Arthur B. Reeve

“ Between us, Craig and I lost no time in disposing the visitors so that each was in possession of a pair of the wire-like strings, and then disdaining to explain why he had gathered them together so unceremoniously, Kennedy turned and finished adjusting the other apparatus.
"Most people regard light, so abundant, so necessary, so free as a matter of course," he remarked, contemplatively. "Not one person in ten thousand ever thinks of its mysterious nature or ever attempts to investigate it. In fact, most of us are in utter darkness as to light." ”

“ When I came uncomfortably close to him he even sent an anonymous telegram that might point toward her. It was sent by the same person who stole in Barrios's office and shot him with an asphyxiating pistol which discharged a fatal quantity of pure veratrine full at him.
"My love meter, in registering hidden emotions, supplements what the polarimeter tells me. It was the levo-rotary veratrine of the fatal death camas which you used, Page," concluded Craig, as again the electric attachment clicked shut the lock on the laboratory door. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 José slipping away from her in spite of her pursuit, whatever actuated it. ”

“ The best thing to do with these hot-headed people is to cut out and let them alone."
"How do you account for his strange actions?" asked Kennedy. "Have you ever heard anything more that he did?"
Page shrugged his shoulders as if in doubt whether to say anything, then decided quickly. "The other day I heard Barrios and Sandoval in the office. They were quite excited. Barrios was talking loudly. I didn't know at first what it was all about. But I soon found out. Sandoval had gone to him, as the head of the family, following their custom, I believe, to ask whether he might seek to win Anitra." ”

“ I was so excited over José, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The point is, veratrine from what source? The sabadilla is dextro-rotary; the death camas is levo-rotary. Which is it here?"
As I tried to figure out the ramifications of the case, I could see that it was a cruel situation for one or the other of the girls. Was one of her lovers the murderer of Anitra's brother? Or was her own brother the murderer of Eulalie's lover? I looked at the faces before me, now tensely watching Kennedy, forgetful of the wire-like strings which they held in their hands. I studied Teresa de Leon intently for a while. ”

“ 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.
José 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. ”

“ Ordinary light has transverse vibrations in all planes. Certain substances, due to their molecular structure, are transparent to vibrations in one plane, but opaque to those at right angles.
"Here we have," he explained, tapping the parts in order, "a source of light, passing in through this aperture, here a Nicol polarizer, next a liquid to be examined in a glass-capped tube; here on this other side an arrangement of quartz plates with rotary power which I will explain in a moment, next an analyzer, and finally the aperture for the eye of an observer." ”

“ Some one will make a move. My game is to play one against the other—until the real one breaks."
We had scarcely switched on the lights and Kennedy was checking over the results he had obtained during his afternoon's investigations, when the door was flung open and a man dashed in on us unexpectedly. It was Sandoval, and as he advanced furiously at Kennedy I more than feared that Page's idea was correct.
"It was you, Kennedy," he hissed, "who took those letters from José's desk. It is you—or Page back of you—who are trying to connect me with that woman, De Leon. ”

“ Love might seem to be a subject which could not be investigated. But even love can be attributed to electrical forces, or, perhaps better, is expressed by the generation of an electric current, as though the attraction between men and women were the giving off of electrons or radiations of one to the other. ”

“ Mr. Jameson has a revolver in the top drawer of his desk over there. You will pardon me if I do a little telephoning—through the central office of the detective bureau? Some of our friends may not be overanxious to come here, and it may be necessary to compel their attendance."
Sandoval subsided into a sullen silence as Kennedy made arrangements to have Burton Page, Anitra, Eulalie, and Teresa de Leon hurried to us at once. ”

“ My love meter tells me, however, that Anitra has something to say about it yet. She does not love this man.
"As for Teresa de Leon, it was jealousy that impelled her to follow José Barrios from Cuba to New York. The murderer, in his scheming, knew it, saw a chance to use her, to encourage her, perhaps throw suspicion on her, if necessary. ”

“ Kennedy adjusted the glass tube containing the liquid which bore the substance scraped from the cartridge—he had picked up in the office of José. "Look through the eyepiece, Walter," he directed.
The field appeared halved. He made an adjustment and at once the field of vision appeared wholly the same tint. When he removed the tube it was dark.
"If a liquid has not what we call rotary power both halves of the double disk appear of the same tint," he explained. ”

“ Both of them are glucose. So there are substances which give the same chemical reactions which can only be distinguished by their being left or right rotary."
Craig took a bit of crystalline powder and dissolved it in ether. Then he added some strong sulphuric acid. The liquid turned yellow, then slowly a bright scarlet. Beside the first he repeated the operation with another similar-looking powder, with the identical result.
"Both of those," he remarked, holding up the vials, "were samples of pure veratrine, but obtained from different sources. You see the brilliant reaction—unmistakable. ”