"Since we brought him home, my brother just tosses and gasps for air. Oh, I think Eulalie
and I shall both go mad!"
The soft, pleading voice of Anitra Barrios and her big, appealing brown eyes filled with
tears were doubly affecting as, in spite of her own feelings, she placed her hand on that of
a somewhat younger girl who had accompanied her to the laboratory.
"We were to have been married next month," sobbed Eulalie Sandoval. "Can't you come
and see Jose, Professor Kennedy? There must be something you can do. We fear he is
dying--yes, dying."
"Poor little girl!" murmured Anitra, still patting her hand affectionately, then to us, "You
know, Eulalie is the sister of Manuel Sandoval, who manages the New York business of
my brother." She paused. "Oh, I can't believe it, myself. It's all so strange, so sudden."
For the moment her own grief overwhelmed Anitra, and both sister and sweetheart of
Jose Barrios clung to each other.
"What is the trouble?" soothed Craig. "What has happened? How can I help you?"
"Everything was so happy with us," cried Anitra, "until Jose and I came to New York--
and--now--" She broke down again.
"Please be calm," encouraged Kennedy. "Tell me everything-- anything."
With an effort Anitra began again. "It was last night--quite late- -at his office at the foot
of Wall Street--he was there alone," she strove to connect her broken thoughts. "Some
one--I think it must have been the janitor--called me up at home and said that my brother
was very ill. Eulalie was there with me. We hurried down to him. When we got there Jose
was on the floor by his desk, unconscious, struggling for breath, just as he is now." "Did
you observe anything peculiar?" queried Kennedy. "Was there anything that might give
you a hint of what had happened?"
Anitra Barrios considered. "Nothing," she replied, slowly, "except that the windows were
all closed. There was a peculiar odor in the room. I was so excited over Jose, though, that
I couldn't tell you just what it was like."
"What did you do?" inquired Craig.
"What could we do, just two girls, all alone? It was late. The streets were deserted. You
know how they are down-town at night. We took him home, to the hotel, in a cab, and
called the hotel physician, Doctor Scott."
Both girls were again weeping silently in each other's arms. If there was anything that
moved Kennedy to action it was distress of this sort. Without a word he rose from his
desk, and I followed him. Anitra and Eulalie seemed to understand. Though they said
nothing, they looked their gratitude as we four left the laboratory.
On the way down to the hotel Anitra continued to pour out her story in a fragmentary
way. Her brother and she, it seemed, had inherited from their father a large sugar-plantation in Santa Clara, the middle province of Cuba.
Jose had not been like many of the planters. He had actually taken hold of the plantation,
after the revolution had wrecked it, and had re-established it on modern, scientific lines.
Now it was one of the largest independent plantations on the island.
To increase its efficiency, he had later established a New York office to look after the
sale of the raw sugar and had placed it in charge of a friend, Manuel Sandoval. A month
or so before he had come to New York with his sister to sell the plantation, to get the high
price that the boom in sugar had made it worth. It was while he had been negotiating for
the sale that he had fallen in love with Eulalie and they had become engaged.
Doctor Scott met us in the sitting-room of the suite which Anitra and her brother
occupied, and, as she introduced us, with an anxious glance in the direction of the door of
the sick-room, he shook his head gravely, though he did his best to seem encouraging.
"It's a case of poisoning of some kind, I fear," he whispered aside to us, at the first
opportunity. "But I can't quite make out just what it is."
We followed the doctor into the room. Eulalie had preceded us and had dropped down on
her knees by the bed, passing her little white hand caressingly over the pale and distorted
face of Jose.
He was still unconscious, gasping and fighting for breath, his features pinched and skin
cold and clammy. Kennedy examined the stricken man carefully, first feeling his pulse. It
was barely perceptible, rapid, thready, and irregular. Now and then there were muscular
tremblings and convulsive movements of the limbs. Craig moved over to the side of the
room away from the two girls, where Doctor Scott was standing.
"Sometimes," I heard the doctor venture, "I think it is aconite, but the symptoms are not
quite the same. Besides, I don't see how it could have been administered. There's no mark
on him that might have come from a hypodermic, no wound, not even a scratch. He
couldn't have swallowed it. Suicide is out of the question. But his nose and throat are
terribly swollen and inflamed. It's beyond me."
I tried to recall other cases I had seen. There was one case of Kennedy's in which several
deaths had occurred due to aconite. Was this another of that sort? I felt unqualified to
judge, where Doctor Scott himself confessed his inability. Kennedy himself said nothing,
and from his face I gathered that even he had no clue as yet.
As we left the sick-room, we found that another visitor had arrived and was standing in
the sitting-room. It was Manuel Sandoval.
Sandoval was a handsome fellow, tall, straight as an arrow, with bushy dark hair and a
mustache which gave him a distinguished appearance. Born in Cuba, he had been
educated in the United States, had taken special work in the technology of sugar, knew
the game from cane to centrifugal and the ship to the sugar trust. He was quite as much a
scientist as a business man.
He and Eulalie talked for a moment in low tones in Cuban Spanish, but it needed only to
watch his eyes to guess where his heart was. He seemed to fairly devour every move that
Anitra made about the apartment.
A few minutes later the door opened again and a striking-looking man entered. He was a
bit older than Sandoval, but still young. As he entered he bowed to Sandoval and Eulalie
but greeted Anitra warmly.
"Mr. Burton Page," introduced Anitra, turning to us quickly, with just the trace of a flush
on her face. "Mr. Page has been putting my brother in touch with people in New York
who are interested in Cuban sugar-plantations." A call from Doctor Scott for some help
took both girls into the sick-room for a moment.
"Is Barrios any better?" asked Page, turning to Sandoval.
Sandoval shook his head in the negative, but said nothing. One could not help observing
that there seemed to be a sort of antipathy between the two, and I saw that Craig was
observing them both closely.
Page was a typical, breezy Westerner, who had first drifted to New York as a mining
promoter. Prom that he had gone into selling ranches, and, by natural stages, into the
promotion of almost anything in the universe.
Sugar being at the time uppermost in the mind of the "Street," Page was naturally to be
found crammed with facts about that staple. One could not help being interested in
studying a man of his type, as long as one kept his grip on his pocket-book. For he was a
veritable pied piper when it came to enticing dollars to follow him, and in his promotions
he had the reputation of having amassed an impressive pile of dollars himself.
No important change in the condition of Barrios had taken place, except that he was a
trifle more exhausted, and Doctor Scott administered a stimulant. Kennedy, who was
eager to take up the investigation of the case on the outside in the hope of discovering
something that might be dignified into being a clue, excused himself, with a nod to Anitra
to follow into the hall
"I may look over the office?" Craig ventured when we were alone with her.
"Surely," she replied, frankly, opening her handbag which was lying on a table near the
door. "I have an equal right in the business with my brother. Here are the keys. The office
has been closed to-day."
Kennedy took the keys, promising to let her know the moment he discovered anything
important, and we hurried directly down-town.
The office of the Barrios Company was at the foot of Wall Street, where the business of
importing touched on the financial district. From the window one could see freighters
unloading their cargoes at the docks. In the other direction, capital to the billions was
represented. But in all that interesting neighborhood nothing just at present could surpass
the mystery of what had taken place in the lonely little office late the night before.
Kennedy passed the rail that shut the outer office off from a sort of reception space. He
glanced about at the safe, the books, papers, and letter-files. It would take an accountant
and an investigator days, perhaps weeks, to trace out anything in them, if indeed it were
worth while at all.
Two glass doors opened at one end to two smaller private offices, one belonging
evidently to Sandoval, the other to Barrios. What theory Craig formed I could not guess,
but as he tiptoed from the hall door, past the rail, to the door of Jose's office, I could see
that first of all he was trying to discover whether it was possible to enter the outer office
and reach Jose's door unseen and unheard by any one sitting at the desk inside.
Apparently it was easily possible, and he paused a moment to consider what good that
knowledge might do.
As he did so his eye rested on the floor. A few feet away stood one of the modern
"sanitary" desks. In this case the legs of the desk raised the desk high enough from the
floor so that one could at least see where the cleaning-woman had left a small pile of
unsanitary dust near the wall.
Suddenly Kennedy bent down and poked something out of the pile of dust. There on the
floor was an empty shell of a cartridge. Kennedy picked it up and looked at it curiously.
What did it mean? I recalled that Doctor Scott had particularly said that Barrios had not
been wounded.
Still regarding the cartridge shell, Kennedy sat down at the desk of Barrios.
Looking for a piece of paper in which to wrap the shell, he pulled out the middle drawer
of the desk. In a back corner was a package of letters, neatly tied. We glanced at them.
The envelopes bore the name of Jose Barrios and were in the handwriting of a woman.
Some were postmarked Cuba; others, later, New York. Kennedy opened one of them.
I could not restrain an exclamation of astonishment. I had expected that they were from
Eulalie Sandoval. But they were signed by a name that we had not heard--Teresa de
Leon!
Hastily Kennedy read through the open letter. Its tone seemed to be that of a threat. One
sentence I recall was, "I would follow you anywhere--I'll make you want me."
One after another Kennedy ran through them. All were vague and veiled, as though the
writer wished by some circumlocution to convey an idea that would not be apparent to
some third, inquisitive party.
What was back of it all? Had Jose been making love to another woman at the same time
that he was engaged to Eulalie Sandoval? As far as the contents of the letters went there
was nothing to show that he had done anything wrong. The mystery of the "other
woman" only served to deepen the mystery of what little we already knew.
Craig dropped the letters into his pocket along with the shell, and walked around into the
office of Sandoval. I followed him. Quickly he made a search, but it did not seem to net
him anything.
Meanwhile I had been regarding a queer-looking instrument that stood on a flat table
against one wall. It seemed to consist of a standard on each end of which was fastened a
disk, besides several other arrangements the purpose of which I had not the slightest idea.
Between the two ends rested a glass tube of some liquid. At one end was a lamp; the
other was fitted with an eyepiece like a telescope. Beside the instrument on the table lay
some more glass- capped tubes and strewn about were samples of raw sugar.
"It is a saccharimeter," explained Kennedy, also looking at it, "an instrument used to
detect the amount of sugar held in solution, a form of the polariscope. We won't go into
the science of it now. It's rather abstruse."
He was about to turn back into the outer office when an idea seemed to occur to him. He
took the cartridge from his pocket and carefully scraped off what he could of the powder
that still adhered to the outer rim. It was just a bit, but he dissolved it in some liquid from
a bottle on the table, filled one of the clean glass tubes, capped the open end, and placed
this tube in the saccharimeter where the first one I noticed had been.
Carefully he lighted the lamp, then squinted through the eyepiece at the tube of liquid
containing what he had derived from the cartridge. He made some adjustments, and as he
did so his face indicated that at last he began to see something dimly. The saccharimeter
had opened the first rift in the haze that surrounded the case.
"I think I know what we have here," he said, briefly, rising and placing the tube and its
contents in his pocket with the other things he had discovered. "Of course it is only a hint.
This instrument won't tell me finally. But it is worth following up."
With a final glance about to make sure that we had overlooked nothing, Kennedy closed
and locked the outside door.
"I'm going directly up to the laboratory, Walter," decided Kennedy. "Meanwhile you can
help me very much if you will look up this Teresa de Leon. I noticed that the New York
letters were written on the stationery of the Pan-America Hotel. Get what you can. I leave
it to you. And if you can find out anything about the others, so much the better. I'll see
you as soon as you finish."
It was rather a large contract. If the story had reached the newspaper stage, I should have
known how to go about it. For there is no detective agency in the world like the Star, and
even on the slender basis that we had, with a flock of reporters deployed at every point in
the city, with telephones, wires, and cables busily engaged, I might have gathered
priceless information in a few hours. But, as it was, whatever was to be got must be got
by me alone.
I found Teresa de Leon registered at the Pan-America, as Craig had surmised. Such
inquiries as I was able to make about the hotel did not show a trace of reason for
believing that Jose Barrios had been numbered among her visitors. While that proved
nothing as to the relations of the two, it was at least reassuring as far as Anitra and
Eulalie were concerned, and, after all, as in such cases, this was their story.
Not having been able to learn much about the lady, I decided finally to send up my card,
and to my satisfaction she sent back word that she would receive me in the parlor of the
hotel.
Teresa de Leon proved to be a really striking type of Latin- American beauty. She was no
longer young, but there was an elusiveness about her personality that made a more
fascinating study than youth. I felt that with such a woman directness might be more of a
surprise than subtlety.
"I suppose you know that Senor Barrios is very seriously ill?" I ventured, in answer to her
inquiring gaze that played from my card to my face.
For a fleeting instant she looked startled. Yet she betrayed nothing as to whether it was
fear or surprise.
"I have called his office several times," she replied, "but no one answered. Even Senor
Sandoval was not there."
I felt that she was countering as cleverly as I might lead. "Then you know Mr. Sandoval
also?" I asked, adding, "and Mr. Page?"
"I have known Senor Barrios a long time in Cuba," she answered, "and the others, too--
here."
There was something evasive about her answers. She was trying to say neither too much
nor too little. She left one in doubt whether she was trying to shield herself or to involve
another. Though we chatted several minutes, I could gain nothing that would lead me to
judge how intimately she knew Barrios. Except that she knew Sandoval and Page, her
conversation might have been a replica of the letters we had discovered. Even when she
hinted politely, but finally, that the talk was over she left me in doubt even whether she
was an adventuress. The woman was an enigma. Had revenge or jealousy brought her to
New York, or was she merely a tool in the hands of another?
I was not ready to return to Kennedy merely with another unanswered question, and I
determined to stop again at the hotel where Barrios and his sister lived, in the hope of
picking up something there.
The clerk at the desk told me that no one had called since we had been there, adding:
"Except the tall gentleman, who came back. I think Senorita Barrios came down and met
him in the tea-room."
Wondering whether it was Page or Sandoval the clerk meant, I sauntered down the
corridor past the door of the tea-room. It was Page with whom Anitra was talking. There
was no way in which I could hear what was said, although Page was very earnest and
Anitra showed plainly that she was anxious to return to the sick- room up-stairs.
As I watched, I took good care that I should not be seen. It was well that I did, for once
when I looked about I saw that some one else in another doorway was watching them,
too, so intently that he did not see me. It was Sandoval. Jealousy of Page was written in
every line of his face.
Studying the three, while I could not escape the rivalry of the two men, I was unable to
see now or recollect anything that had happened which would convey even an inkling of
her feelings toward them. Yet I was convinced that that way lay a problem quite as
important as relations between the other triangle of Eulalie, Teresa, and Barrios. I was not
psychologist enough to deal with either triangle. There was something that distinctly
called for the higher mathematics of Kennedy.
Determined not to return to him entirely empty-mouthed, I thought it would be a good
opportunity to see Eulalie alone, and hurried to the elevator, which whisked me up to the
Barrios apartment.
Doctor Scott had not left his patient, though he seemed to realize that Eulalie was a most
efficient nurse.
"No change," whispered the doctor, "except that he is reaching a crisis."
Interested as I was in the patient, it had been for the purpose of seeing Eulalie that I had
come, and I was glad when Doctor Scott left us a moment.
"Has Mr. Kennedy found out anything yet?" she asked, in a tremulous whisper.
"I think he is on the right track now," I encouraged. "Has anything happened here?
Remember--it is quite as important that you should tell him all as it is for him to tell you."
She looked at me a moment, then drew from a fold of her waist a yellow paper. It was a
telegram. I took it and read:
Beware of Teresa de Leon, Hotel Pan-America.
A FRIEND.
"You know her?" I asked, folding the telegram, but not returning it.
Eulalie looked at me frankly and shook her head. "I have no idea who she is."
"Or of who sent the telegram?"
"None at all."
"When did you receive it?"
"Only a few minutes ago."
Here was another mystery. Who had sent the anonymous telegram to Eulalie so soon
after it had been evident that Kennedy had entered the case? What was its purpose?
"I may keep this?" I asked, indicating the telegram.
"I was about to send it to Professor Kennedy," she replied. "Oh, I hope he will find
something Won't you go to him and tell him to hurry?"
I needed no urging, not only for her sake, but also because I did not wish to be seen or to
have the receipt of the telegram by Kennedy known so soon.
In the hotel I stopped only long enough to see that Anitra was now hurrying toward the
elevator, eager to get back to her brother and oblivious to every one around. What had
become of Page and the sinister watcher whom he had not seen I did not know, nor did I
have time to find out.
A few moments later I rejoined Kennedy at the laboratory. He was still immersed in
work, and, scarcely stopping, nodded to me to tell what I had discovered. He listened
with interest until I came to the receipt of the anonymous telegram.
"Did you get it?" he asked, eagerly.
He almost seized it from my hands as I pulled it out of my pocket and studied it intently.
"Strange," he muttered. "Any of them might have sent it."
"Have you discovered anything?" I asked, for I had been watching him, consumed by
curiosity, as I told my story. "Do you know yet how the thing was done?"
"I think I do," he replied, abstractedly.
"How was it?" I prompted, for his mind was now on the telegram.
"A poison-gas pistol," he resumed, coming back to the work he had just been doing.
"Instead of bullets, this pistol used cartridges charged with some deadly powder. It might
have been something like the anesthetic pistol devised by the police authorities in Paris
some years ago when the motor bandits were operating."
"But who could have used it?" I asked.
Kennedy did not answer directly. Either he was not quite sure yet or did not feel that the
time was ripe to hazard a theory. "In this case," he continued, after a moment's thought, "I
shouldn't be surprised if even the wielder of the pistol probably wore a mask, doubly
effective, for disguise and to protect the wielder from the fumes that were to overcome
the victim."
"You have no idea who it was?" I reiterated.
Before Kennedy could answer there came a violent ring at the laboratory bell, and I
hurried to the door. It was one of the bell-boys from the hotel where the Barrioses had
their apartment, with a message for Kennedy.
Craig tore it open and read it hurriedly. "From Doctor Scott," he said, briefly, in answer
to my anxious query. "Barrios is dead."
Even though I had been prepared for the news by my last visit, death came as a shock, as
it always does. I had felt all along that Kennedy had been called in too late to do anything
to save Barrios, but I had been hoping against hope. But I knew that it was not too late to
catch the criminal who had done the dastardly, heartless deed. A few hours and perhaps
all clues might have been covered up. But there is always something that goes wrong
with crime, always some point where murder cannot be covered up. I think if people
could only be got to realize it, as my experience both on the Star and with Kennedy have
impressed it on me, murder would become a lost art.
Without another word Kennedy seized his hat and together we hurried to the hotel.
We found Anitra crying softly to herself, while near her sat Eulalie, tearless, stunned by
the blow, broken-hearted. In the realization of the tragedy everything had been forgotten,
even the mysterious anonymous telegram signed, Judas-like, "A Friend."
Sandoval, we learned, had been there when the end came, and had now gone out to make
what arrangements were necessary. I had nothing against the man, but I could not help
feeling that, now that the business was all Anitra's, might he not be the one to profit most
by the death? The fact was that Kennedy had expressed so little opinion on the case so far
that I might be pardoned for suspecting any one--even Teresa de Leon, who must have
seen Jose slipping away from her in spite of her pursuit, whatever actuated it.
It was while I was in the midst of these fruitless speculations that Doctor Scott beckoned
us outside, and we withdrew quietly.
"I don't know that there is anything more that I can do," he remarked, "but I promised
Senor Sandoval that I would stay here until he came back. He begged me to, seems
scarcely to know how to do enough to comfort his sister and Senorita Barrios."
I listened to the doctor keenly. Was it possible that Sandoval had one of those Jekyll-Hyde natures which seem to be so common in some of us? Had his better nature yielded
to his worse? To my mind that has often been an explanation of crime, never an adequate
defense.
Kennedy was about to say something when the elevator door down the hall opened. I
expected that it was Sandoval returning, but it was Burton Page.
"They told me you were here," he said, greeting us. "I have been looking all over for you,
down at your laboratory and at your apartment. Would you mind stepping down around
the bend in the hall?"
We excused ourselves from Doctor Scott, wondering what Page had to reveal.
"I knew Sandoval had not returned," he began as soon as we were out of ear-shot of the