneuritis psychosis, known as Korsakoff's syndrome,
characterized by disturbances of the memory of recent events and false reminiscences.
the patient being restless and disorientated."
I ran my finger down the page until I came to the causes. There were alcohol, lead,
arsenic, bisulphide of carbon, diseases such as diabetes, diphtheria, typhoid, and finally,
much to my excitement, was enumerated beriberi, with the added information, "or, as the
Japanese call it, kakke."
I placed my finger on the passage and was about to say something about my suspicions of
Kato when we heard the sound of footsteps in the hall, and Craig snapped the book shut,
returning it hastily to the bookcase. It was Miss Langdale who had made her patient
comfortable in bed and now returned to us.
"Who is this Kato?" inquired Craig, voicing what was in my own mind. "What do you
know about him?"
"Just a young Japanese from the Mission downtown," replied the nurse, directly. "I don't
suppose you know, but Mrs. Wardlaw used to be greatly interested in religious and social
work among the Japanese and Chinese; would be yet, but," she added, significantly, "she
is not strong enough. They employed him before I came here, about a year ago, I think."
Kennedy nodded, and was about to ask another question, when there was a slight noise
out in the hall. Thinking it might be Kato himself, I sprang to the door.
Instead, I encountered a middle-aged man, who drew back in surprise at seeing me, a
stranger.
"Oh, good morning, Doctor Aitken!" greeted Miss Langdale, in quite the casual manner
of a nurse accustomed to the daily visit at about this hour.
As for Doctor Aitken, he glanced from Leslie, whom he knew, to Kennedy, whom he did
not know, with a very surprised look on his face. In fact, I got the impression that after he
had been admitted he had paused a moment in the hall to listen to the strange voices in
the Wardlaw study.
Leslie nodded to him and introduced us, without quite knowing what to say or do, any
more than Doctor Aitken.
"A most incomprehensible case," ventured Aitken to us. "I can't, for the life of me, make
it out." The doctor showed his perplexity plainly, whether it was feigned or not.
"I'm afraid she's not quite so well as usual," put in Miss Langdale, speaking to him, but in
a manner that indicated that first of all she wished any blame for her patient's condition to
attach to us and not to herself.
Doctor Aitken pursed up his lips, bowed excusingly to us, and turned down the hall,
followed by the nurse. As they passed on to Mrs. Wardlaw's room, I am sure they
whispered about us. I was puzzled by Doctor Aitken. He seemed to be sincere, yet, under
the circumstances, I felt that I must be suspicious of everybody and everything.
Alone again for a moment, Kennedy turned his attention to the furniture of the room, and
finally paused before a writing-desk in the corner. He tried it. It was not locked and he
opened it. Quickly he ran through a pile of papers carefully laid under a paper-weight at
the back.
A suppressed exclamation from him called my attention to something that he had
discovered. There lay two documents, evidently recently drawn up. As we looked over
the first, we saw that it was Doctor Wardlaw's will, in which he had left everything to his
wife, although he was not an especially wealthy man. The other was the will of Mrs.
Wardlaw.
We devoured it hastily. In substance it was identical with the first, except that at the end
she had added two clauses. In the first she had done just as her mother had directed.
Twenty-five thousand dollars had been left to Doctor Aitken. I glanced at Kennedy, but
he was reading on, taking the second clause. I read also. Fifty thousand dollars was given
to endow the New York Japanese Mission.
Immediately the thought of Kato and what Miss Langdale had just told us flashed through
my mind.
A second time we heard the nurse's footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hall. Craig
closed the desk softly.
"Doctor Aitken is ready to go," she announced. "Is there anything more you wish to ask?"
Kennedy spoke a moment with the doctor as he passed out, but, aside from the
information that Mrs. Wardlaw was, in his opinion, growing worse, the conversation
added nothing to our meager store of information.
"I suppose you attended Mrs. Marbury?" ventured Kennedy of Miss Langdale, after the
doctor had gone.
"Not all the time," she admitted. "Before I came there was another nurse, a Miss
Hackstaff."
"What was the matter? Wasn't she competent?"
Miss Langdale avoided the question, as though it were a breach of professional etiquette
to cast reflections on another nurse, although whether that was the real reason for her
reticence did not appear. Craig seemed to make a mental note of the fact.
"Have you seen anything--er--suspicious about this Kato?" put in Leslie, while Kennedy
frowned at the interruption.
Miss Langdale answered quickly, "Nothing."
"Doctor Aitken has never expressed any suspicion?" pursued Leslie.
"Oh no," she returned. "I think I would have known it if he had any. No, I've never heard
him even hint at anything." It was evident that she wished us to know that she was in the
confidence of the doctor.
"I think we'd better be going," interrupted Kennedy, hastily, not apparently pleased to
have Leslie break in in the investigation just at present.
Miss Langdale accompanied us to the door, but before we reached it it was opened from
the outside by a man who had once been and yet was handsome, although one could see
that he had a certain appearance of having neglected himself.
Leslie nodded and introduced us. It was Doctor Wardlaw.
As I studied his face I could see that, as Leslie had already told us, it plainly bore the
stigma of nervousness.
"Has Doctor Aitken been here?" he inquired, quickly, of the nurse. Then, scarcely waiting
for her even to nod, he added: "What did he say? Is Mrs. Wardlaw any better?"
Miss Langdale seemed to be endeavoring to make as optimistic a report as the truth
permitted, but I fancied Wardlaw read between the lines. As they talked it was evident
that there was a sort of restraint between them. I wondered whether Wardlaw might not
have some lurking suspicion against Aitken, or some one else. If he had, even in his
nervousness he did not betray it.
"I can't tell you how worried I am," he murmured, almost to himself. "What can this thing
be?"
He turned to us, and, although he had just been introduced, I am sure that our presence
seemed to surprise him, for he went on talking to himself, "Oh yes--let me see--oh yes,
friends of Doctor--er--Leslie."
I had been studying him and trying to recall what I had just read of beriberi and
polyneuritis. There flashed over my mind the recollection of what had been called
Korsakoff's syndrome, in which one of the mental disturbances was the memory of recent
events. Did not this, I asked myself, indicate plainly enough that Leslie might be right in
his suspicions of beriberi? It was all the more apparent a moment later when, turning to
Miss Langdale, Wardlaw seemed almost instantly to forget our presence again. At any
rate, his anxiety was easy to see.
After a few minutes' chat during which Craig observed Wardlaw's symptoms, too, we
excused ourselves, and the Health Commissioner undertook to conduct us to his office to
show us what he had done so far. As for me, I could not get Miss Langdale out of my
mind, and especially the mysterious letter to Kennedy. What of it and what of its secret
sender?
None of us said much until, half an hour later, in the department laboratory, Leslie began
to recapitulate what he had already done in the case.
"You asked whether I had examined the food," he remarked, pausing in a corner before
several cages in which were a number of pigeons, separated and carefully tagged. With a
wave of his hand at one group of cages he continued: "These fellows I have been feeding
exclusively on samples of the various foods which I took from the Wardlaw family when
I first went up there. Here, too, are charts showing what I have observed up to date. Over
there are the 'controls'--pigeons from the same group which have been fed regularly on
the usual diet so that I can check my tests."
Kennedy fell to examining the pigeons carefully as well as the charts and records of
feeding and results. None of the birds fed on what had been taken from the apartment
looked well, though some were worse than others.
"I want you to observe this fellow," pointed out Leslie at last, singling out one cage. The
pigeon in it was a pathetic figure. His eyes seemed dull and glazed. He paid little or no
attention to us; even his food and water did not seem to interest him. Instead of strutting
about, he seemed to be positively wabbly on his feet. Kennedy examined this one longer
and more carefully than any of the rest.
"There are certainly all the symptoms of beriberi, or rather, polyneuritis, in pigeons, with
that bird," admitted Craig, finally, looking up at Leslie.
The commissioner seemed to be gratified. "You know," he remarked, "beriberi itself is a
common disease in the Orient. There has been a good deal of study of it and the cause is
now known to be the lack of something in the food, which in the Orient is mostly rice.
Polishing the rice, which removes part of the outer coat, also takes away something that
is necessary for life, which scientists now call 'vitamines.'"
"I may take some of these samples to study myself?" interrupted Kennedy, as though the
story of vitamines was an old one to him.
"By all means," agreed Leslie.
Craig selected what he wanted, keeping each separate and marked, and excused himself,
saying that he had some investigations of his own that he wished to make and would let
Leslie know the result as soon as he discovered anything.
Kennedy did not go back directly to the laboratory, however. Instead, he went up-town
and, to my surprise, stopped at one of the large breweries. What it was that he was after I
could not imagine, but, after a conference with the manager, he obtained several quarts of
brewer's yeast, which he had sent directly down to the laboratory.
Impatient though I was at this seeming neglect of the principal figures in the case, I knew,
nevertheless, that Kennedy had already schemed out his campaign and that whatever it
was he had in mind was of first importance.
Back at last in his own laboratory, Craig set to work on the brewer's yeast, deriving
something from it by the plentiful use of a liquid labeled "Lloyd's reagent," a solution of
hydrous aluminum silicate.
After working for some time, I saw that he had obtained a solid which he pressed into the
form of little wh